Adoption

What a sensible man newnanny All credit to him and his"real" Mum.He has all he needs and wants.

My BiL is adopted and so are his 2 siblings but all from different parents. They all grew up being told they were adopted and that adoptive parents could not have biological children but had each adoptive child from a few months old. Each child was given a pack when 18 that contained everything that came with child that adoptive parents had been saving for them. Two of them wanted to find their biological parents when 18. The eldest met up with her biological Mum and found out she did not want to keep in contact with her but she did ask if she had received a good childhood and loved her adoptive parents and that was all she wanted to know. Some years later when she was pregnant she tried again to contact her biological mother but got a call from person from adoption agency asking her not to call her BM again. The second daughter wrote to adoption agency when she was 18 and there was a letter waiting for her there from her BM asking her please not to try to contact her as she had married with other children and she did not want her family to know she had illegitimate child at 16. She had given her away to give her a good start in life. My BiL was given his pack including name of adoption agency when he was 18 and he threw it in open fire and told his adoptive Mum, his adoptive Dad was dead by this time, he had a Mum and did not need another one and no other Dad could replace his own Dad who had died so he did not even want to try to find them. He has been happy and settled as an adult. His view is your Mum is the person who brings you up and loves you and who you trust. The second daughter got severe depression after what she sees as a second rejection from her BM. The oldest daughter has still not come to terms with her BM not wanting to keep in touch. My BiL's view he has told his sisters is Mum and your siblings still love you and always will so why worry about strangers all you share with them is a bit of DNA.

SorryThat should read :have to , not not have to

I don’t think the OP is correct that the child will not have to write or phone, but will be given the opportunity to do so if they wish, they may well be encouraged to ( There in lays another debate) they certainly are not forced to.

maddyone your post could be interpreted as a little disingenuous to Iam64 but I do not think this should be seen as a personal criticism of a fellow poster. I think (as an adoptee and a professional with years of Safeguarding experience) that it illustrates to us just what an emotional and devastating process this can be (for some) and a joy to others. Professionals and families do not always get things right. Legislation changes over time and retrospective and current research moves goalposts frequently. As with any other form of social engineering there are winners and losers.

This whole thread has been difficult and moving for me, as I am sure it has for others too. I re-read every post earlier and leave in an unsettled frame of mind as I post this.

Sorry not OP but posts.

maddyone Iam64 has been most courteous, and not at all confrontational, in her response to your OP and to your further comments. I don't believe she has said or implied that "one size fits all".

Oh for an edit button. I hadn't realised we were 'arguing' maddyone, I thought we were discussing a complex and emotional subject.

Maybe we shouldn't argue on line maddyone. I didn't believe I was arguing. I've repeatedly said that the needs of the adoptive child and their parents must come first. I have acknowledge that infants and babies with no memory of older siblings have different needs than those who having strong living memories of older siblings.
I am not wearing one size fits all blinkers and I do not believe my comments reflect that.
I don't believe you have to explain to me the need toaccept the legal right of adoptive parents. I know that. I have at no stage said your grandchild and his parents should be forced into any form of contact they do not believe to be in their child's best interest. I've always said the need of the adoptive child and family must be protected and supported.
Thats it, over and out.

Iam64, our grandchild has NO memory of any older siblings. None! How can that child suffer from not seeing a sibling that there is NO memory of. As I stated before, our grandchild was removed by Social Services due to extreme neglect. The sibling may suffer, but that is not the concern of the adoptive parents. They MUST put the needs of their child first. I’m sorry this upsets your notion of correct adoptive behaviour, but I ask, are you a Child Psychologist? If not, you do not know how our or why our grandchild reacted the way it did. To repeat, our grandchild was disturbed by annual visits to a person that was totally unknown despite the parents efforts to explain what/ why this was happening. If you are/were a social worker, you are merely repeating the acceptable dogma of the day. In the past adoptions were closed, that was thought to damaging to SOME adopted people, so policy was changed. However, as usual it’s the one size fits all approach. One size NEVER fits all! For older children who remember parents and siblings it’s obvious that continued contact is desirable. For babies and very young children it’s a different scenario though. My AC has made a responsible decision based on the response of our grandchild to these visits, which were causing a lack of stability in our grandchild’s life. The child became insecure, clinging to parents, unwilling to let parents out of sight, behaviour deteriorated, tears were more frequent, and a lot more. Why do I need to explain this to you,when it’s clear that you are unwilling to accept the legal right of adoptive parents to make a decision in their child’s best interests? And how can you say what is in my grandchild’s best interests. A poster up thread said that I was having to justify the decision taken by my AC and that is true. I’m not engaging any further, I know the child involved and you don’t, feel free to keep on wearing your one size fits all blinkers.

