To wonder why people don't adopt more?

[TheOtherMother4]

To clarify, I don't have any children of my own and really don't want to offend anyone but I was thinking about the lengths people go to for IVF, especially in countries such as the USA where it can't be covered by a health service and was wondering why people don't adopt more often. I understand that it may not be the same if you were unable to conceive naturally but surely if you wanted a child that badly then you could adopt and drastically help an existing child's life. Just wondering.

Sorry, I’m not trying to lump all adoptive children together. They have all been through trauma. As midge states how that trauma shows itself in later life can differ dramatically. Every adoptive parent should be ready for their child needing help to understand their life story.

The idea of adoption is a very noble one, but it's no REPLACEMENT for growing and birthing your own child. I wish people would stop comparing the two. One is not better than the other, they are different. Infertile couples or women desperate for their own child usually want to experience pregnancy.

I have biological children but I've considered adopting as a way of providing a home to a child who needs it - not as a "replacement" for a baby. I don't think IVF and adoption have anything to do with each other.

I know in the US if you find a pregnant woman and she agrees to let you adopt the baby, she can still change her mind until shortly after the birth. A lot of people find this extremely painful, knowing that there is a chance the mother will want to keep the baby at the last minute. The other option is to go abroad which brings its own set of challenges - some people aren't up to raising a child of a different race/background. Adoption through the foster system means older children often with problems such as substances and health issues.

So...YABU.

So many myths here about adoption.

It’s entirely possible to adopt babies (eg under a year old), I know a number of people who have done so over the past few years.

Difficult childhood experiences, poor mental health, single parenting, debt, limited social support, being in receipt of benefits, high BMI, etc etc aren’t in and of themselves barriers to adoption. It’s not about what’s happened to you so much as how you’ve come through it, whether you’re financially solvent, a functional adult and likely to have good enough health to see an adopted child well into adulthood.

Children placed for adoption in the U.K. have experienced some level of trauma - even if that’s the experience of moving from foster care to adoptive parents or some form of pre-birth trauma. Some children will be massively impacted by their experiences and struggle throughout their life course, some won’t, never underestimate the impact of being in a secure, loving, caring environment in recovering from trauma.

Being able to care adequately for one child doesn’t mean the decision to remove an other child/children was the wrong one. There are lots of reasons why one child may need to be removed while another can be cared for by birth mum, mum may be able to cope with one, but not more than one, one child in the family may be scapegoated, one child may have a particular meaning to the birth mum (eg a reminder of an old/abusive relationship) which results in neglect or abuse etc.

Difficult to place children aren’t necessarily difficult to parent. My two DC were considered difficult to place - they were older in terms of adoption (aged 4 and 6 at the time), there were some developmental issues and they have attachment difficulties understandably. They are an absolute joy, they light up my world in a hundred different ways and are thriving at home and at school. They actually aren’t difficult for me to parent. There are challenges, yes, and it’s very hard work at times but they aren’t difficult children by any means.

And my DC are my DC. I’m not minding them for someone else, holding a place for birth mum, looking after them or depriving their birth family of the opportunity of caring for them. They are my children, I love them fiercely and deeply - they return that love in bucketloads, we are a family.

DNA does not make you a parent.
The people who brought my child into the world chose not to be parents. They did not relinquish them; child was removed. But they chose not to make the changes needed to raise them. They were given hundreds of chances to change. I know of other birth parents who did choose to be parents but were not able to provide what the child needed. The thing about adoption is everyone involved is there for different reasons and the reasons behind the adoptionare unique.
Adoption was first choice for me. I fully appreciate it might not be for others. I would like to see however a change in the language around adoption and for it to be normalised rather than stigmatized. I'm not amazing or a saint. I'm a parent.

DNA does not make you a parent.

I completely agree with this statement. I have two birth children and I could equally love a child who wasn't biologically mine. Being pregnant and sharing DNA is just a small part of the parenting experience, it's the day-to-day loving and nurturing over years that forms the real bonds.

There are many threads on here about grown children going NC with their bio parents!

