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.

There are people who go round twitter, instragam, facebook etc using hashtags, following adoption groups etc with the sole purpose of sending abusive messages to both adopters and adoptees, they also take screen shots and share them to encourage others to br abusive.

Lots of people are just very uneducated about it, its quite common to hear things like “real mum/dad/parents” erm, I’m not imaginery!

Some people are just nutty, I had a poster on here tell me that I adopted my son so I could sexually abuse him, another told me that adoptive parents are directly responsible for neglect/abuse etc carried out by birth parents. Whether its adoption, owning a cat, driving a car you always get some extreme nutters.

@Mrsjayy

I think your problem is your close family not supporting you that seems to be the issue which is a real shame as any child you adopt you won't be able to relax around your family.

My mum does this with most things - she's completely unsupportive until it happens when she does a complete 180 and is the most supportive person in the world. With SIL, it's a hang up from her own abusive childhood where she was taught - and still has engrained into her every action - that the happiness of the parents supersedes the needs of the child.

@SimonJT

There are people who go round twitter, instragam, facebook etc using hashtags, following adoption groups etc with the sole purpose of sending abusive messages to both adopters and adoptees, they also take screen shots and share them to encourage others to br abusive.

Lots of people are just very uneducated about it, its quite common to hear things like “real mum/dad/parents” erm, I’m not imaginery!

Some people are just nutty, I had a poster on here tell me that I adopted my son so I could sexually abuse him, another told me that adoptive parents are directly responsible for neglect/abuse etc carried out by birth parents. Whether its adoption, owning a cat, driving a car you always get some extreme nutters.

Thank you for sharing and I'm sorry you've experienced the same thing. You've hit the nail on the head with what I was referring to. Comments about why you'd want to take someone else's baby and uninformed statistics on how children are more successful if they stay with their biological parents etc.

To be fair to the OP there is a small but vocal school of thought that is of the view that local authorities have targets for adoption and that social workers are on the lookout for suitable working class children steal on the flimsiest of evidence to give to the poor nice middle class childless folks. And that there people making a lot of money out of it.
They are of course incorrect.

I can see why someone might not want to adopt as it really isn’t as it once used to be where you get a baby, instead now you get a child with generally very complex behaviours and needs brought about by their past circumstances, and I can imagine that having to deal with that plus having to maintain contact with the family who were responsible for those circumstances can’t be an easy one to want to put yourself through.

I imagine the kinds of people who talk about adoption being cruel to the birth families are the kinds who read the “social services unfairly snatched my baby” type articles in the tabloids and believe that SS unfairly remove children because they have only the parents’ story to go on and if they said they were innocent they must have been....

I can also see that some people can’t understand how someone could love another child as their own because they don’t believe they could, so they judge by their own thinking.

TBH I think fostering is more of a grey area because the reality is that not everyone goes into fostering for altruistic reasons. In fact I have even seen suggested on here that people foster in order to earn a living. .

My DP grew up in foster care and while his FC were better than the abusive lowlifes who abused him and his siblings to the point he has permanent disabilities, they were very much in it for the money, and often fostered up to eight/nine children at a time which led to very chaotic childhoods for all of them.

I actually think that adoption should be made easier especially for younger children. I don’t see why a baby should be placed in care and then adopted several months later, this surely only causes more disruption. Why not have more foster-to-adopt type arrangements with only the children who are never likely to be placed back with their parents being fostered on a temporary basis until their future is decided.

Personally I couldn’t adopt because I couldn’t bring myself to maintain contact with someone who had abused their child in any way, so anyone who can do that is a better person than me.

YANBU people cant comprehend that other people aren't like them and dont love their children just because they came out of their bodies.
I do know someone who is angry about being adopted, he cant really explain why though, his sister is also adopted and she doesn't feel the same.

I am adopted and work with looked after children and have never once heard the things you have heard.

"DM thinks that no one can love an adopted child as much as a biological child - despite what we tell her."

I agree fully with your DM but I'm definitely not anti-adoption. I'm very much for it and think it's amazing. I also think the love adoptive parents must feel for their children must just be so wonderful, intense and unconditional - just not the same as the love a biological parent can have. I just don't think it's possible.

I'm entitled to my opinion and can still be in favour of the idea of adoption. It doesn't have to be one or the other surely. Am also happy that loads of people out there disagree with me.

