to not understand why so many people are against adoption?

[Confusedamonium]

Before deciding to adopt, I'd never really been aware of this but it appears that a huge chunk of society are really, really against adoption - and I just don't understand why.

• SIL thinks children should be in foster care in case their parents change their minds or change their behaviour. She thinks permanently removing a child (no matter how much support has been offered or how long/severe the problems are) is unfair on the biological parents.
• DM thinks that no one can love an adopted child as much as a biological child - despite what we tell her.

People make comments about how cruel it is that children are taken from their parents (to both the children and the parents). Can anyone actually explain why they think it's better that children either float around foster placements or remain in abusive homes? What really shocks me is that foster carers are perceived as saintly carers for innocent souls and adopters are perceived as evil child snatchers. My parents foster and get no end of praise for it but one mention of adoption and people turn frosty.

Adoption is an entirely different kettle of fish a d I think it is a shame that their is no continuing financial help for adopters.

There can be financial help for adopters, my two were considered difficult to place for a variety of reasons, we receive an adoption allowance for them which has allowed me to reduce my work hours and enables us to pay for supports and activities to help counter their early life experiences. There are a huge number of variables involved in adoption including the range of supports available.

In terms of loving a biological child more, I don’t know about more, I do think it must be different, but then I think that we love all our children differently from each other

My adopted DD is 16. For the past 15 years I have been utterly devoted to her (whilst also practising benign neglect at times!). I love her more than my blood family. I lay beside her for years until she fell asleep - I detest the concept of controlled crying and it was a lovely form of bonding. I adjusted my work pattern so I could take her to school and pick her up and support her sporting endeavours. I've given her freedom and nuture to grow into a confident, academic, sociable, ambitious, kind hearted young woman who is very comfortable in her own skin. How HOW could I have loved a bio child more? In what way is that different to a love for a bio child?

I've not heard what you say in your OP personally and I think both of those view points are clearly ridiculous and uneducated.

My husband brought up the idea of adoption a couple of times and we did look into it.

We are not against it generally, I think it's a wonderful thing to do. But it is difficult, I would imagine. Especially when a lot of the children coming to you may have dealt with trauma and be struggling with that. I think it takes a special kind of person to do it and so I'm not against adoption at all, but it wasn't something that I personally felt I was ready to do.

A few years ago I sat in on a couple of adoption panels. I found the prospective adopters to be wonderful people, a little idealistic probably, but definitely resourceful and fairly well prepared for the potential problems down the line. But what left me feeling uncomfortable was the idea of taking children from incredibly deprived backgrounds and placing them into (sometimes very) affluent ones. It made me wonder how different the outcomes would have been for the children if their birth parents had had a fraction of the educational and financial opportunities as the adoptive parents. That’s not to say that I thought adoption was the wrong choice for the children. It was more of a philosophical/ethical pondering. I did try to find out about outcomes in countries that don’t allow adoption from care but it seems to be quite hard to come by.

I think there is currently a swing towards more birth family contact. Not open adoption style like the US but a recognition that completely severing ties to birth families can contribute to disrupted placements in the future. I understand Ireland takes a different approach to birth family contact to England but it will probably be many years before a measurable impact is seen for comparative purposes. I’ve sat with a birth mother after her goodbye contact and it was heartbreaking even when it was clear she could not look after her children. But the adoption in that case didn’t go smoothly either, so very hard to know what was the right thing to do.

Securing an adoption is also harder than ever now that the approach of the court is “nothing else will do” and all possible family/friend connections have to be explored. I have never come across a case in 15 years of working alongside social workers where I thought removing a child, or a permanence plan of adoption, was the wrong call.

I do kind of see where your SIL is coming from with the idea of intensive support though - a bit like the Pause project does with women who have had multiple children removed perhaps. In many cases it still won’t be enough. And where adoption does go ahead, there needs to be so much more resources available to adopters especially through the teenage years where sadly I’ve seen too many disruptions that were nothing to do with the adopters and everything to do with the traumatic past coming to the surface and a lack of readily available therapeutic support.

I couldn’t do it myself, and absolutely salute any adopters here on MN. Your DCs are lucky to have you.

What do they do differently in Ireland out of interest?

Lots of us would not adopt but that doesn't mean we are against it or have any problem with it. It's not something I would ever think of doing, but I can't see what business of mine it is what anyone else does.

@ApricotOLeary

What do they do differently in Ireland out of interest?

This is a northern Irish perspective where face to face contact with birth families is not so uncommon. Slides are at the bottom. I don’t know if I have misremembered there being a different approach in Ireland but will see what I can find.

www.exchangewales.org/annual-adoption-lecture-2019-birth-family-contact-after-adoption-learning-from-the-northern-irish-experience/

I have never heard of this kind of attitude either. The only thing I think of when people say adoption is the amount of traumatised children that have been abandoned or suffer a lifetime of problems due to abuse, neglect or substance abuse in pregnancy. That kind of really young trauma can exfect their entire life even in a great new home even it was just non abusive neglect in the first few months of life. It's all extremely sad and I have met a few adoptive parents with kids with quite extreme needs who are struggling to get the help they need. Mind you in very active in the send community so maybe that's why.

