To think a lot of people don't understand adoption

[Kettlesingsatnight]

Based on a comment on another thread.

Adoption is not looking after a child for a few years as the birth parents can't.

It isn't fostering.

It isn't easy and it isn't straightforward. You can't rock up to an agency and announce your intention to adopt and get approved just like that.

AIBU to think some comment just are too much? I realise some are made in ignorance not to be mean but I just don't see that as an excuse any more. I'm fed up of it!

that is just an expression. I'm sure nobody thinks your birth parents are your 'real parents' in the sense of who is a real parent to you. Just a clumsy use of wording

No it isn't. It invalidates the relationship between the adopted child and their adoptive parents. It's often used to taunt 'she's not your real mum' or to hurt.

I've just finished reading a children's novel about an 11 year old adoptee. It's written in the 1st person but the author continually refers to birth parents as 'real parents'. I looked at Amazon review and a reader had posted about this. The author apologised profusely and said she just hadn't thought about it. I was amazed that someone could have done so much research into adoption and not known that was hurtful and unacceptable.

Polly you are wrong. There arent many children waiting to be adopted. There are currently very very few children being placed for adoption. Many couples are waiting months even years.

It has come up in discussions like this that some people are surprised to learn adopted parents get a birth certificate naming them as the parents.

I had no idea that this happened - I would have assumed birth parents are on the birth certificate, then the adopters would receive an adoption certificate with their names as parents. A similar certificate maybe, but I would have assumed there were two.

But I don't know anything about adoption, other than it's difficult and I wouldn't be able to do it. I wouldn't be good enough.

And presumably it was a lot easier in the past to adopt a newborn. With legal abortions and the morning after pill, there are a lot fewer unwanted babies to be put up for adoption.

you can't expect people just to know
This is true but, in typical mumsnet fashion, that doesn't stop posters making assumptions or judgements
I've read awful things in here. On the feminist section I read that as the woman is a vessel for carrying the child it is tough if she decides to drink and do drugs whilst pregnant
Feminists have disrupted FASD conferences even though they are attended by birth parents too and birth parents are given lots of non judgemental support
I have some feminist beliefs but I bristle now when I hear the word feminist because of what I have read here

Another mumsnet rule. No matter what harm the birth parent has caused the adopter is nor allowed to express any negative thoughts towards them. I was very upset when my child was diagnosed FASD and expressed anger, I was told I was not fit to adopt
The assumption that children are always from deprived backgrounds and adopters are always middle class is just not true
I am WC. Birth parent was from a nice mc family and had a good career. Met the wrong guy and experimented with drugs

Phew. Sorry for the rant

Kettle You can be as shocked as you like but I went through this so I do know what I'm talking about here.

Back then in the early 90s it really was babies that were wanted and not older children and in that particular part of the country white/blonde/blue eyed were the ones that the majority of white/middle class adopters wanted. I remember that they had 3 potential families lined up less than a month after I'd given birth.

The process is much more complicated on both sides now, safeguarding alone has seen to that. Fewer women are actively deciding during pregnancy to give up their child, many campaigns have been run to help older children be given a stable environment.

But all this is by the by and derailing the thread.

I'm sick of the thoughtless who think its easy on either side of the fence and I do applaud you for trying to make them think.

Booyaka every local authority has their own requirements, but generally speaking "childcare experience" can be achieved by volunteering, which is what a lot of prospective adoptive parents do. It isn't easy to fit round existing family and work requirements, but can be done. I also know plenty (really lots) of prospective and actual adopters who have experienced depression or other medical issues - it hasn't been a reason to exclude them, but it is something that is talked about openly in the assessment because the social workers need to feel confident that the adopters will be able to look after themselves if they are also going through some pretty challenging parenting episodes. It wouldn't be ethical to ignore that - parents' resilience is really important, but there's no "one size fits all" definition of what that would look like.

There are lots of experiences that haven't really touched my life, and so I don't know much about them - but am always open to learning more. I can't really judge people who just haven't come into contact with adoption very much, as long as they're relatively open-minded! I happen to have experienced adoption, so I do gently "correct" unfortunate phrasing if I come across it. For example
"And is this the child you've ... taken on?>
"If you mean have they joined our family by adoption, that's right. Aren't they gorgeous?"

I don't always explain why I sometimes parent differently, because it's no-one else's business - but I have grown a thick skin so don't mind any eye-rolling about that

I noticed that, too. "Just adopt" ... good joke! I haven't tried either, but I am rather sure it is easier to get through with fertility treatment than to adopt. While one could question if it is wise to protect children from adoptive parents, but not from birth parents (I don't think there's any screening for heterosexual couples who want IVF or such), telling people to "just adopt" when that's actually harder, is nonsensical.

