To get annoyed when people say “why don’t you just adopt”?

[Jojobears]

Often when people are talking about someone struggling to conceive (especially on online discussions) someone will suggest “why don’t you just adopt”

This just really annoys me:

It’s not a straightforward process. You don’t just get handed a perfect newborn. The days that unmarried women and girls were pressured into giving up their babies are (thankfully) gone.

Most children looking for adoption are not babies. Most children have significant issues due to mistreatment or neglect. Many babies have severe issues due to drug or alcohol abuse by the mother when she was pregnant.

The process for adoption is brutal: every single aspect of your lifestyle, personality and past is held to scrutiny by strangers.

Even when the child comes to live with you there can be issues. Severe behavioural and mental challenges. Having to keep in touch with birth families.

It’s not a walk in the park; i bet you every person who flippantly says “why don’t you just adopt” has never actually adopted or tried to adopt

A friend who was childless by choice once told me that no one should have children until all the unwanted kids were adopted because we 'could just take one of those'
As if children were interchangeable and any one would do.
I didn't say, well if you're that bothered, adopt one yourself, but maybe I should have
Some people have very peculiar opinions, but everyone should keep their opinions to themselves when it comes to the fertility choices of others.

What annoys me most (I adopted my child) is people viewing adoption as second best. I do fully appreciate that people might want to experience pregnancy, but for me adoption was always my first choice and quite frankly I could not have given birth to a child better matched to me or my family than my child. There is an awful lot of negative language around it; it is however just another way of forming a family, a bit like getting married is a way of forming a family (just a parent-child relationship rather than a spouse-spouse relationship). Good news doesn't make the press very often, so you do hear horror stories, but that is the case with everything (when did you last hear story of mother gives birth and nothing particularly exciting happened at all ever?). While I 100% do believe that young mothers being forced to give up children was horrific and am 100% glad that doesn't happen any more, I do think it should be easier for people to say 'you know what, I can't or don't want to manage this' and to give a baby up, rather than end up subjecting the child to the neglect/abuse and instability which then really traumatises the child.
I am a teacher (and oddly work with 8 other people who have also adopted) and we all agree that our children are actually (thus far, who knows what the future will bring) more settled and less troubled than the increasing number of children who are products of broken relationships and combined families, where the consequences of such trauma and change hasn't perhaps been recognised.
Regardless of how your child becomes a member of the family, the important thing is that you are 100% committed to that child and that as a parent your focus is the child. I don't think it's as straightforward as 'adoption isn't for everyone' (although I do agree with that sentiment), it's more 'parenthood isn't for everyone' as you have to be 100% ready to deal with anything that is thrown at you.

IT bothers me too. I think it's because they say "just"... As if it's so easy.

Oh and fat people can’t adopt in my county

We looked into it whilst we were weighing up our options but our local authority told me that although on paper, we sounded perfect to start the process, they already had too many “white, heterosexual” couples on their waiting list and to try again in a year or two but they couldn’t guarantee that the situation would have changed

YANBU. Sometimes a woman just wants to be pregnant and birth her own biological child. It’s a completely natural desire and process.

I think this is up there with ‘have you tried going on holiday to relax? If you don’t think about it too much it’ll probably happen!’ usually followed up by an anecdote of someone it happened to.

Oh and I feel very very lucky that I was approved to adopt; 75% of the people I started the process with did not get through.

@Shockers that literally happened to me

@PupsAndKittens of course not all children up for adoption will be affected by their start in life but traumatic experiences affect the child's development even if they do not remember the experiences. There's a book called the body remembers which discuses this. The main thing is that trauma comes with stress, extreme stress floods the body and impacts the development of the brain this is especially important during the early years of life where such a huge amount of development occurs, even if this is before they can remember their experiences. There is also the school of thought that pregnant mothers stress levels can do similarly to the unborn child, that's without considering the impact of alcohol and drug misuse in pregnancy, which is unfortunately a common occurrence in pregnancies which end in adoption. When you go through the adoption process they actually tell you the likelihood of having a healthy, neuro typically developed child with no trauma impacts it's extremely low. BUT this doesn't mean a child whose suffered trauma etc can't love or be loved or lead a fab life as part of a supportive and encouraging family, but the truth is it's likely to take a lot more hardwork, patience and understanding to be an adoptive parent than a biological one.

Adoption is a difficult process but when it works it gives a child the family they need. I do think some people experiencing infertility can become overwhelmed about having their own genetic child they do forget there's other ways to make a family, ivf can become all consuming.

It's tricky, from outside it can be obvious that infertility treatments aren't working but the urge to have a child is strong and many haven't seen successful adoption (non celebrity)

YANBU. I have one young and immature friend who said exactly this to me on the day that DH and I were told we both had fertility problems and would probably never have kids naturally. She's never been the sharpest knife in the box, but I was stunned.

Some people think infertility is like running out of clean pants, it's a faff but easily sorted. If only. They have no idea of the grief involved, compounded by people asking every day when are you going to start your family, just because you're early thirties and have been married a couple of years.

Luckily we did manage to have a child but I wish that people would realise that carrying a child and adopting one is not the same thing. The end result might be a child living in your home, but the two processes are completely different life paths.

