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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think a lot of people don't understand adoption

160 replies

Kettlesingsatnight · 03/12/2015 08:24

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!

OP posts:
DrDreReturns · 03/12/2015 13:21

A guy I used to work for and his wife adopted. I don't know much about the process but it took ages. They adopted because they couldn't have children themselves.

SexDrugsAndSausageRoll · 03/12/2015 13:22

Interesting the poster who says they're a social worker and wouldn't adopt. I'm a designated teacher and I too know I couldn't. I have a big respect for AP, but i couldn't face my life being scrutinised... and keep smiling in the face of some sheer idiocy I've seen. Then I couldn't parent at that level either, my parenting has it's crap moments and adopted children simply can't manage that in most cases!
Also I guess I'm more exposed to the negative side, as successful adoptions largely get on with it quietly! I see the school fall out from disruptions, cases of poorly managed long term fostering , split siblings or other behavioural/ emotional high needs. I'm very quietly over the moon for those families that I see start off and go from strength to strength.

GardeningWithDynamite · 03/12/2015 13:24

So where can we get reliable information from? If you're not considering adoption but someone you know is and you don't want to say the wrong thing then, without asking them, how do you find something out?

Personally, I'm gifted at putting my foot in it and I'd value a reliable resource for something like this.

FlipperSkipper · 03/12/2015 13:29

VestalVirgin, there's no screen as such for ivf, but you do have to fillin welfare of the child forms, which ask about physical and mental health, smoking, drinking, drugs and criminal conviction for violence. I was made to see a counsellor before we could have treatment, due to depression in the past, and also an obstetrician to check that it was safe for me to be pregnant due to a health condition (that was really nice, sending an infertile woman to an ante natal clinic). Only once they'd seen me and approved treatment were we allowed to start. I know there are many more tests with adoption, and rightfully so. A lot of children who are in care have been through enough already, and it is imperative that the right parents are found for them.

Devora · 03/12/2015 13:43

Gardening, personally I have no problem with being asked questions, even stupid ones! We're all stupid about things we don't know about. All I ask is that you listen to the answers Smile

VenusInFauxFurs · 03/12/2015 13:46

Hollywood has a lot to answer for, doesn't it? There are loads of mainstream movies which portray the adoption process as a simple matter of popping to the "Orphan Shop". Stuart Little, Despicable Me, Annie, The Orphan...

ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight · 03/12/2015 14:10

On the feminist section I read that as the woman is a vessel for carrying the child

I think you've misunderstood that quite badly

IamTheWhoreofBabylon · 03/12/2015 14:29

You're right. I meant not just a vessel
I didn't misunderstand the ' it's tough luck if a mother wants to drink or do drugs' though
It was very clear

freshoutofluck · 03/12/2015 14:30

Gardening the Adoption board on here is pretty good and genuinely open to answering questions as best we can.

For factual stuff about the process there's also the websites First4Adoption and AdoptionUK Smile

gabsdot · 03/12/2015 14:45

On the adoption board some posters talk about parenting adopted children as parenting plus. This is a brilliant was to describe it. I had coffee this morning with a group of adoptive mums. Without exception all our kids have issues that have arisen directing from their adoptions. Some more serious that others. Speech and language problems, attachment disorders, behavioural problems, cognitive development delays, social immaturity. The list is endless and although you can say, birth kids have these issues too, (and they do) dealing with them when the child is adopted can be more complex.
I thought to myself this morning and we chatted that I had no idea 15 years ago when we started our adoption journey that we might face some of these challenges. We were told but I didn't hear, I just wanted to have a child and that was my motivation.
I laugh at some of the things people say about adoption. I have well used answers to some of the more common remarks. I teach them to my kids.
Adoption is not a fairy tale. It's a way to give children a family and most of the time those families work very well.

Devora · 03/12/2015 14:50

My family therapist calls it 'high intensity parenting', gabsdot.

lljkk · 03/12/2015 14:58

The British adoption process is especially detailed & long-winded (now). It didn't used to be. So no wonder people don't understand the modern ways.

Diddlydokey · 03/12/2015 15:00

Yanbu. We have an only child through choice and it has been suggested that we adopt another as though it's an easier alternative. Hmm

Hats off to anyone who parents via any method. Fostering takes more guts than I could ever have, so selfless.

I do not know much about either though. Surely most don't unless you're close to anyone going through the process.

Read the Emin thread in classics - amazing and heartbreaking.

drspouse · 03/12/2015 15:05

The colleague was wrong. Leave entitlement for adoption or maternity leave is the same.

The legal minimum is the same. Employers can, and do, top up only the maternity leave/pay and make no supplements at all to the adoption leave/pay.

Neither we nor our children's birth parents were made of plastic. I dislike the phrase "real parents" in general not because I'm going to fall to pieces if someone implies I'm not a real parent - I'm a grown up - but because it goes along with my DCs not being "real" and they are small DCs who do not need to hear that kind of rubbish.

It is however mildly confusing to me, and will be very confusing to my DCs when they are old enough to understand, to have HCPs for example (and other adults) ask "do they see their mother".

Some of my adult adoptee friends like that they were told they were chosen, and some hate it. On balance, if there's a risk it will not be a great choice of words, I won't use it.

