Babies and Birthdays

I've a long list of topics, stories, issues and thoughts that I purposefully and very carefully don't blog on, if I get close to them then I slip into vague and bland terms. It's mainly so I when I write my book I'll have something worth saying rather than re hashing my blog posts. It's worth noting at this point that it's an imaginary book right and in all honesty very likely to stay that way, there are no plans, secret drafts or hint of spare time or likely to be in at least the next 15 years.

Again I digress, infertility is a topic that I've never mentioned. Mainly because I'm not entirely sure that it applies to me. When I say that I mean that I wasn't even slightly bothered by the need to reproduce my genes so when things worked out the way they did (see, I'm being vague) adoption suited me just fine. 

Circumstances have conspired this year to mean that I've become a grandfather twice, once in February and once on Monday. It's kind of been an 'interesting journey' (again, vague) to put it in the most most anodyne terms possible. The last few weeks have taken us through the experience of packing hospital suitcases and stockpiling baby wipes and nappies. We waved my daughter off to hospital and became familiar with what is a routine passage that the overwhelming majority of families travel. At my ripe age and as a father of six it feels odd to be a stranger in the maternity ward and the tramlines of pregnancy and birth, all the systems and processes that feel alien yet are standard for so many. 

So, today I visited the ward and MrsC shared her experience as the birthing partner, a moving and personal experience.  I got all teary and I felt this little twinge. It could have been more. All this swirling unresolved mess inside that I really didn't have back at the beginning of our family's journey seems to have slowly grown into something. I'm not overwhelmed or bereft,  I've no regrets just the odd thought. 

What if things had been different? 

That's not a helpful thought so I tend to push it back down. I think a lot of my friends have that thought. 

After today's business I tucked Peanut into bed, it's her birthday eve and she asked to go early. I looked her in the eye and told her,

'Thank you for being the most, clever, creative, kind, beautiful, funny, silly, wonderful six year old in the world, its been a pleasure and a privilege to be your daddy this year and I am so exited for you to be seven'

As I got the end of my little speech her bottom lip quivered and she broke into a full on sob. 'What's wrong?' I asked. 

'I'm so happy.' She sobbed 

We cuddled tight. My thoughts went to a little girl's birth that started seven years ago tonight. 

Adoption sucks and adoption is wonderful but that's no news.

So, that's a story out of the secret jar. 

Peace

The corners of her mouth turned up to a half repressed and half embarrassed smile, she held it for a second then gave in and grinned. It's hard being 13 and have your dad say he loves you.

Booooom, a smile clutched from the jaws of disaster. I tell you I could be powered by smiles like that for a thousand years. I'd be lying if I told you that the preceding days/months/years hadn't been without 'challenge'.

I've been thinking about a conversation with a non adopter, non social worker friend. He's the head of something or other, quite influential and we meet, talk and I let him buy me coffee. We talked about resolution, journey, outcomes happy endings. I love talking about the grey areas, thats where we find the truth, not in the binary stances that seem to pervade or at least try to. Nobody lives in the binary and if they do they're usually extremists. I'm not sure why I'm telling you that, I think I'm just enjoying my thoughts spilling into words. Words from a song have been rattling around my mind, a lyric from a song that I heard a long time ago, it wasn't a great song and it's likely that you've not heard of the singer. The lyric was

'she's just trying to find peace in the struggle'

The words 'peace in the struggle' come to me all the time and I've not listened to the song for years.

The words return again and again, peace in the struggle.

It's taken years to give up this much of me, frankly its been a scary journey. Peace in the struggle.

So now I'm not sure who I am anymore, our lives now and in the future seem to be more uncertain than ever. At a time when my peers are mapping out the future with a level of certainty I'm no longer the master of my own destiny, these little people, little disruptors,  that I invited in have well and truly set me on a uncertain course.

Back to the smile, after a teary call from the GoodMrC and some frank words with the girl. I was pretty sick.  I looked at her as I drove her home and thought I should remind myself that I love her, so I told her, as well as the fact that she was a numpty.

