To think the way some birth mothers are treat is appalling

[SpringHasSprung20]

A decade ago when I was still in my teens I had a baby removed from me at birth by social services and put up for adoption against my will.

It wasn't me who was the risk, I was being abused by the father and fought so hard to get away, have him prosecuted and keep my baby. I've posted about my story before.

Fast forward to now I'm approaching 30. I have a family and I'm living on the other side of the country with two subsequent children in my care full time with no SS involvement. I have a good life and haven't spoken to the abusive ex since I left him. I'm a different person. A strong person.

SS never allowed to meet the adoptive parents because I was opposing the adoption.

Do you know what contact I have with my son? One letter per year, due every April but it's usually always months late.

All of my letters are inspected by an adoption social work team before they'll be passed on to the adoptive parents/my son. Protocol. Most years they are sent back to me to edit out parts where I've told him I love him or miss him. I'm not allowed to say that, it's too emotional apparently.

I'm not daft, I know it's not in his best interests for me to be emotional in letters so I never am - but I do want him to know he's loved.

They are pedantic beyond comprehension. One year I had a letter telling me he was doing well in school, in my reply I said I was proud and he's such a clever boy. They sent my letter back and made me change "you are so clever" to "you sound clever"

I've had to plead with the adoption team for years to ask the family if I can have a photo, after 8 years of the adoption team saying "we don't let birth parents have photos" a kind contact coordinator finally agreed to ask the family for me.

The family took a while to decide but agreed I could see a photo. I can't keep it though.

I have to liase with an adoption team in my area and ask that the photo be sent to them so I can go into the office and look at it on a computer screen. Once. That won't happen this year because of covid so I have another year to wait before I can even catch a glimpse of my little boy. I have no idea what he looks like other than the sweet 6 month old face I have in a photo album, taken at our "goodbye contact"

I'm not allowed to send birthday cards or presents because it's a pain for the adoption agency to facilitate.

I have a box here that I save his cards in every year but that's not the point really is it? Imagine being a child and never getting a birthday card from your mum.

I'm not allowed to tell him about his siblings in letters. I talk to them about him all of the time but they must be kept secret.

All of the above is wrapped up as being in his best interests of course, but is it really?

I don't think he'll feel that way later on.

If you were adopted wouldn't you want to know that your 'birth' mother loved you? Would you be happy to only hear from her once a year?

I'm not a criminal and I've never hurt a child or been accused of it. I'm a good person and a good mother. I have the backing of SS here completely, after I approached them when I moved here. The senior manager raised her own concerns about how I was treat by that local authority and couldn't believe the way they work.

AIBU to think the way some birth mothers are treat is appalling? I'm not referring to abusive people or people who neglect their children, but people like me and others who were let down terribly.

I cannot move past the injustice of it all.

@TatianaBis you do realise that attempting to be a mouthpiece for something you haven’t experienced yourself makes you sound offensive.

And suggesting that every adoptee you know has something lacking in their life is doubly offensive.

@SpringHasSprung20 You’re senses couldn’t be more off.

I’m sorry this has all been so traumatic for you.

I have a few thoughts I suppose.

Firstly, 99% of the time these stories leave out a lot of information and I don’t believe them BUT 10 years ago was just after Baby P and every single social worker and judge became supremely risk adverse. So you could have been wronged.

From reading your post you seem to accept zero responsibility for what happened at the time. None of your updates say anything but what a victim you have been. Social services might have got it wrong or not given you enough help but there’s no way you were perfect.

I have known adopted children to do fantastically well and I’ve also known adopted children to be traumatised and have panic attacks about contact from their birth mum. You can’t know which it is. You just have to trust the adopted parents. Your letters have been censored for the child and you have to trust that actually these seemingly pedantic amendments actually make a significant difference.

