Tag Archives: parenting

Is It Because They’re Adopted?

I only popped out for milk….

Andy had arrived home to the usual fanfare of whoops from my kids, and in the post-daddy-comes-home invisibility of ‘Mummy? Who she?‘ I’d chosen to bank their inattention and pop to the shop for milk.

An Unexpected Reaction

The minute she’d heard me go, my 3YO little girl started crying, her hands dragging forlornly down the window pane, begging me silently to come back, whilst I obliviously skipped to the car and shop, unaware of the reaction I’d unwittingly created. It was only when I returned a few minutes later with milk and wine (it just lept into my basket) that I noticed her distraught features, all blotchy and puckered. I dashed in to comfort her.

Yet my ‘I’m home now, sweetie’ repetition, my kissing away her tears and the evidence before her eyes were krill to the whale of her fear. I hugged her and consoled her and told her that ‘I will always come back’ but my popping to the shops had triggered a secret fear inside her that no amount of logic would redress. Where did it come from?

The Scapegoat

Later that evening, as Andy and I talk about her tears, we ponder what might’ve caused it. And we start a round-robin of blame that heavily features the birth parents, her foster family and us, as reserves. And we hit straight into the conundrum of what causes a child to behave a certain way.

Is it because she is adopted?
Is it because of something that happened (that we do or don’t know about) in her backstory?
Is it because she’s a toddler?
Is it because she’s tired? Or we’re tired? Or because she missed Peppa Pig earlier?
Is it because the sun rose in the east, or because there’s a rainbow in the sky, or she’s Sagittarius with Pisces ascending, or because of Brexit/ Trump/ Bake Off moving to Channel 4?

Too Convenient By Far

I have found myself sorely (and arrogantly) tempted to presume that everything magical and amazing my children do is because of something I have done as their adoptive mum (with a nod to Andy’s involvement). And then I surreptitiously blame all their challenging behaviour (i.e. anything that attracts the glares of nosy strangers in public) on the black hole of ‘their past,’ whilst conveniently forgetting the not-inconsiderable impact of their fabulous foster family (who did all the hard work, if the truth be told).

She bit her brother? No idea where she gets that from. Not my fault your honour.
She learnt how to put her sock on the right way around? All me.
She drew lipstick onto her face with a permanent marker? Where’s she seen that? I never even wear lippy.
She gave me a hug, a cuddly toy and a book when I was shivering with fever? Of course she learnt that Florence Nightingale routine from me (those who know me well are choking on that line).

It’s Not Because They’re Adopted

After a few rather dodgy scapegoating sessions, my husband and I choose to ban the phrase ‘because they’re adopted’ from our vocabulary (and I humbly recognise that this might not be true for you).

We did it to take full responsibility, to accept that we have the most direct impact on their behaviour now, to make up step up to the plate and take it all as a reflection of our abilities as parents. Yes there may be some ripple effects from their lives before us, but it’s up to us now to give them new skills, new reactions, new behaviours for their new family.

If he bites her, it’s because I haven’t taught him not to.
If she draws on her face in permanent marker, it’s because I left a marker in reach and ignored her when she begged me to play makeup, but let me take a photo of that pen moustache for Twitter before I suggest she tries scrubbing it off.
If she cries when I pop out for milk, it’s because I slipped away thinking it would go unnoticed, instead of talking her through where I was going and when I would be back and perhaps even giving her something of mine to look after for me.

They are my children, my responsibility, and everything they do and say is a reflection of my influence on them. And maybe that is easy for me to say, because I have never had to deal with behaviour that gets my kids excluded from nursery or school, or suffered child-on-parent violence or things that aren’t easy to live or cope with.

But for me, for our family, that’s the way it has to be.

Have you ever been tempted to use the phrase “because they are adopted”? Share your stories below…

How To Balance A Child Over A Sink

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The sinks are all gleaming porcelain, at just the right height. You reach for the soap, under the mirror and over the sink, catch some and then wash your hands under the eco-friendly push button tap, then walk over to the dryer, perched out of the way on the wall. All clinical, clean, easy to use. Perfect. Unless you have children (or vertically challenged), when they are…

Perfectly Useless

The sinks are far too high.

