To think adoption is often more about adults’ desires than children’s needs?

[MyNoisyGreyPombear]

It’s always framed as noble. But AIBU to think adoption sometimes fulfils adults’ wishes first, while the child’s trauma and identity issues get overlooked?

Anthony Hudgell is his name. What an amazing wee boy and amazing family he has.

Same as deciding to get pregnant is about the adult’s wishes.
There’s no trauma present at birth, but the children in care to be adopted have been born because of what the adults wanted then got subjected to trauma and/or abuse, got taken away and adopted by adults because of what they want.
At least, hopefully, the child might be placed with someone who will care for them and help with the trauma caused by adults who fulfilled their own wishes.

I know of a couple who adopted a 1 year old with FAS. They dismissed it as a very minor thing. 5 years on, the family are in a very difficult situation.

OP - adoption in the US and the UK are, thankfully, 2 very different things.
In the UK, adopters are rigorously assessed in all aspects of their life (and rightly so) and they go into a pool of would be adopters.
The children needing adoptive parents have their own social worker who looks for the best fitting parent/s for that child. Then he/she/theythey are rigorously assessed for fitness to parent that child.
I cringe when I see US documentaries of people who've adopted 22 children (I exaggerate) as I wonder how on earth they can be meeting the needs of each child.

You're not entirely wrong but that applies to any way of having a child.

It's less selfish to adopt than to have a child by surrogacy anyway.

Adoption is traumatic for a child but being shuffled off to a new foster home every few months is worse.

FAS is incredibly difficult to get diagnosed and there is a lack of knowledge around exactly what sort of alcohol consumption is needed while pregnant to cause it. It gets dimissed very easily as an option if the mum was not a heavy drinker.

Maybe they want to protect the child's privacy. They can tell their own story when they are old enough and IF they want to.

Another adopter here. The 'noble act' trope is not helpful to us or our children; we are not saintly and should not be expected to be so, our children should not be told they are lucky.

There is a big gap between the images of adoption you see in National Adoption Week and the reality. As soon as you sign up to be assessed for adoption, you are continuously told, we are not here for you, we are here for the children. You are told to expect trauma as standard, that 'normal' parenting won't cut it, and that you should abandon all hope of normal happy family life.

If you don't take fright at this and go on to adopt, you will discover that the promised post-adoption support is threadbare, that most schools are ignorant of the needs of adopted children, and that other parents can be shockingly mean about our kids.

15 years in, I can tell you my dd is wonderful but raising her has been more challenging and exhausting than anything I have ever done (including raising my biological child). I have spent years fighting for support for her, largely unsuccessfully. I have done this as a single parent and it has been messy and tough.

Being told that I'm not noble and probably adopted for selfish reasons makes me laugh (rather hollowly). Of course I'm not noble, but trust me I don't get treated as though I am. I think that adopters, like nurses, like mothers, get told we're angels just enough to make society feel good about our low value in practice and the lack of proper support. It's like banging saucepans during Covid. It's no substitute for funding the services that our children need so badly.

He was on slot during COVID, bit like Captain Tom but a little boy, I think his name might have been Tony but I'll see if I can find anything on Google.

I can't do a link, ancient phone. His name is Tony Hudgell, lots on Google. Just seems such an invasion and he was only five, doesn't seem right everyone knowing his story and how is it allowed. Just imagining a falling out at school and someone saying something about what happened, could be so hurtful.

He is but should be have lost his right to privacy at five? I know it's given him all sorts of opportunities and the British empire medal but one day he might decide he would like his story to have been kept private. Should so much of a little boys life be about raising money for others at that cost to him? I guess we won't know unless he decides to talk about it when he's an adult.

Thank you for sharing this it's such a distressing situation for you all.

I do wonder as you say whether some children with profound trauma and its impact can only be managed in a professional setting and that it's too much to expect a family situation, where everyone's needs should matter, to be able to meet the needs of such a damaged child.

In reality there is no easy solution for these children and we shouldn't pretend there is.

Well… duh!! They wouldn’t be in a position to adopt to begin with of they didn’t WANT to have/raise a child. I’d be seriously concerned if anyone got accepted that was lukewarm about it.

Dunno about others, but having a baby the traditional way was, for me, driven by my own desire for a child not from an altruistic sense that I could give a child a good life.

That makes me so sad, the thought that they could monetise their child. I would have thought they had to keep their child’s image private.

We are thinking of adopting and it's to help another child and give them a loving home. We could have a baby but we're not looking to grow our family as much as to adopt a child that needs a home however this is a big understanding and the families doing it must want to do that so I YABU even if the first desire is to grow a family as they wouldn't otherwise be able to do so.