It’s shit for you that you have so limited contact and that you feel you weren’t supported prior to adoption. The process isn’t perfect and it must be so hard to know that now you would be able to safely look after him. But you couldn’t then and adoption has to be permanent or it would be even more damaging to the child.

The Social Services and Court records could show something very different

Mine don't, which is why social services where I live now were able to form their well informed opinion that what happened to me and my son was wholly wrong.

They had the documents. Hundreds of pages. They reached a very different conclusion

I wonder what people get out of questioning the veracity of OP’s narrative. Nothing posted by individuals on mumsnet is verified but the OP is describing her experience and there is nothing implausible. It can be true that SS give too many chances and set the bar too low and also that they have acted too quickly, given too little support and misrepresented a case in court. Both of these have been proven to be true at different times.

Lived experience gives you a bit more to say on this one but there isn’t any one experience that can speak for every birth parent or adoptee. It’s all about nuance and the individual and it’s complicated. It needs a bit of care for all the different sides of the triangle. This board maybe wasn’t the place.

They didn't tell you that if you leave him then they would sort a new plan?

Adoption targets are commonly misunderstood.
They were designed to prevent dc spending a long time in foster care limbo.
They were set up to encourage more dc to exit the social care system not enter it.

[quote TheCatThatGotTheCream]@ColdBrightClearMorning

*SS really shouldn’t have been sharing information with you about the details of the case. It was a massive breach of confidentiality on their part if they did.

And if they didn’t, surely you understand that you are only hearing one side of the story?

Not many abusive or neglectful parents share the details of their abuse or neglect dispassionately with their loved ones. Many aren’t able to see their own failings. Many more for obvious reasons don’t want to.*

Sorry, but you are wrong on so many levels. Firstly, SS didn't share the details of the case with me. Secondly, the contact/custody dispute was between two people who I have a relationship with. I therefore didn't hear only one side of the story.

You really shouldn't weave your own narrative when you don't have the first clue about any of the details or what you are talking about...[/quote]
I was making the point that as you aren’t legally privy to the facts of the situation as seen by social services you’re completely in the dark about whether your relative has been treated fairly by then or not. Hearing two sides of a story from the individuals who are deeply emotionally involved (and unlikely to be reporting the entire truth) isn’t quite the same as facts and evidence gathered by professionals. You know some of the story, what you’re being told, but the fact that you’ve concluded that’s enough to declare they’ve been treated poorly by social services leaves you seeming very naive.

OP I am so sorry for what happened to you.
I believe you, and have no issue with your story.

BUT - it did happen. And if you truly care about your child the. You understand that everything that happens now has to be in their best interests.

@endlesssnow

Adoption targets are commonly misunderstood. They were designed to prevent dc spending a long time in foster care limbo. They were set up to encourage more dc to exit the social care system not enter it.

Beat me to it.

But I see the nasty, evil, child snatcher social worker trope has reared its predictable head once again. As always on MN.

OP you have been treated appallingly by people who should have helped you. I am so sorry.

Have you ever had an therapy to talk it through? I can’t imagine living with this experience.

I would like to point out that it's not as simple as SS swooping in and taking a child then handing them over to adopters.

SS have to go to court to seek permission to remove a child. The parents have legal representation, so does the Local Authority, (aka SS) and the child has a CAFCASS guardian appointed to represent them, the guardian also has legal representation. It is really very hard to secure removal of a child. The court has to agree that the child has either suffered or is at risk of suffering significant harm.

While the child is in foster care assessments are completed. OP is right that it's hard to evidence you won't return to an abuser in a short time frame, however the odds are that the majority of women try to leave several times before they do. Some may argue SS are too risk averse. How many chances should you take with a tiny infant? Cases are rarely single issue either.

There are many court hearing throughout care proceedings, statements from all parties, assessments of family or friends who could maybe care for the child instead. Often many relatives and friends are considered, even those who live abroad and have never met the child, so great is the priority to keep a child in its family if possible. There may be drug/ alcohol testing of parents, psychological or psychiatric assessments, assessments for learning difficulties etc as the case requires. Before an order - a placement order, used to be called a freeing order - is made to give permission for a child to go to adoptive parents there will be a final court hearing, often days long, where everyone argues their case.