When we had our daughter via surrogacy, our social worker (court appointed due to Parental Order application) said to me ‘why didn’t you just adopt’
Ummm alrighty then. My friend offered to have a baby for me, half hers and half my husbands. I had a newborn baby that I’d been through the entire pregnancy alongside. I really should have just adopted 🙄

There are about 70,000 looked after children in the UK. 3.5 million people are having fertility treatment. Even if all children were adopted, there would be millions who didn't have that option.

Adoption and infertility are not interchangeable because adoption is about the needs of the child, whereas fertility treatment is about the desires of a parent.
I am a massive fan of adoption personally and can also testify that there certainly are very young and healthy babies who are sadly in the system. However parenting an adopted child is vastly different to parenting a biological child no matter how old they are when they come to you.

In terms of infertility - the chances of me conceiving naturally were not impossible and IVF was recommended to me as a likely option. After we adopted DS we actively used contraception because the fear of having a biological child was overwhelming - we are so fortunate to be an adoptive family - I genuinely would never want this any other way because we are the luckiest parents I know. However, we have to have conversations with our children about their biological history and some of the people who are connected to them by bloodline - and they are hard, hard conversations to have.
So adoption isn't for everyone certainly - but more than that, it isn't a consolation prize or a replacement. It does wind me up when people say "just adopt" to people struggling with fertility and not to people who are able to conceive because it is completely irrelevant. You are talking about the forever family of a child who exists compared to a child that you are trying to create. It's all about what is best for the small humans and not the desire to procreate in adults.

And if you think it is a replacement choice, then no. It isn't for you

Although looking at my sleeping children now and the fact that I am about to wake them up to encourage them to pack for our family holiday, I would certainly tell you that we are pretty normal really.

Honestly how can you be so badly informed? This is such a complex area and many of these poor children are traumatised due to their start in life so need additional care.

I think adoption is romanticised. Long gone are the days (thankfully) when young unmarried women were expected to give their baby up for adoption just because they were unmarried. Now days most 'cared for' children have been through trauma and/or have SN. Not many potential adopters want to take that on. Hence most of these children staying in care.

Not all children who are waiting to be adopted have behavioural problems but often they are 4+ and/or part of sibling groups and no one seems to want to adopt these children.

Also as much as adoption is legally permanent children often seek out birth families in adulthood and sometimes reintegrate into those.

I could not have bio children but chose not to adopt. DH, who is adopted, wasn’t keen and I respected his wishes.

In fact I actually don’t have to justify that decision to anyone, anymore than anyone has to justify having a bio child.

This is the second thread in as many months asking this question.

My infertility is not an obligation to take just any child offered.

Having seen what a friend has gone through with her adopted children, it is something that I would never even contemplate in a million years. And I say that as an adopted person myself.

Friend wasn't told the full story of the children's horrific start to life and their complex special needs.

Just to add to this thread - not all babies/children are hugely traumatized & unable to attach. My family have fostered for years and usually babies for the first year - all adored and loved by my parents and most have then been adopted and because they had a stable first year and attached well to a loving family they could then go on and attach well to others.

Yes this isn't true of all babies who've been in care, and older children who've perhaps bounced around are more challenging, but scaremongering about fostering/adopting helps no-one. Lots of local authorities are now looking at placing newborns/young babies with approved fostering-to-adopting families so the baby stays with them and they go on to adopt (if that's the ultimate goal).

I’d have considered adoption if I could adopt a healthy baby and raise it as my own with no further contact with the birth parents. But that isn’t likely to be an option. I’m not willing to sign up for dealing with problematic birth parents and an older child with SN, disability or other issues. I genuinely respect the selfless people who do.

Of course I’d be unlikely to be approved for adoption anyway. I’m not religious, have suffered from depression in the past, don’t want to be a SAHM in the long term, and have a large dog. None of which stop me being an excellent parent to my own child but they would probably prevent me adopting.

bananafish81
And yet I know adopters who fall into all those categories. I count 9 of those for us as a couple.
I know quite a few people who've read about one couple refused due to age/health, and don't bother applying.
I'm not suggesting that those couples should have "tried harder". TBH if you read that something "might be a reason" why someone else didn't pursue adoption and therefore give up yourself, you probably don't have the resilience to parent an adopted child. So probably best not to.