But that’s no problem, surely any establishment with toilets that welcomes families (i.e., isn’t a strip club) will have a step? A simple, sturdy plastic step costing a few quid from Ikea, to help my children reach the sinks.

Uh, no. They might have an outdoor play area, a children’s menu and more, but the chances of a step in their bathrooms? As likely as my daughter getting that unicorn she has on her birthday list.

So instead I have to bench-press my children in some Mission Impossible human trapeze over the sink so they are suspended at just the right height, cupping her body with both hands to avoid her head-butting the sink or taps or soap dispenser with a precariousness that turns ‘let’s just wash our hands’ into a fiendishly difficult trick that would have health and safety experts reaching for a non-conformance report.

Still she’s at the right height now, so job done.

Job Not Done

She can’t get to the soap, even on a step (unless she has arms like ElastiGirl from the Incredibles), and on a dangle, the angle’s all wrong, so I have to manoeuvre her body so she’s hanging from one arm, then punch the lever (right now I want to punch the person who designed this ridiculously common and impossible bathroom) and catch the pink goo single-handedly before blobbing some in the region of her palms. ‘It slid off? OK sweetie, let’s try again.’ Now I have one soapy hand which is not making my slippery grip on her any more secure, but at least I am back to a two-armed grip on the wriggling worm that is my daughter.

Water Water Everywhere

She just needs some water and she can get frothing. She presses on the tap, nothing. She puts her entire tiny weight through both her hands and onto the eco-tap. Again, DroughtCity Arizona. I shift her body against my hip and arm and press the tap to be rewarded with a tiny microsecond of dribble, which her lightning reactions fail to intercept. Again I press, again a drip, again we miss.

By the third drip, she yells because the drips have turned to a boiling inferno, which the establishment warns us of with polite signs saying “warning: very hot water” as if an A4 sheet makes it okay to provide water hotter than Old Faithful. Through some knee- and edge-of-the-sink balancing (‘Mummy, it’s digging in’), we create foam in the general regions of the end of our arms whilst splashing water and soap liberally over the sink, the floor, our bodies and down my trousers such that I’ll have to keep my coat done up until my crotch dries.

Drier, Where Are Thou?

I stand her back on her own two feet, with a “chuff” of expelled exertion, confident that at least we’re nearly done, we just need to dry her hands. It’s almost in reach (if there was a step, which of course there isn’t), but the sensor won’t sense her, so I have to balance her on one uplifted knee, as I swipe my hand underneath with the regularity of a ticking clock so the darned thing won’t cut out.

It’s taken us ten minutes to simply wash her hands and I am drained by the thought that this life-sapping event is likely to be repeated a few more times on this quick trip to town. Then a minute after the door closes behind us and I sigh with relief that that torture is over, she gets a second wind and declares ‘I need a poo,’ after which I suggest she wipes her brown hands down her trousers and we’ll bleach them both later.

I can see why hand sanitiser is so flipping popular.

Disabling Our Children

Why can’t cafes, shops and malls provide a child-friendly, child-tested, child-proven bathroom experience so that a child is able to complete the simple routine act of washing and drying their hands without needing a human hoist with the patience of Mother Teresa?

With this simple act, we empower our children, to be able to do things on their own, without shadowing their every move and nannying them.

Can’t people see that these designs are unfriendly and unwelcoming? How do you expect me to feel good about having kids when every single item in this room is designed as a spectacular obstacle akin to the lofty hurdles of the Grand National? When you present parents with a choice between clean hands (and good routines) and doing their back in, which do you expect them to choose?

Why is this world so child-unfriendly?

I want to give my children the confidence and skills to do things for themselves, even if it’s just going to the toilet on their own and washing their hands. Yes I will sniff and inspect them afterwards to check they have been thorough, but this is about empowering them to do what they can, from the youngest age appropriate, to learn, to grow, to expand. Yet the moment we are in public, we design rooms, chairs, seats, cutlery, doors, sinks and more that are barriers to them: too high, too big, too long, too wrong for them to use.

