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gnimaerdThe attitude of this article has me SO pissed off.
For those of you who can't be bothered to read all of it - there's a couple of young kids (a five year old boy and a four year old girl) being adopted, in Edinburgh, by a male/male gay couple. Only the second gay adoption to happen here.
The grandparents of the kids are kicking up a stink about it because they don't want the kids raised 'without a mother figure'.
The article mentions that social workers 'admitted' that several heterosexual couples had also been interested in adopting the kids.
The emphasis is on how tragic it is that the kids are being seperated from their grandparents and the grandparents' wishes about what kind of home they should go into have been ignored.
Okay, there are a lot of complex issues here, so lets take it from the top, okay?
The kids mother - grandparents daughter - is/was an addict. She couldn't take care of the pair - who were toddlers at the time - so the grandparents took them, but they struggled to juggle caring for their addicted daughter and the toddlers. They turned to social services for help. Social services offered these people multiple options but told them repeatedly to keep their daughter out of their home or at the very least, stop her from seeing the children. Apparently, her behaviour was erratic and sometimes dangerous and clearly this was NOT good for the children.
The grandparents refused to keep their daughter away from the children - things at home deteriorated. The grandparents have a number of health issues to boot that were making things difficult.
Eventually, the grandparents were persuaded to allow the kids to go into foster-care. For two years (TWO YEARS) the kids stayed in a series (A SERIES) of foster homes with regular visits by the grandparents. The article paints this as a 'happy time'.
Let me tell you something here, f-listies.
Two years, being bounced from temporary foster home to temporary foster home is NOT a 'happy time' for a three-five year old child. THIS is precisely why Reactive Attachment Disorder is so prevelant in young children in british foster care - they have NO stability, NO constant parent figure, NO ONE to whom they can form a close, healthy attachment and trust never to leave them again.
Sensibly, Social Services recommended that the children be adopted into permenant homes. This was, most definitely, the right call. The kids were getting older - for every year they get past five, their chances of being adopted drop by a good twenty percent or so - by the time a kid gets to ten, adoption is EXTREMELY unlikely and by the time they get to thirteen most kids will simply age out of foster care. Besides which, children that age NEED stability. You DON'T just let kids be bounced back and forth from home to home like that.
The council were not happy that the grandparents could provide for the children's needs - they had health problems, they were older, and, beyond that, they obviously weren't prepaired to keep the children safe from their self-destructing mother. The grandparents fought the courts to get custody of the kids and lost.
Yes, this is horrible. And I feel for the grandparents. I also don't doubt that they probably weren't treated very well by social services, simply because social services suck at treating birth families with respect and concern (we have family friends who have adopted and were treated horrendously - and complained about the treatment of their children's birth family, also, since they WANTED an open adoption so the kids could stay in contact with their bio-relatives but many of them were scared off by social workers threatening all sorts).
But what PISSES ME OFF is how it is so very, VERY awful that the children are being adopted by, shock horror, a GAY COUPLE.
OMG. STOP PRESS. TWO MEN RAISING KIDS.
Firstly, let me tell you something (as someone who wants to adopt and has been researching the issue on and off since she was fifteen) social services' first priority is keeping birth families together. I read so many blogs (and those are just my favourites of the non-password protected ones) by social workers, foster carers and adoptive parents and what is VERY clear is how much work goes into reunification, often times when actually, it's NOT in the best interests of the child and much MORE to do with what the birth family want.
So I gaurentee you, if these kids COULD be raised by their birth mum or grandparents, they would be back with them. Despite how shittily they get treated, bio-families are social services' first priority. The fact that these kids spent TWO YEARS in foster care should tell us something here. What do you think the council were DOING in that time? Sitting on their hands?! NO. They were almost certainly working their ASSES off trying to make it safe for those kids to go back to their grandparents' home. THAT is the reason kids SPEND so long in foster care in the first place - social workers HAVE to give that amount of time for bio-families to get their shit together.
The fact that, in two years, the grandparents could not get those kids back, suggests very strongly that they simply were NOT able to provide a suitable enviroment for these children to grow up in, whether it be by their health problems, their age, or various other reasons which I bet you they didn't mention to these reporters.
The fact that they are also not being 'guarenteed' contact with the children is, um, not news. One of the biggest problems with the adoption system as it stands is that once a child's parental rights are terminated, the bio-family has no rights to that child. That would be the POINT of 'termination of parental rights'. Is that right or wrong? It's a grey area and it needs looking at more closely because the very nature of the issue means that we CANNOT make blanket judgements where it is always right and always wrong.
But like I said - it's NOT news. When they agreed to stop fighting for custody - when they agreed to terminate parental rights - the grandparents would have been TOLD this. It has NOTHING to do with them calling in the press; it has nothing to do with it being a gay couple; the grandparents agreed to terminate parental rights and THAT is the deal that occurs when that happens.
