Don’t Let The B*&^($@ds . . .

Daffodils & Dirt Sam Morton’s Album

That is not the album cover but the concept captured me. It comes from another woman’s Scottish story that drew Morton and has arrived in The Guardian – by Kate Kellaway – LINK>‘The hardest thing is to forgive yourself’: actor Samantha Morton and writer Jenni Fagan on the trauma of growing up in care.

The Guardian notes – Both women have used their work to process childhoods ravaged by neglect and abuse. Meeting for the first time, they discuss survival and anger, Fagan’s new memoir, and the state of the UK’s care system today. Jenni Fagan’s extraordinary, harrowing and uplifting memoir, Ootlin, is about growing up in the Scottish care system. Ootlin translated from the Scottish vernacular means someone who “never belonged, an outsider who did not want to be in”. LINK>Review by Sara Crowley. Samantha Morton is an Oscar nominee twice over, who directed and co-wrote, with Tony Grisoni, the TV film LINK>The Unloved (2009), about a girl growing up in a care home, which drew an audience of 2 million.

About Fagan’s memoir, Sam says: “When I read Jenni’s book, I felt as if we were twins. I didn’t realize there was another human being who had had an almost identical childhood to mine, and not only survived but become formidable against the odds. The similarities between us are bizarre; it was like when you do a butterfly drawing at school, then fold it – there is Jenni in Scotland and there is Sam in Nottingham… and we’re the same age.” “I’m a bit older,” says Fagan. “I’m still 46,” says Morton. “I’m 47,” Fagan says.

Both women spent years in children’s homes and foster care. Morton had 12 foster placements and Fagan 27 by the time she was 16 (with two unsuccessful adoption placements). Each had mothers who suffered poor mental health. Fagan never knew hers, whereas Morton’s mother, who died in 2017, is a known presence in her story. Morton’s father was intermittently violent and spent spells in prison. Both Fagan and Morton suffered abuse, got into drugs for a while, and had periods of homelessness.

If these stories are of interest to you, I highly recommend reading the entire article at The Guardian link above. blogger’s note – having learned I have Scottish roots, anything to do with that country always interests me.

I’ve Seen The Damage

In my young adulthood, I saw some of the worst. Any substance addiction is not an easy nut to crack. It’s impact on parenting can’t be denied. Today’s story asks this question – Is it possible to support someone in parenting in ways that are physically and psychologically safe while that person is using meth?

A family friend who is incarcerated has a baby who has been in foster care since birth. The baby will be returned to her when the mother gets out of prison when the baby is about a year old. A parent-child rehab program will be provided, follow up substance use disorder programs will be offered, and the mother has access to familial financial support as well as support with housing and childcare (though she has currently declined childcare assistance). But she permanently lost custody of her first child due to inadequate care of the infant as a result of daily meth intoxication, and I want to ensure that that doesn’t happen again. She has had relapses every time she has left prison or rehab or psych facilities throughout her entire adolescence and adulthood (but she is a very young adult). I hope she doesn’t resume use, but I was wondering if anyone had any advice for helping her keep and take good care of her baby/ toddler even if she continues to struggle with addiction to the point that eliminating use of meth is not possible for her.

A physician comments – Being under the influence of drugs is NEVER safe. There is NEVER a safe amount of use that is ok. You can’t hit “the pause button” in being the person that is responsible for child while you get high and think that your entire constitution and judgment isn’t taxed and under the influence for a considerable amount of time after. If you are still using, then do not trust yourself that you are actually caring for your self, and much less adequately caring for additional humans who are critically growing and very needy, independent beings.

However, another person had a very different perspective – you see it at its worst. You don’t see it functioning day to day. Big difference. My SIL was a functioning parent with substance use disorder for decades. My neighbor as well. Many others I have known. It’s like anyone dealing with chronic disease. They need support.

The doctor responded – I deal with addicts, families, social workers, lawyers every single day. That’s 70% of who is in an ICU bed right now that we are caring for and all paying for. Yes, I agree they do need support 100%. They do not need to be responsible for a child while *using* drugs. Blessing to your SIL to have a support system around her, like a loving family that cares enough to do that. Most addicts do not have what your SIL has. That is not the reality of most people in this world, and one of the reasons they get into addiction to begin with. There is no such thing as a safe amount of drugs. It doesn’t work like that. Your brain gets rewired and your judgment is altered.

