Thursday 28 May 2015

Adoption: Is it happy ever after?

A guest post from prospective adopter Eva.


Let me start by saying we are neither naive nor ignorant about the harsh reality of adoption; the ‘trying to raise somebody else’s child’ bits; the ‘trying to make the most of a less-than-ideal situation’ bits; the ‘trying to correct, re-train and manage damage control constantly’ bits... I do get it!

I appreciate the best intentions of adoption trainings where they only try to prepare you for the worst, while they tell you to ‘feel free to hope for the best’, but their knowing smile and sad face speaks louder and we both know better... or do I, really?

We are still waiting to be approved. In the meantime we take part in regular trainings like all adopters do. Recently the topics turned darker with titles like ‘Managing challenging behaviour and the use of restraint’ or ‘Attachment problems and Trauma management’ and these to reinforce this growing feeling inside me that we have signed up for 20+ stormy years with only occasional sunny minutes that are few and far in between.

We were encouraged to join online and offline support groups, subscribe to adoption related magazines, read books, socialise with adopters, hear their stories, follow blogs of funny/experienced/honest/REAL DEAL adopters who have seen it all and willing to share their stories...etc. We jumped onto the bandwagon eagerly realising that we have soooo much to learn! Now my social media feeds, my inbox, my post box is full of stories, full of how-to-avoid articles, and I do get one message loud and clear:


There are no happy ever afters! Ever! It is well worth it, sure, rewarding even, occasionally fun, sometimes OK, but never happy, or not for long anyway!

At the moment I am feeling overwhelmed with all the negativity that I read on Twitter/Facebook/online forums, all that I hear when I ask adopters direct questions or just listen to their ranting about ‘another terrible weekend’, ‘another epic fail’, ‘another bruise’, ‘another fight’... Suddenly I understand abbreviations like CPV (if you know this, well, I am truly sorry; if you don’t, be happy!) all too well.

Even the stock photos of happy people (the ones that are used in adoption advertisements) were condemned as ‘giving false hope and not showing the real side of adoption.’ Another person told me once I adopt a child they will become invisible and can never be seen on photos ever again!

I do understand where all these comments come from. I understand that it is hard, that it can be painful. What I don’t understand is where the happy endings hide??? I refuse to believe there are none! I, for one, am tired of reading only about complaints, challenges and bad days and long for a more balanced representation of this crazy calling.

I am being encouraged ONLY by friends who are not part of the Adoption Triangle; those who don’t have firsthand experience; those who only know somebody who knows somebody who is involved in adoption and sadly I am beginning to believe that their positivism is rooted in blissful ignorance. But even so, they try to do the right thing by lifting my spirit up, bringing my vision back to the positive direction, help me to focus on the bright side and most importantly: don’t crush my hopes and dreams!

So, on behalf of every person who contemplates adoption:

I BEG YOU, ADOPTERS

Please please please post the happy memories too! Encourage prospective adopters with positive messages!

And share happy endings!

30 comments:

  1. Hear, hear! I'm constantly looking for a 'good news' blog about adoption... but I guess those who would write it are in the third who experience no problems so feel no motivation to write about it!

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    1. I try to bring happy endings, or offer some redemption to my posts but as someone pointed out on Twitter there must be a reason for many of us returning to adoption!
      Thank you for the comments.

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    2. I write happy stories! I'm not sure if you've ever been to mine - nobohnsaboutit.com but we really don't have any negative issues about which to write... so mostly happy (with a bit of normal kid trouble, but no adoption trouble)

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  2. We are a "happy ever after" family even if we have to deal with some CPV on a somewhat daily occurrence.
    I'm not a blogger so you won't find it. But 17 months in with our 5 year old girl and we love her to bits.

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  3. We are a "happy ever after" adoptive family, although only the last year really, the first 6 months were very hard. Now 17 months on we still have daily occurrences of CPV but we understand her more. She is only 5 and doesn't yet know how to regulate or register her emotions. This means she lashes out instead.
    We love her to bits though, as does the rest of the family.
    I suspect you have come across the main problem of forums in that the people who use them are generally asking for help rather than singing praises.
    I'm not a blogger but I have started to tweet my experiences.

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    1. We accept lots of stuff that isn't great and sometimes pretty grim. However, the joy, pleasure and privilege of having them in our lives often outweighs this. It's when the scales tip that we stumble and this often inspires out tweets, blogs etc.
      Looking forward to following you on twitter.

