Flag Waving

With the looming shadow of national adoption week I'm tempted to lock myself into my thought bunker, turn the music up and sit it out. The time for me being invited to flag waving events has passed. I must have mentioned the time I attended a David Bellamy plant a tree for adoption event. Now that was a strange afternoon.  I've lived a marvellous life.

So, this week I've been out and about banging the CPV drum, all good stuff very encouraging and in the midst of it I managed to catch the end of the smallest, quietest, invitation only conference ever.
Birth mothers telling their stories of adoption.

I'm constantly caused to extrapolate the experiences of social carer that adopters tell on social media to the parents of the children that they adopted. The battle between the binary, 'adoption is good' narrative and the analog soup of 'there's more to this than you'd first think'  rages on. I could throw my had in with either position depending on a thousand factors.

I'm off point.

So, I listened to a visibly shaking young woman recount the story of walking out of court having lost her child and was chilled at the abandonment of what was and remains a vulnerable young woman. Her recounting of feeling shame, fear, loss, isolation and abandonment and withdrawal of support were profound, her weakness was her strength.
Of course, the rational and reasoning me has lots of questions and I could give as many ifs and buts as the next person. I can't deny the truth of what I heard and it shook and worried me.

It's been a few days and I remain shaken and as we glide towards adoption week the tension of a weathered old adopter like me is to hold all of that together and position myself just the right side of worried but not too close to the flag wavers.

I've not even mentioned post adoption support.

It's too easy to be cynical.

Black, White or Grey.

Lately, I'm questioning the clarity of my sight in relation to adoption. As a family we've been woven into a system that is in perpetual transition along with society that's view on adoption is shifting.  I wonder if my experience skews my views, opinions and sight to the point where it can't see straight? 

'Some men just want to see the world burn' to quote the film Batman Begins and some days I feel like I want to run into the garden and shake my fist at the sky,  stomp the ground and go full on adult tantrum. Like lots of people I know I've been kicked round the block by the system. Six panels, two deferrals and a refusal, social care Initial Investigations, police, more courts, more police, breakdowns, return to care, formal complaints, two years of high court cases, handing children back then taking them back, reunification and that is just the lowlights. I could say much more but I've proved my point.

My feelings are complex and shift. Beyond my experience I can't help but consider past practice and some current practice I hear of and wonder if all is that well in adoption land. I meet people in the early steps of the adoption journey and I bite my tongue. I'm not going to be a naysayer, adoption is a mixed bag, to paint it wholly wrong or wholly right feels like a significant misstep. I encourage them and tell them lessons learn. 

Also, for all the darkness there is the light, I've wept with joy at school sports day, glowed when a child holds my hand, beamed with pride on prom night and all the firsts, of which there have been many. I've shared my worries and laughed with birth family who were once across a great divide but are now friends. I've had professionals that I've trusted my future on, literally, and I've seen professionals catch us as we fell and stand us back on our feet. Theres' been a lot of good. 

The temptation is to rail against a system, to focus on the failings, hurt and pain. My most engaged with blogs are the ones that raise concerns or are open and honest in relation to my challenges and less than ideal  stuff. They can be a rallying cry to those that struggle and provide comfort to people who are isolated and questioning their own experience. So, that's good but what is the overall effect?

It feels like there is general confusion in the media in relation to adoption. Clarity seems to be in limited supply with battle lines drawn for and against . I feel drawn between them, I want to keep the good but ditch the bad. I question myself, have I focused too much on the negative, have I shown too little of the good? I've thought long and hard about adoption and it is a mixed bag, it's a system trying to redeem difficult and tragic situations. I wonder what I'm trying to communicate, what I'm actually saying in all my tweets and blogs. In communicating the failings am I killing off adoption, I'm not sure. How all this pans out nobody knows.

What I want to communicate is that it hard but worth it.

I want adoption to be better and it needs to be better. Would I do it again, yes. Would I do it differently, hell yes. I'd kick and shout, I'd say 'no' more often and 'yes' more often, I'd ask harder questions and stand my ground. All that said I'd still say yes and every poll that I see reflecting on the challenges reflects that overwhelmingly.

But for me it was worth it.

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.

Life Story

We returned to the story.

Another layer of the story needs to be revealed, same information, same story just a little more depth a little more context and a little more grit.

Like this post, I've been here before, same phrases, same analogy, same story, just deeper. We took a deep breath and talked, actually I took the deep breadth. For her it was nothing new just a progression. Bigger words, a more nuanced conversation leaving behind the simple euphemisms.
Her questions were new and they revealed a new understanding, the little girl fading and the teenager coming into focus.


We always said no revelations, no surprises, no shocks. I've had a lot of conversations, with a lot of children, we've never shied away from the truth but opened the door to it before it broke in.

A few years back when the eldest read her file she sobbed, not because of any revelation it was just seeing her story in black and white on paper, tangible, true. I dread to think what would have happened that day if we'd hid the truth.

Today went well, as well as these things can.

The next day I sat with Peanut and we laughed about the funny names she had for us the day she moved in, and we start the process again.

Adoption Preparation Group

'So.....this is Al, he's an adoptive parent. If you could just tell us a little about your story and some of your experiences'

In the few seconds between the introduction and me starting to talk dozens of different statements dance across my mind. Years ago I the good MrsC and I were asked to speak at a prep course. It seemed so simple then, we'd only walked a little down this road and we spoke in warm glowing terms that would have convinced the hardest cynic. Times have changed and our journey has taken a few twists and turns.

So, what do I say to this group of prospective adopters?

I could tell of the unimaginable love and pride that I feel for my children. I'd paint a picture so sweet that it would make Annie seem like a gritty expose of adoption horror. Of course I could tell of the shadow of trauma, of vicarious trauma, police and social care visits and post adoption support services. A story so grim they'd run from the building weeping.

Since being asked I've thought of so many things that I should say, could say, wouldn't say. All of them right, all of them wrong but all of them reflecting the complexities and contradictions that are apparent in my life as an adoptive parent, a parent.

I believe that at my preparation group I only heard what I was able to hear. Speaking to many adopters this seems to be a universal truth. Our capacity to hear is limited for a myriad of reasons.

The Jesuit Priest Tony de Mello said ' The shortest distance between a human being and the truth is a story'.

So, I'll just tell my story and these families will hear what they can.

'Hello, my name is Al Coates and I'm a parent, my children came to me in a rather unusual manner'