To which the person responded – I am so tired of people not understanding that there are people that are functional but still struggling with substance use disorder. They hear the word drugs and they make some serious assumptions about the person. I am going to “not all” here because I am so tired of the assumptions being made when it comes to substance use disorder.

Many have a support system for when they are active that keeps children safe. Being that support system is important. I didn’t see one comment from anybody saying that the original poster should be a support system. The only thing I’m seeing is people saying “nope can’t parent” “drug user? can’t parent”. People parent with disabilities that can also put children at risk, but nobody says a thing about them losing their kids.

Functional drug use IS a thing ! Stop making broad brush stroke assumptions of those challenged with substance use disorder !

Bottom line, there is this – The safety of the child has to come first. If someone is actively using they are at risk for psychosis (and if you haven’t seen that in someone you love I pray you never do). Absolutely the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen and I felt unsafe as an adult being around someone in that state. It’s extremely dangerous for the child if the parent is seeing things that aren’t there, having delusions, etc. If you know someone is actively using around a small child you should either be intervening yourself or reporting them.

Recovery is possible and family and friend support play a big role in that. Just because someone has relapsed doesn’t mean they will again. It also doesn’t mean they will be using around their child. It’s great that’s she’s willing to go into treatment with baby. I would do everything you can to support her and let her know you see her beating the odds and are proud of her if you have the kind of relationship you can talk about those things.

And there was this advice – Her focus should be finding employment with medical insurance so that she is not on welfare and is not a target for state intrusion. She should focus on taking care of her children, being physically active and healthy, join a gym, exercise, garden, take care of her house. Keep the rif raf away from her house. Maintain normal hours – no rotating cast of strangers through the house – no visitors after 10 pm. Work hard at maintaining a schedule and sticking to it. She probably has ADHD and should get medication like Ritalin or Wellbutrin for it, which will address chemical imbalances that she has. She has to work extra hard at keeping up appearances – she’ll be held to a higher standard of care than other mothers. She can’t mess up. Nothing is worse for a child than having their parent taken away from them and even if she cannot take care of her child full time, every effort should be made to have her do as much as she possibly can for her child as a parent, not as a visitor.

I’ll end with this observation – it is hard to overcome generations of addiction, mental illness, and poverty. It’s just not simple.

It Matters

An adoptee’s story – I recently met a biological 2nd cousin at a funeral of her brother, whom I had already known. We were both delighted to finally meet in person. She lives in NC and I live in NJ, so the opportunities for this are few. We loved meeting each other!

She told me her daughter’s adopting a baby and she’s so excited to finally become a grandmother. I replied, telling her I’m so happy for her, and also sad for the baby who is losing a mother. She said the mother is addicted to drugs and she’s hoping the mother “will just disappear”. She admitted (without my prompting) that she knows this is “kind of selfish”, but it’s still how she feels. I couldn’t believe she said the quiet part out loud! – to an adoptee in the family, who obviously was so happy to be able to know my biological family and was just meeting a number of them for the first time! She couldn’t make the mental connection between my need to know them and this baby’s need to know their own biological family.

Because I had only just met her, I kept silent, but thought to myself that I could send her the book “Seven Core Issues in Adoption and Permanency” to help her understand the child’s need to know at least some people in their biological family. And then I could follow up with the suggestion that it might be safe and even advisable for the child to have supervised visits with the mother…Even if it seems unnecessary to the adoptive family.

She had concerns – Too forward? She won’t read it? She’ll be angry and won’t read it? She’ll be angry and reject me? If that’s a possibility, should I still do it? Why does all this have to be so complex?

From an adoptive parent – I think it really depends on the person. When I was a hopeful adoptive parent I would have surely read it. I read everything I could find online and off. Others who had walked the journey before me (because there weren’t adoptee or birth parent voices readily found online at that time) were my teachers. They opened my eyes to the ethical implications, the way separation at birth alone causes trauma and that it’s not reserved for a 15 year old who grew up in Russian orphanages. None of it was enough to stop my adoption plans but it did help me to go into it with eyes wide open. I didn’t adopt domestically though. But yes – send the book.

