Friends of ours have just set off today on the adventure of a lifetime - they are about to become parents! But in this case, they don't have the heart stopping, pain filled, crazed ride to Holles Street to contend with. They have headed to the airport and away to meet their little boy for the first time. Equally heart stopping, no doubt. He will return with them in a few weeks, and they will begin life here as a family.
When we met them, Matthew was 8 months old and they were already a few years into their adoption process. Matthew turned 7 this month, and they are only now getting to put the last pieces of this into place. There have been years of paperwork, waiting on phone calls, social worker visits, care plans and any number of meetings and rubber-stamping, all with the aim of proving they will be good parents and can adopt a child.
Of course I accept that children can't just be handed out to people who say they want to adopt with no due process or care. But it surely doesn't need to take this long? And how can any of us prove we will be good parents, really? If I had been asked for a care plan or had to meet a social worker before I had kids, how would they have assessed me? If a social worker came and saw me now, I would like to think I as doing ok. But only in the same way as most parents are; one day and one mistake at a time.
I am not sure I could devise a better system. But I do know that this one isn't great and is delaying a lot of great people from being parents and keeping children in homes and institutions for longer than needed.
A few weeks ago, I met a lady I hadn't seen since her daughter and Matthew were in a toddler group together. Her daughter was adopted, and at the time, she had many health issues. There were endless allergies, medications and hospital visits and it was all quite stressful. It was great to see what a healthy, lovely girl she is now and to hear that most of those issues have settled down. The most serious concern was that she has a hole in her heart. I can't tell you how shocked I was when my friend told me that some people had actually asked her: 'If you had known she had a heart condition, would you have adopted her?'
WHAT? Matthew could just as easily have been born with a heart condition. If that was the case, can you imagine anyone asking me if I planned to keep him? No, they wouldn't dream of it. Which makes an adoptive parent facing this question just utterly scandalous. It's implying that the bond between adopted kids and their non biological parents is less valid somehow, less true. How can anyone claim this to be the case?
Years ago, when the boys were tiny, I found the 'bounty' parenting website very helpful. It can be very isolating to be with newborns and toddlers all day and I enjoyed the interaction on the forums, and the support and encouragement that people gave each other. However, I remember one thread where an argument broke out around the issue of whether parents who had their kids by IVF loved their children more. Seriously. Those who agreed with this said that unless you had gone through the process of IVF, you could never know what it takes and that the love they felt for their kids was somehow deeper and more precious because of all they had gone through to have them. The deeper the agony they went through, the deeper the love they now felt, or so they argued.
Well, I haven't gone through IVF, so I can't speak from experience. And I am not trying to downplay the heartache and trauma that is IVF. But I can tell you what I think - which is that that is utter drivel. How anyone thinks they can claim they have more love for something than someone else does, for their children of all things as well.... Love is not quantifiable in that way, surely? They love their kids to the power of 15 cause they had IVF and I can only reach 12 maybe? What about families that may have had one kid by IVF and others without? And where does that leave adoptive parents? Lower cause they're not biologically linked? Higher cause they've probably gone through more stress, worry and pain to get to be a family at all? If this logic is followed through, then my friends' son will be the most loved child ever in the universe, as all the waiting, hoping, despair and heartache finally culminates in their meeting him.
Loving your kids isn't about how much you love them. It's about unconditionally loving them. And unconditional can't be measured. There's an un- in front of it - measure that! It's about loving them even when you are having a bad day, or they tell you they don't love you or they get piercings and silly haircuts. And a whole lot more, for every single day that follows. How can someone claim they love their child more unconditionally than someone else does theirs? They can't - it's not possible. And no loving parent, no matter how they became a parent, should ever feel the need to justify or prove their love for their child.
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