I've not come across this attitude myself. I know several families whose children are adopted, or some of their children are. When dh and I talked about children I started from a position where I said I would prefer to adopt.

One adopted child I know was adopted as a baby. She was covered with cigarette burns, covered. She had been found starving and near dead. Does your SIL honestly think that that girl should ever be placed NEAR her bio parents?

All the adopted children I know of (about a dozen) came from awful, abusive 'homes' and I really take my hat off to the wonderful people who have adopted them and given them love and safety.

@AlternativePerspective
I actually think that adoption should be made easier especially for younger children. I don’t see why a baby should be placed in care and then adopted several months later, this surely only causes more disruption. Why not have more foster-to-adopt type arrangements with only the children who are never likely to be placed back with their parents being fostered on a temporary basis until their future is decided.
This does exist and is a relatively new scheme called Foster for Adoption or Early Permanence. There's a risk that the child will be returned to the birth parents but means children can be placed from days old. But it's a slightly longer process with more training than most adoption processes because you train as both a foster carer and adoptive parent.

@DressesWithPocketsRockMyWorld

I am adopted and work with looked after children and have never once heard the things you have heard.

Literally the comment below yours says that they don't think adoptive parents love their children as much as biological parents.

I have come across it, but for completely different (and much more sensible in my opinion) reasons.

Primarily due to personal experience of friends/relatives - the two people my DM knows best who have adopted have had a very difficult time of it. One frankly shouldn't have been allowed to adopt - a single mother with an older child, partner in a City law firm, who promptly sent her sweet adopted child with bonding issues to boarding school. They don't speak since he left home. The other was much worse - two children whose background was well known to the social workers but wasn't declared to the adoptive parents. Turns out the two preschool children they adopted had experienced alcohol and drug abuse during pregnancy and also abuse as babies - they were presented to the potential parents as cases of mild/moderate neglect with no pregnancy issues. One has severe learning difficulties and never learned to read, the other has severe emotional issues and is very violent and at times had to go into secure units. They are both teenagers now. If the adoptive parents had been presented with the full story they could at least have made the decision knowingly. I understand that part of adoption is not really knowing what issues the child may have, but to have information not declared to you while making this huge decision is awful.

I personally don't know if I could deal with those risks. Other people can, but I think it's reasonable for those close to you to warn you of the worst-case scenario. But it sounds like your SIL and DM have much less reasonable reasons of being against the idea.

Info hate this view that adopters are saintly people saving children from misery and that anyone can and should adopt. I was adopted and unfortunately my adoptive mother was also abusive. As I was older (6 when me and my sister went to her) I don’t think e ever properly bonded. I also don’t think she got over the fact she couldn’t have her own biological children.
I don’t agree children should stay with thier bio parents no matter what and adoption does have its place but only certain people should be able to adopt. I realise in this day and age things are different to the 80s and there is more counselling, training and awareness of all the issues surrounding adoption. I just wish people would stop seeing adoption as the answer to everything and realise that even if adopted into a wonderful family there are still lifelong issues for everyone’s

@Confusedamonium

For those saying they'd never heard this - nor had I until we decided to adopt. Speaking to other adoptive parents, apparently it's very common. Along with the [insert eye roll here] "what happened to his REAL parents?"

I adopted three times --- YES, I heard all of this, and more!! I adopted as a single parent and I got "Singles should not be allowed to adopt. Children need TWO parents." Oh yeah, better a life in an orphanage than a mother who adores you, focuses on you and is NOT husband-hunting! Before you say it, yes my DD1 and DD2 came from orphanages in South America. Single parents were not allowed to adopt from foster care in the 80's. My DS did come from foster care. Laws changed. But I got much more of "a boy needs a father" so he should have stayed in foster care until his drug-addict father got his act together. Its been 13 years and he still is homeless and in-and-out of rehab and now has three more sons who were foster-adopted..

I agree fully with your DM but I'm definitely not anti-adoption. I'm very much for it and think it's amazing. I also think the love adoptive parents must feel for their children must just be so wonderful, intense and unconditional - just not the same as the love a biological parent can have. I just don't think it's possible.

I have to disagree with you. I can't imagine loving my DDs any more if I'd given birth to them. My DSis has had two bio DC and an adopted DS, and she loves all three of them the same. (She also loves her DSS the same.)