Another adoptive parent one agreed – it’ll depend on the person, I would’ve read it but probably would have been sort of guarded against it. The fact that she mentioned knowing it was kind of selfish makes me think she might be open to it… hopefully! I also specifically searched for adoptees specific to the international program I was looking into and they existed but were extremely minority voices. The messaging I was getting back then was how to adopt more ethically. Not the downfalls of adoption entirely. Shortly after there were good books written and more and more voices speaking out and more and more priority given to those voices. With social media, things changed quickly. So while there were resources before, there was infinitely more easily acceptable voices now. But really my point is just that you never know what will break through to a potential adopter and I think books are a great way to spread information and start that conversation.

Another one thought – I think she would definitely have something to gain from it but most people are not receptive to that, especially people from older generations, and i dont know if its something i would want to say outright if you want that relationship. Also it might be more helpful to have that conversation with the people actually adopting. I have relatives that feel that way and they can feel that way but we are still going to have contact with other family members anyway and it’s not up for discussion. Our contact with them is more limited. Since you’ve already lost this family one time, maybe build a relationship with them first and see if they seem receptive to talking about the hard parts of adoption. My second cousins were adopted out and we didn’t have any contact until one was an adult, still don’t have contact with the other. We have had some serious talks about adoption. Our parents generation in our family does not acknowledge their trauma and the challenges it caused in their life. I’ve seen my cousin basically written off for this and that’s the main reason i would approach it cautiously. It may be worth considering expressing it more about how you felt growing up and hoping they can make that connection. I feel statements tend to be something people are more receptive to.

An adoptee expresses her perspective – Unfortunately it isn’t possible for anyone to predict her reactions. However, I would consider it divine providence that you came into their lives right as a new adopted baby is. It can be an opportunity for them to have a deeper understanding of the baby’s needs. Say your peace, respectfully, and with a soft heart. Don’t make the truth harder to swallow that it has to be – if you want them to actually be receptive. It sounds like you do care about them – so just follow your instincts. If they react poorly, you’ll know that it wasn’t your doing but something broken in them.

Infants In Need Of Homes ?

That there are infants in need of homes is just one of the lies the adoption industry perpetuates to keep the money flowing in their direction. If what you really want to do is help marginalized or at risk mothers and children, find out how you can offer support within your local community.

One example from a quick google search yielded The Conrad N Hilton Foundation’s efforts (with the help of other local funders) through an initiative – LINK>Strengthening At Risk and Homeless Young Mothers and Children – that ran from 2007-2011. That initiative sought to improve the housing, health, and development of homeless and at-risk mothers and children by supporting locally-based partnerships that included housing/homelessness and child development agencies, as well as those that address family preservation, domestic violence, mental health, substance use and other support services for the target population. The Initiative’s desired impacts were not limited to clients alone; it also aimed to integrate systems and disseminate knowledge in order to improve services for families not directly enrolled in its programs.

If you google – “Helping At Risk Mothers and Children” – you will come up with many many organizations and state level efforts seeking to make a difference.

This all started because a woman wants to make the choice to adopt, not out of lack but as a personal choice, because infertility is not an issue for her. The perspective is – keep a child whose parents gave up or died or something else in order for that child not to be jumping from one foster to another until they age out but actually have a place to call home. One commenter noted – sounds like you have a savior complex. Very often such a desire does drive adoption choices.

Someone else tried to insert some reality – What you’ve heard and read about there being so many children in need of homes is a lie made up by the adoption industry. Really. It’s a MULTI BILLION dollar industry per year. The fact that you said that you didn’t want to go through an agency because of corruption – I think that’s what you said? tells me that you need to do more research. What little oversight there is happens with agencies that are required to be accountable (such as it is) to the government, state, etc. There are SOME rules. Without that, it’s a complete free for all. The women are lied to, you’re lied to and the child is the one that pays the price with trauma over a lifetime.

When you push back by saying that anyone who has something to say that you don’t like as being just negative – well, that’s really unkind of you and just not fair. Adoptees are the victims of adults who make choices about them without their control. With adoption, there will ALWAYS be attachment from the child to their biological families. These children have mannerisms, looks, hobbies, etc will be inherited from the biological family. Experts now know that children are not blank slates from birth.