It sucks - but it is NOT news.
And since the grandparents couldn't look after the kids and agreed to terminate parental rights, the council found some people to give these children a permenant, loving home.
A pair of men in a happy, stable relationship, who were able to provide a safe, stable enviroment, with a princess bedspread for the little girl and wellington boots for them both.
Do you KNOW how hard it is for ANYONE in this country to get approved to adopt from foster care? Because let me tell you, it's frakking HARD. You have to jump through SO MANY HOOPS. You have to pass SO MANY background checks, have SO MANY inspections, go through COUNTLESS interviews, psych exams, social worker after social worker who WILL treat you like a pedophile out to buy children to molest - and on top of that, to be a GAY COUPLE you THEN have to hope like hell that you don't encounter a judge, a social worker, a councilman, an adoption worker, an adoption panel with just ONE person on it who thinks that a child is best raised by straight people.
If these people were approved to adopt these children, they fucking EARNED IT, let me tell you. And the fact that they made it over several heterosexual couples means that they really were the best people for these specific children. The matching process is not random. Most foster-adopt couples go through the process of application for several children and get turned back in favour of another more suitable family several times before they are properly matched with a child.
And the stink the grandparents are causing that there will be 'no mother figure'?!
Oh for fucks sake. The steriotyping and homophobia encapsulated in that sentence REALLY bothers me. Firstly, it implies that only women can be maternal, loving, gentle 'mother-figures'. Secondly, it implies that ANY woman in a heterosexual relationship MUST be the gentle, loving, maternal one (these people have NOT met MY mother) - that role couldn't POSSIBLY be filled by the father of the children and women couldn't POSSIBLY be anything but 'maternal'. Secondly, it implies that men are fundamentally incapable of playing a maternal role in a family unit - which is BULLSHIT. Some of the most mother-like figures I've ever had have been MALE!
And you know the worst part?
This adoption could fall apart because of this stink. The children could be taken AWAY from their new parents and bounced into ANOTHER foster home and no doubt spend ANOTHER year in care waiting to be matched with another couple. It's bad enough for the poor guys who just want to love and care for these children - the poor BABIES involved here could once more have the world COMPLETELY destabilised because a pair of adults who claim to love them would rather they spend their lives in foster care than be raised by gay men. I don't even want to THINK about what this could do to their attachment process, their ability to trust people, their emotional development - I mean seriously, is it REALLY any wonder that childrne in foster care have so many emotional problems?
Ugh, this whole thing just PISSES ME OFF.
For those of you who can't be bothered to read all of it - there's a couple of young kids (a five year old boy and a four year old girl) being adopted, in Edinburgh, by a male/male gay couple. Only the second gay adoption to happen here.
The grandparents of the kids are kicking up a stink about it because they don't want the kids raised 'without a mother figure'.
The article mentions that social workers 'admitted' that several heterosexual couples had also been interested in adopting the kids.
The emphasis is on how tragic it is that the kids are being seperated from their grandparents and the grandparents' wishes about what kind of home they should go into have been ignored.
Okay, there are a lot of complex issues here, so lets take it from the top, okay?
The kids mother - grandparents daughter - is/was an addict. She couldn't take care of the pair - who were toddlers at the time - so the grandparents took them, but they struggled to juggle caring for their addicted daughter and the toddlers. They turned to social services for help. Social services offered these people multiple options but told them repeatedly to keep their daughter out of their home or at the very least, stop her from seeing the children. Apparently, her behaviour was erratic and sometimes dangerous and clearly this was NOT good for the children.
The grandparents refused to keep their daughter away from the children - things at home deteriorated. The grandparents have a number of health issues to boot that were making things difficult.
Eventually, the grandparents were persuaded to allow the kids to go into foster-care. For two years (TWO YEARS) the kids stayed in a series (A SERIES) of foster homes with regular visits by the grandparents. The article paints this as a 'happy time'.
Let me tell you something here, f-listies.
Two years, being bounced from temporary foster home to temporary foster home is NOT a 'happy time' for a three-five year old child. THIS is precisely why Reactive Attachment Disorder is so prevelant in young children in british foster care - they have NO stability, NO constant parent figure, NO ONE to whom they can form a close, healthy attachment and trust never to leave them again.
Sensibly, Social Services recommended that the children be adopted into permenant homes. This was, most definitely, the right call. The kids were getting older - for every year they get past five, their chances of being adopted drop by a good twenty percent or so - by the time a kid gets to ten, adoption is EXTREMELY unlikely and by the time they get to thirteen most kids will simply age out of foster care. Besides which, children that age NEED stability. You DON'T just let kids be bounced back and forth from home to home like that.
The council were not happy that the grandparents could provide for the children's needs - they had health problems, they were older, and, beyond that, they obviously weren't prepaired to keep the children safe from their self-destructing mother. The grandparents fought the courts to get custody of the kids and lost.