I’m not the only mum who must feel like this, so why haven’t things changed? Why is it that designers and architects, builders and more still continue to churn out toilets that are entirely unfriendly to any child or grown-up who doesn’t fit the norm?

Come on world, you can do better than this.

What If I Am Meant To Adopt?

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We’ve started the adoption process and as we drive into town to do some shopping, I am pondering our life, our childlessness, the strangeness of what we’re going through, a tangle of confusion and grief and hope and anger and frustration. And amongst a trail of similar forgettable days, this one is about to be remembered.

A Tiny Flicker

The sun’s shining and as we drive up a hill, over the canal, through some green traffic lights (this mundane location is about to become ingrained on my mind) a thought enters, bypassing thinking and debate, then spinning my heart on its way directly to my core, my soul.

I start. (I’m glad I’m not driving).

I catch my breath.

Oh.

My eyes widen and water.

The thought is more than just an idea…

It is a New Truth.

My heart recognises it immediately, like the voice of a friend you haven’t heard in years cutting through the chatter in a crowded room, but my mind toys with it, rolling it around my brain as it works out how it connects will all the other stuff in there. And yet when it settles in the right place, it’s clear this thought was meant to be there all along.

There are moments in our lives when a tiny shift makes sense of your life and you experience a new reality. This is one of those.

And that truth that I did not conjure up, but found me in the midst of heartache, reverberates like a tuning fork to happiness, bringing silent tears of joy.

What If?

It’s a simple idea. So simple you might not even recognise its majesty when you read it. So simple as to be blindingly obvious in a ‘why haven’t I thought of that before?’ shrug and yet, it is deeply moving and profound.

They’re already here.

Oh.

O.M.G.

What a magnificent, expansive, exhilarating thought!

What if the children who need us most as their parents are already here?

My mind jumps and creates an image of children, not far from here, already here, already born, who will be our children, but who came through a different route. An invisible thread connecting me to some children who need me.

This truth tells me gently that life is going to plan, if not the plan that we wrote for ourselves.

I will be a parent, I will have children, I will be a mum, I will have a family.

My hope is reborn.

And in that hope, my tears of grief for the child we never bore turn to tears of joy for the children who are already born.

The universe has other plans for me

The Invisible Shoe Guzzler

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Where’s My Shoe?

Did you get it out of the shoe box? Yes

Where did you put it? Right here.

So where is it? Dunno

He is standing in the kitchen with one school shoe on and one missing. We glance around and it fails to leap out shouting “boo”. It’s just over a metre between the shoe box and where he is standing – how can it possibly be missing? (I ponder, still grasping my scientific logic bubble as if the arrival of children failed to pop it irretrievably).

Bubbles and I both check the shoe box. We independently conclude that it is definitely not there, nor near it. We look under his coat and book bag. Nada. How can it possibly have disappeared? He had it just seconds ago. Argghhh.

The Hunt Begins

We search under the chairs, the table, even behind the bin (he has a tendency to fling). Nothing. I am both bemused and frantic, for it’s nearly time for the school schlep and the merest hint of being late has me hyperventilating. I start pulling chairs out, checking the seats and under the cushions, but this game of hide and seek has me well and truly stumped. How is it that one shoe and two children can outwit the brain that got me my PhD?

‘What have you done with it?’ I ask in exasperation, as if he is simply waiting for me to ask to shed light on this situation. ‘Nothing’ comes the reply. There follows some pointless and less than illuminating discussions as my voice rises to octaves only dogs can hear.

Since we have searched our small kitchen floor pretty thoroughly, we now hurriedly look in the less obvious places. In the oven? Nope. The fridge? Nope. The washing machine? Please not the washing machine, as that’s now a frothy, spinning jumble of school clothes embroidered in a mix of felt tip and snot. Still nothing.

Time Runs Out

I glance nervously at the clock. It is one minute past our scheduled exit from the house.

‘Here, wear these’ I say through gritted teeth, flinging his non-school shoes at him. I hate giving up but we need to get to school. As we half-hurry over frosty pavements, my brain rewards me with a steady stream of increasingly ridiculous suggestions as to where his shoe might be.