As an example, the child I surrendered was during the closed era. Contact was impossible during her childhood but when we did reunite ? She has my mannerisms, she sounds exactly like me on the telephone and more. She even flips her hair out of her eyes, just like I do. Her passions in life are those of my family and her biological father, do not come from her adoptive parents. This is just a fraction of things to consider.

If you want to help others, you can donate to families that are in need, rather than just the babies or children. It would be terrific if you do that. It would not require you to separate a family and deal with all the things that you don’t want or need to deal with. Donate money or volunteer your time. There’s so many ways to help others that don’t make things worse, where you can really be of service.

Just Need A Little More Time

Today’s story –

Our state has a mandated “permanency plan” that kicks in at 15 months of the past 22 in care. Adoption is the strong preference. Does anyone have any experience with a system like this and being able to successfully advocate more time for reunification to happen? We are 32 days away from that 15 month mark and we are not possibly going to be in a place where reunification is realistic in that timeframe, but mom is making HUGE strides and can absolutely do this with an appropriate amount of time. There are complicating factors – she is a domestic violence (victim) and a past substance user. I fear the state will use these against her, despite her incredible work over the past 4 months.

If they move forward with a termination of her parental rights, despite her work, are we able to do anything to reunify ourselves ? If we can get them to agree to guardianship instead of adoption ? This family just needs more time and I want to make sure we are doing everything possible to get her that time.

In addition to this sibling group of littles, we also have a teenager. She asked for a termination of parental rights and wants to be adopted. She is very excited about not having to go home and be with her family anymore. Her situation is different as she is 17, which means she gets to make her own choices. Any suggestions for how to talk about what she wants and is asking for and her joy at ending her first family ties, while also holding space for how deeply tragic that would be for the littles ? I don’t want the littles to think that we want that for them, or to think that because it’s happy for the teen that it would be happy for them. What is best for these two groups of children is different and I want to make sure we don’t hurt either of them in the process of celebrating the other. Thanks for your ideas and help!

Some help comes – are the Littles old enough to understand that while you love them and want to have them there until their mom is able to finish “getting her stuff together” – that the older child’s parents weren’t able to do what was needed for them to be a safe person ? If they know their mom, it may be a bit easier to explain that they’re living with you, while their mom gets some help and takes care of things.

Another who was in foster care as a youth notes – I would personally go with like, “mom is getting some help to take care of herself, so that she can take care of you again safely” but language choices can be altered a bit depending on the specific circumstances. That’s how it was framed for me when I first entered care at a younger age and my mom had similar circumstances to this mom, substance abuse, dual diagnosis, plus the intimate partner violence factor.

A family advocate writes – 15 months is federal law, the Adoption and Safe Families Act. At 15 months, the state must pursue termination of parental rights and adoption – unless there is a compelling reason to continue working reunification. If mom is making progress but just not quite there, the compelling reason is that she could reasonably be ready to reunify within a time frame that would still be in the best interests of the children. There could be a goal change requested, but I would be surprised if that judge approved that, if she’s doing well. Mom needs to document everything she’s working on and every objective measurable bit of progress she’s made. Her attorney can present this to the judge to argue against a goal change. But if the team sees her progress, they may not even request it.

The Goal Is Reunification

Officially it is. However, too many foster parents do it as a means of adopting a child in a market with limited availability. As one former foster care youth notes – “I keep telling everyone reunification is lip service and the younger kids never get reunited.”

The New Yorker has an article out in collaboration with ProPublica – When Foster Parents Don’t Want to Give Back the Baby by Eli Hager. The subtitle reads – In many states, lawyers are pushing a new legal strategy that forces biological parents to compete for custody of their children.

