Why are people against adoption?

[Afternoonteaandcake]

My boyfriend and I were talking about a friend who has sadly passed. She wanted a family and felt time was ticking on. I said she could have fostered or adopted and he said it's not the same. My boyfriend already has his own children. He said later that the adoption process can be hard which I agree.

2 guy friends said this to me years ago that women should have their own children so men can carry on the family name and genetics. I never realised how much people were against adoption.

Forced adoption just means the birth parents haven't agreed to the adoption and don't want the child to be removed. It still happens now where the birth parents are extremely abusive or otherwise unfit (anything less than extreme and the child will be left with them to be abused/neglected). The people who rant against "forced" adoption are usually those unfit parents.

I know 2 families who have adopted a child each. The behaviour of both children is extremely challenging.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow same!!!!

I was adopted! I do NOTA have attachment issues, behavioural issues, background issues or any of the other crap that's coming from this post.

Glad we are seen as plan B

People keep telling me that I should adopt as, I'm single and want children. I don't want too. For starters, I'd never in a million years be approved. Due to health issues and not much of a support network.

Plus a couple I know adopted and both children have sever special needs. It sounds very shallow, that I could cope with my own genetic child ha I've special needs. But wouldn't want to take on one that wasn't. I'm a paediatric nurse so see first hand, just how hard parenting children with additional needs is.

PLEASE don’t refer to adopted children as damaged.

I’m an adoptive mum. My children aren’t ‘damaged’

It's like comparing a skiing holiday with a beach holiday though - having a baby and adopting a child cannot be likened to each other. Yes in both scenarios you become a parent, just like my example above results in a holiday - but vastly different experiences

They are not vastly different experiences. We have a completely normal life as do most adopters we know. Our daughter is fantastic and we are very lucky.

I don’t have any issues either! I loved my adoptive family, they loved me. End of. Thank God they didn’t think l was second best.

I also don't understand comments about vastly different experiences.
Yes the journey of getting there is different and there are some different challenges but raising a child is raising a child and I'm sure life of adoptive parents is quite similar to those of biological parents.

Although I do think people often forget that adoption is difficult process and not everyone would even be eligible. It takes less financial and emotional resources to have biological children.

I have an extension background working with children and young people and I would say I’m a very good Mum but I don’t think I have what it takes to adopt. I certainly wouldn’t do it now has I have existing children who would be negatively impacted by it.

This is one of the most painful things I get asked as an unfortunate member of the IVF club. “Why don’t you just adopt?” It’s unbelievably cruel to suggest. No one in their right mind would ask a couple that to a who has conceived naturally.

I wanted to have my own children, which is exactly why I adopted. Funnily enough their not Dave’s nexts doors, their our children.

@Rainallnight my post didn't mean to offend, I'm glad your children weren't emotionally damaged prior to adoption

I just want to say that for many people genetics mean nothing. My kids are fucking amazing, through thick and thin they’re loved and always will be, I would die for them and I can’t imagine that having given birth to them would make that love any more fierce.
DH has a mixture of birth and adopted kids and I know the adopted kids are loved no differently from the birth ones.
So to anyone who is adopted and reading some of these comments, they’re spoken by people who don’t know and don’t understand.
To anyone who is struggling with infertility, for some reason no one’s ever allowed to mention adoption, as if it’s a dirty word, it shouldn’t be and it isn’t. It’s not for everyone but that’s not because of the kids but the adults.

I don’t think people are against adoption. I think attitudes towards adoption have (rightly) changed in recent years.

It’s much rarer for children to be adopted as babies for one, and people generally understand that it is traumatic for children to be taken from their birth mother (even if it’s absolutely the best decision and necessary to keep them safe).

Adoptive parents are also explicitly expected to help their children through their trauma nowadays, rather than ignoring it because ’they have a nice life now’ or even worse, ‘they should be grateful that their family took them in’.

You need to be the right person to adopt… it’s not their as a back up plan for anyone who struggles to have their own biological children.

