A Guest Blog: Sibling Contact

By an anonymous adopter

I need to get this out of my system, but I am doing it anonymously, as there are so many risks involved with sharing this, but so much information that may help others in the community.

We have been a family brought together by adoption for over 10 years. There are a few of us in the family, however, it always struck me that given we read our children’s CPRs and all the other information we receive, if we are lucky enough to receive it all, there are extended family who naturally become our family.

My children’s siblings are always a part of my life, they are family too.

Over the weekend we were lucky enough, after three years of trying, to meet the now adult siblings of our children. A surprise message out of the blue 3 years ago instigated this meeting. It has taken us all this length of time to be able to feel able to do it. Our children were not involved. You may think that cruel, but right now they are not read for it, and they may never be.

We met in a train station coffee shop – we felt that it needed to be somewhere that we could all feel as comfortable as possible in – as we all knew that the anxiety for us all would be immense.

I hugged sister – I was not sure how it would go, but she hugged me back. I got emotional but kept it together.

We bought coffees and we began to chat. There were no awkward moments…. It flowed.

Our first lesson: We knew all about them…. They knew nothing about us – NOTHING. They lived for the first few years not knowing what had happened to their siblings. No one had told them they had been placed for adoption. Youngest was removed from a holiday he was on – and that was the last she saw of him.

Our second lesson: Appreciation that they had been adopted. Despite the first few years of their not knowing, they have learnt enough about our children to know that they have been well looked after, and cared for, attempting to repair the damage that they have all experienced. They acknowledged that the trauma will have been more intense for our children as they had differing placements and the worst experience of our care system you can imagine.

Our third lesson: If only we knew then what we knew now… Yes, contact is a scary thing…. And it would have needed careful planning, facilitating and reviewing… but had I known that these siblings sat not knowing, not knowing where they were, who they were with, were we monsters, were we cruel, did we love them – that could have been easily remedied.

Their first lesson: Their siblings have been loved and cared for… to see the relief on their faces was worth every single minute of over ten years.

Their second lesson: Their siblings have very similar issues with attachment, trust, anger to them.

Their third lesson: Never assume adoption is always a bad thing. Family and friends had been rather critical of adoption….. as you would expect, and that was the siblings impression as a result. They see the difference it has made.

I did cry… I felt so patronising and insulting to these two brave souls in front of me, who had been through just as much in their childhood as my children – and I was the one crying. To be told that they are grateful that their siblings have such fantastic parents blew me away. I sniffed, sister held my hand, and I gave myself a good talking to – this was not about me.

We spent three hours together, and we have so much in common. We will meet them again, and that was a mutual decision by us all. We feel they are more a part of our family now than ever.

Their decision to share what their message will be when they do all eventually meet was upsetting, and I leave you with some of it:

“If you are expecting to meet our parents and for them to be the parents you hope for, then don’t – you will be very very disappointed.”

Thank you for reading.

Fostercare.

I might have been the worst foster carer that ever lived.

We were deferred at panel, they said we would probably want to keep any little children that we were given to look after. We argued at our second panel that in no way did we want to adopt more children and the very thought of it was utter tosh.
Well, we were approved and we did adopt the first two children we fostered.

That proved two things, Panels can be pretty astute and I'm deluded.

This week there have been Twitter threads on adopters relationships with foster carers post placement all precipitated by an article in Community Care on children remaining, or not, in contact with foster carers after they leave.

It seems to me that for foster carers the work to reward ratio is probably one of the poorest that is possible in any profession. The highs are high though brief but the lows can be relentless. Added to the pain is the uncertainty of outcomes for children when they leave your care, often these questions remain unanswered.

Though we were only foster carers for two girls, Flossy and Lotty,  for a couple of years the impact stretched beyond just having two children to care for in our home. The tensions of carrying the burden of care but with limited control over most of the influences in their life seemed to be the worst possible combination and calling a Local Authority duty phone in an emergency is probably one of the most isolating and unreassuring experiences of my life.

Perhaps the worst feeling was that we were complicit in some of the trauma they experienced. We buckled them in the car seats that took them to contact that they didn't want to go to. Screaming and kicking they sobbed and hid from the transport worker but we dutifully ensured that they were ready. We pleaded with the Social Workers detailing the daily trauma and distress that they experienced but were given the usual answer:

'It's the court's decision there's nothing I can do'

But the court or Social Worker didn't wipe the tears or cradle the distressed and terrified children, we did. The arms that soothed were the arms that would hand them back the next evening. I assure you those days haunt Mrs C and me.

That journey to adoption was not short so I won't bore with the details.

These days I reflect on my own casual indifference to the big three's Foster Carers. We were young, inexperienced and perhaps to wrapped up in our own moment to realise the difficulties that they faced as they handed three wonderful children into our arms. I confess to being a little insecure too.
We walked away and didn't look back. We were guided by dogmatic advice built on ideas that grew in the 50's and 60's. We were sure that the children were fine and they didn't say other wise. Now I'm ashamed of my attitude.

When Peanut came into our lives we gained two new friends in her foster parents, they'd loved her and kept her safe through difficult months of contact. Within 10 days of her moving in they came to see us and we've seen each other regularly and are in regular contact. Like Godparents to Peanut.

One positive story does not constitute a rationale to make it that way for everyone. Of course there are good reasons to stop contact with foster carers for adopted children but my feeling is that there are also many good reasons to continue it as well.

For a myriad of reasons Foster Carers keep a low profile on twitter, blogs etc. It's a loss to us all they have a unique perspective that we need to hear. Like adopters there are good and bad ones but on the whole they care for ragamuffins and tikes, the lost and the lonely my children and yours.
They are unsung heroes of many adopted children's lives.