The corners of her mouth turned up to a half repressed and half embarrassed smile, she held it for a second then gave in and grinned. It's hard being 13 and have your dad say he loves you.

I hadn't really felt it til she smiled. Seems like we found a little peace in the struggle.

Grandad

So, adoptive grand parenting. Is that even a thing?

Clearly, in most areas of my life I'm making this up as I go along and this new 'development' is no different. However, I feel it highlights a specific weakness in my parenting, babies. One of the peculiarities of my very contemporary adoption experience is that it creates significant actual gaps in my actual parenting experience. Lotty is the closest we came to a baby, she rocked into our lives at 3  months old and continues to act as a force for disruption and exquisite joy with equal measure since those crazy days in December 2005. Her sass could literally be weaponised.

The night she came as our first foster placement, MrC had a prior arrangement with the big three and left me alone with this baby.  Lotty cried without ceasing and I was the physical manifestation of incompetence and fear. Think Fawlty dad meets Frank Spencer.

Anyway she survived and I survived.

That brings me to grandparenting, I've been pretty freaked out.  Up til now biology didn't matter, adoption was what it was and I guessed that there would be plenty to do as a dad; poo, vomit, soul crushing routine with the odd moment of love and joy. I suspected that the love would grow in the midst of all of the other parenting stuff. I know I do exaggerate. However, I fear grandparenting seems to be focused more on the fun and permissive end of parenting with all the really hard work removed. So, here's my worry, a worry that was hidden and in all the practical stuff first time round.

Will I love this child that has no biological link to me, I'm meant to be there for the fun and the games. What if I feel nothing? What if I'm rubbish at this? I'm struggling to get my head around it.

None of my contemporaries are grandparents yet so I'm currently taking advice on the issue and that's helped.
I remain nervous.
It's made me think of how my mother felt when we introduced the idea of adoption to her.
It's made me think of some of the difficulties that adopters have with their parents.
I've confessed this to my daughter and I'm sure it'll all be ok. She didn't seem worried.

It took time with all my children.

Seems odd in a week like this all, media reports, DfE meetings and la de da flitting around it all comes back to being a dad and worrying, like every other dad, that I'm going to get it right.

Love

I've been overwhelmed by some stories that I've heard over the last few weeks, traumatic experiences of families as they live with the outworkings of trauma in their daily lives.  Sitting in rooms talking to parents about the threats, intimidation, aggression and violence some live with  I'm struck by the love that keeps parents going.

Love is amazing, it's an ethereal thing that doesn't fit that well into social work assessments. We can use words like bond, commitment, nurture, empathy and compassion but they're pale shadows that can only point us towards love.    

Adoption works, however wonkily, because of love. What other 'model of permeance' would offer love like this. Fostering perhaps, but that's different. I say adoption works, I guess I really means that it often works.

The social media 'echo chamber' that I live in would suggest that all is not well in adoption. However, the figures suggest that more is right than wrong and for many children and parents adoption works, or at least is the best option left available for some children. .

Of course, adoption could be better, as a progressive I'm keen to see some of the dogmatic adherence to some aspects of it need to be swept away. Support needs overhauling, preparation and recruitment needs revisiting, you know all that.

But this week listening to stories of families living with abuse at the hands of their children it hangs heavy but love remains and endures.

I wish I'd been brave enough to ask, those struggling and those not, if they'd do it again and what would they say? What would I say?

The last year has seen some of the most challenging days we've had as a family. On the darkest of days, I've felt my love flicker. Those around me have given me permission to let my love die and to even 'make that call'.

But the love re ignites, how and why I don't know, and I find myself defending and championing and loving again.
It's rarely a Disneyesque, fluffy bunny, gushing sort of love more of a gritty, bloody minded, lime juice in a paper cut kind of love but love it is.

When I read that adoption isn't 'fit for purpose' I confess that I can't agree.

Would I do it again? Yes.

Poems and Anger

Journeying through comprehensive school in North East England in the mid 1980s has, not to underplay this, given me a certain perspective on the world. 