In this story, a typical couple who’s infant ends up in foster care, actually decided to do the “hard work” to get their baby returned to them (the infant had been placed with foster parents). The couple had met every one of the judge’s requirements, and then some. They’d tested negative on more than thirty consecutive drug screens between them, including hair-follicle tests that indicated how long they’d been clean. They had continued to visit their son weekly, even when due to the pandemic that meant Zoom. The father took a job as a maintenance man for the county, installing plumbing in low-income housing and mowing the fairgrounds. The mother quit working in a bar and began delivering mail for the U.S. Postal Service plus manning the deli counter at a grocery store on her days off. They spent much of what they earned replacing carpets, repainting walls, and fogging air ducts to remove any lingering trace of meth from their one-story house. They had completed parenting lessons and were in therapy, getting support for their sobriety and learning how to be better partners to each other. In other words, the foster-care system, whose goal under federal law is to be temporary, in service of a family reuniting, seemed to be working.

Then, after being sober for 6 months, another requirement was added – an expert evaluation of how well they interacted with their son. What they didn’t know was that they would be competing for him. His foster parents, hoping to adopt him, had just weeks earlier embraced an increasingly popular legal strategy, known as foster-parent intervening, that significantly improved their odds of winning the child.

The background is this – it has become harder and harder to adopt a child, especially an infant, in the United States. Adoptions from abroad plummeted from twenty-three thousand in 2004 to fifteen hundred last year, largely owing to stricter policies in Asia and elsewhere, and to a 2008 Hague Convention treaty designed to encourage adoptions within the country of origin and to reduce child trafficking. Domestically, as the stigma of single motherhood continues to wane, fewer young moms are voluntarily giving up their babies, and private adoption has, as a result, turned into an expensive waiting game. Fostering to adopt is now Plan C, but it, too, can be a long process, because the law requires that nearly all birth parents be given a chance before their rights are terminated. Intervening has emerged as a way for aspiring adopters to move things along and have more of a say in whether the birth family should be reunified.

Intervenors can file motions, enter evidence, and call and cross-examine witnesses to argue that a child would be better off staying with them permanently, even if the birth parents—or other family members, such as grandparents—have fulfilled all their legal obligations to provide the child with a safe home. Regarding our unfortunate couple, the evaluator who is a social worker reported “Neither parent has the kind of relationship with (their son) that will help him feel safe in a new situation.” The mother was bewildered when she read the report. Didn’t the evaluator understand how hard it is to bond with a baby you’ve only been allowed to see a few hours a week. Why was the baby’s eye contact with her described as lacking “affective involvement”? She also opposed the baby being returned to his parents on the grounds that the foster-parent intervenors had reported that he pitched fits and struggled to eat and sleep after seeing them.

It turned out this social worker had a long-standing independent agenda: helping foster parents succeed in intervening and permanently claiming the children they care for. No wonder some people feel the system is rigged against them. Relying heavily on this expert assessment, the county moved to permanently terminate the parents parental rights. In the 1950’s, the British psychoanalyst John Bowlby posited that being separated from a maternal figure in the first years of life warps a child’s future ability to form close relationships. The the American Academy of Pediatrics has concluded that kids who grow up with their birth family or kin are less likely than those who are adopted or are raised in non-kinship foster care to experience long-term separation trauma, behavioral and mental-health problems, and questions of identity. It’s not acceptable in most family courts to explicitly argue that, if you have more material (financial) advantages to provide for a child, you should get to adopt him or her.

Ultimately, even though the couple had complied with their treatment plans, the filing concluded, their son had been in foster care for three years and needed “the permanence that only adoption can afford him.” However, his parents fought back. They filed an Open Records Act request, and soon received dozens of invoices. In all, their tiny, unaffluent county had spent more than three hundred and ten thousand dollars on their son’s case. An internal investigation found improprieties in the handling of the case. The trial was cancelled, and, the county finally dropped its case. Then, his mother joined other birth families in testifying in favor of new state legislation that would give biological relatives more priority in foster-care cases and prevent foster parents from intervening, until they had cared for a child for a year. In August, that law went into effect.

There are a lot more details in the article, if you are further interested. PS it is possible to get around the paywall with a bit of persistence and read the article in full.

Child Removal

A point was made in my all things adoption group that “Child removal is a separate issue from adoption.” My image comes from a post at Generocity by Steve Volk titled LINK>Black families confront a child welfare system that seems intent on separating children from parents. I already had encountered information about that before.

In my group, an adoptee admits – It was 100% right for me to be removed from my biological mother, it was 100% wrong for me to be adopted when I could’ve aged out of the system. I was 17 when I got adopted. I had less than 8 months til I turned 18.