Then it goes back to court when they adopters want to legally become the child's parents. Birth parents are notified and many contest the adoption. Some have even successfully contested the placement order but that will be a tiny number, because the initial hearings were so robust.
So maybe a case where they couldn't find dad before and he had no idea what was going on, then when he found out he wanted to care for the child.

Adoption is a last resort.
And for anyone who thinks SS are on commission, every application to and set of care proceeding in court costs SS massive amounts of money. The courts do not hear cases free of charge. Legal reps are not free. The adoption itself also costs them money, both in placing the child and the adoption hearing fees. There is no money to be made only very huge losses.

There are also, nationally, far more children waiting for adopters than there are adopters, even for 6 month old babies. Then there are the post adoption support services and letterbox contact team to fund. There is no incentive to want a child to be adopted rather than with birth family other than to protect the child and promote it's best interests.
If we were to have open adoptions there would be far fewer adopters available, most won't want to do it.

For those saying go to court, seek legal advice - OP has no legal responsibility or rights for this child. The adopters are under no obligation to write any letters at all, the court can't order them to. As outlined above, this has already been in court repeatedly.

Adoption targets do not relate to how many children you can get adopted full stop. It's not like estate agents selling houses. The targets are around timescales. Try to get court proceedings done in 6 months to try and avoid drift. Yes, sometimes that means parents can't evidence long enough off drugs, away from the abuser or whatever. But that's the legislation and it wasn't written by social services.
Next, try to get a child who is going to be adopted sooner rather than later, to secure a permanent home and family life for them. Otherwise they are growing up in care and the older they are the harder the move is for them. The onus is on the workers to evidence what they have done to find a family for a child, and yes there are targets because unless there are good reasons it isn't acceptable to leave a child in care and workers should have to explain it.

@endlesssnow

Adoption targets are commonly misunderstood. They were designed to prevent dc spending a long time in foster care limbo. They were set up to encourage more dc to exit the social care system not enter it.

Yep, the people who are anti adoption fail to realise it makes them pro children languishing in foster care, where despite many foster carers being fab, it denies those children security, attachment, self worth etc, they’re also more likely to suffer poor mental and physical health as adults.

@ColdBrightClearMorning I remember reading a guardian article around 10-15 years ago about the scandal of targets. They discussed a mother whose child was injured accidentally, but taken from her at A&E- by the time she’d proven that it was indeed accidental, the child had been adopted. There were several similar stories.

You are an intelligent, articulate woman and from the little I can glean from this thread, I’m inclined to think that you suffered an injustice, as did your child. Do you have legal representation? If no, please get some, quick sharp

Why? There is zero chance that the courts will reverse the adoption decision. It's really cruel to encourage the OP to pursue fruitless legal action, instead of trying to come to terms with what has happened.

Adoption targets are commonly misunderstood.
They were designed to prevent blah blah blah

Who cares what they were intended for? Their effect on people's lives is what matters.

@Nonamesavail

They didn't tell you that if you leave him then they would sort a new plan?

No. Never.

YABVU. I’m adopted, and the woman who gave birth to me is not, never has been and never will be my mother.

My mum and dad are my adopted parents. They have brought me up and loved me, cared for me, been there for me through good and through bad.

Whatever the reasons for a child being adopted, once they are their family is their adopted family.

Blood doesn’t make a family; time and love does.

I don’t think contact should be maintained between the people who gave up the child and the child, regardless of circumstances.

A clean break is in the best interests of the child; receiving letters and/or photos from a stranger is no good to them.

I'm sorry for what happened to you, it's absolutely appalling. I can't imagine how you must feel/have felt, but it's so sad that services that are supposedly there to help would create such a situation.

