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

Someone once said to me that I should feel grateful to be adopted rather than aborted.
It wasn't a family member, but still, I wasn't sure what to think about that, I'm still not.

I don't know really, I think my parents just didn't seem to get I came with a whole other background.
Would they have been great as biological parents?
Ask my older brother, who was theres, which creates more issues.

I don't know what to feel, I really am all over the place, and whilst I can't say adoption is bad, I still wish, more than anything that I wasn't an adopted child.

Adoption was on of the best things to ever happen to us. After our first failed round of IVF we started to look into adoption. We took a risk with our child...perfect health wasn't guaranteed but we were committed...she was MY baby. As it happens, I've just been making pizza with a perfectly happy and healthy 3 year old...she's amazing

I get this all the time. Been ttc for 4 years. Drives me nuts.

I can see why people see adoption as a neat solution to infertility. You want kids, some kids need parents, put the two together and problem solved, sorted, simples, but people who think like this tend not to have experienced either issue. It really is not that simple.

That's great @MrFartPants that you are enjoying being a parent, I'm sure your daughter is too, but please don't forget she has a whole other family, and background out there.
As I said above it bothers me more now than it ever did in childhood, and certainly not at age 3, and Im in my 40s with an almost adult child of my own.
It doesn't go away, no amount of being a brilliant adoptive parent erases the background, it just doesn't.
Be aware that it can crop up at anytime, and be open to it.

We fully embrace her background and birth family. We have letterbox contact and also meet with family members that we are able to

OP Siarah from Loose Women adopted from Pakistan so she was able to adopt a newborn and not a child with any attachment problems.

There may be other countries like Russia where you can adopt a newborn. I’d look into it if that’s the only thing stopping you.

Also, you say "she was MY baby"
She was somebody else's baby first, and whilst I can see you're coming from a good place, I'd hope that you'd at least now be thinking of her as you and your wife's/husband's baby, not just yours.

Been there. Heard every cliche in the book and we, in the end, "just adopted" .

The majority of children in care are in care for a reason. Abuse, neglect, rejection, disabilities etc are all common reasons. Some "lucky" children are removed from their birth families immediately following birth because the birth mum is known to social services and there is a high risk to the baby. (They aren't, of course, "lucky" at all).

The damage done to any child who is no longer with his or her birth family is unfathomable. Even being removed at birth causes trauma. It's not an easy process for adopters but that part's child's play (excuse the pun) compared with the life long hurt, mental health issues, etc that these children suffer and continue to do as adults. Attachments become difficult in all relationships they are part of. Some more extreme than others but there will be some attachment issues in the majority.

For children adopted from overseas or from the "hard to place" register, they have issues such as identity to deal with.

Most adopted children will have contact in some form or other with their birth families. They may have siblings they no longer live with or see. Contact is very hard and can be disruptive but it's important for the children.

I speak from experience. Two separate experiences. Two totally different experiences.

I'm not saying that ALL children who come into care will be traumatized and their issues may not be immediately obvious (or for many years) but it's not a process anyone should consider lightly.

If someone has no knowledge of the adoption process, then they are suggesting it from a good place and not with malice or intent to cause offence.

I know the process is exceedingly stressful and intrusive, but having seen a family member successfully adopt, I see how rewarding it is and how happy they are. So.... I don't think it's wholly unreasonable for someone to ask if you've thought about adoption.

Maybe it's best to put a line in your post, that you're not interested in adoption, so nobody will raise the point.

Obviously I’m no expert and only speak from a point of view of having friends who’ve adopted but I’m a bit unsure about the requirement to keep telling adopted kids their traumatic ‘story’. I think yes, you should tell them they are adopted and say at a high level why but I don’t think constantly telling teens in particular increasingly detailed info as to why their parents lost them. It’s one thing if it was the type of adoptions ages ago when you could say your mum was young so had to give you up but it’s another to say your mum was a smack addict, we’re not sure who your dad was but he might be this bloke who was in and out of jail. I think this is hard info for a teen in particular to take in especially as your teenage years are when you most want to fit in.

If you’re constantly being told your gory story, it could lead to feelings of otherness and shame especially if your birth parents were properly terrible.

As a mixed raced person I felt being different very keenly at times. If I had also been adopted I would like to know but I wouldn’t want a big thing made of it to make me feel even more different and I especially wouldn’t want a my story book shoved in my face every couple of months telling me my birth mum was a smackhead. Being a teen is hard enough with all the emotions but that would make me feel quite isolated, other and angry to be honest.

Maybe advice and thinking will move back towards being more discreet in terms of what you tell and how often you tell the kids as it appears we’ve moved from one extreme of hiding it and people being shocked to discover they were adopted decades later to one where it’s ‘age appropriate’ warts and all being told to kids at a vulnerable stage.

What’s the view of adult adoptees?