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  4. I know what you mean - we are adoptive parents and we are living our happily ever after. It's not perfect, but it is ours. Our son, we have discovered, had Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. That is just a fact that we all need to accept and deal with, but the bigger reality is that our world is so much richer, more vibrant, more alive than it would have been without him in it. I too grow weary of online chats about problems - it's just that people need a place to vent and a place to get advice, though too often it slips into unproductive complaining. What I do not accept is any notion of adoption being non-permanent. If you adopt, you are telling a child you are part of our family FOREVER. If anyone has any doubts about that, they should not adopt. I fear too many sit on the fence about this. So I guess the idea is to do research, understand it may be a rocky road, and then commit - come hell or high water, to making a child's life better than it would otherwise have been. In the process, your entire family will grow in ways you never thought possible. I would not hesitate to sign those papers all over again, even knowing what I now know.

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    1. You've raised a few interesting points. I recently read a post, somewhere or other, where an adoptive parent described her family as a 'placement'. It jarred and made me reframe all that was said in the post about a challenging time they were having. The language may reveal the underlying attitude. Like all parents we accept what we are given and we do our best.

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    2. what a thought provoking comment. As you say, "the language may reveal the underlying attitude" or it may just be an example of how unconsciously we adopters absorb "social worker speak" into our everyday vocabulary. I have certainly referred to the arrival of our children as their "placement" but I have never for one moment considered them as anything but our forever children.
      Despite my guest blog on the Adoption Social recently about the sleep difficulties both our two arrived with, ours has been a happy-ever-after experience but I have never had the urge to blog about it and had never, until now, asked myself why that is. We were matched on two separate occasions with healthy babies who had both been in loving foster homes from birth despite being approved for an older child with experience of neglect or abuse. We felt so strongly each time that our children were "meant for us" but nevertheless I see now that I harboured some residual guilt for not taking a child whose early life experiences were not as good and I worried that other adopters would think less of us for it. I know that our real challenges will come when we explore the darker parts of our children's life stories with them as they get older but we are their parents and will do our best with this, as all parents do. Perhaps then I will feel the urge to blog about it. But until then don't be fooled into thinking that there are no happy-ever-after adoptions. I assumed nobody would want to read "they attached quickly, are both meeting their developmental milestones and our eldest welcomed the arrival of our baby with utter love and little signs of jealousy" It sounds like awful parent boasting and who wants to read that? Until I read your article, Eva, I assumed no-one. Thanks for the wake-up call.

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    3. Thank you for taking the time to comment. Like you we have had some fantastic elements to our story with Peanut especially sliding into our family life without as much as a hiccup. Also, like you I've never felt they don't make as good a blog post 'hey everything's peachy'. I do try to draw positive out and tell the narrative of our experience that in reality ranges from excellent to normal to difficult. Perhaps I need to try harder.

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    4. I'm a social worker in placement services, fostering and adoption, it varies. Having used that term so you know what I do, I never use it in any other way, home is just fine. I hate reading profiles of children which describe their placement in jargonistic terms, adoptive or fostering. Maybe having confidence in my experience comes into it, we all use shorthand in our work, so works get us there quickly but have a glossary of terms for my current role which translates them into plain talk. Hitting developmental milestones becomes doing everything you would expect them to do at their age, attachment becomes about the quality of bond with their carers etc.

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    5. I try to guard against some of the language that we use as shorthand. 'Looked after Children' or 'LAC children' being ones that grate. They're children that are looked after. Pedantic? maybe but words matter.
      Thank you for commenting.

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  5. Oh Eva, I felt exactly the same way before I was approved, and every time I went onto the Adoption UK message boards (no adoption blogs or twitter 10 years ago!). My agency also laid it on thick.... And as for my sister and brother-in-law.... They had both worked in residential units for adolescents, and they had many a tale to tell. Sometimes I really wondered what on earth I was doing.
    But ours is a really happy story! My son J is the apple of my eye. He's a happy, settled, friendly and funny boy who's doing well at school, and has good friends. You totally have to be prepared for bumps along the way - and that's why it's important to listen to the negatives as well as to the rest of it - because there will be bumps which are quite unlike what parents with birth children experience. I think only the community of adopters understands quite what it's like. But go forward, with your eyes wide open, and listening carefully, and the chances are that your future be happy and fulfilling. I blog by the way at https://travelswithmyson.wordpress.com/. Good luck!

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    1. Thank you for commenting. Like you some of my children's experience and life is settled and is framed within 'normal'. All good. But to have our eyes open will do no harm.

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  6. I know exactly what you mean and posted what feels like exactly the same post ages ago

    https://nomorethantwenty.wordpress.com/2014/09/14/dog-bites-man-social-media-and-the-pre-adopter/.

