It was somewhere around week 8 of our 10 weekly visits from the social worker when I finally ran out of patience. I’m sure others have felt this way, so I’m sharing what happened, how I felt about it, and why we went on to adopt anyway.
It all got too much
Perhaps it took 10 weeks of 3.5+ hour sessions to finally get under my skin. Perhaps it was learning that there are over 2,000 children in the UK currently waiting for adoption. Perhaps it was attending the ‘Thinking about two (or more)’ training, where they revealed that over half the children awaiting forever homes are siblings, then shared all the reasons siblings are hard in a weird kind of tough love sermon.
Or maybe it was just the straw that broke the prospective adopter’s back.
Dropping like flies
But seriously, what the hell? Is this some kind of sick joke? Is this process set up by people trying to put prospective adopters off? Because if so, it is certainly working.
Of the 10 couples that went into the 4 day Adoption prep course with us, only 5 couples remain. That’s right, somewhere between prep training and the end of the 10 weeks of social worker visits, half of the couples either pulled out or were disqualified.
And here’s the kicker – in my unprofessional opinion, they would all make great parents. I base this on getting to know them, and a lifetime of knowing biological parents and their often far greater quirks. The system is putting people off and is disqualifying potential parents, all while deserving children wait. It needs rebalancing.
What a waste
I just keep coming back to why we are all here. Why you are likely reading this. Why I’m writing it. Why anyone goes through adoption – To give little people who deserve a home, a home. Every question, every test, every bit of reading, every invasive question into fine details of our relationships, they should all be there only if they further this cause.
And quickly. There is urgency about the 1,000 children who are waiting at any given moment, or the 2-3,000 children each year who need homes. Each month they wait, they collect more uncertainty, their brains don’t develop in the ways they would if they had loving and attentive forever parents, and the ways they interact with the world and regulate their emotions are hard-wired incorrectly as a result.
So surely, surely, the only thing that matters is to find appropriate parents for these children, and to do so as quickly as possible.
And yet, here we are.
What really got my goat
I think it was the combination of having to write a third copy of a document describing our childcare experience, directly after a social worker session where we mentioned that our friends and prospective adopters were pulling out of the process. A session where we asked for introductions to others near us who are going through the process, so we could support each other. A session where we were told that those details can’t be shared because it is a breach of privacy.
We asked in that session why there are not Adopter groups automatically, opt-in of course, but a real thing, just like an NCT group for biological parents. NCT group friendships often last a lifetime and let’s be honest, everything in this process has set the expectation for adoption to be ‘parenting plus’, so surely we need support even more than biological parents to be!!
And yet there is nothing. No support group beyond those who were on the prep course with us, and those are falling like flies.
So being asked to again share our extensive childcare experience as individuals and as a couple, yes, this tipped me over the edge.
If I could, I would…
I would love to fix this system. Given half the chance, I’m sure a lot of us would. I’d sit the powers that be down, start at the beginning with the number of children needing homes, the number of prospective adopters, and draw out the flows.
What is the shortest route to match we could put in place? What is ‘good enough’ to become an adoptive parent? And why on earth are we still doing all the rest of it? There is no prize for endless delays while endless questions are asked and reports are written. In fact, the irony is, that the well-intentioned questions and their delays are directly harming the children who wait.
So why did we keep going?
Because those children are the most important thing there is to me. Because I want to be a dad. Because there is something, no matter how annoyed or hurt or frustrated I get, something deep inside me, that will do whatever it takes to become a parent.
This still feels like the most important thing I will ever do. I’ve never said that about anything in my life before.
You are a hero. At very least to your little person(s). Certainly to the friends and family around you. I would say to society at whole.
And so we continue.
If you are going through or have gone through the process of adoption, and if you are feeling any of these things, then I salute you. I’d hug you if I could.
And I’m not just talking about the sheer cost of looking after a child through 18 years of foster care and support services. I’m talking about a direct expression of what our community, our society, should be like. Of what being human should be like.
We look out for each other. We are social animals. We are not alone, though we might at times have felt it.
And this is something we can do, so we do it.
