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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To wonder how other countries manage adoption

106 replies

Justinetimefort · 07/03/2019 06:47

I keep reading the uk is the only country with forced adoption, so how do other Western European countries manage cases where children can’t live with their birth family?

OP posts:
Hedgehogblues · 09/03/2019 17:52

Eh, I would have much rather have grown up in foster care than with my ragingly abusive adoptive parents.

bathorshower · 09/03/2019 19:02

Open adoptions do exist in the UK - I have an adopted cousin who has always been in contact with his biological siblings. He went into care at about ten, and was placed for adoption at 12/13. When he was removed from his mother's care he didn't see her again as a child (I think) but has made contact in his 30's. I know others who have adopted in the UK much more recently where, again, children are in contact with their biological siblings. Another couple of families have been given 'first refusal' when another child has been born to the biological mother of the child(ren) they've already adopted. So there is some effort to keep biological families in touch even in the UK.

MadauntofA · 09/03/2019 19:22

Sibling direct contact will always be explored even if the can't be placed together, if they are in adoptive placements, and it is in the child's best interests, however it wouldn't usually occur if one is adopted and another living with birth family due to the risks of placement breakdown.

Blahdeblahbahhhhh · 09/03/2019 20:09

I think the problem is that most normal parents understandably put themselves in the situation of having a child removed and feel how appalling that would be. But they are not anything like the vast, vast majority of birth families whose children are adopted.

Most are totally incapable of caring for themselves, let alone children. Almost all very young babies/toddlers will be ‘fortunate’ that a poor older sibling will have been abused for years before there is enough evidence to show that this parent (and any other family) simply cannot or will not do the absolute basics.

I’ve known children remain with parents despite failing to feed them at all for several days whilst they have been physically or practically absent. Women who have allowed men to do the most unspeakable harm to children, but keep returning despite all the help to leave, and dragging their children back to hell.

Imagine then, not your family, not your child but:
Children who have been offered up to paedophile rings.

Children who have watch their mother prostitute herself for drugs in front of them.

Children who have been told they are “a piece of shit”, “should go kill themselves” and worse

Children who endure some of the above whilst caring/being cared for by siblings barely older than themselves.

Children who endure the above without a bed or clean clothes or lunch.

These aren’t your children. You aren’t under threat from this. These children need our protection, and dammit after all they have been through they absolutely should not be left without utterly committed parents who can advocate, seek out and surround them in as much help as possible to recover from the harm they have suffered and sadly will probably carry with them.

BlueSlipperSocks · 09/03/2019 22:18

Children who have watch their mother prostitute herself for drugs in front of them

I know someone who is fostering a child whose mother was happy for her child to be prostituted, whilst in the same bed as her mother, in exchange for drugs. The child was 4 years old!

Every child deserves the best chance in life and if it means the child is removed from abusive parents, without the consent of the abusive parents, then I'm happy that children, in this country, are provided with a better future than they would have had they remained with parents who put their own, selfish needs before their children.

Doubletrouble99 · 10/03/2019 14:28

Our adopted DS tried to enact a sexual act upon me when he first came to us at the age of 3 and a half, because he said 'that's what mummies do'!!!

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