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.

Obviously I don't know you or your situation OP. However in my experience people are given to many chances by SS before they permanently remove the child. I do accept though that not all councils are the same. I can't imagine how awful this must be for you. I guess you will just have to tolerate contact as it is and hope that you get the chance to explain events to your child when he is an adult.

Adopted children have different tasks to children living with their biological parents. One of these tasks if coming to terms with why they were relinquished. Feeling like there was a lack of love can be mitigated if they know they're cared for, and part of the reason why they were adopted was because it was the better option for them. Understanding that a biological parents cares enough to choose a stable parent/s in the right place to raise a parent can be incredibly healing. It would not necessarily be confusing. However, in your circumstances, OP, where this was a forced adoption, you might find it difficult to communicate that message. That would be a very complex situation to navigate for the social workers facilitating this contact. And they don't sound like they understand why or how this is supposed to help your biological son.

I don't know what mistakes they have made but I do see how heartbreaking it is for you. I do hope your son feels settled and secure with his adoptive parents, and finds your letters helpful in the work he has ahead of him.

If I were you, I would focus, if possible, on how this was a positive outcome for him at that time. He has not had to live through the turmoil that you did. You need to foster as much peace and acceptance as you can, whether a mistake was made or not, as there may come a day when you need to be openly supportive of his new family in conversation with him. Your personal healing will be something positive to bring to a possible reconciliation one day.

I’m sorry that you miss him but to be brutally honest, you’re only thinking of yourself and your sense of loss

I have to agree. Your situation is heartbreaking, and I fully believe you love your son and have always wanted the best for him. But everything you write tells me that you would cross every boundary to get closer to him, even if that would be unsettling and destabilising for him.

Do you really not understand why they can't give you a photo? Would you really be able to resist an image search? Would you be able to resist tracing him if you found his image?

He has a family, and he knows he is loved by them. When he is older he will almost certainly want to meet you, and he will understand that you always loved him and had no choice about having him removed from you.

@Bunnyfuller
I’m an adoptee. I AM loved. By my parents. The ones who raised me. Leave him to live his life.
This exactly.

But if I found at, as an adult, that I had a birth mother who loved me and siblings who wanted me as family, that I was essentially stolen from my mother... then I would pursue a relationship. And it would irrevocably damage my relationship with my adoptive family.

You may assume it would damage your relationship with your adoptive family but it may not. That is basically what a friend of mine discovered and they forged a good new relationship with their birth mother as well as retaining a good relationship with their adoptive parents. It wasn’t the adoptive parents’ fault that their mother was pressured to give them up, the system was flawed.

This is such a sad account. However, in my experience as an adopter, the bar is set very low for removing children from their birth families. Ss must have truly believed that your son could not be kept safe. Ss will usually do their utmost to keep the child with their birth family. Wishing you well, op.

My friend said she use to stare at random women wondering if they'd recognise her.
Her DM is amazing she has no interest in finding BM - she'd feel disloyal to her Mam too.

OP, this must be incredibly difficult to you and I'm so sorry. Social services obviously aren't infallible but, as PPs have pointed out, children aren't removed for no reason and their interests are prioritised. Obviously, there are very sad cases where a child is removed when they needn't have been and you may well be one of them, but the prevalence of these cases tend to be massively overstated. For every case like that, there will be many more where unsuitable parents have been given chances to the detriment of the child's well-being.
I was adopted as a baby but my birth mother's situation was quite different to yours. However, my younger (also adopted) brother's birth mother was a vulnerable teenager who was being exploited and abused by her boyfriend. Despite SS being involved when he was born, he wasn't placed with our adoptive until he was 3 which, with hindsight, was not the best decision, he should have been removed much earlier, as should his older sister.

Over the years, she has been to the papers, she has been on the local news and she has social media accounts dedicated to enlightening people about the evils of social services and how her children were wrongfully removed from her. Because, despite much evidence to the contrary, in her mind, that was what had happened.

In reality, she was unable to care for them, not because she was a bad person but because she was in a bad situation. She may well have loved my brother and his sibling but she was often too drunk to remember to feed them and left them alone, as babies, overnight.

I am not saying you're anything like her at all but my point is that there's no benefit to wrongfully removing a child. Social workers don't interfere for shots and giggles, children are almost always removed for a reason and for the best. Understandably, this isn't easy to come to terms with, especially if you were young at the time.