What's this 'hard to place ' register @alexapourmeadrink ?

Ted Children who can't be placed within their own area or consortium area go onto an Adoption Register where they can be matched with adopters from out of area.

They may be harder to place due to their background / behaviour / disabilities. However it may also be due to their ethnicity, age, size of sibling group, or a simply a need to place them out of area to be away from where their birth family live.

@unfinishedkitchen my son is 15. He is mixed race also. His story is not 'gory' but it is difficult. It isn't constantly shoved in his face. But he did need to know. He was given the information through therapeutic life story work over a period of time, as he was ready to receive it. Now he knows, we talk about it only when he feels the need.
I know dozens of adopters, none of us bang on about it all time. Most of the time we are just busy getting on with life. But if ever my son feels the need, I listen and talk to him about it. Painful as it is, he needed to know.

@teenstimestwo, I was being a bit naughty. my son was nearly all of things. As far as I know there isn't a special register for them. There is just a register.
This hard to place perception is one of the things that really irritates me about these discussions because it implies that some children are somehow 'easier'
I think it misleads prospective adopters into thinking that these kids are harder to parent. My so called hard to place child is a dream compared to many kids, adopted or not. Yes we have had some mighty big challenges along the way, but at the moment he is a fairly average 15 year old.

@IHaveBrilloHair (I know you wouldn't, but not to be mentioned on FB as they aren't officially announcing for a few weeks xx)

Never, ever under estimate how an adopted child feels at any age, and never expect them to be grateful.

This was a really big part of the course I went on last week. They shouldn't be expected to be grateful - why should they! In fact when the tough times hit they have the ultimate way to cut you to your soul "you're not even my real mum /dad" whether they mean it or not, it's going to trigger a lot of emotions.

Hopefully the adoption system is now geared up to helping the children and their new family, rather than placing them and expecting everyone to just get on with it (which seems like you have experience of). I imagine your parents weren't given the insight we have today, they just got on with it as they saw fit.

You now have a duty to tell the child they're adopted. It's supposed to be openly discussed and as natural a part of family life as anything else.

The leader of the course was a social worker of 30 years and he says he often can't believe how adoptions were handled in years gone by and that these days it is definitely better.

Generally speaking, In the case I'm linked to there will be no contact with the birth parents or siblings. It has been trialled but it hasn't worked (I only know the basics, my relatives know the full story) so I can only imagine that this little one will have issues. Relatives are very much aware and very clued up (as much as you can be without actual experience).

I have 2 DC. One has massive MH problems, so it is a case of not knowing what will happen whether they are raised in a Good Enough family or have been in the care system.

Ted I did wonder when I saw your post after mine.

I agree 'harder to place' should not be viewed as synonymous with 'harder to parent'.

I don’t know. I’m inclined to agree with unfinishedkitchen on this.

I think that was quite a cruel post tbh brillo - ‘she was somebody else’s baby first’ and that there is why I’d never adopt.

@Unfinishedkitchen My son is only four, but he asks why he doesn’t have front teeth, he asks why no one else has funny marks on his arms, he also asks why he doesn’t have a mummy. He knows his BM/BD hurt his teeth so they fell out, he knows his BM burned his arms, he knows his BM couldn’t keep him safe so thats why he doesn’t have a mummy.

Children need to know they can trust their parents, if I lied to him I would be yet another adult that he cannot trust.

You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.

Maybe it's best to put a line in your post, that you're not interested in adoption, so nobody will raise the point.

People still do though.

If someone has no knowledge of the adoption process, then they are suggesting it from a good place and not with malice or intent to cause offence.

Do you really think people struggling with long term infertility haven’t considered whether adoption might be for them? It’s so patronising. It’s like asking someone with a weight problem if they’ve ever thought of going on a diet.

please don't forget she has a whole other family, and background out there

No she has people who she is biologically/genetically related to. Her adoptive family is her family.

Brillo I think you're projecting a little. Every adoption is unique, good and bad.

Simon, she wasn’t suggesting telling them nothing.

However the point she was making is that endlessly looking to the past for answers often stops people being able to move on to the future.

@hashtagthathappened my son is my son. He came to me at 8. I never had him as a baby. Yet he is still my baby.
But he was and is also his birth mum's baby. I accept that , it doesn't upset me because it's a fact of both of our lives.
I have actually lost a friend, who was not an adopter, because she thought adopted children shouldn't be told. It is my son's right to know his history. But as I said it is not constantly shoved in his face. We don't sit round the dinner table every night dissecting the details. Now he knows, he feels much less need to talk about it. There is no mystery, no mythical mother lurking in the background. So he is actually far more settled and less likely to run off and try and find her himself.

It's not cruel, it's true.
If you'd asked me ten or twenty years ago I'd had never have said that, but it's come up now, because it's always there.
Not all adoptive children will feel this way, my point was that it can, even when they are adults.