As a sensitive and slightly showy off soul I found myself at drama classes, this slightly confused some of my peers and family and unkind words were used and that really is putting it nicely. Lets just say it wasn't a hotbed for the arts and delicate souls.

When I watched Billy Elliot years later for the first time I almost had to be hospitalised due to my flashbacks.

Now I look at most of the arts with a subtle blend of ignorance, admiration and bemusement. 

Anyway, I'm not sure why I said all that. 

In the vain attempt to broaden my horizons I bought a book of poetry to take on my recent hols. I was determined to read a poem a day and ponder it. That and I though it might impress my fellow holiday makers and perhaps broaden my education.  I'm not sure about poems and have a genuine fear of people offering to read me 'their poems'. 

I chose Lemn Sissay's book Gold from the Stone. I didn't get far before a phrase jumped off the page. 

                                         ‘Anger is an expression in search of love’ 

I couldn't get past it, so I stopped. I pondered. I liked the words, the shape and form, they rattled round my head and strangely my heart. I could't fathom out what they meant though. I offered them to the GoodMrsC and she agreed, top words.

Anger is an expression in need of love, what the hell does that mean? I gave up and got on with my stuff. I asked a clever friend a few weeks after I got back, 'how do you know if poetry is good?'. He said it's simple, it's good if you like it. Now I see, but what do those words mean? Why do they rattle round my insides. So four weeks later it dawned on me.  

We see a lot of anger. 

Anger is like the words in Blackpool Rock, it runs through everything we do as a family. 
It's either overt or suppressed. 
We dance around it, we duck it, figuratively and literally, we explain it away and distract it. 
We try not to be drawn in by it but it wants everyone to play too. 
Anger is a bully and a brute. Anger hides and distracts. 

Anger is a funnel that all my children's anxiety, worry, stress, doubt, shame, frustration, disappointment and sadness are pushed through. 

I think I get it.

Yes, anger is an expression in search of love.

Trauma

I just want to run into the street and shake my fist at the sky, I want to go totally 'Fawlty Dad' and thrash the ground with the branch of a tree.

Why?

Because Trauma wins.

It stains everything it touches and seeps out of the shadows of children's lives and with insidious determination casts shadows over mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and anyone close enough to touch. It feels personal but it's indiscriminate, it chokes love and care, crushes hope and joy. It blinds, deceives, draws you in and asks you to dance to it's tune, it camouflages itself and deflects the blame onto everyone close.

Four weeks ago the historic trauma rose up and cut through us all like a scythe.

Our family, friends, colleagues, faith and professionals caught us. They held us when we couldn't stand, they gave us the worlds to say when we didn't know what to say, friends and acquaintances stepped in and stepped up. I've never felt so cared for in my life. So, thank you for your kind words and wise words shoulders to cry on and ears to listen. There are too many to thank but thank you anyway.

Trauma has not won this battle.

Trauma remains a feature of our home but because of  those who closed around us we are still here, so thank you.

Decisions Decisions.

I'm under no illusion that the decisions we make for our children will be open to a revisionist scrutiny  on the couches of some therapist or other. They will illuminated by the clear light of hindsight and a full knowledge of all the facts. In many ways I'm still not over my mothers decision to cut my hair between the years 1974 to 1993. My therapist says some things can never be undone and I will never get over it. I'm sure that my children will no doubt bear similar burdens, though I hope not.

We've recently vexed over the choices that face us in relation to schools without end.
Do we jump out of the learning stream that we're in its inevitable march towards our local learning factory, a school that several respected professionals turned pale when we mentioned was the destination. Perhaps designed and acceptable for cookie cutter children, I'm confident there's no such a thing, but it's not a place for my little girl. It's not a place she'll feel safe and I'm not sure it's a place she is safe.
So where do we jump to, into a different stream, a three tier system with a middle school as a half way house that would stave off the leap to big school and the challenges that brings. But to do that  I have to pull all of the little ones out of the current stream and set them in the three tier system to tie up the logistical challenges. Lotty's and  Flossy's lifelong friends will be left behind, not an easy sell.

