To wonder why more people don't adopt?

[adoptionthoughts]

Recently I've started thinking maybe adoption is a route for me. I've always said I wouldn't do it but recently I'm having a change of heart as I think about it and logically it makes a lot of sense for a variety of reasons.

I'm struggling TTC, but this is something I'm thinking about irrespective of whether or not I eventually manage to have biological kids.

I also think giving a child a life they may not have otherwise had is a really nice thing. Also, why add to a climate change problem when there are so so many children I wanted across the world - the more I think about it the more logically adoption makes lots of sense. It means you don't get the physical problems from childbirth, it means you are providing a life for a child that may have been in foster care and many other positives.

Am I being naive? Why does hardly anyone do it? Why are we only happy with children if it's related to us by blood? I'm not trying to be funny here I'm genuinely asking to see why to see if I'm crazy to consider it.

I appreciate the children up for adoption often come from trauma often, which is concerning in terms of how that trauma may play out in later life but I'd likely want a very small baby (not saying this eradicates this but I think is reducing the risk). And also, the same can happen with biological kids you never know how they will turn out.

I'd like to hear from not just those that have adopted but also those that haven't and wouldn't as to why?

I would do it if I knew my adopted child never had contact with birth family.

I currently work as a teacher to a child adopted at 18 months old to the most wonderful family. Now 10, he suffers with crippling emotional problems because he doesn't know his birth father and birth mother doesn't contact him when she should, even though she is the one pushing for contact- sad and making life harder for the poor lad. I think the contact allowances are ridiculous!

I wish unwanted children were afforded more respect and care and humanity, even seen as a valuable resource other than just 'sink or swim no matter what'

Please don’t think children who are adopted are unwanted. My DCs birth mother loved them and wanted them very much but she couldn’t care for them for many, complex reasons. They couldn’t be more wanted in my family.

I also don’t think referring to children as a “valuable resource” is respectful of them - instead it commodifies them.

I foster a child who has complex learning disabilities. We would love to adopt him but his biological parents won't let him be adopted. He has lived with me since he was 5 and he is now 15. 3 adults on our house me, DH and adult son and tbh foster son needs a lot of attention from all of us to feel secure but we all love him and he enriched our lives and we love to see him succeed in his sports.

@okeydokeywokeyblokey that set up sounds lovely but I wonder what happens when the teenager needs more than someone to play games with. Teenagers need a lot of parenting particularly if they’ve been “in the system”, as it were. What happens if they’re drinking, or skipping school, or shop lifting etc. They really need parents who will love them and hang in there no matter what, are you up for that?

No - I'm afraid I wouldn't

The SWs don't always tell the full truth about the background of the child and I'd be afraid I would be putting other children at risk unknowingly.

Is the demand for white babies driven by what adopters want, or is this because social services prefer to place babies with parents who match their ethnic heritage?

On open adoptions, birth parents literally choose the adoptive parents and in most cases choose people similar to themselves ie. if bio mother is Eastern European and likes horses she is likely to choose an adoptive parent of EE background who likes horses.

Or if the bio parent is one of nine siblings, they are likely to choose adoptive parents who have several children.

So white, 30-something parents are unlikely to be chosen because there are not very many white, 30-something biological mothers giving away babies.

@sweetbellyhigh
What you've described does not exist in the UK. Birth parents don't ever get to choose adoptive parents in the UK.

@sweetbellyhigh

Is the demand for white babies driven by what adopters want, or is this because social services prefer to place babies with parents who match their ethnic heritage?

On open adoptions, birth parents literally choose the adoptive parents and in most cases choose people similar to themselves ie. if bio mother is Eastern European and likes horses she is likely to choose an adoptive parent of EE background who likes horses.

Or if the bio parent is one of nine siblings, they are likely to choose adoptive parents who have several children.

So white, 30-something parents are unlikely to be chosen because there are not very many white, 30-something biological mothers giving away babies.

This doesn’t happen in the UK.

@godmum56 it was exactly that which put us off - the social worker leading our information seminar was very clear that they expected almost all adoptions to be open adoptions, and suggested inviting the birth family to weekly family meals, allowing the birth grandparents regular ongoing access etc. This was shortly after explaining exactly how chaotic and difficult most birth families are (drug and alcohol addiction, severe mental health problems, cycles of abuse etc).

