Voices

Last week I put out a tweet inviting adoptees onto the Podcast, I was surprised by the response, lots of adopters retweeted it. That made me think.

I'd put the tweet out after no. 2 daughter told told me a story, I thought it was interesting and in a moment of calm I asked if she'd let me record her telling the incident for the podcast. She was up for that so we did. I've always been nervous of using my children as currency for what I do but she knows that and we talked it through.

Other than the fake trial we had in 2003 over a contested misdemeanour I'd never formally interviewed my children. Clearly, it's not normal to do so. As I sat with my daughter and recorded a mini interview something strange happened. A window into her world was opened in a way like never before. She talked freely about her some of her inner thoughts. It was only a brief chat and she told her story and I turned the recorder off. But once it was off we kept talking. It was an open and easy conversation, it was a window into a world, to my shame, I'd not been party to.

Of course we can wonder how well any parent knows their child, adoption adds complexity to the complicated in spades. What filters do our children negotiate and introduce to make sense of their world and stories and to help others make sense of their world and stories? Lots to ponder and sift.

So, I thought I'd send out the tweet an offer to adoptees to share their thoughts and their stories if they wanted.

A few adoptees contacted me curious about my request and thoughtful about sharing. Its a big step and I see that.

I'm mindful that as an adopter, like all adopters, I have always had choice. To adopt or not. To take those children or not. To tell my story or not. We are the only participants in this process that have ever had a choice*.

Adoptees had no choice they had no voice.

What would my children have really chosen, what did they really think, what do they really think now. Experience, loyalty, history, duty, sensitivity, love and a myriad of other influences impact on adoptees stories. They don't have to tell their stories or share their thoughts but if they want to then I want to listen if they want me to. Stories, thoughts and opinions regardless of how palatable they may or may not be I want to listen. They may speak of different cultures, practice and times but there's value in it all.

I was surprised by the times my request was retweeted but encouraged that I wasn't alone that many others want to hear the voices of those that had no voice.








*In the UK relinquished babies make up less than 1% of adoptions.

A Long Hard Week

Remotely reading accounts of children's violence against parents unfold over Twitter makes for a hard week. It's not just now and then but a theme every week, be that 4 year olds or 14 year olds, either way it's hard to read.  

 

Lots of us walk that CPV* path and are still on it, it's a hard path that is exacerbated by the professional responses that have been thought up in a common sense empathy vacuum. 

To feel abandoned or accused by the very people that should help you is a double blow, worse than no help at all,  much worse. As Helen Bonnick said in our podcast one professional can make all the difference, finding that professional can be the trick, but we found ours, many don't.

This week I've seen voices get stronger,  dots starting to be joined. Emails bouncing round my inbox with ideas and suggestions, plans and schemes on twitter with experts in different fields drawn into the debate. I've had conversations with friends planning to make a difference. 

If the Post Adoption professionals are not prepared to navigate the legal, ethical and emotive seas that safe holding, risk assessment and restraint inhabit then perhaps we ought to raise our sails and set off without them.  

Social worker's bread and butter is managing and quantifying risk but for a host of reasons this issue is not one that many will embrace or are allowed to embrace. Safe holding has perhaps been linked to attachment holding which has had tragic consequences. So the pendulum has swung and social care has stepped away and we're met with blank stares when asked what to do, or we're made to feel like monsters for even suggesting that we take control. But there are other voices and professionals with different views. 

Let's keep talking

Forgive the brevity it's been a long hard week.

*Child on Parent violence

Adoption on the telly

I went the the pictures to see The BFG on Sunday with Lotty. Clearly I must be the only person in the land who doesn't know the story. Though I enjoyed it I confess to feeling a little wearied by the usual plucky orphan stereotype. A fully resolved adulty/child orphan that finds beautiful adult/saintly type adoptive parents narrative. I'm just so over that,  is so far removed from my knowledge and understanding that it borders on insulting.

Of course it's classic children's fiction so I put all those feelings in my box marked boring old fart and suspend belief. I mean I cry like a baby at Annie, both versions, so I'm pretty good at putting my feelings aside.

So, this week with a sense of duty I watched The Coopers Versus The Rest.

Hmmmm, it's not my cup of tea, I like my comedy dark and scathing, not unlike my life, and this was way too happy ever after for me. I couldn't help but think that the heartwarming scene with the children smiling in the back of the car at the end of the programme if transferred to my life would have more likely been a full blown fist fight.

But, and I've thought about this and it's an important but, there appears to be an authentic voice in its midst of all the niceness. It was all a bit resolved and as far as can be from my version of children who've experienced loss and trauma as you can get but I did get it. After I watched it I read the blurb and it had been written by an adoptee so I felt more a little better about the experience.

I can sniff out an authentic voices in blogs, Twitter feeds, articles and books. I don't have to agree or like what I read* but I do like it to be authentic and I can tolerate or respect as such. Even if the person has no connection to the subject matter they can have an authentic voice. When it's not authentic, like the fast food advert last year, then I steer clear and leave well alone.

This blog is a bit of a ramble but each day I seem to see more and more literature, training, articles, news about adoption. With talking heads, professional opinions, views and perspectives and I realise I'm always looking for authentic voices not exploitation, money making opportunities or just utter tosh.







*I'm reading a hateful book about international adoption it's full of  corruption, delusion and religion and it's authentic but I don't like it.