One a transition to safety without the protective factors of friends vs a transition into danger with the protective factor of friends. Oh, and to add to that there are no places at the moment, we know we have priority access as 'previously looked after children' *. So do we cross our fingers and  hope that a couple of appropriate spaces open up between now and September.

The Twitter machine told me that "you choose the staff not the school" and as we chatted to the SENCO in the middle school by the end of the first sentence I knew that she 'got it'. More than that she got it and knew what we were going to ask  before we asked it. A trauma aware school.

So last week we made our choice and filled in the form and now we wait. My children don't need a learning factory they need a safe place. When, and only when, they feel safe then they can begin to think about learning. The middle school it is.

It's our best guess with the information that we have. We might be wrong and the implications may be long term. Of course the decision will be open to scrutiny in the years to come but that's the nature of parenting, adoptive or otherwise.


*not a nice phrase

National Adoption Week: Thoughts and Questions

I'm pondering the upcoming National Adoption Week. With all the media coverage and hoopla that comes with it. I wonder how representative it is of contemporary adoption. More to the point I wonder how representative I am of contemporary adopters and how representative our family's experience is.

I wonder if we fit the acceptable narrative of the adoption story. Increasingly and for many years I don't accept the standard narrative as being standard at all.

Across the six children and three adults that make up our family we represent a range of experiences, the usual hat trick of Trauma, Loss and Separation; Child to Parent Violence, Social Service involvement, breakdowns and make ups.  We've got shouting and fighting and laughing and loving. We've had unexpected Facebook family resurgence, incredibly positive birth family contact and some not so easy. We're like a walking case study.

Recently a young couple asked me for advice in relation to their plans and hopes to adopt. I can't recall what I said specifically at the time. It was probably encouraging, telling of the positives and trying to open their minds to the potential challenges. It feels like a well worn conversation.
But since then their question has rolled around my mind.

'We're thinking of adopting, what advice could you offer?'

I'm not sure what to say anymore. I don't feel jaded, negative or cynical about adoption, not at all. Sure, I have lots of questions that I struggle to answer about structures, ethics, process and power dynamics within the world of adoption.  But I believe that children need secure, stable, loving and nurturing parents. Of course that can encompass a broad and diverse range of families/parents/children/beliefs/lifestyles. But fundamentally I believe in lives built on those core principles.
The more I know about adoption and the business behind it the more I feel that my knowledge is limited. I've sat on the adopter side of the triangle for so long that I realise that I know so little about the other two sides and the social care business that controls it all. I see that the voices of adoptees and birth families struggle to be heard and sometimes we struggle to listen to them as it provokes difficult questions. This is increasingly where I'm feeling the need to listen and this is where I'm learning the most. It's fantastic to see this being addressed by The Open Nest with their adoption week conference focusing on the voice of adoptees.

So, anyway,  what advice would I offer.

I may not offer advice anymore. But I can tell you what I'm learning about the other voices and about my journey.

Call me maybe

Me: Excuse me I was looking for a first phone for my 11 year old.

Sales assistant: Ah, you’ll be after a ‘trainer’ phone.

Me: Yes, ideally I’d like it to be as uncool as possible and with as limited use.

Sales assistant: of course sir, come this way, would you like it in kindergarden blue or vomit green?

So the conversation went on my recent trip to buy a phone.

It’s an oft discussed topic mobile phones and children. There’s a raft of good and helpful advice available and for each potential negative there’s a positive. So, after much thought and a veritable Magna Carta of rules, codes of conduct and terms and conditions set before Flossy we have relented and she got a ‘trainer’ phone for her 11^th birthday.

We’ve walked this path before and Sarah got a phone when she was 13 some 10 years ago. Of course it was the source of much strife and the police were very helpful. To be honest I’ve only ever found the police to be very helpful, and dare I say it more empathic than some Social Workers I’ve met.

