Thursday 3 December 2015

Tectonic Plates

Over the last few weeks I've been playing a game. I slide up to people I know, brighter and wiser people, and all nonchalant like, when they least expect, it I ask them:

'So, what do you think about adoption?'

What interesting things people say. They normally ask for clarification 'why, what do you mean, eh?' Then we talk, I ask few questions and they give a few answers and the things people that have said to me have been very interesting, very interesting indeed.

It's not a game. My views have shifted, slowly like tectonic plates from the naive ill informed enthusiasm of 18 years ago to now. The trouble is that I'm not sure what I think, I am but I aren't.

Riding up the country gave me time to ponder, but I came up empty, more questions than answers.

The money that changes hands and the business, the dogma and the ideology, injustices and punishment, the challenges and recruitment, the expectations and the promises, the hopes and the dreams, the realities and the wonder,  the adopters, the families, the children, the love. I've not even mentioned human rights and parental responsibilities.

Increasingly I struggle to articulate my thoughts in words and though I can offer to demonstrate my views through expressive dance there's too much to say.



In no way am I turning my back on adoption and I am certain that I love the children in my life I've been given to parent. I even struggle to say my children these days. Perhaps that's a reaction to the US adoption month stuff that floats around the internet. Perhaps that's too much airy fairy social worky thinking. Perhaps it's all too much airy fairy social worky thinking.

Of course my views are informed by my relatively narrow experience and the experience of those I come into contact with. But there's a yearning to know more. So, blog about nothing but that's what I'm doing now looking for more understanding and nuance. I worry that my views push beyond my knowledge and into opinion that I become an empty vessel, hollow but loud. So, if you seem me slide up to you prepare yourself I might expect you to give account of your views.


9 comments:

  1. Maybe 'adoption' is just too big a thing to have only one set of emotions about. It's like asking: what do you think about marriage?
    Some marriages are wonderful. Some are a bit tricky. Some are downright abusive.
    There are lots of people involved in every single adoption. Sometimes it really does help. Sometimes it works out well for some of the people and not others.
    In the UK at least, adoption always starts with a difficult situation. So, I don't think we should place too high a demand on it, it's never going to be perfect. It's a drastic solution to a big problem.
    Sometimes it isn't the best solution. But, it can be hard for people to work that out from the evidence they have. Most people aren't malicious in their mistakes.
    Sometimes, though, it really is the best we have.

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    1. I agree with you. We're starting form behind in so many respects both children and sometimes parents, the pressures and tribulations should be nothing more than expected.
      Thanks for the comment.

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  2. In my experience some people think adoption makes you some kind of hero, and the rest think it's the happy ending to a terrible story, something like you would see in an episode of the Waltons. In reality I think it's more like making a choice to be a parent, not any kind of hero, and instead of shouting "night John boy"," night maryellen" we are usually found shouting "go to sleep, it's midnight!", and" turn that music down!"

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    1. That narrative lives so strong in popular culture. Even when it's confronted people refuse to accept and canonise the participants in the face of evidence to the contrary. Our bedtime routine is more like a fistfight in a rugby club than the Walton's cliche. Thank you for commenting.

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  3. I suppose my adoption story is different from some others. I suppose I had more introduction to the other side of it than others might have had. I, too, manhandle the complexity of it all from time to time. But I feel fine about calling my son 'my son'. I feel fine that another woman also calls him 'my son'. For me, the point of adoption, as opposed to other permanence plans, is that we can both use the word 'mine'. If anything, it's more important for him than for me. I am his, and his birth mum is also his, but in different ways.

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    1. I like what you've said and like your explanation of adoption vs permanence is good. thinking about it I suppose I would say my son/daughter. I guess its a discomfort when the language hints at ownership. I'm too far up my own backside.
      Thanks for the comment.

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  4. Adoption issue is huge. I mean HUGE. You will probably have as many opinions about it as many people in the world. These opinions will be shaped by own experiences - or lack of them. I think the main point to be remembered - regardless of money, politics and bad decisions sometimes made during care proceedings - is that children, as we all, must have a sense of security, belonging and love. And many wonderful adoptive parents can give it to them.
    I hope that in future we can work out how we do things better globally - but I'm pretty sure that within individual families people do this 'better' already, every day, morning and night, often without thinking too much about it - but simply by doing what all parents do: school runs, bed times, night watch when kids are ill, getting the grounded when they are naughty and forgiving the immediately when they give us a kiss:).
    I think you are right about too much 'social worky thinking' (sometimes). When we become parents this is what we are first: parents. And I do not think that when we say 'my son / daughter' we are all about ownership. It's much more that that. It's about you - my child - being part of my world, and me - your parent - being part of your world. It is about belonging to each other - rather than owning eachother. This is very important - back to the issue of security and belonging. And love, of course :)
    Alicja (from FIC - but commenting in my own capacity this time)

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  5. Hi, I agree with you in that we all bring our own stuff to the table. There are lots of competing perspectives and ideologies that are floating around and they all would say that they are in the best interests of the child that doesn't mean that they are. I've seen all kinds of stuff that's given me plenty of food for thought and I have to say that meeting children's needs is only part of the picture as the reality is that many adopters are also meeting their own need for children. Of course that not wrong in any way but potentially does not coincide with the needs of the child or sets up different objectives. It's all complicated stuff.

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  6. I think it's interesting that there has been so much public investment into thoughtful and sympathetic ethical consideration of fertility treatment and lots of wonderful books and reports you can read about it. But despite the UK's pretty much unique approach to domestic adoption, there is very little out there pondering the ethical dimensions - I think this is a massive and slightly shocking gap. I've read a tonne of books about adoption and haven't managed to find anything that really engages with how different the UK system is from pretty much everywhere else. For me, this is a gap that your blog and the other blogs collected on the Adoption Social has helped to fill. As well as the amazing Open Nest conference earlier this year. I think you and others have done a lot to help me think about adoption maybe in terms of kinship as much as parenting. So thank you.

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