So it is possible. But I know that I'm not my DDs' bio mum and there will still be a gap there for them.

@Jux

I've not come across this attitude myself. I know several families whose children are adopted, or some of their children are. When dh and I talked about children I started from a position where I said I would prefer to adopt.

One adopted child I know was adopted as a baby. She was covered with cigarette burns, covered. She had been found starving and near dead. Does your SIL honestly think that that girl should ever be placed NEAR her bio parents?

All the adopted children I know of (about a dozen) came from awful, abusive 'homes' and I really take my hat off to the wonderful people who have adopted them and given them love and safety.

SIL believes that where a parent does not want a child, the child should be placed with foster carers until they are eighteen or the parent changes their mind. She believes that if a parent is abusive or unable to care for a child then a foster carer or social worker (some kind of person) should be placed into their home to care for and protect the child but maintaining the parents as parents. If that's not possible then they should go into temporary foster care until it is possible or the home is safe. She's a doctor and, I'm relieved to say, the other family member present when she said it also thought she was being insane.

@Mittens030869 the last sentence of my post literally says I'm aware that many disagree with me and that I'm more than happy with that - so your comment on my post is nothing new to me at all. We can all think different things.

@firstimemamma

"DM thinks that no one can love an adopted child as much as a biological child - despite what we tell her."

I agree fully with your DM but I'm definitely not anti-adoption. I'm very much for it and think it's amazing. I also think the love adoptive parents must feel for their children must just be so wonderful, intense and unconditional - just not the same as the love a biological parent can have. I just don't think it's possible.

I'm entitled to my opinion and can still be in favour of the idea of adoption. It doesn't have to be one or the other surely. Am also happy that loads of people out there disagree with me.

My eldest is my biological child so you're wrong.

I'm really sad to hear the accounts from posters who suffered abuse from their adoptive parents, unfortunately adoptive parents are as likely to be abusers as anyone else. For me, my bio F was the abuser, he sexually abused my DSis and me and allowed us, and my DB, to be abused by other people.

Sadly, both bio and adoptive parents can be abusers.

I can only speak from my personal experience. My (both older) brother and sister were adopted by my parents, I am their biological daughter. I love having grown up with a brother and sister.

Due to our slightly unusual family circumstances, my parents are scrupulously careful to treat the three of us exactly the same, both in terms of time and also money.

In all honesty, my brother has found it difficult at times with the feeling of (in his mind) being "rejected" by his birth parents, though doesn't talk about it and has no desire to try to find his biological parents. My sister has traced her biological mother and has a good relationship with her. She found it very helpful to understand the reasons behind being put up for adoption.

I think that attitudes towards being, and support for, single parents have changed fundamentally since the 1960s and 1970s and I'm guessing that the number of adoptions has fallen accordingly.

@Confusedamonium

your SIL is a doctor ? In which part of the universe does she that would work. I’ve heard some daft things in my time but it is just stunning that anyone could think like that

@JMG1234

My youngest DNephew (and godson) is adopted, as I said. Sadly, he's a relinquished child, his older bio siblings having stayed with their mum. His bio mum had her reasons and didn't do it lightly, but this will be a hard thing for him to come to terms with.

That is sad to hear. What concerns me about adoption is that most children available to be adopted are not little 6 week old babies, as used to be the case, but children of varying ages whose life experiences have been traumatic, and often made it hard for them to enjoy normal close family relationships - the concern is that adoptive parents are really taking on an almost therapeutic role and they do not receive the long term support that they need to fulfil this role without it taking a toll on the adoptive parents.

Also, the idea that children are whisked away from their birth parents on a whim is nonsense - if anything the balance is too far in the other direction. Strenuous efforts are made to keep the child with the birth parents and this is only abandoned when much damage has been done to the child, and finding adoptive parents thus becomes harder.

PS Your SIL is seriously nuts!!

I would never be against adoption.
I do think sometimes in the UK the DC are up for forced adoption quickly whereas in Ireland it is the opposite and not good either as the DC are kept in care when there really is no chance of reuniting the birth family.
My cousin has 2 DC 8 years now she fostered their DM when she was a DC too.
Those DC are hanging in the middle it is awful.
My cousins eldest foster DD is 24 she stayed with the family she's a nurse.
I'd love to foster in the future. I think adoption is amazing it sounds like a tough but worthy process.