Offensive things to say about adoption
’taking on children’
’not yours’
’different from having your own’
’I know two people with adopted kids who have really struggled so I’d never do it’
’kids are damaged’
’you won’t get a baby’
’you shouldn’t mention adoption to people going through IVF because it’s really offensive and upsetting’ - Because this is trotted out as an accepted fact it deserves an explanation - If it’s not for you that’s fine, but adoption isn’t a consolation or second best. There is no need to be offended if someone suggests it. The fact that someone thinks that talking about adoption is cruel is incredibly upsetting and offensive.

Not all families are genetically related and sometimes those who are linked by biology are more damaging and difficult than the ones we choose to be part of.

Exactly this. ^

Also, although I know people are happy when they eventually do adopt, especially if it's a very young baby, (as opposed to a school age child for instance,) and joy ensues for everyone in the adoptive family circle, many people forget that on the other side of the coin is a different scenario. A sad and crestfallen mother who has had to give up her child. One of the most difficult things a woman will ever have to do.

Rightly or wrongly, this just doesn't sit well with me at all. The people who have 'adopted' popping party poppers and champagne, and everyone joining in the joy, when a woman has had to give up her BABY...

As for adoption, I think it's fair to say many people would prefer to have their own (genetic) child, but at the same time, adopted children are easily as loved as 'biological' ones.

I don't think people are against adoption @Afternoonteaandcake but I think most people will try to have their own biological children first. I do also get irked like other posters when people try to make out adopting a baby is as easy as buying a bunny rabbit!

We actively chose to adopt due to a strong family history of schizophrenia that I was terrified of passing on. I don't get the whole 'their not your own children' comments. I've noticed how fetishized the baby bump and pregnancy has become (thanks Demi Moore) and the way people go on about 'unconditional love' gets on my nerves. Is any love really totally unconditional?

We have friends who are in a same sex relationship and 'bought' two embryos from an IVF clinic in Spain. They now have two children totally unrelated to them and totally unrelated to each other. I can't see how this is that different from adoption.

I think why adoption is never seen as an option is partly due to the above and the success of IVF. Afterall we live in a capitalist society which encourages us to think that we can have exactly what we want if we are prepared to pay for it. Having a baby has become something that people think they are entitled to regardless of how that child might feel once they are older - I was made in a lab and I have no clue as to the genetics and history of either of my donors but at least my parents got to experience pregnancy and childbirth so it's all ok!!!

Rant over!

No one going through IVF thinks adoption is cruel. What is cruel is dismissing that persons right to a biological baby when they have just as much right as everyone else who can conceive naturally. People assume adoption is the ‘next best thing’ for those suffering with infertility, but that’s not how it works! It’s not for fertile people to be deciding that those who are infertile should or shouldn’t be offended when people mention adoption. The offensive bit is assuming it’s those whose IVF has failed should be the ones to adopt, when it’s not exclusive.

Not everyone going through IVF is using donors though, that makes it sound a bit too much like a free for all/ pick something out!

There is a post on this page saying it’s cruel to suggest adoption to someone going through IVF, you’re talking about a right to have a biological baby and saying why should it just be left to people having IVF as if it’s a consolation prize.

How do you think that feels to adoptees? Or adopters? There is nothing wrong with adoption, it should not be viewed as a negative thing. For most adoptive families it’s the best thing they’ve ever experienced and they want to share that joy and help others see it as an option. But no one is allowed to mention it, because of the types of views expressed on here which are incredibly fucking offensive.

Apologies I pressed reply not quote - that was to @SquashPenguin

Did you actually read what I wrote? No one in their right fucking mind would say to a pregnant woman why didn’t you just adopt? It’s rude, yet it’s deemed a perfectly reasonably thing to say to someone going through infertility. No child is a consolation prize. The point has gone entirely over your head. Then again you’re probably one of the ones who says it so maybe that’s why?!

I know someone who is against adoption, not for themselves but when a couple who couldn't have children naturally went down the adoption route this couple, who had birthed their own children, made it quite clear they were not impressed. They then singled out the adopted child when it came to social events, not in a nice way.

They are very religious, perhaps they thought God should have provided. Or not.