And the person who said that if husband didn't want another child, the coupld should adopt ... what? The husband likely doesn't want to have to take care of another child, so adoption is utterly pointless, and he wouldn't be approved for it anyway. (Or did I misread that and it was the wife who didn't want to go through another pregnancy? That miiight be a reason to adopt.)

On the feminist section I read that as the woman is a vessel for carrying the child it is tough if she decides to drink and do drugs whilst pregnant

What? Which feminist would call a woman a "vessel for carrying a child"? Did you misunderstand someone pointing out that patriarchy considers women as vessels?
(Of course, there are also self-identified feminists with crappy attitudes. Happens.)

My parents certainly didn't understand it and they adopted me and another child. Mind you I don't think anyone else did either. They were told that there might be some problems when me and my sibling were teenagers and that was all. Nothing about attachment etc so when I had bulimia and depression, started self-harming they were genuinely amazed, because they had given me a nice life.

Nobody ever said anything negative to me apart from my parents. They told me that some children might tease me and that I was to tell them that I had been chosen and their parents were stuck with them

I also have a twat of a relative who sidles up at every funeral (including my mothers) to tell me that I don't really belong there as I have 'nothing to do' with the deceased. His attitude makes me quite frankly grateful to not be biologically related.

Oh yes, my parents also told me that my birth mother couldn't look after me because she was young and already had a child that she kept. Obviously I grew up seeing plenty of children who had siblings (myself included) so that was quite confusing and hurtful. I'm so pleased that things are better now

My school friend was adopted and her parents gave her the chosen crap
It was awful
I wonder if that was the advice back then

I am surprised that anyone thinks its easy.

When friends and i have discussed this, which we have due to secondary infertility, our perception of Adoption is that is a lengthy, difficult and painful process and has put us off even considering this route.

I am 40, my DH is 44, I think we are probably too old to be accepted as adoptive parents.

that is just an expression. I'm sure nobody thinks your birth parents are your 'real parents' in the sense of who is a real parent to you. Just a clumsy use of wording

by the time you have grown up with people saying "who are your real parents" whenever they find our you were adopted, you could get quite a complex.

i was very secure with my adoptive mum and (at that time) my adoptive father. But after the 100th time of the 'real parents' thing I still got fed up and politely corrected the speaker. My adoptive mum was my real mum; my adoptive father might have turned out to be a rather heartless bastard, but he's still my real one.

mind you, i swallowed the 'chosen' line wholesale and was happy and proud as a child that i was specially chosen!

I don't expect everyone to understand all about adoption. I didn't, before I became an adopter. I hate it when people react with prissy, precious shock if someone doesn't know the 'correct' way to talk about minority experiences.

What does get my goat is people who don't know and don't care to learn. Who are more interested in spouting their own uninformed opinions than in listening to the reality. The thing that most bugs me is when I'm trying to talk with a friend about the realities of parenting my adopted dc is when they instantly assure me 'But all children do that'. So many otherwise lovely people do this! I'm sure they don't mean to do so, but it kind of implies, "I'm a real parent so let me tell you what this is about". Particularly irritating as I am also a birth mother, so I do have a good sense of the similarities and the differences.

And I also get wound up by threads where the OP is wondering whether they should report a situation to social services, and posters keep popping up to shriek, "My child sleeps on a mattress! My child gets grubby! My child is naturally thin! OMG if a social worker came round before I went to the supermarket they'd find empty cupboards! DOES THIS MEAN THEY'RE GOING TO TAKE MY CHILDREN AWAY?" I have to leave the thread because I get the red mist and want to post, "Stop making this about you and your non-problems, you fool - try to understand the level of what children have to endure before they are taken into care".

Oh, and the threads about drinking in pregnancy, where the political orthodoxy is that we're absolutely opposed to any kind of policing women's bodies and anybody who talks about what is happening to the child in the womb is a misogynist fascist. I am, incidentally, completely pro-choice (worked in abortion clinics for many years) and am opposed to the kind of policing of pregnant women's behaviour that we see in the US. But I am also the mother of a child who was exposed to drugs and alcohol in utero, and the realities of that have to be understood by all those who join in that debate. In trying to explain this, I have been told I'm a disgrace, that I should be ashamed of myself etc etc.

But most of all, it's just very irritating when women struggling with infertility are told to 'just adopt'. Adoption has been a wonderful thing for me, but I would never proselytise for it, and certainly not to a woman who desperately wants to grow a child in her own body.