There are two different adoption systems in the USA.
One where vulnerable young women choose their dc's adoptive parents. These are women who would either have an abortion in the UK or make use of the Uk's more generous benefit system.

The second involves a similar process to the UK of removing what in the USA is parental rights, (in the UK they are parental responsibilities). These are used in abuse and neglect cases where birth parents wish to keep their dc.

The USA system works very slowly leaving dc stuck in the temporary foster care system for years which is very damaging for them.

The last social care system I would recommend is the USA one.

I'm sorry you are finding this hard. However, the fact that a decade on you can't put him first and think of his needs, his attachments, his trauma and just leave him to be settled with his family shows that social services were right to remove him.

It takes a lot for a child to be removed. You were not in a suitable relationship to raise a child and you hadn't put your baby first. You are doing the same now.

Focus on your husband and children that you have. Well done for turning things around. Give your family the best life and accept that the baby you gave birth to is not yours any more and you can cause a huge amount of disruption to him meddling now in his family life.

I won't to comment on the decision to place him with an adoptive family and whether this was right/wrong but having had experience working in this field I can tell you that all children that grow up in adoptive families should have ongoing lifestory work done with them- usually by adoptive parents with support of the local adoption team. This should include helping him to understand he has siblings and why they live with you ie you/your circumstances changed. This work is very important as it stops him feeling he was somehow at fault (a very common issue sadly). I really hope this is being done with your son as keeping siblings secret is not helpful in the long run.

It does sound like this particular local authority are a bit stuck in their ways. Many LAs are moving towards email contact and more regular contact. However birthdays/Christmasses are generally avoided not because it's a hassle but because receiving cards brings complex emotions and we just want the children to focus on the celebration. Keeping cards as you are doing is the best option.

Helen Oakwater speaks openly about the relationship her adopted child has with birth mum but she had to fight for it. Two mums is also a good podcast. Just if you are interested. These examples prove a positive relationship between all parties can work.

@Twofingers
You are his mother. A person only has one mother - your son also has an adoptive mother
Giving birth to a child does not make you a Mother, caring and nurturing make you a Mother. I have a mother and father (the amazing people who adopted me). The woman and man involved in my actual birth are nothing but a sperm donor and an incubator IMO.

@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 Skatastic]@Impatiens as an adopted person this made me feel annoyed.

"I've known a number of ppl who were adopted and they all wanted to know about their birth family once they got older, it's a deep-rooted feeling in people"

It can be a deep rooted thing but often people are happy with their adopted family. Happier than they would have been with their birth family. My birth Mum was only 16 when she had me and gave me up voluntarily which is obviously very different to the OP.

Often adoption is absolutely the right path and there are posts on here that seem to be trying to diminish that.[/quote]
Sorry you're annoyed @Skatastic, I am speaking from my direct experience, it doesn't mean I think that it's the same experience for everyone.

Also, wanting to know about your birth family doesn't mean that you're not happy with your adopted family. I was trying to make the point that people want to know about their background, their ancestors, the characteristics in their birth family that they might have inherited.

I didn't in any way suggest that adoption was always a bad thing, in fact I'm pretty sure I said it had obviously been very positive for the OP's child.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

I don't want any contact with my birth family. I have a family who love me, and never felt like I needed more

Well that is incredibly saddening to me. I can only hope he doesn't feel the same

But for the time being at least, isn't it best for him if he does feel the same? I totally get how painful this must be, but surely for his sake you'd rather he felt complete with his family, and what may or may not happen in future be left until he has a mature understanding?

They wanted him removed from me and were never going to give me a chance

Again I'm trying to understand - this time why SS would want this?

Nobody suggests for an instant that they don't make mistakes, but even if just on the basis of their caseload it's hard to see why they'd actively want to remove a child if there was any realistic way to avoid it?

Agree with this totally.

What happened was awful but you had 27 weeks of pregnancy and then 6 months to change and sustain change. It is a shame you didn’t have strong family support to help with that but as has been said SS only remit is what’s best for the child. You could have got support from other avenues. Despite all that what happened has happened and you need to get some professional help in the form of counselling to move on. You no longer have any rights legally so there would be no point in launching any kind of complaint or investigation because it wouldn’t resolve anything for you, the adoption cannot be overturned.

