INTRODUCTION

Adoption touches almost everyone. Even if we are not personally involved in this extraordinary human triangle – adoptee, adopter, birth parent – most of us have friends, family, neighbours or colleagues who are.

Nearly 20 years ago I was asked by Adoption UK to compile a book about adoption – a book of real stories from real adopters, members of Adoption UK who had shared their experiences in the hope of helping each other along the rocky road of parenthood. The Adoption Experience, published in 1999, recounted those experiences and was read by thousands of other adopters, potential adopters and professionals. This book is essentially an update of The Adoption Experience, relating the experiences of today’s adopters in the context of the changed and changing face of adoption.

Adoption has evolved over the past 20 years: laws have been significantly revised and society has developed different parameters of acceptance. It’s hard to believe how almost impossible it was in the 1990s for same-sex couples or single parents to adopt – and if they did get through the system, how they were often given the roughest deals, the toughest children. They still make up a minority of adopters but they are now an important and accepted minority. Odd to think that foetal alcohol syndrome was little talked about and that adoption with any contact was rare. Extraordinary to remember how complicated it was for your child to trace his or her birth parents and how the explosion in social media has leapfrogged those carefully set restrictions on tracing, making them meaningless. How do adopters and their children deal with these challenges?

Parenthood is probably the greatest adventure in life any of us undertake, a rollercoaster of often unexpected experiences – and for adopters the peaks can be higher and the lows lower.

The decision to adopt creeps up on people, an embryonic idea which quietly grows, gets discussed as it takes shape, until finally the research gets serious. The aim of this book is to help in that research with no-holds-barred real experiences of adopters and adoptees.

On adoption websites gap-toothed grins from freshly washed children scream out their ‘take me’ appeal. The agencies are often shameless in their sales pitch: Lucy loves Peppa Pig, James makes friends easily, Sam sings along to Frozen. On the surface they need families who will wipe away their tears, tuck them safely into bed, make sure they are well fed and comfortably dressed, and make them laugh. Underneath they need families who will hold on fast and do everything they can to heal their broken hearts, put up with their tantrums and nightmarish traumas and whatever else each adoptive child has to deal with that other children never have to face.

Adoption with all its joy is something parents-to-be need to be well prepared for, not only by well-versed and experienced social workers but also by other adoptive parents who know only too well that theory and practice are two very different things.

The experiences in this book come from adoptive families: these are the people on the front line – adopters of every kind who have shown what unconditional love really is about; adoptees who, with their new family’s help, have struggled out of the darkness of their past, and a handful of birth mothers whose stories reveal how much they were victims of circumstance.

Almost all the stories in the book come from families who are members of Adoption UK, the charity providing support, awareness and understanding for those parenting or supporting children who cannot live with their birth parents. It’s a community of more than 11,000 members and is the largest voice of adopters in the UK.

Their experiences often describe a moment in time, although some take a more long-term, reflective look at adoption. All names have been changed except where the writer has requested that their name be used.

The aim of this book, as with The Adoption Experience, is not to underestimate the joys of adoption, but to reveal the challenges honestly: to give potential adopters a bird’s-eye view of the road ahead, so that they take on a child with their eyes open, mentally if not emotionally armed to deal with whatever comes next.

Adopting is not for everyone, but we hope this book encourages those thinking about adoption to consider it more seriously and those who are adopting to stick with it.

THE FACTS

There are more than 93,000 children in care in the United Kingdom (2015 statistics). The majority of these children are in the care of the state due to abuse or neglect and are from white British backgrounds. Approximately 6000 children are adopted annually, the vast majority under the age of five.1

1Adoption UK (2015) ‘Adoption facts and figures.’ Available at www.adoptionuk.org/press-media/adoption-facts-and-figures, accessed on 3 August 2016.