Post adoption contact has ruined the chance of adoption for so many children

[Popcornhero]

I am a paediatrician, Mum of three children (who arrived by adoption) and have several foster carer and social worker friends. I keep seeing children no longer getting adopted now there is an expectation for face to face contact with birth families.

I have seen this through work recently, and today was chatting to a foster carer friend who was saying how many children in their fostering network are no longer being adopted. Shehas a 14 month old in her care, who she's been approached to keep as a long term foster as he's been up for adoption for a year with no one to take him.

The rules now around face to face contact with birth families have meant adoption rates have plummeted. I'm so angry about it. Children deserve a fresh start with their new family & they aren't getting it because needs of birth parents are being prioritised.

Some research suggests adoptees would have liked more contact, but there is a bias in the literature. It's those most affected by the adoption that are coming forward not those who grew up and moved on and adoption is only one part of their story.

I know we wouldn't have adopted it we had had to maintain face to face contact with the birth family. They are our children and they have a lovely protected life. We changed our children's names to give them a better chance in life ( they had for example names like Thor, Loki and Renesmee and are now, Theo, Luca and Esme) **just an example. We never send photos so they can be captured in birthday parties and their identity remains safe. They know their story, they know why we are their parents. We write to the birth family yearly. It would be awful for them to feel split between two worlds.

Surely they need to review the impact this has had,before more children lose the chance at having a family?

@the7Vabo if you ruled out everyone who had been through infertility you'd be looking at a very small pool of people.

Agreed. I don’t think they need to be ruled out though. But I think the conflicts should be recognised & supports put in place for the child around it.

But they are no longer legally the parent. The relationship IS irretrievably altered, it is a legal and practical fact. A halfway house opens the door to other risks ftom the psychological perspectuve.

100% agree.

I think adoption rates have fallen because the circumstances in which kids are adopted have changed dramatically in the past 50-60 years, and because we rightly understand adoption as far more complex to negotiate. Far fewer children are adopted as newborns; many more adopted children know and know about their birth families and to end all contact with those families seems cruel to me. What level of contact is best for the adopted child is obviously going to differ on a case by case basis, but I think part of adopting is accepting that the child does have another family. I'm in awe of people who do this.

That's the thing
There is no permanent break. To pretend that adoption offers that is misleading

All adoption in recent years has offered contact again at 18. Obviously some don't take it up, but plenty do. That's less than 10 years away for a good chunk of adopters at placement

Now adopters find themselves repeatedly in situations where outside of legal framework their children are in someform of contact via the Internet, "running away etc". This is a minefield to navigate with very little support from services

Its a compelling falsehood that adoptive parents don't need to consider contact with birth parents as a risk until 18

Obviously now there is an increase in potential requests for more regular contact with birth family, but it's naiive to assume that otherwise no adoptees are having contact

Not those parents.

They were good mothers who were failed by everyone.

xx

The book The Child Catchers is very good on this. Many evangelical US adoption agencies do great work but many have also facilitated adoptions by children who were loved and cared for properly by their bio parents. The culture and sometimes ethnicity differences are another layer.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Child-Catchers-Rescue-Trafficking-Adoption/dp/1586489429

Pippa Biddle's book on Voluntourism has an eye-opening section on orphanage voluntourism.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.amazon.co.uk/Ours-Explore-Privilege-Paradox-Voluntourism/dp/1640124411&ved=2ahUKEwiLuLzQw-aRAxVPYEEAHdYBNyYQFnoECFgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2rYYQ4Xf_bOdmIaWZ3dc3j

Sounds very stressful for you.

I think i posted this mainly to say that early life experiences stay with some people, when they are older they can drift back to their birth family and the place they were originally born.

Legal processes were in place long before we knew about the psychological impact of adoption. It is complex. You only have to watch a few episodes of long lost family to see the impact closed adoption can have.

@TheRocksStoppedRollingby your standards i wouldn't be worthy to adopt. And my son should have maintained direct contact with his birth mother who was a drug addict?

But they will always be the child’s biological parent. No process to certificate changes that. And as seen on this thread some adopted children have zero interest in their bio family. But that should be a choice.

What harm do you think him speaking to the drug addict would have had?!

This is my perspective. I’ve raised two wonderful dc of my own and had a career in a sector dealing with many dc in the care system and am now considering offering support in my own home to troubled teenagers. My experience is entirely different to someone experiencing infertility and wanting to raise a child of their own from a young age and understandably, my view of birth family contact is different to most here.

Adopters aren’t a free therapeutic parenting service with all medical and psychiatric bills paid, 24/7 nannying and treats till mum decides to come calling.

The state and SS seem to think they are.

They’re humans, with feelings like love and the best interests of their child at heart. Why ignore them?

Obviously social media is a risk, goodness, that is not what I am saying. I am talking about actively faciliting contact with the bio family when the child is young and has been actively removed from them.

Agree - and in the compassionate way I interpret you as meaning. Desperately wanting a bio child and being unable to achieve that can be heart rending. But crikey what a lot of pressure on the adoption. The reason older children are less likely to be adopted is because fewer people want them - not because of the possibility of parental contact, but because it’s harder for all involved.

Similarly where there is often a class difference - affluent couples adopting children who are invariably from a poorer background and then changing their names and moulding them to be more what they want. Of course this can be done to protect them and a few pps have mentioned this, but OP was particularly disparaging about the ‘made up names’ given to her children by their birth mother. Hopefully she will find a way to be more diplomatic if/when her children seek out their origins.

I am actually the adopted person here, from a closed adoption. You're reaching for Long Lost Family?! No shit it's complex.

I just used that as an example that people who didn’t know much about adoption may have watched.

@Janedoe82 my son is very impulsive and has a dual adhd diagnosis, probably due to exposure to multiple substances in the womb. I think if he had maintained a close relationship with her, he would probably end up experimenting with drugs from early teens. Also there are people linked to her who are in prison and she has a generally very chaotic lifestyle.

That said, we were willing to meet her but she didn't turn up, and I wrote to her for years but never heard back. So we didn't want to deny the link completely.

Because they are not the priority the child is. And if your interpretation of them having contact with their mother at 18 is “mum coming calling at 18” that isn’t child centred adoption.
And people don’t generally adopt to do the state a service. They adopt because they want a child.
And yes I’d agree it isn’t easy for adoptive parents.

Or he has attachment disorder from his chaotic start and removal from his mother. Often presents the same as adhd. Who knows when dealing with children who have experienced trauma.
My point was that drug addicts are not all bad people and unlikely to pose a risk through managed contact.

I dont think that this necessarily a bad thing. If adopters wont support the right of the children to see their bilogical famies then they shouldn't adopt. They shouldnt be airbrushed out

Agreed.

People think that because very very young children cannot consciously remember their first months and years that means they don’t remember. But they remember in a different way through every cell of their being.

The birth mother may not agree to give up the child for adoption unless they are allowed visitation. It makes the process much harder if the birth mother will not agree so they may compromise and allow visitation in order to avoid having to go to family court to prove the parent is unfit.