    The adoption preparation process, if done correctly, is a series of profound shocks and disappointments. That's if it's going well, and that's probably how it should be if we're being honest. We have now reached a point of peace with it, and know that, thanks to our own reading and extra-curricula activities (including an Open Nest conference that, whilst fantastic, left us with what could best be described as Tertiary trauma!), that we are making a move that is SOO much more profound than simply "becoming a family". That's OK, that's good. What Twitter and social media have done is to share the realities of adoption for all - not every day, sometimes rarely, but the challenges that may happen and at least you know where to go when they do. As a result of your reading you'll be a better and more grounded parent. The people I feel most sorry for nowadays are the prospective adopters we meet (many of them) who haven't immersed themselves in trauma/ attachment and all the crap they may face. The pre-adoption process is not just failing them, but their future families. Be impressed with yourself Eva.

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    1. Encouraging words, thank you. As you say the number of partially or unprepared adopters is alarming. I have to confess to being one of them! I think my enthusiasm got me through!

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  7. Mr smit!!!! And Mrs C we love u and urs loads, and look forward to wobbling bumping bruising payrting celebrating picking Daisy's watching film drinking wine and beers weddings batmitzvah's and the occansional pizza with u all :-) :-) :-) wobble on the the wibbly wobbly years!!!!

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    1. Once again you hit the nail on the head! Boom.

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  8. I can understand how shocking it must be, to a prospective adopter to suddenly be confronted with CPV all over your social media feed and I apologise, as part of The Adoption Social if that distressed you in any way. I think the thing to remember is that there are some families out there living a bit of a happy ever after, not everyone has anywhere near the challenges to deal with, which we talked about recently. Often these families are not seeking the support that some of the online community are looking for. Those that are having difficult times are more likely, at times to be reaching out to others that understand, this may explain why some of the feed seems negative. At The Adoption Social we felt it was important to highlight subjects which are not talked about enough and CPV is a big one of those. However, we agree it's a heavy subject and so we want to do something light and positive for our next Twitter Chat. Inspired by your comments we'd like to propose we do our next chat on "The Good Bits". We haven't set a time and date but I will make sure you know. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and you are right we do need to remember to see the good bits too.

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    1. Your work at the Adoption Social is essential and I believe that you present a range and balance to those looking in. Additionally, you offer a forum for those touched by adoption to share whatever however.
      Good work, go to the top of the class.

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  9. I would consider ours a Happy Ever After ending. We aren't a perfect family, but we are perfect for us and I wouldn't trade the bad days for the world. Our son comes from a difficult beginning and will probably never be "typical" but regardless he is still extraordinary. Is being an adoptive Mom what I thought it would be? Absolutely not! It's harder, but it's better. And that's what I try to portray in my blog and on Twitter.

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    1. Some times the tricky bits make the good bits so sweet. Your blog & FB express that good work!

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  10. My mantra is often "everything will be alright in the end, if it's not alright it's not yet then end. I always try to find the joy or maybe just the positive when I write my blog, well I always thought I did.

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    1. Finding the joy where and when you can seems a pretty good ethos for life!

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  11. There is definitely the happy stories even amongst the challenges. My 3 children are all different with different challenges, but there is so much good there that outweighs the challenging. I blog at joyfuljourneymom.com if you want to stop by and learn more about us.

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  12. It's tricky - as an adopter I don't think we were prepared at all for the bad bits (and yes, they can be continuous), but I think the main reason you don't read 'happy ever after' stories is that these families have no need to reach out to social media and scream for help! Lots of adoptive families cruise through life as a family, but sadly the reality is, a lot don't. But, I love my boy to bits, we do have good times even if they are few & far between. He has friends and to the outsider (like our neighbours for instance who don't know he is adopted) we just look like a regular single parent family. Some of the problems are that much of the social media side, Twitter chats, websites etc are run by parents who do have a lot of issues so the negativity comes through more than anything else. Keep positive and go for it.

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    1. Thank you for commenting. As you say those motivated to blog etc may come from a challenge perspective and Twitter especially provides a tool for support for many of these families.

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  13. Another view. I do hope you find your happy ending. I, too, for many years could write about the happy times, and did. For the next few years, wrote at length about the challenging, but how we work through it times. My adopted child is a teenager now and now, for much more of the time, things are not happy. We struggle to hold onto our family and it isn't a fun story to read or write. I acknowledge the adoption world is a happier place without our story. So now, because I still, truly believe in the good adoption can do and don't want to put anyone off, I no longer write. I wonder how many other there are like me?

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    1. Your story is as valid though, we need to see adoption as a spectrum of experience and though it may not make great reading it is important for us adopters, but more importantly, policy makers to know.

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