Fatherwishmas, I was 46 when I adopted a 10 month old baby. Most adopters are in their 40s.

Do people really think it's easy? Or just rightly believe it's an option and not go on to add the caveat that 'of course it's not an easy route either and takes time and often heartache to get there too'.

I guess at the end of the day none of it is easy, infertility, fostering, adoption.

And people really mean no harm in asking the question about adoption.

Firefly, you are right. The majority of kids needing homes are only available for fostering, some long term wit varying leels of pa rental responsibility. Especially in some countries where there is no forced termination of parental rights as i understand there is in the UK. I know quite a few people who have adopted from abroad for this reason but some of those channels have also been closed in recent years.

Last thing!: there was a recent thread about a wrongful adoption, when posters debated whether the child should be returned to its birth parents. Horrendous situation. Some posters (including all the adoptive parents, I think) were saying: we don't know enough about this child's needs, but it shouldn't just be assumed that return is best for the child, this needs to be very carefully thought through and all the parents will need to be patient and loving and selfless". And then there were a load of other posters who thought the only way to correct the injustice was to reverse it. Some were arguing that the genetic bond would mean the child would rebond with birth parents effortlessly. Others said that the lifelong loss of living with birth parents would be greater than the short-term disruption (which may or may not be true; how can we know?). And one argued furiously that adopted parents cannot love their children as much as birth parents: she KNEW this because she has birth children and she could never love 'somebody else's child' as much.

Now, she was one poster. But it does make you wonder how many of the others were kind of thinking the same, but knowing better than to say it. Because all the arguments that privileged the biological bond to tend to imply that. ALL the adoptive parents were taking the position of, "We don't know, it's very complex, we shouldn't assume there's an easy answer" because we KNOW how very complicated the nature/nurture thing is. We live everybody with our children's birth parents as living ghosts in the family; we help our children cope with the immense grief and loss they have already experienced in their lives, and uncertainty about what the future will bring.

And now, finally, I am going to stop

You could equally hypothesise Devora, that all of us who have gained from adoption are biased against any argument that suggests dissolution ever because of completely understandable emotional responses. Especially adoptive parents.

Was this a thread about the couple who had their child removed and adopted and were subsequently found to have done no harm to the baby?

But that wasn't what happened on the thread, Strawberry. The adoptive parents didn't argue that the child should stay with its new parents, but that expert, professional input was now needed to work out what was in the child's best interests. Because though many adoptive parents (like myself) started off secretly hoping that the birth parents would become irrelevant to the child, that is not what usually happens. With every passing year, it is clearer to me that my child's birth parents are, in many senses, still with her. She talks about them, she longs for them, she is angry with them. The loss is tremendous for her and I can't just put them in a box and say: that's over. And if it turned out that the adoption was wrongful, I couldn't just say: ah well, she's my kid now. But equally, I am her mother, she is deeply bonded with me, and further disruption would be immensely damaging to her. So I recognise the situation as very complex and difficult. All those posters who were saying the solution was 'simple' were very, very wrong. And not one adopter said the solution was simple, or indeed that they knew what it should be.

I really regret the emphasis of differences between adoptive and other parents. For the most part, parents are just parents.

X post.

Maybe it's the gap in 'training' about therapeutic parenting etc.

Devora there were also plenty of people, not adopters, telling those idiots that you don't just "hand back" adopted children, and that the adoptive parents are just as "real" parents as any other.

Well, in 95% of my life I'm just another parent. I rarely talk about adoption at the school gate, or at parties or playdates. Most of my friends are not adoptive parents. I also have a birth child and they share the same parent and pretty much the same parenting.

But my adopted daughter does need different parenting in many respects. I have dragged to this understanding, as I resisted it for a long while, and it has also taken a long time for me to obtain the kind of specialist input I need for her. It helps me to come on here and connect with other adoptive parents, and talk about what that means and what kinds of parenting helps my daughter to be happy and well.

Of course, I can't control my daughter's world - she is at school, she interacts with people who say things to her which are ignorant though usually well-meaning. So I do see it as legitimate to try to educate other parents a bit about adoption. Just as I've learned a lot about, say, children with SN through reading MN threads.

Yes there were, TheSecondViola, I'm sorry if I didn't acknowledge that. The point I was making was that all the adoptive parents were in the sensible camp, but I should have said that they were the minority of the sensible camp!

I'm also a lesbian mother, and my family is racially mixed, and though there's always the odd post that brings up a red mist, I have been on MN for years and years because the vast majority of posters are intelligent, thoughtful and caring about diversity issues.

That's parenting, not parents.