Sorry maddyone, is that a question for me. We have to support adoptive placements, that has to be priority if the cycle of neglect, abuse and deprivation has any hope of being broken. If that means no contact of any form with the family of origin, so be it.
That doesn't mean we can't recognise the needs of the birth family. Too little support was historically given to adoptive families. It's improved but it's still difficult for adoptive parents to easily access skilled support. The fact that birth parents have lost their children as a result of their own actions doesn't mean they aren't grieving. Older siblings who have loved and cared for their younger brothers and sisters in very difficult circumstances often recognise (with help) that those little ones need a new family. They always ask how they'll know their loved little one is ok. Surely we ought to try and find a way of reassuring them as time goes by.

And whose needs are we worried about here, the parent or the child?

Your strong feelings are understandable maddyone and I am not criticising your feelings. The adoptive parents and their child/ren aren't the only people facing challenges. Some parents give consent to adoption as a result of lengthy discussions with the sw/children's guardian involved. They may see it as something they can do to demonstrate their love for their child and their desire for the child to have a happy, secure, safe and loving family to grow up in.

I mentioned older brothers and sisters in an earlier post. I appreciate the difficulties around any form of contact but we shouldn't forget the feelings of hopelessness, anger, sadness and loss children feel when contact with their siblings is ended. Many adoptions involve older children, aged 4 and older. Many of those very young children have had their primary care needs met by an older brother or sister.

Adoption is complex. We're one of few countries that have state approved adoption with little or no contact post placement. In other countries, more open adoptions seem to work. The rate of adoption breakdowns in the UK is sadly fairly high and increases with the age of the child on placement. That's one of the reasons historically, children over about age 4 - 6 weren't considered for adoption and remained in long term foster care. Apologies, I'll stop now.

And denying a child the comfort of the security it needs in order to thrive is cruel.

You can not base your view of adoptions solely on one case. There are a variety of reasons while a child may be available for adoption and several have been described here. It's not easy to find information - this is the best I could come up with quickly. It suggests most adoptions are not contested but describes how some parents fell pressurised into agreeing to adoption. citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.898.5052&rep=rep1&type=pdf

We are one of a very small number of countries allowing contested adoptions.

Adopted children given a good upbringing will know that their parents are likely to have had problems. If there has been letterbox contact then the parents will have some idea if those problems have persisted or not. If the parents have been over-protective and the child has no idea of the type of problems some people face then they may be shocked. It is up to the parents to raise resilient children, not to wrap them in cotton wool.

I can understand a refusal to send recent identifying photos, especially in a forced adoption. Photos could be taken of the child's back taking part in non-identifying activities, although I appreciate some people might be too worried of making mistakes. Refusing the biological parent the comfort of a letter would be cruel.

Muffin, I’ve now had time to read your post And thank you for it. You speak from experience and from
The heart. I support all you have said

A very good, and honest post muffinthemoo. Thank you.

midget - the context in which SS was used certainly gave the impression of a comparison with a branch of the Nazi military in the 1930s and 40's

muffin - I'm due somewhere so have to go. I want to read you post carefully but my initial response is - thanks.

Eleothan, surely SS referred to Social Services not anything horrid or sinister

I will be homest here, and I appreciate this doesn’t put me in a good light, but I feel some of the grans are being made to defend their AC’s personal circumstances whilst I sit here quiet.

I not only worked in a related field, I was at one point an applicant prospective adopter. It was a long and painful wait for children, and I had given up on birth children ever coming. I was ready and willing to adopt.

Due to work, I had probably had longer to think about the details of the adoption process than other applicants, amd there were a few things I had taken away from those experiences. I dealt solely with birth parents until identified and matched adopters came into the frame for a child, so I didn’t see only one side of the story or anything like that.

I knew I wasn’t going to send the photos once our adoption was eventually finalised.

That’s not a kind thing to do, and I will take the flack for it here, because I would liketo explain why.

Prospective adoptions disrupt before the order is granted. A lot. A lot more than people realise. It takes around two years from the placement of the child with the adopters until the final order is granted. A lot can go wrong in that time. Children and adopters are only human, and it doesn’t always work. They are trying to forge a parent and child relationship, usually with a kid who comes from a background with adverse experiences.

