'I gave back my adopted baby'

[LetThereBeRock]

I've just read this article from the Guardian about a mother who gave back her adopted son because she didn't/couldn't bond with him.

I'm planning on adopting in the near future and I'm curious to know what others think of her story.

Apologies if this has been discussed already.

Oh, I didn't realise he was a baby when she took him, that's even worse. Poor little mite.

Must be horrifyingly traumatic for any child to be dumped by their parents ? for an older child who has already experienced at least one loss, or for someone who was a baby and has been rejected by the only parents he had ever known.

My heart sank at 'some expected health problems and developmental delays' - was that it? Everything was ok till she realised he was damaged goods and then it was time to take him back to the shop?

The temptation to judge is immense - and understandable. Parenting is huge, difficult, draining - and marvellous. If you take that on, well you take it on and god willing will be parenting for the rest of your life. It's hard therefore to come across some parents like this who make a virtue out of their failure to see the thing through. I haven't been in this woman's shoes, I haven't been in Julia Hollander's shoes, but that doesn't mean I can't aspire to be something, to do the right thing and to express disquiet at an alternative response. The majority of disability is acquired during life. Any child can turn out differently from our dreams - we just have to get on with it.

Here's another story from 2007 of a Dutch diplomat and his wife returning a child they had adopted.
The child in this case was adopted when she was 4 months old and they returned her when she was 8 due to her 'emotional remoteness'.

Mayonaze, I know a father who did that to his own children . New wife said me or the kids, the kids were promptly given to an eldery relative. He later stood up at the wedding of one his children and said how proud he was and how he had done this, that and the other while the child was growing up. My friend and I almost had to restrain each other to stop ourselves running up and beating him about the head

It's very sad that the woman in this story gave up, but surely it is better that she put the childs needs above her own and realised that she couldn't give him the care and love he needed?

Maybe more counselling etc needs to be given, before and during the adoption process and more after care/therapy etc.

I'm not convinced that she ever put the child's needs above her own. I think that returning him like this was about her desires not about his needs.
It wasn't that she couldn't cope imho, she didn't want to.He didn't live up to her expectations.

I agree with dittany on this thread

I think this case shows how bad the adoption procedure is in some American states. Apparantly it is common practice to change the child's first name (Madonna's adopted son anyone?), even when that child is as old as 6 or 7 and I remember a dreadful case where a child was killed by a loon of an adopted mother during a "re-birthing" ceremony, where they simulated birth by wrapping a duvet round the kid and telling her to fight her way out, to struggle to be born, symbolic of her re-birth as the child of her new mother. Poor kid suffocated.

It looks like it's all about the adults and putting their needs at the centre of the system and nothing about the child. I personally think if you are so bloody irresponsible that you haven't even considered the possibility that you won't love an adopted child the same way as a biological one, then what sort of system hands a vulnerable child over to you? I'm horrified that children can be treated like this, if she dumped one of her biological children because s/he didn't measure up to her expectations, she would be viewed as a pariah. Why should her adopted child be considered less valuable? Horrible.

How sad. I don't know exactly how different the adoption systems are, but a friend with family in the US gave a very interesting account of her experience of them adopting from overseas. I was surprised by the lack of preparation around expected behaviours and the transracial element hardly even being an issue.

I think adopters often go in with the best intentions, but unless they are able to accept what the child brings with them and make this child their own, then they are going to have immense difficulties. I wonder if it's a bit like biological parenthood, you can go through an enormous amount of preparation but the reality is something that just has to be experienced.

bobbysmum, I'm not defending this woman but I must point out that you don't have to be an older child to be traumatised. Some children adopted really, really young will have lifelong problems because of their early childhood experiences. Everyone who adopts in the UK has to attend a preparation course where you learn all about attachment difficulties and how they can manifest in children of all ages (even the very youngest). I wonder if this woman attended a course like that? It may have helped prevent this tragedy.

Strange that the siblings weren't even bothered that the little brother was being sent away. Makes me think that things weren't quite right, how can children who grow up together not care at all? It appears that she (the author) seems quite pleased about it, as if it validates her decision to give the child away.

Children adopted as babies have fewer attachment issues than children adopted as toddlers, though you're right - all adopted kids suffer some degree of trauma.

This was a untenable situation though. How could there be any attachment on either side when the mother (who was parenting the kids on her own, and already had three to contend with) was busy giving birth for the entire two years that this child lived with her?

It's disgusting.

I'd have it pegged as a publicity stunt, but it strikes me as sadder than that. She's probably an attention-seeker, a bit like that Octomom, breeding as a means of seeking validation.