In 25+ years as a children & families social worker I’ve never heard it suggested that birth families have weekly contact post adoption or that adoptive families would entertain them in their homes. That’s not remotely what open adoption looks like in the U.K. It may be portrayed that way in certain US dramas, but certainly not how it works in the U.K.

On open adoptions, birth parents literally choose the adoptive parents and in most cases choose people similar to themselves ie. if bio mother is Eastern European and likes horses she is likely to choose an adoptive parent of EE background who likes horses.

That may happen on TV, in the States, but in the U.K. the birth parent has no involvement in choice of adopters beyond saying whether she would like someone with certain background, eg someone of a particular faith. Even then there’s no guarantee because the parent will be matched to the child across a range of variables based on the needs of the child not the wishes of the parent.

the social worker leading our information seminar was very clear that they expected almost all adoptions to be open adoptions, and suggested inviting the birth family to weekly family meals, allowing the birth grandparents regular ongoing access etc.

This is so far from reality I nearly spat my tea out. By far the most common arrangement for contact is letters once or twice a year.

@caringcarer

I foster a child who has complex learning disabilities. We would love to adopt him but his biological parents won't let him be adopted. He has lived with me since he was 5 and he is now 15. 3 adults on our house me, DH and adult son and tbh foster son needs a lot of attention from all of us to feel secure but we all love him and he enriched our lives and we love to see him succeed in his sports.

This is so sad. Why, when you've loved and cared for him for 10 years are his parents refusing? What do they hope to achieve? Such uncertainty for you all.

@Beautiful3

My husbands cousin had to go through the adoption process. They had to have counselling and be interviewed multiple times. It took around 2.5 years! They didn't get a baby like they wanted, they were offered sisters 4&6 years old. There were issues that needed monitoring because of the mother. It wasn't plain sailing. Also when the father left prison, he began searching for them. They had to change their names.

We still had to go through the full UK process before being able to adopt from abroad. It took us nearly 3 years ! Our child had to be formally adopted by us in his birth country then when bought to the Uk had no legal status here . We had to legally wait a year before finalising the adoption in the Uk

@sunshineandskyscrapers I can only tell you what we were told. Maybe Lambeth is very out of sync with other boroughs, maybe our social worker had a bee in her bonnet about it. Who knows.

From Lambeth’s current adoption pages:

“Prospective adopters will be expected to comply with arrangements for post placement/post adoption contact with the child's birth family, where the agency considers it is in the child's best interests for such contact to take place”

lambethchildcare.proceduresonline.com/p_assess_approval.html#2.-registration-of-interest-in-adoption-

Sorry Beautiful3 quoted wrong post !

They will need to work with contact arrrangments @Changechangychange particularly pre-adoption when the child may still have regular contact with birth parents as their legal status is looked after, but post adoption face to face contact arrangements are pretty rare and letterbox is usually once or twice a year.

I find this a very difficult subject to post on as I could write many chapters on the extreme trauma myself, DH, Ds and my very lovely (now ex DIL) have suffered as a result of an adoption basically "gone wrong" down to the ineptitude of the local authority who arranged it.
Our lives will never ever be the same and now over 2 years on from the DC's being removed we still suffer and question ourselves despite a High Court Judge saying that Ds and DDIL should take that particular LA to Court under the Human Rights Act, but what would be achieved, there are no winners.
Unfortunately most of the Dc's available for adoption have such complex needs both physical and mental and emotional, that there is often insufficient support available much to the detriment to the adopters and adoptees.

There are huge ethical issues with overseas adoption. The popularity of overseas adoption to Westerners means that it has become a profitable industry for some in these countries, with children stolen or mothers coerced to give up babies, or mothers paid to provide babies (a popular purchase, as you note) to children's 'homes' which can then be effectively 'sold' to Westerners or third party agencies operating on their behalf.

There are also ethical concerns with removing these children from their country of birth and ancestry and all the psychological and emotional issues that come with that. It doesn't matter how you 'try' to connect them to that country of origin, in reality you can't if you don't come from it. And if the baby is stolen, neither the child or mother will ever have a chance of being reunited.

I have not before understood why overseas adoption is so popular but your post gives clues. It apparently enables people to circumvent the, quite right, stringent controls around who can adopt (terrible stories from adopted children before criteria were tightened) and enables them to get that prized goal,. a baby.