Just because you're physically able to be a parent doesn't automatically make you a good one. When you see the amount of shit parenting go on, you thank God that there are people out there who are decent and caring enough to want to open their homes to children who may have had a difficult start in life. I know a couple who adopted older brothers and I'm in awe of them, they're such wonderful people.

YANBU. My husband was adopted at 4 years old having been in foster care since he was a baby. He says he would never adopt because he's very aware of how difficult he was as a child, especially his teenage years. He was told he was adopted when he was 12 and he went on a downward spiral. His family didn't know how to handle him, they already had 4 children of their own anyway and sort of pushed him out. He's no contact with them now and has never known his biological parents. Just because you can adopt, doesn't mean you should. Just the same as just because you can get pregnant, doesn't mean you should. Not everyone is cut out to deal with the potential problems that might arise. Parenthood is hard, no matter where your child comes from, and I think a lot of people go in to parenthood with their eyes wide shut.

@PupsAndKittens

I hear a lot of people claim trauma but most people don’t remember anything before age 3, so this can’t be the case for all

It’s the opposite. The complete opposite. The first three years are the most critical in your development. Whether you can remember them or not, these are the years that will shape you for the rest of your life.

I would love to adopt, but I know we wouldn't pass the screening as DP is not on the same page with it. We have a bio child already.

But my friends adopted and their life was ready for a child and they got a little girl about to turn 1.

@PupsAndKittens development begins at conception, the early days are critical to a child’s development and, as a pp mentioned, attachment.

I don’t know the statistics but many babies and children waiting for adoption are removed from their parents as opposed to parents planning to voluntarily offer their baby for adoption.

Babies born with foetal alcohol syndrome or withdrawing from drugs or deprived of any comfort or need etc, the damage is done well before age 3.

I do think some people experiencing infertility can become overwhelmed about having their own genetic child they do forget there's other ways to make a family, ivf can become all consuming.

You don’t forget about the other routes, you just don’t want to take them.

Surely If these children are as mentally ill as everyone makes them out to be, it’s going to be far more traumatic degrading to their self esteem to keep reminding them of the negatives. Wouldn’t it be better to try and get them into an activity Eg Musical instrument, Dance, Football Ect

I think this is one of the silliest comments I have ever seen on Mn, and I've been here for a while.

Irritates me. So flippant and stupid, as if the person hadn't already considered that as an option!

YANBU. Nearly everyone who says 'Why don't you just adopt?' has at least one biological child themselves, or didn't want children.

Adoption can be wonderful of course, but it is about finding families for children, not children for parents.

If adopting was really a direct substitute for having a child naturally, why do hardly any fertile couples adopt?

I have 2 adopted children. I've heard some mad stuff over the years.
One friend of mine said she'd love to adopt a girl aged about 12 as she'd be a great help with her own kids who were little at the time.
Another friend said she'd definitely adopt if she could be gauranteed to get a girl.

We adopted our kids for purely selfish reasons. We couldn't have our own biological kids. It was extremely difficult. It's nearly 10 years since we completed our last adoption but still I sometimes look back and wonder how we did it.

YANBU. A lot of people have the idea that adoption is solely the preserve of the infertile and that children who are able to be adopted are consolation prizes for the infertile.

‘Just relax and it’ll happen’ 😡
I called my own mother an insensitive arse when she said this to me (queue an argument lastingly weeks!) but I was FED up of hearing it from EVERYONE!

Relaxing won’t cure infertility - in my case I was going 3 months without periods...sometimes more and no amount of ultrasounds/tests could explain why!

Telling me to relax went down like a lead ballon!

I also found it very hard not to judge my cousin (who had struggled TTC for over 7years- ruined her marriage over it and almost had a beak down) bouncing her now 6 month old DS on her knee whilst telling me to ‘just let it happen’ NO- YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER

I agree. I knew someone who adopted a 4year old with a horrific background. 15years on despite every avenue of support, endless love & patience, they're a hugely troubled teen with severe MH issues, their parents in daily despair. The long term impact of abuse on a child's MH even by just age 4 can't be underestimated. I think they naively thought love would be enough, but unless you have experience of abused children, you're going to wonder what on earth you've done & it will take a massive emotional toll on you.

I have adopted, but it is an in family adoption so a very very different process, I was asked to provide temporary care for six weeks, two and a bit years later and he’s still here.

He is very lucky, he has a good attachment to me and copes well at nursery etc when I’m not around. However if you I do certain things it is very clear what trauma he has been through. I very quickly discovered if I held him by the wrists he would go completely silent, white and cry. He has exceeded all milestones for his age despite being adopted (and hearing impaired), however it could still go very wrong. He has been recently asking why he doesn’t have any front teeth, how do you tell a four year old that his birth mums boyfriend hit him so hard they fell out, or why he has lots of scars on his arms (fag burns). As an adopted child gets older they need more information, but of course that is a very traumatic process for many children.

The most significant brain development happens before the age of three, after that it is incredibly hard to rewire neural pathways.

It would be less irritating if it were a question routinely asked of fertile parents.

'Well, rather than conceiving a child, why didn't you just adopt?'

Dilemmas are always so easy to resolve when they don't affect you directly because they're 'only' happening to someone else.

YANBU

We looked into adoption. Went to one information evening, came out going ‘noooo fucking way!’ and took a bank loan for IVF out the next day.