@Moresugar

*Adoption targets are commonly misunderstood. They were designed to prevent blah blah blah*

Who cares what they were intended for? Their effect on people's lives is what matters.

The effect is that more children go on to have secure homes, build secure attachments and have better futures.

Spring - I believe you. I'm sorry this has happened to you and your son.

@Scout2016

I would like to point out that it's not as simple as SS swooping in and taking a child then handing them over to adopters.

SS have to go to court to seek permission to remove a child. The parents have legal representation, so does the Local Authority, (aka SS) and the child has a CAFCASS guardian appointed to represent them, the guardian also has legal representation. It is really very hard to secure removal of a child. The court has to agree that the child has either suffered or is at risk of suffering significant harm.

While the child is in foster care assessments are completed. OP is right that it's hard to evidence you won't return to an abuser in a short time frame, however the odds are that the majority of women try to leave several times before they do. Some may argue SS are too risk averse. How many chances should you take with a tiny infant? Cases are rarely single issue either.

There are many court hearing throughout care proceedings, statements from all parties, assessments of family or friends who could maybe care for the child instead. Often many relatives and friends are considered, even those who live abroad and have never met the child, so great is the priority to keep a child in its family if possible. There may be drug/ alcohol testing of parents, psychological or psychiatric assessments, assessments for learning difficulties etc as the case requires. Before an order - a placement order, used to be called a freeing order - is made to give permission for a child to go to adoptive parents there will be a final court hearing, often days long, where everyone argues their case.

Then it goes back to court when they adopters want to legally become the child's parents. Birth parents are notified and many contest the adoption. Some have even successfully contested the placement order but that will be a tiny number, because the initial hearings were so robust.
So maybe a case where they couldn't find dad before and he had no idea what was going on, then when he found out he wanted to care for the child.

Adoption is a last resort.
And for anyone who thinks SS are on commission, every application to and set of care proceeding in court costs SS massive amounts of money. The courts do not hear cases free of charge. Legal reps are not free. The adoption itself also costs them money, both in placing the child and the adoption hearing fees. There is no money to be made only very huge losses.

There are also, nationally, far more children waiting for adopters than there are adopters, even for 6 month old babies. Then there are the post adoption support services and letterbox contact team to fund. There is no incentive to want a child to be adopted rather than with birth family other than to protect the child and promote it's best interests.
If we were to have open adoptions there would be far fewer adopters available, most won't want to do it.

For those saying go to court, seek legal advice - OP has no legal responsibility or rights for this child. The adopters are under no obligation to write any letters at all, the court can't order them to. As outlined above, this has already been in court repeatedly.

Adoption targets do not relate to how many children you can get adopted full stop. It's not like estate agents selling houses. The targets are around timescales. Try to get court proceedings done in 6 months to try and avoid drift. Yes, sometimes that means parents can't evidence long enough off drugs, away from the abuser or whatever. But that's the legislation and it wasn't written by social services.
Next, try to get a child who is going to be adopted sooner rather than later, to secure a permanent home and family life for them. Otherwise they are growing up in care and the older they are the harder the move is for them. The onus is on the workers to evidence what they have done to find a family for a child, and yes there are targets because unless there are good reasons it isn't acceptable to leave a child in care and workers should have to explain it.

I do wish there was a way to sticky this. Fantastic post. Thank you

I'm sorry op but your posts are all about you, how you suffered and your feelings.
The child that you gave birth too has a home, a mum and dad, a family. You are risking the child's happiness and security for your feelings. For this you are unreasonable.

I was an adopted baby, I knew that someone else had given birth to me, I knew she wasn't a bad person, as I got older I felt sorry for her situation but she wasn't my responsibility just as your happiness is not the responsibility of the child you no longer have.
To have contact would have rocked my world as a child, my positive attachments to my mum and dad (my real ones, the ones who brought me up) would have been shaken. It would not have been in my best interests and I fail to see how it would be in this child's now.
When they grow up there are many ways they can track you down if they want to, that should be up to them. I did, due to curiosity, I met the woman who gave birth to me, I didn't hate her, I bore her no ill will but she was not my family. I'm sorry you're hurting but you don't want to cause this child hurt just to make you feel better. Sorry.