Another adoptee says – there’s a big difference between foster care and infant adoption but the effects on us remain the same. Not one of us, who care about reform, advocate for a child to remain in harm. Those with a lived experience of adoption and foster care know – it often does more harm than good.

One adopted as an infant says – I have to remind people that external care may be necessary but adoption is not. I required external care. I did not required adoption.

One person with experience with the foster care court system has questions – Why is adoption considered to be creating permanency and pushed so heavily? Initially one would think cost of care, but when subsidies are factored in, is this cost really an issue? I guess there could be more governmental cost incurred due to employing caseworkers, etc. Is the current system a “fix” for the broken system where kids remained in long term foster care most of their lives and never have a “family” atmosphere? Where did the Adoption and Safe Families Act come from, that made it a federal law that kicks in at 15 to 22 months after removal?

Some possible answers come – society, on the whole, has specific views about adoption that have been absorbed into the mainstream view. What percentage of people in the whole of society are CONSCIOUSLY AWARE that an adoption can be disrupted by the adoptive parents, that children are rehomed by their adoptive parents, or that adopted children are over-represented in residential treatment centers? Only a small percentage of people who have no experience with adoption know these things. However, there are also people who ARE involved in some part with adoption situations that don’t realize these either.

There are systemic issues. Some stem from sociological issues that could be addressed on a larger scale (and, to an extent, are now being addressed on social media). Because of systemic issues, removals happen that shouldn’t. Those children are sold to couples who can afford to pay, instead of giving their actual parents support.

From another – Honestly. It makes adults feel better that this brings permanency and that it makes the kid feel stable. It only brings that, if you’ve told the kid that’s what brings stability. The local foster group always bashes anyone who says they’re going for guardianship. Telling them how the biological family will be dragging them into court every month. Saying how it’s awful and the kids deserve better.

And yet another perspective and a story from real life – it came out of frustration with children being held in foster care and shifted from home to home with no permanency over many years (5-10 or more) while parents made no progress towards reunification. The United States loves big one-size-fits-all solutions to complex problems. This act created massive incentives for states to get kids out of foster care and into adoptive homes. Arizona is one of the WORST examples. My friend was forced to adopt her granddaughter after just 12 months in care. Had she not been adopted by her grandma, Child Protective Services was going to place her with strangers who would. She was young (about 3), blonde and white appearing (although ~3/4s Hispanic), healthy, etc. Quickly out the door for a kid like her. Did the girl need to be removed from her situation with her mother? 100% but the timeframe for reunification was totally unrealistic. The mother eventually did get sober and stable but it took her 5 years, not 1. They eventually went to court to vacate the adoption and won a huge settlement from the state. After living with her mother for a few years, this girl is now back with my friend as her guardian because the mother could not stay sober, housed etc. But she is safe and loved and with family without being adopted. This time Child Protective Services was not involved. Incidentally, my friend was raised by her aunt because her own mother had many issues and my friend was never adopted. She wanted to do the same for her grandchild (as she is now) but the state forced her to do it their way.

An adoptee wants to clarify – When people just say they’re anti-adoption, it sounds to abused kids like you think they should be left with their abusive birth parents no matter what. When you’ve been abused by your birth parents, some people act like that’s their right – you’re their property. It’s very important to know that’s NOT what you mean.

One transracial adoptee notes – my mother did nothing wrong but my brother and I were taken. He’s still out there somewhere because the Catholic church recommended we didn’t stay together.

One person notes – it should also be possible to support families *before* abuse becomes an issue. Our society isn’t equipped for that right now. Our government would prefer to throw money at foster care, rather than at family preservation.

From an adoptive/foster care parent – There’s a difference between feeding the adoption industry and helping kids whose family has let them down. I’ll always push to help parents get the resources and help they need, but I also believe that kids deserve a safe space to grow up. Some parents/relatives get it together and some don’t. That’s a reality.

blogger’s note – I share what I do in this blog to help others, without a direct familial experience of adoption or foster care, understand the long term effects of decisions that are being made every day that directly affect many children and their families.