My parents adopted me when I was 10 years old. Here's a rough breakdown of what went on in my first 10 years;

Huge amounts of neglect, trauma and physical abuse for the first three years resulting in many stays in hospital
A foster home
Back to birth parents, more physical abuse resulting in several hospital stays
Another foster home - chaotic and under-equpiied to deal but still loving
Another foster home - sexual abuse, physical abuse and a bit of emotional abuse
An adoptive home - 18 months later this broke down - emotional abuse/neglect by the adoptive Mum
Back into foster care
Another foster home - this time a warm, loving home where my needs were met
Another adoptive home. This time one where my parents had enough strength, knowledge and understanding to support me and give me the firmest of boundaries.

This is a simplistic breakdown of my first ten years, and suffice to say the abuse had a lasting impact on my life, my personality, my behaviours, my everything for a significant part of my life. I'm 37 now and have DC of my own, have broken that godawful cycle and live a genuinely lovely life. But the sheer hard word and soul-destroying effort it took my adoptive parents to et me through those teen years are proof that adoption isn't ever the 'easy' route.

The damage caused by adoptions breaking down simply compounds the already huge rejection that living through such trauma and abuse instills into a child.

I'm one of several children taken away from our birth family. And I'm the only one who came through to live a healthy, 'normal' life; one took their own life, two are in prison, several have gone on to have many children and been unable to love and protect them the way they need to so that SS are involved and once again that cycle re-starts. The odds are stacked against adoptive families, even the strongest ones. It is never the easy option, and should never be peddled as such.

Perfect example BigBlue.
Classic case of someone who shouldn't adopt - but happily isn't pursuing it.

parenting an adopted child is vastly different to parenting a biological child no matter how old they are when they come to you.
Yep!

Very interesting contributions. I've heard this said to infertile people in the past "why don't you just adopt?". There's a woman I know who has 3 children and is thinking about a 4th. So far, no one has said to her "why don't you just adopt?".

No it's not been suggested on this thread - it's sometimes the way that I think people think about it, possibly the OP, certainly people making "Why not just adopt?" comments, possibly some comments too about adopting from abroad. As though a child can just slot into any family like a rescue animal. The reality is complex.

bigbluebubble - I would not attempt to try and persude you but I am interested in the reasons why you think you would be 'unsuitable'

Religion has nothing to do with adoption - I am not religious. I am a single parent, I work, I'm not a stay at home parent. I know lots of adopters with dogs, I even know a farmer with a herd of cows and a bull. Having suffered depression does not prevent you adopting.

@TheOtherMother4

"it's because I'm trying to find out other people's views so surely the people telling me to educate myself can see that that is what I'm trying to do here and that calling me an ignorant prick doesn't really help."

Let's see on the off chance someone has had their head stuck in the sand and doesn't know it is difficult and expensive to adopt then a search engine you may have heard of 'google' is here to help.

I typed in "Why don't more people adopt babies?" and here was the very first quite helpful article that popped up.

www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/singletons/200810/why-more-people-don-t-adopt?amp

You are deeply ignorant and insensitive if you didn't realise this thread would upset a lot of people and NO ONE HAS TO JUSTIFY THEIR REASONS FOR NOT ADOPTING TO ANYONE, least of all strangers online.

HTH

I'm not suggesting that those couples should have "tried harder". TBH if you read that something "might be a reason" why someone else didn't pursue adoption and therefore give up yourself, you probably don't have the resilience to parent an adopted child. So probably best not to.

We definitely don't have the resilience to go through the adoption process or to parent an adopted child

We don't have the resilience to go through the years that friends have been through to be approved (and then be rejected).

We definitely don't have the resilience to go through what friends went through with foster-to-adopt.

We don't know 100% that we would be sufficiently well equipped to meet the needs of a child with highly complex needs to the level that they deserve and need

It's about finding parents for children, not children for us as an infertile couple.

We're utterly broken emotionally by our experience of infertility and pregnancy loss. We don't think we have what it takes to adopt. It wouldn't be fair to any potential adoptive child.