Though it had been the object of much discussion, debate and dare I say a little tension I agreed and went and bought a phone that texts and calls. No more and no less. It feels like the right time and like any tool has the potential for good and bad so we are going to practice the good and limit the bad with a low tech phone.

Flossy got her phone and initially was a little crestfallen that it wasn’t an iphone 6 plus with unlimited data, hey the kid’s allowed to dream, she was then rather excited.

I felt fine, clear guidelines were issued and sanctions were discussed.

It lives in downstairs, it is not to be abused, Flossy buys calls, any calls to the police (other than genuine) will instigate permanent loss, threatening texts/calls will initiate time limited removal, etc. If all is well then we’ll consider moving up a phone model to something a little less uncool.

I felt fine right up to the moment when I put Flossy’s number into my contacts. What a funny feeling it was like a changing of the guard. A good and bad moment. Exciting as she grows into a young woman terrifying as she grows into a young woman.

I paused as I entered her details, things may never be the same…………………

Un petit film

The Adoption Support Fund: The Word on the Street

Before we start.
I'm not a propaganda tool for the DfE and certainly not for LAs. I have no vested interest, I gain in no way from the Adoption Support Fund doing well. I'm not a therapeutic service or practitioner looking to build my client base or a national charity with services and training to offer or sell. Neither am I an apologist for Social Workers and their practice or a professional critic looking for fault.
I feel better for that.

The Adoption Support Fund (ASF) continues at a pace. Nearly two full months into the fund and the word on the street is that over 200 families have successfully accessed the fund and nearly 400 others are in the process of applying. So that's all good news. In context there were over 20,000 children adopted from care in the UK in the last 5 years alone so still a small proportion have accessed the fund. Clearly, not all will need or want support but the threshold for eligibility is that the child would benefit from therapy so potentially many could apply.

As many have noted a by product of the ASF is that it is acting as a magnifying lens over all local authorities' Post Adoption Service in a way that an audit couldn't possibly do. Many issues are being highlighted, processes, team sizes, allocated resources, waiting times and everyones favourite basic Social Worker practice issues are being dragged under this lens.

In fairness good and bad are being highlighted with some folks having very positive experiences of applying and feeling empowered by the process.Unfortunately this is not always the case with some families waiting weeks just to speak to Post Adoption Social Workers; being given 15 minute appointments or just been put in a queues. I hear adopters talking about uncertainty that Social Workers have in relation to the process and eligibility. So not all is rosy. Some authorities have hit the floor running and have grasped the opportunity to support fund but the painful reality for others is that some LAs are still scratching their heads at the sudden glut of adopters on the phone. Another fight for adoptive families.

We adopters with the ear of the DfE have been asked to gather information on good and bad practice and feed it back. They have stumped up the cash and are keen that it is used. If there are failings in the process or barriers that adopters face they can apply pressure that only they can. They want to know what's happening or not happening.

So, in short, let us know. All confidential.

@nadjasmit

@sallydwrites

@JenniferJ432

Or Facebook me

And in other news we're moving house or as Flossy perceives/feels it the catastrophic end of human civilisation.

Pam: Birth Mother, Social Worker & Adopter

Pam tells her story of having her son taken away from her when she was 14 years old.





Later in life Pam becomes a Social Worker and makes the decision to adopt. Eventually adopting six children.





Pam's story of reunification with her birth son.

Transracial Adopter

I often feel that I’m teetering on my toes, straining to reach a fully developed understanding of the issues of race and racism. Facts, knowledge and empathy are within my grasp but lived experience will always be beyond my fingertips. Knowing my limitations brings me up short as again this weekend the issue of skin colour came into our foreground.

With the onset of better weather my little girl starts to wear summer dressed but is increasingly reluctant to show her arms or legs for fear of being different and what other children may say. Socks are pulled high and cardigans remain resolutely on, as she explains, ‘no matter how hot I get’. Whether the fear is real, imaginary or both the fear of other's eyes looking at her is her reality.