Disparities of Resources

In my all things adoption group, a woman wrote – “I truly hope the fosterers, adopters, hopeful adoptive parents and those planning to foster really listen to the former foster youth, adoptees and actual parents about the disparities of resources. Listen to the feelings attached to the other side (those most impacted) of the triad. Please listen to what’s being said about why children end up in adoption and the foster care system. Take that info to heart and do something. Work with family preservation. Understand that you are participating in a corrupt system that targets the poor and marginalized. Amplify their voices and vote people in that care about children’s rights.”

One adoptee writes – Lack of support and resources led to me being left. My mother had no money and no support. Extended family would not help, she was not allowed to come home with me. So much dysfunction, really screwed up people. I refer to my adoptive parents as mom/dad because “I have to.” I refer to my first mom as my mom too. I think it’s completely up to the child to decide how to refer to everyone. Nobody else gets to decide.

There was then a huge disruptive discussion over the term “actual mother.” More than one adoptee didn’t like that term, most involved in the conversation understood it. It was defined this way subsequently – “Actual mother means the child’s actual mother and not the fake parent because a signed document says they birthed them, when they didn’t.”

A former foster care youth shared – I do think a lack of resources caused my placement into the foster care system. I’m not 100% sure what could have prevented that placement though. As far as titles, my foster carers told me that I could call them whatever I wanted, their names, mom&dad, Mr&Mrs etc… I was older, about 6 or 7, and I just ended up using their names. I maintained a relationship with them after I was returned to my parents.

She is also a mom whose child was apprehended by CAS (Children’s Aid Society): What would have helped me keep my child with me would have been postpartum support. I was young (19), had just had a baby, didn’t really understand what I was doing or going through and had these people show up at my door saying they were taking my newborn son (5 days old) with them. Also, not having to battle preconceived notions about 1. Young mothers and 2. Generational involvement with CAS. Basically was told because I was a former foster care youth and my grandparents and even great grandparents had involvement, obviously I wasn’t suited to be a parent.

She is currently a step-parent (with custody order naming her)/also called a Kinship guardian/or could be an adoptive parent. (All of this gets understandably confusing these days unless one is immersed in the systems.)

What resources have I received from the placement of the 6 kids ?… nothing more than a low income person gets for biological kids, which is a tax credit… oh, and CAS gave me a $100 gift card for groceries… that’s it… as for what the kids call me, some call me mom or Mama, some call me by my name… 5 out of 6 of the kids still have an ongoing relationship with their biological parents, or at least one of them… and they call them mom/dad… it never bothered me what they called me, one way or another.

But there was more – she went from CAS apprehending her son… to their being ordered to return him to her by the courts… to closing her file by his 2nd birthday… and before he was 5, they had literally dropped 3 other kids off on her doorstep (her step children)… and then, granted her custody of her step children’s half siblings…. all within 7 years…. Obviously, I couldn’t have been that “unfit” to begin with… And the amount of anxiety the whole situation caused her… nightmares, etc… is just ridiculous….

Another adoptee tells this story – a lack of resources is what I was told prevented my birth mother from raising me my whole life. She was an older teen, in a family with five kids and her parents “couldn’t afford another mouth to feed.” The truth, I learned thirty years later, that her brother is my biological father. Both situations could be true, but what led to my relinquishment wasn’t as cut and dried as a lack of resources. As to what I called my adoptive parents, I was never given the option of what to call them. I was adopted at two months old and they were the only parents that I knew throughout my childhood, so I probably would have chosen to call them mom and dad, even though it wasn’t a great situation.

One adoptive parent who adopted from foster care notes – outside of fostering, in my personal life, every parent I know who either lost their child to Child Protective Services OR a private guardianship/custody situations where they have limited-to-no parenting rights, parental mental health was THE driving factor. Poverty, substance use, and poor physical health were often symptoms of the mental health challenges and at the same time exacerbated the mental health challenges in a vicious circle.

The answers and stories go on and on. This is just a few to add some insights. I believe in family preservation. I believe that societal resources properly deployed could prevent most (not all) adoptions that tear families apart. I have read too many of the same kinds of stories over and over to believe otherwise. The lack of extended family support and financial resources tore both of my own parents away from their mothers and it still happens every single day in America.