Yep, the people who are anti adoption fail to realise it makes them pro children languishing in foster care, where despite many foster carers being fab, it denies those children security, attachment, self worth etc, they’re also more likely to suffer poor mental and physical health as adults

And some foster carers are very not fab. Within placements, I was sexually abused, treated as second class to the foster parents own children, constantly terrified about whether I would be “good enough” to be allowed to stay, and trying to predict whether the current set up was likely to be better or worse than what might await if I was sent away.

There are some situations where long term fostering is appropriate but for many children adoption is the best chance at security they can get.

@Scout2016

I would like to point out that it's not as simple as SS swooping in and taking a child then handing them over to adopters.

SS have to go to court to seek permission to remove a child. The parents have legal representation, so does the Local Authority, (aka SS) and the child has a CAFCASS guardian appointed to represent them, the guardian also has legal representation. It is really very hard to secure removal of a child. The court has to agree that the child has either suffered or is at risk of suffering significant harm.

While the child is in foster care assessments are completed. OP is right that it's hard to evidence you won't return to an abuser in a short time frame, however the odds are that the majority of women try to leave several times before they do. Some may argue SS are too risk averse. How many chances should you take with a tiny infant? Cases are rarely single issue either.

There are many court hearing throughout care proceedings, statements from all parties, assessments of family or friends who could maybe care for the child instead. Often many relatives and friends are considered, even those who live abroad and have never met the child, so great is the priority to keep a child in its family if possible. There may be drug/ alcohol testing of parents, psychological or psychiatric assessments, assessments for learning difficulties etc as the case requires. Before an order - a placement order, used to be called a freeing order - is made to give permission for a child to go to adoptive parents there will be a final court hearing, often days long, where everyone argues their case.

Then it goes back to court when they adopters want to legally become the child's parents. Birth parents are notified and many contest the adoption. Some have even successfully contested the placement order but that will be a tiny number, because the initial hearings were so robust.
So maybe a case where they couldn't find dad before and he had no idea what was going on, then when he found out he wanted to care for the child.

Adoption is a last resort.
And for anyone who thinks SS are on commission, every application to and set of care proceeding in court costs SS massive amounts of money. The courts do not hear cases free of charge. Legal reps are not free. The adoption itself also costs them money, both in placing the child and the adoption hearing fees. There is no money to be made only very huge losses.

There are also, nationally, far more children waiting for adopters than there are adopters, even for 6 month old babies. Then there are the post adoption support services and letterbox contact team to fund. There is no incentive to want a child to be adopted rather than with birth family other than to protect the child and promote it's best interests.
If we were to have open adoptions there would be far fewer adopters available, most won't want to do it.

For those saying go to court, seek legal advice - OP has no legal responsibility or rights for this child. The adopters are under no obligation to write any letters at all, the court can't order them to. As outlined above, this has already been in court repeatedly.

Adoption targets do not relate to how many children you can get adopted full stop. It's not like estate agents selling houses. The targets are around timescales. Try to get court proceedings done in 6 months to try and avoid drift. Yes, sometimes that means parents can't evidence long enough off drugs, away from the abuser or whatever. But that's the legislation and it wasn't written by social services.
Next, try to get a child who is going to be adopted sooner rather than later, to secure a permanent home and family life for them. Otherwise they are growing up in care and the older they are the harder the move is for them. The onus is on the workers to evidence what they have done to find a family for a child, and yes there are targets because unless there are good reasons it isn't acceptable to leave a child in care and workers should have to explain it.

This is sadly the sort of thing people choose to ignore.