Prospective adoptions are really easily disrupted, and sometimes the placement terminated by social work themselves, if the freeing for adoption was contentious and the birth family find out who the adopters are and where the child is.

I saw this happen maybe a dozen times. In one case, this child had waited five years for adoptive placement amd it was up in smoke after a month when the adopters’ house windows were smashed, their car set alight and the birth family assaulted the mum on her way out of work. The kid went back to long term foster and honestly, since SW were required to disclose why the previous adoptive placement broke down, that little girl wasn’t being taken by anyone after that. It was heartbreaking.

The way all the cases I knew of happened was via photos. Kids here are placed within their local authority area. Adopters would think sometimes that as long as the school logo wasn’t on the school picture, the requested school picture would be safe to send.

It wasn’t. It’s not hard to figure out from a school tie what school kid is at and wait for them outside. Even non school pictures went on facebook with a plea for help tracing the ‘child stolen by social work on a false allegation’. Recent photos are a godsend when looking for a child and you don’t quite know where to start. There are a lot of well intentioned people out there who will share posts and information.

It was often the grandparents or aunts who did the social media campaigning, to keep the parents ostensibly out of it.

It works. It works better than you think. Many many people believe that most children removed by SW are removed wrongly or on false allegations. They are not. It is a long and difficult process to remove a child and have them freed for adoption. I will not claim that no injustices are ever done - so many kids are removed, in that number there are bound to be a few wrong decisions - but most of these kids were removed following very anxious scrutiny by the courts. Yet still, well meaning folks help the birth families to find them.

And this often blows the prospective adoption apart.

I wasn’t willing to risk that with a child I committed to. So I wasn’t going to send the photos. The letters were one thing, but not photos.

It’s not kind, I know. But that was why I planned to do that, and that is why many other adopters close the adoption at least in that respect.

Well I explained it perfectly well many times over without using such a trite and contrived term!

I agree absent, but how on earth do you describe it to a 2,3,4, or even 5year old.

Tummy mummy? And this is not talking to the child but to the adopting parents.

Btw Doesn't tummy mean stomach, not uterus?

Oh, for goodness sake!

Iam64, thank you for your comments, adoption is certainly an emotive subject. With regard to our discussion of what possible disappointment or shock adopted adults may feel if they manage to find their birth family, I know that my own dear AC worries enormously about this, and has frequently expressed these concerns to me. The worry is that our grandchild, who is loved so much by the parents and grandparents, will find the birth family and be shocked and disappointed by what is found. Given the circumstances which I obviously cannot discuss, this doesn’t seem to be an unlikely scenario. Plus my AC has a fairly affluent and professional lifestyle, and whilst I would be absolutely the first to say that money cannot and does not buy love, because our grandchild is loved so much, but AC also worries that our grandchild could be made more welcome than would be otherwise, once this is realised by the birth family.
None the less, our grandchild knows something about the circumstances surrounding the start of it’s life, and every effort will be made to give appropriate support should the birth family be looked for in due course.
Interestingly, my cousin adopted two children way back in the seventies; like my grandchild they knew about their adoptions from an early age, but neither have have shown the slightest interest in tracing their birth families. They say that their Mum and Dad are their parents and they have no wish to find their original families.
A second apology for lack of appropriate pronouns, I have to protect my family’s anonymity.

maddyone, I understand the distress that would have caused to any adoptive parents and their children.

In a post earlier in this thread, I made the same point you do. Very few babies are now voluntarily given for adoption. The majority of children placed for adoption, will have experienced abuse. This often includes babies who are removed at birth, some of whom will be born addicted to drugs or having been exposed to excessive amounts of substances/alcohol/domestic abuse, in utero.

Your question about whether 'anyone' thinks about the possibility of 'the shock the disappointment' when adopted children trace birth parents and find them to be 'anti social possibly uncaring, criminal'. All those things are considered at length. It isn't easy for anyone and research as well as the psychological assessment of each individual child will be considered. It used to be believed that children did better if they were totally protected from information about their birth families. That belief was challenged by adults who had been happy in their adoptive homes. I do agree with your comment about the complexity and risks of any form of letter box contact. I empathise with older siblings but I agree that photographs etc can be misused, often as a result of pressure from others in the extended birth family.