That's her call of course. But there should be better systems in place to protect vulernable infants from that type of sickness.

transracial adoptions are still common and accepted in Sweden, though I believe they are rather more careful about selecting and preparing adopting parents

not sure it has to be too much of a problem, no doubt will depend partly on the society you grow up in (adopted coloured children tend to have a better time in Sweden than the children of even European immigrants, because they have a better accent and behave more "like us")

naturally, they still have the same problems as adopted children anywhere, but not the transracial thing is not necessarily too much of an issue

"Everyone who adopts in the UK has to attend a preparation course where you learn all about attachment difficulties and how they can manifest in children of all ages (even the very youngest)."

how young? is this relevant for SCBU babies, who are also separated from parental figures?

I know of a childless couple adopting a child many years ago (1970 era) and they gave the baby back after a few weeks.

The male of the couple was sent to coventry for many many years at his place of work.

People are very judgey, but really the couple if they couldn't cope for what ever reason did the right thing for baby to give the baby back to gain a better life with parents that could cope.

agree the transracial thing is a red herring - the more I think about this, the more I feel this woman is just a selfish, blinkered cow who never thought of this poor boy as a person with his own needs but merely a toy for her to play with.

And making a career out of showing off about it is really disgusting.

As for her own children not being bothered, that's what she says...

Ivy, she didn't 'give him back' after a few weeks - she stole two crucial years of his life before deciding she couldn't be bothered any more. Two years in which she was busy dropping her own sprogs.

The breakdown of adoptions in this country is a dirty secret in social services.
Yet those of us involved in child protection have all come across it at one time or another.
I'm always staggered that adoptive parents think it's an ongoing option. At what point is the door closed? Six months, two years, ten years?
To my mind the problem lies with unmanaged expectations. Most children adopted in the UK are either children who have been removed from their parents, or children living in abject poverty from abroad.
The former are often the biological product of parents with any number of problems which may be passed down through genes. The idea that these problems will be overcome by middle class loving parents is, imho, deluded.
We cannot even begin to imagine what children from abroad have suffered and again some of these problem will be permenant.
There is a recent study on children brought into this country from the Romanian orphenages in the eighties and nineties, and those brought here after a year old were shown to have brain damage which remained into their teens. The lack of nurturing in those early months had permenantly switched something off.
Now much can be done for all these children but often parenting them will be nothing like parenting 'normal' children.

It's something that must be a tragedy for any child, but particularly worrying in the case of forced adoptions, carried out despite the parent's objections.

I would be the last person to discourage anyone from adopting, but I do think it's something that needs to be enetered into with eyes wide open.
The woman in the article had unrealisitic expectations in my opinion.

For anyone interested there was a fantastic discussion of the Romanian study on Radio 4 on 4th November. It can still be listened to on their website.

"Our paediatrician diagnosed our son, when he arrived in the US, with some expected health problems and developmental delays. His age was not certain ? he had been found by the side of a road ? but the doctor estimated he was a little younger than one year. Dan lacked strength in his legs and had a completely flat head, from lying in a cot so many hours a day.
But the physical or developmental issues weren't the real problem. Five or six months after his arrival, I knew that Dan wasn't attaching. "

Okay, so he was actually almost a year when he was adopted, and had SN. I wonder whether, despite her denial, it was the additional needs that were the main problem? Not seeing the rapid progression she was used to seeing in her DDs, and watching the youngest ones pass him out? Is it reasonable to expect a neglected baby with developmental delay to show clear signs of attachment within five or six months?

No it's not reasonable - and either this woman was mislead or was in denial.

I don't think the attachement issues should be any excuse at all, I really don't.

The whole article made me feel really sad for the little boy. I know what it's like to have a child that shows no attachment. My ds1 didn't hug me until he was 4 or so, he never offered a kiss. He took himself off to bed when he felt like it without a word. He spent hours sitting in a corner staring into space, he didn't speak until he was 3. He'd happily wander off by himself without a backward glance. I never resented him for it! I jsut accepted him for who he was.

It is a lot like the Julie Hollander story. Child didn't fit what she expected so she discarded him.

I don't think it was Dan who had the primary difficulty in relating to this nasty woman, it was her.

I understand that attachment problems can be a particular problem with adopted children (thankfully didn't experience this with my brother though he was over 2- his orphanage must have been a very different place from the Roumanian ones).

But as others have said, she didn't give him much of a chance. Surely, it wouldn't have been too unusual even for a biological child with SN not to show very strong attachment at age one? let alone to someone he had only known for a few months. her problems seem no different from those of many parents with SN children: I would have thought somebody who had gone through the whole adoption process would be prepared to cope with what so many parents with SN children cope with.