Your post ( I want a baby) makes clear that your real motivation is not to 'provide a home for children who need it' as you stated. If this were your motivation you would consider an older children who really does need a loving home but would be challenging to parent. You want a baby and you are prepared to go down the less regulated and morally dubious route to acquire what you want.

That might sound brutal but I really think you need to think less about what you want and more about the real needs of the children you may potentially adopt.

It's not something I'd ever consider. I suppose I've never been really desperate to have dc, so while I was happy to have my own dc, if we'd had any problems conceiving I wouldn't have considered any other options like IVF or adoption. I would have just continued having a child free life.

I think the genetic/biological link with my dc is important to me. I would hate to have my home and finances inspected, and family and friends questioned by social workers. And I definitely wouldn't want the extra demands of a child who had suffered severe neglect/abuse. Overseas adoption might avoid some of those issues, but it costs a lot and sounds like a lot of administrative work. I'd just rather not have dc at all if that was my only option really.

[quote adoptionthoughts]@Echobelly agree which is why I'd be considering overseas only. I don't think I would want the UK processes.

Admittedly as some posters mention yes I do need to do much more research and I've also committed to waiting another five years to do this - to give myself time to research and decide if it's still something I would like to do.

I'm not considering going to the adoption agency tomorrow! [/quote]
We still had to go through the full UK process before being able to adopt from abroad. It took us nearly 3 years ! You cant just turn up in the Uk with a child
Our child had to be formally adopted by us in his birth country then when bought to the Uk had no legal status here. He had a Guardian ad litum allocated by SS who monitored us/him loosely for a year.. At the end of the year we were able to finalise the adoption in the Uk
Despite the intensity and longevity of the "home study" there was absolutely no support for him or us once the adoption was finalised

@sunshineandskyscrapers

the social worker leading our information seminar was very clear that they expected almost all adoptions to be open adoptions, and suggested inviting the birth family to weekly family meals, allowing the birth grandparents regular ongoing access etc.

This is so far from reality I nearly spat my tea out. By far the most common arrangement for contact is letters once or twice a year.

I’m assuming that the poster is in the US or another overseas country?

It apparently enables people to circumvent the, quite right, stringent controls around who can adopt
Nope, not true either. In the UK to adopt from overseas you still need to go through the same UK assessment as you would do for domestic adoption, but you'd have to fund it yourself.

Because of the long, emotionally exhausting process.
My husband and I are in the process of under going assessments to be temporary foster carers for our relatives and the process is EXHAUSTING. It's been dragging on for 8 months now, even though their birth parents are abusive, neglectful and suffering serious mental health issues. There's a tonne of paperwork, DBS checks (including ones from abroad for our circumstance, that then require translating), private medical reports, proving identity, references from 3 people who know us both and our child, contact with every professional who's met our child, hours and hours of assessments combing through every inch of our childhoods, contact details of any previous partners, phone calls, emails, video calls, in person meetings, permission to read any previous social care reports regarding you (if applicable)... That's all I can remember off the top of my head. I can only imagine it would be the same or even more intense if we were adopting a child we didn't know.

So a little naive not to think more deeply!

@smaugmum
No, she said she's in Lambeth.

Unfortunately most of the Dc's available for adoption have such complex needs both physical and mental and emotional, that there is often insufficient support available much to the detriment to the adopters and adoptees.

I’m an adoptive parent to two children. One has pretty complex additional needs and has relevant supports in place which make a huge difference to her. The other has no real additional needs other than help to understand his life story. Neither child is remotely difficult to parent and both are flourishing.

I have a wide network of friends who have adopted, out of the 20+ families I know just two have real struggles with their children due to early trauma. For the most part families are busy getting on with being families, you don’t hear from them because things are going fine.

Adoption isn’t for everyone, you do need a high level of resilience, you need to be aware of early trauma and be very flexible in your parenting to accommodate the needs of the child, you need to be able to source support when needed and be able to flex things like working arrangements and childcare to meet your child’s needs. It’s not however one trauma after another for many many families.

If you go into it thinking you’ll just fit the child into your life and continue as before, or think the child will just be able to get on with things you’re bound for failure. If you go into it with eyes wide open, if you educate yourself on appropriate parenting strategies, if you know when and how to ask for help you’re in a much better place to succeed.

OP, if you’re honestly interested in adoption, folk on the adoption boards can give you balanced information without the misinformation and horror stories you’re getting here.