Yes, this is horrible. And I feel for the grandparents. I also don't doubt that they probably weren't treated very well by social services, simply because social services suck at treating birth families with respect and concern (we have family friends who have adopted and were treated horrendously - and complained about the treatment of their children's birth family, also, since they WANTED an open adoption so the kids could stay in contact with their bio-relatives but many of them were scared off by social workers threatening all sorts).
But what PISSES ME OFF is how it is so very, VERY awful that the children are being adopted by, shock horror, a GAY COUPLE.
OMG. STOP PRESS. TWO MEN RAISING KIDS.
Firstly, let me tell you something (as someone who wants to adopt and has been researching the issue on and off since she was fifteen) social services' first priority is keeping birth families together. I read so many blogs (and those are just my favourites of the non-password protected ones) by social workers, foster carers and adoptive parents and what is VERY clear is how much work goes into reunification, often times when actually, it's NOT in the best interests of the child and much MORE to do with what the birth family want.
So I gaurentee you, if these kids COULD be raised by their birth mum or grandparents, they would be back with them. Despite how shittily they get treated, bio-families are social services' first priority. The fact that these kids spent TWO YEARS in foster care should tell us something here. What do you think the council were DOING in that time? Sitting on their hands?! NO. They were almost certainly working their ASSES off trying to make it safe for those kids to go back to their grandparents' home. THAT is the reason kids SPEND so long in foster care in the first place - social workers HAVE to give that amount of time for bio-families to get their shit together.
The fact that, in two years, the grandparents could not get those kids back, suggests very strongly that they simply were NOT able to provide a suitable enviroment for these children to grow up in, whether it be by their health problems, their age, or various other reasons which I bet you they didn't mention to these reporters.
The fact that they are also not being 'guarenteed' contact with the children is, um, not news. One of the biggest problems with the adoption system as it stands is that once a child's parental rights are terminated, the bio-family has no rights to that child. That would be the POINT of 'termination of parental rights'. Is that right or wrong? It's a grey area and it needs looking at more closely because the very nature of the issue means that we CANNOT make blanket judgements where it is always right and always wrong.
But like I said - it's NOT news. When they agreed to stop fighting for custody - when they agreed to terminate parental rights - the grandparents would have been TOLD this. It has NOTHING to do with them calling in the press; it has nothing to do with it being a gay couple; the grandparents agreed to terminate parental rights and THAT is the deal that occurs when that happens.
It sucks - but it is NOT news.
And since the grandparents couldn't look after the kids and agreed to terminate parental rights, the council found some people to give these children a permenant, loving home.
A pair of men in a happy, stable relationship, who were able to provide a safe, stable enviroment, with a princess bedspread for the little girl and wellington boots for them both.
Do you KNOW how hard it is for ANYONE in this country to get approved to adopt from foster care? Because let me tell you, it's frakking HARD. You have to jump through SO MANY HOOPS. You have to pass SO MANY background checks, have SO MANY inspections, go through COUNTLESS interviews, psych exams, social worker after social worker who WILL treat you like a pedophile out to buy children to molest - and on top of that, to be a GAY COUPLE you THEN have to hope like hell that you don't encounter a judge, a social worker, a councilman, an adoption worker, an adoption panel with just ONE person on it who thinks that a child is best raised by straight people.
If these people were approved to adopt these children, they fucking EARNED IT, let me tell you. And the fact that they made it over several heterosexual couples means that they really were the best people for these specific children. The matching process is not random. Most foster-adopt couples go through the process of application for several children and get turned back in favour of another more suitable family several times before they are properly matched with a child.
And the stink the grandparents are causing that there will be 'no mother figure'?!
Oh for fucks sake. The steriotyping and homophobia encapsulated in that sentence REALLY bothers me. Firstly, it implies that only women can be maternal, loving, gentle 'mother-figures'. Secondly, it implies that ANY woman in a heterosexual relationship MUST be the gentle, loving, maternal one (these people have NOT met MY mother) - that role couldn't POSSIBLY be filled by the father of the children and women couldn't POSSIBLY be anything but 'maternal'. Secondly, it implies that men are fundamentally incapable of playing a maternal role in a family unit - which is BULLSHIT. Some of the most mother-like figures I've ever had have been MALE!
And you know the worst part?
This adoption could fall apart because of this stink. The children could be taken AWAY from their new parents and bounced into ANOTHER foster home and no doubt spend ANOTHER year in care waiting to be matched with another couple. It's bad enough for the poor guys who just want to love and care for these children - the poor BABIES involved here could once more have the world COMPLETELY destabilised because a pair of adults who claim to love them would rather they spend their lives in foster care than be raised by gay men. I don't even want to THINK about what this could do to their attachment process, their ability to trust people, their emotional development - I mean seriously, is it REALLY any wonder that childrne in foster care have so many emotional problems?
Ugh, this whole thing just PISSES ME OFF.