All you can do in the meantime is write cards and letters or a diary that he can read when he is older should he decide he wants a relationship with you.

@Twofingers your comment is pretty low. You know nothing of the adoptive family and how they feel. They are not the ‘bad guys’ in this scenario.

I am part of a mixed adoptive/birth child family.

OP - your child has a family - parents maybe siblings and hopefully is settled, loved and happy. If he wants to find you when he is 18 fair enough. Until then leave him alone - it is all about you - not him. The bar for removal is high - you are kidding yourself both about the situation at the time and the level of disruption if he has you sending cards about loving him and introducing him to siblings. You've made better choices now - well done. Continue them and leave him alone.

Why do so many people believe that social services are always beyond reproach with all of their decisions ? There are so many known cases where this is simply not the case, never mind the unknown ones. The Cleveland child sex abuse scandal, the cae of Shayla O Brien ( Elsie Scully - Hicks ) . There are more.

@LadyPenelope68 I am an adoptee and I feel I have two mothers. I don't share your feelings about incubators and sperm donors and although you are obviously entitled to your feelings, I am not sure it was necesary to share them on this particular thread. A bit of empathy all round is good.

Why do so many people believe that social services are always beyond reproach with all of their decisions?

Indeed. And of course they do lots of really really good work in protecting children, and we don't hear about those cases, because the harm was prevented. Which is brilliant. But of course sometimes they do get it wrong. They absolutely do. And it's ok to talk about that too.

For adoptees, the BM holds a completely different position to the mother. To think of a relationship with someone you only share biology with is tremendously difficult, very conflicting and honestly, is unnecessary. Yes, you have thoughts ‘why didn’t she want me’ but I’ve those thoughts are allayed by clear and honest explanation of the circumstances.

You accept those, and your mum and dad are your mum and dad. There’s a curiosity, but not this ‘emptiness’ of needing blood relatives so many people who weren’t adopted seem to think we have. We’re actually happy to accept the status quo, move on and it is what it is - my parents are my parents.

I’m 53. I found my BM about 10 years ago, and found the overwhelming sense of obligation to ‘forgive’ (I had nothing to forgive - the circumstances are what they were) and the instant assumed intimacy fucked with my head. I have a mum. I don’t need another one.

With all due respect to BMs, the involvement is for you, not for us.

I believe you too, OP. And there are many very knowledgeable professionals on Twitter who would not doubt it. They have seen how things are framed, and how things go for women engaging with services in this situation.

Dr. Jessica Taylor, author of "Why Women are Blamed for Everything" has a lot to say on this subject and often retweets from other credible sources.

Sorry I have no real practical advice. It's awful this happened to you, and at such a young age

In reality, she was unable to care for them, not because she was a bad person but because she was in a bad situation.

This is often the case. And yet there is so much sigma attached to being a birth mum, like you must have been abusive, or you must have "given up"- I can hear OP that wasn't the case for you. People struggle to square the circle that someone who can parent now, couldn't parent then. Everything should be about the child, not about the parents.

OP, you were in a bad situation. Now neither you, nor your son, are in that bad situation. Despite the pain, and imperfections that has caused both you and your son. He is safe, he is growing, he is clever. Let him have his family, his childhood, please put him first.

@Pastnowfuture

I won't to comment on the decision to place him with an adoptive family and whether this was right/wrong but having had experience working in this field I can tell you that all children that grow up in adoptive families should have ongoing lifestory work done with them- usually by adoptive parents with support of the local adoption team. This should include helping him to understand he has siblings and why they live with you ie you/your circumstances changed. This work is very important as it stops him feeling he was somehow at fault (a very common issue sadly). I really hope this is being done with your son as keeping siblings secret is not helpful in the long run.

Very interesting.

In the adoptees I know, who were adopted way back in the 60s and 70s when this kind of thing wasn’t really considered - one had created an internal story that their mother didn’t love them and another that they must have done something wrong to be given away. Both of these turned out to be false.

In the absence of information children can create all kinds of false narratives.

Also (and OP tbis isn’t directed at you) it’s not a magical thing when you turn 18 that you seek out your birth family.

I did so in my kid thirties - and for various reasons. If my birth parents had acted like they had any “right” over me (cannot think of a better phrase) I would have been off like a shot.