Possibly because the adults can give consent to share their experience but the child cannot.

There is absolutely no way, in the UK, you can overlook the child’s trauma - it’s front and centre throughout the process, not to mention the parents live with it every single day. It informs their parenting style, and every aspect of daily life, from food choice, schooling, clothing choices and friendships.

The child’s pre-adoption experience is private, it’s their story to tell when they’re old enough to make that decision. No one comes to adoption lightly, and while adoption is preferable to living in care for most children, no one is pretending it the best or most perfect option - children are always better cared for by their own parents where it is safe enough, a child being adopted means that best option has been discounted on safety grounds.

Well my adopted son has just achieved straight A’s in his GCSE’s and is about to go on to A Levels. He was adopted by us age 5.5 and at 6 he would have gone into long term foster care. So I’d say he did pretty well out of my “selfishness” as he’s probably be dead by now if he had stayed with his birth parent.

Thank you the adopters who are managing to be far more articulate than I am feeling.

I am a kinship after and you are correct. Nothing in the process is about the "wants" of the carer. It is a highly emotive situation borne out of necessity at a time when any kind of procrastination is simply not possible. A child removed from their home by the police late at night, bewildered and traumatised, needing comfort and somewhere safe to stay, this was our story. Two years on and now legally in our custody. This was a genuine ,in the best interests of the child scenario. We are still struggling to.come to terms with the loss of our old life but entered into it with our whole hearts, knowing we could give a little child a chance at life. We are the child's grandparents so factor in fatigue and grappling with modern parenting.

However I do believe strongly that when it comes to adoption "open adoption" should be legally enforced so that the child can maintain a connection with their birth family (unless very severe safeguarding reasons not to but that should be judged by the family courts) and not stopped by the adoptive parents on a whim. I have known this happen with 2 out of 3 adoptions I know about.

It’s easy to think that open adoption is the answer, however it can have a huge impact on both birth parents and on the children. The birth parents (to be fair we’re usually taking about the birth mum) often find it very hard to see their child, to know what their role is and how to interact with their child. Their lives often continue to be chaotic post adoption with the issues that gave rise to their child being removed continuing to cause them difficulties. It can stop them finding a way forward in life.

For the children it can raise more questions than it answers, can bring feelings of shame and guilt if siblings have remained in the birth family and experience harm. It can leave children very anxious, traumatised and unsettled.

Where open adoption or ongoing contact can be managed well, and benefits the children it can be a good thing, but that doesn’t happen too often.

It is unethical to feature the child's experiences. Children are entitled to privacy and generslly don't want their personal stories made available to the world. Most children adopted in the UK come from a background of trauma and loss. It shouldn't be made available for entertainment.

If adult adopters want to publicise their journeys, that's different.

Are you thinking of thectwo gay guys on tik tok btw? They are putting their chances of adopting in jeopardy imovas they are so active on social media and sws surely can't approve.

Probably because it’s the adoptive parents who are telling the story so they share their side, it wouldn’t be right for them to focus on the situation which led to the child(ren) being in the adoption system because the events in the child’s life leading up to the adoption are not the parent’s story to tell. If the adopted children want to share their stories when they’re adults that’s their decision, but it would be wrong for adoptive parents to make that decision for them especially whilst they’re still children and can’t consent to their life stories, which may well include various traumas, being out there for others to read.

Your post gives the impression that adoption must be 100% altruistic - so for the good of the child and only that. But I think adoption should be for the good of the child AND the adoptive parents - otherwise how could it work? The parents have to want to adopt, hopefully for the right reasons but in some way they benefit of course.

I'm so sorry you've both been through such a lot. I would also just add that while I don't know that group home dynamics are healthy for children with experience of care in general because that can create and compound other issues, I do think for some children -particularly older children (in an ideal overhauled system) there's room for a type of guardianship style role where the child isn't being expected to integrate fully into a family dynamic that they aren't equipped for, but there's still an identified person who is part of a support network for life who isn't receiving payment/ is there in a different capacity to professionals. I think for some children this could work really well as a middle ground. Especially because it can be harder in some cases for adoptive parents to access the same resources as foster parents which can be really difficult unless you've a lot of disposable financial resources available to you.

The only people speaking out are the ones with issues. I adopted two girls 24 years ago. They are content to have us as their parents and so very happy we adopted them. They come from a very traumatic background - both nearly died. They have had lots of therapy to help them deal with what happened but they do not forgive their bps and do not want anything to do with them.

There certainly are adopters talking about adoption in a very different way, but this only represents a tiny fraction of adoptees. Most are American or people who were adopted in the 50s/60s/70s when unmarried women were relinquishing babies, often under duress.

Basically the contented adoptees are not creating content!