Without exception all our kids have issues that have arisen directing from their adoptions

While some of the issues you mention may well arise directly from being adopted (rather than remaining with birth family or foster carers), I would argue that most of them arose from the issues that led to a child needing adoption.

Our DCs will naturally struggle with the fact that their BPs couldn't take care of them and couldn't change their lives enough to be able to take care of them (i.e. the fact that they were adopted). But they will also struggle with choices that their BPs made that both directly affect them and led to the BPs inability to take care of them (i.e. the situation that led to them needing adoption).

UnDeuxTroisCatsSank · 03/12/2015 15:14

On the feminist section I read that as the woman is a vessel for carrying the child

That does not sound like a feminist argument, rather feminists might suggest a woman has the right to make decisions that are right for her and her body, not that she is any kind of vessel.

ComposHatComesBack · 03/12/2015 16:41

They seem to think there's a huge supply of newborn babies out there waiting to be adopted. The truth is that the vast majority of children available for adoption are much older, and most have had very troubled lives.

This times x20.

The fantasies about adoption have seem to date from the 1950s (or a fictionalised 1950s) I think the imagine there are orphanages full of week old infants they can stroll into and pick a baby, much like you would a cat from a rescue shelter. Pick a baby - hopefully the offspring of a nice middle-class university student who 'slipped up' one night and live happily ever after.

They don't seem to realize that access to safe, legal abortion and less financial and social pressure to surrender children has altered the age profile and the needs that adoptable children have.

AnyoneFucoffee · 03/12/2015 16:55

The colleague was wrong. Leave entitlement for adoption or maternity leave is the same.

Entitlement to adoption leave as a day 1 right (like maternity) though was only made law in April this year.

At the same time, pay was bought in line. Previous to April, adoption leave didn't attract 90% pay for 6 weeks. It dropped straight to ~£135 a week

And, previous to April, there was no paid time off for appointments whilst going through the approval process (maternity equivalent = antenatal). Now I think there is provision for 5 appointments of a few hours each). I needed 4 full days off for prep group plus about 12 appointments for homestudy/Medicals etc)

elliejjtiny · 03/12/2015 17:14

I think a lot of people think they know about things they have no experience of. I've not adopted but I've heard plenty of comments from people who think they know all about having a premature/ill baby because someone they know has experienced it. I only properly understood what it was like when my now 2 year old DS was born. I know a little bit about adoption but not much.

MintyLizzy9 · 03/12/2015 18:45

I'm bracing myself for this...I'm a very very new adoptive mum, in fact I'm bang in the middle of intros where I meet my DS before bringing him home for good next week (yay). I totally agree that there just isn't enough info out there and people who aren't involved in the process don't know the process and the challenges both the adoption itself and then parenting an adopted can bring. However....common sense does seem to be missing for many people. I knew naff all about adoption before I started this journey however, I would not have asked:

What...do they let single people adopt?

So can they call you mum then?

Nonsense of course we're coming to visit, just you try and stop us (visit will be within 3 weeks of placement). X 100...my family are an impatient bunch!

Ooh you know they will leave when they hit around 15 to find their real parents

Be very careful kids are like dogs it's all in the breading

All questions I have had asked by friends and the last two by someone I had met an hour before.

I've been told countless times how lucky my son is, how he has landed on his feet and how amazing I am for doing this. I fully appreciate that these lady comments are coming from a good place but in reality just how 'lucky' was my boy to find himself in this position in the first place. I'm not doing him a favour HE is doing me one by giving me the chance me to be the best mum I can possibly be too him.

I would be happy to answer any question someone had rather than them assume and hopefully I will continue to feel this way in the future!

MintyLizzy9 · 03/12/2015 18:46

Last comments not lady comments!!

Original poster
Kettlesingsatnight · 03/12/2015 18:47

Despite my earlier comment I do think some adopters can be a weeny bit touchy about the 'lucky' comments. My son was lucky to end up with me rather than languishing in the care system or staying with his birth parents.

OP posts:
AnyoneFucoffee · 03/12/2015 19:16

Despite my earlier comment I do think some adopters can be a weeny bit touchy about the 'lucky' comments. My son was lucky to end up with me rather than languishing in the care system or staying with his birth parents.

Most adopters I know are just keen to ensure their adopted children aren't being made to feel 'grateful' for being adopted when we all know the best possible outcome would have been for them to stay with birth parents who could look after them and not have gone through all that trauma and loss.

It's a common comment to adoptive parents and while I know what the commentators mean, if the comment is said within earshot of my children, I always reply with 'I'm the lucky one' (and almost always when they aren't)

Alfredoshoes · 03/12/2015 19:19

It would be helpful if people realised that there is a huge difference between children who are adopted and children who are fostered. We were foster carers for many years and people would regularly say 'are you going to adopt him/her then?' Our job was to support children to return to live with their birth families/ move onto other families/move into independence.

notinagreatplace · 03/12/2015 19:31

I think, for me, the "have you considered adoption?" to infertile couples is upsetting because it sort of implies that you're stupid. Unsurprisingly, over the four years that I've been trying and failing to have a living (had a stillborn) child, I have OF COURSE considered all of the options. What do people expect? "Gosh, that had never occurred to me, thanks so much for that suggestion, I'll go down the council and get myself a nice healthy newborn"