Like all parents I feel my children’s pain acutely, but in this instance that pain in my chest is exacerbated by my shortcomings. What can I say? The usual platitudes seem almost insulting?

‘But you’re beautiful’

‘You shouldn’t worry about what people think’ 

'I’m sure that your friends don’t think anything like that’.

All true but feel like they sidestep the issue. 
In another life and with a different colour skin I could tell her how I felt and what I did. But it's not that life and my skin is the colour of majority. I have limited lived experience to draw on and my empathy can take me so far. Intellectual understanding is good but not that helpful to a 9 year old. Difference can be an acute issue for many children and especially adopted children but for my little girl she is different to all but four other non white children in her primary school. When she looks in the mirror she is different to mam, dad, brother and sisters.

It brought to mind a tweet looking for potential adopters I read, it was a picture of a non white child with the words ‘Are you colourblind, could you parent this girl?’ I totally got the sentiment but was left curious by the naivety. I gently tweeted as much and the poster graciously acknowledged my point. Later someone jumped in on the back of the first tweet ‘we’d take them in, we don’t care what colour they are’. I felt less generous this time so said nothing.

Race is clearly an issue that is not exclusive to adoption but it is a thorny issue that many would like to downplay. As I've said before with non white children over represented in the care system and non white adopters under represented it is an issue we cannot avoid. 

White people will inevitability adopt non white children.

Someone a little further down the road on a similar journey to me said to me in no uncertain terms colour does matter, love is not enough and we have to see our children’s colour because we live in a society that does. They gave me a reading list and encouraged me to try harder. Of course I have no lived experience but I have no excuse for not reading, listening and asking.

I am not colourblind and I do care what colour my daughter is but I can never share her experience of being black.

Loss

I try to make my ramblings upbeat and I can assure many aspects of life in Coates Towers is positive. Of late it seems like there’s been a lot of tricky stuff going on for the kids and us. Re reading my posts I wonder if my blog should be titled ‘How not to adopt’ or ‘101 things about adoption you never cared to ask’.

This is our life at the moment and it reflects my belief that to adopt is to embrace sadness at some level. Even in the most successful, harmonious and straightforward adoption* at its heart lies an unavoidable sadness. We live with this tension and it’s varying manifestations in our lives day by day. It's the cup we drink from.

Added to our measure this week was the death of a close family friend. Over the last 8 years she had been an invaluable and unique source of support, insight, information to Mrs C and I and to Flossy and Lotty. Though her death was anticipated it has come as a shock to the children. Their response is complex it’s their first experience of the death of someone close. Predictably we’ve seen some interesting behaviour and grief manifested in many ways. Complex emotions and challenges to their understanding have left them in a fog of dysregulation.

Our friend, Flossy and Lotty’s birth Aunt, came into our lives in unique and unusual circumstances. We insisted on contact with her against the wishes of our Local Authority, and our Fostering Social Worker pled our case to the judge at the placement order hearing** and it was reluctantly granted. Tentatively we built trust and confidence and slowly, very slowly, she became a friend and then family.

We’d see each other weekly, Mrs C would talk and text daily. The two dimensional pantomime villains of our children’s paperwork became real people, lives, hopes, dreams, mistakes, tragedy and wrong decisions. She was a firewall between us and the less safe elements of birth family and an open door to the safe elements.

She broke the news of birth mum’s pregnancy to Mrs C, the imminent birth of Peanut. Mrs C and her agreed that it was best if Peanut came to live with us and 20 months later Peanut did***.

Flossy and Lotty loved their aunty, she was a tangible part of their lives and history that could not be replicated in a life story book or letter. She was an essential part of our lives she was a member of our family. We were blessed to see the pleasure she took in seeing her nieces grow.

All our grief and loss is compounded by our inability to attend the funeral to share our loss with her loved ones. Mrs C was able covertly to attend her bedside in her dying days and thank her for all she had done. This is the end of a special chapter of all our lives.

We feel blessed to have known her, rest in peace J.

*No such thing

**It’s complicated

***It’s very complicated