I understand Ireland takes a different approach to birth family contact to England but it will probably be many years before a measurable impact is seen for comparative purposes.

There are a tiny number of adoptions in Ireland yearly, and domestic adoption is practically non-existant, and the few that happen are step-parents adopting or extended family. It just doesn't exist in the way it does in the UK.

This is a northern Irish perspective where face to face contact with birth families is not so uncommon. Slides are at the bottom. I don’t know if I have misremembered there being a different approach in Ireland but will see what I can find

That's the UK, not Ireland.

@YouKidsIsCrazy

This is a northern Irish perspective where face to face contact with birth families is not so uncommon. Slides are at the bottom. I don’t know if I have misremembered there being a different approach in Ireland but will see what I can find

That's the UK, not Ireland.

That’s why I said I might have misremembered.

Presumably @YouKidsIsCrazy long term foster care is more common in Ireland? I struggled to find outcomes for looked after children there vs in England (I don’t know if the govt records data as obsessively as the DfE) but if you can point me in the right direction I’d be interested to read some.

I have both bio and adopted children. I love them equally and would give up my life to save theirs in a heartbeat.

Adopted DC was removed at 6 weeks and is now a few years old now and thriving, we all bonded quite quickly although I’m expecting the teen years to be bumpy as bio teens already have identity issues and being adopted would introduce an additional layer of angst.

My family were initially wary but absolutely adore adopted DC.

Ignore comments from ignorant people who have opinions on everything but zero experience.

This is a good start:
www.childandfamilyresearch.ie/media/unescochildandfamilyresearchcentre/documentspdf/2017_Outcomes-for-Permanence-and-Stability-for-Children-in-Long-term-Care_2017_Digital.pdf

Thanks 11:17GingerAndTheBiscuits. Interesting article

As an adoptive mum, I would rather that only people really do want to adopt and know what's involved end up doing that. That's the task for Social Services and I think that mostly they do a good job.

Adoption is a very hard road, very stressful, and it can be heartbreaking at times. I love my DDs to pieces, but that doesn't make it any easier when DD1 lashes out at me or throws whatever is to hand when in a rage.

YouKidsIsCrazy What do they do instead of adoptions in Ireland if the birth family are abusive/neglectful and there aren't other family members available?

[quote YouKidsIsCrazy]This is a good start:
www.childandfamilyresearch.ie/media/unescochildandfamilyresearchcentre/documentspdf/2017_Outcomes-for-Permanence-and-Stability-for-Children-in-Long-term-Care_2017_Digital.pdf[/quote]
Thanks. Interesting that friend and family care makes up a much higher percentage than in England.

People who say that they couldn't love an adopted child as much as a bio child... imagine if it turned out that your 'bio' child wasn't, in fact your child, that there had been a mixup at hospital. I had my last two at home and my first was the only redhead in the hospital so I am sure they are all biologically mine- but if somehow they weren't, I cannot honestly believe that I would suddenly love them less and want to swap them for the bio child or anything like that. They are my children and I love them and the fact that they grew in me is only a very, very tiny part of that.

Often when people are abusive/neglectful parents it's because they experienced the same growing up. So family won't always be a good replacement

I have heard people say "you can not love a child who isn't yours as much as your own". I think that is very sad for them- the adults-really.

I don’t really recognise the scenarios in the OPs post, but adoption is really, really hard.

I’ve taught many adopted children, all with extremely loving and giving parents. I’ve never come across a bad adoptive parent.

A lot of adopted children come with serious baggage - the reasons they could not stay with their birth parents. They may also have moved from pillar to post, and may have attachment disorders.

Social services, in my area at least, are there for adoptive families all the way through childhood.

@NeverAMillionMilesAway

I have heard people say "you can not love a child who isn't yours as much as your own". I think that is very sad for them- the adults-really.

I've seen people say this on here but I've found most often it's in relation to relationships such as step children where you aren't actually that child's parent rather than it being specifically about biology.

In my mind, I do believe it possible to love an adopted child just as much as any biological child, because that child is your child, you are their parent in the same way, you are responsible for them, they are dependant on you etc... The only difference being really that they didn't come from your body.

Very different to, as per my example, a step parent relationship.

That’s terrible, don’t let it put you off @Confusedamonium My sister is adopted and she has never been treated any differently. Her parents were just very young when they had her and didn’t feel they could bring her up to have a good life. Adopters tend to be the sort of people who long for children and may have tried for for ages (in fact I came after my sis after my parents had given up On a child at all) We always felt really loved.

@ApricotOLeary

Often when people are abusive/neglectful parents it's because they experienced the same growing up. So family won't always be a good replacement

Certainly in England the net is cast very wide, so social services would be assessing anyone willing to put themselves forward to care for the child, many of whom may have not had a lot of contact with the parents and grew up in totally different circumstances but are keen to keep the child within their family unit.