I dismiss the idea that a microcosmic bermuda-triangle event occurred between the shoe box and the kitchen, ate his shoe and instantly evaporated. Whilst the idea of the invisible shoe guzzler at least brings a smile to my face, I am similarly unconvinced.

Where You Least Expect It

When I get back from school, I give the kitchen an expert and uninterrupted (and unhurried) search. Nothing. Maybe it was eaten by the Tupperware monster who randomly chomps on the lids that match whatever you have put the leftovers in. I shrug resignedly and ponder when I might be able to get to Clarks to buy a new pair.

I go into the living room to get my water bottle and what do you know? It’s there. Half on the bookshelf. Abandoned like a rusty car on a back street to nowhere. I have the shoe but no closure – how did it get there?

I may never know.

Birth Mum, Adoptive Mum, Real Mum, Confused Mum!

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Andy rounds on me with a sour face that says I’ve done something wrong.

‘What have you been telling Bubbles?’

Ummm. My brain scans through the last 48 hours and tries to pin down exactly which of my major or minor mummy misdemeanours he might be referring to.

‘What do you mean?’ I ask innocently, knowing that his accusation is enough to send a flush of guilt to my cheeks.

‘Bubbles seems to think that you are not her real mum’ he continues and the surprise on my face is genuine.

‘Where’d she get that from?’ I send my brain on a rescue mission, searching for memories where those two words appear together.

Search string “real mum”… Results – zero

I come up blank. ‘I don’t think I’ve mentioned it’ I say, with the closest approximation I can make to certainty. My PhD-brain has run off with the milkman and I’ve lost about 75 IQ points (probably down the back of the sofa) and there are parts of the last few days that are shrouded in mystery. Did I say it? It’s a good job I am not in court as any half-decent court-appointed defence lawyer would blow my statement into pieces.

Her Other Mum

We’ve always stuck to simple terms. Your birth mum and dad, and mummy and daddy (aka us). We started off trying to use birth mother and birth father, but the unwieldiness of those phrases soon had them morphing into birth mum and dad.

Why is she now calling her birth mum her real mum? I wonder where she heard it? Andy is uncharacteristically livid. I wonder why?

Who’s Your Real Mum?

I hear him explaining sternly but patiently to Bubbles:

‘Your real mum is the mummy who looks after you, who takes you to school, who makes you breakfast and combs your hair. Your real mum is the mummy who cooks your meals and reads you story and washes your clothes.’

Oh, I see.

I feel a warm cuddly sensation – he is protecting me. Protecting my right to be Bubbles’ real mum. How sweet.

Her Real Mum Is Me

Chapter One: Spies Like Us

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WE ARE ON A STAKEOUT

Ways in which this is like a stakeout:

1) We are two grown adults sitting in the front of this car, staring into space.
2) We are going out of our minds with the monotony of it.

Cop shows know what the viewer wants — pace, action, adventure. Not soul-sucking tedium. Which is why you only see a stakeout seconds before something interesting happens. Yet we have 23 more minutes of this; not exactly addictive viewing. We check our phones, sigh and wriggle. Many times.

Ways in which this is not like a stakeout:

1) There is no fast food in the car — not a burger, doughnut, coffee or soda in sight. To be honest, my stomach is wound so tight I couldn’t eat a single thing without barfing.
2) We can’t actually see the house we are ‘staking out.’ You might think it’s a rookie error, but it is a crucial part of the plan.
3) In the back of the car are two child seats. You don’t get that much in cop shows.

Reviewing these facts, it would be safe to say that this is nothing like a stakeout. Although it is rather cloak-and-dagger; we’re hiding out of sight until the designated time. Perhaps it’s more like a cold war spy exchange, although we have forgotten to pack a spy to give them in return. Who am I kidding? We are two adults waiting 23 minutes for something momentous to happen.

Handover is at 10am on the dot

And we have arrived somewhat early. (I say ‘somewhat’, my husband prefers ‘ridiculously’ and, as my fingers yearn to drum impatiently on the dashboard, ‘ridiculously’ seems to fit the bill). I like to be early, whereas my husband is more of an on-time (his words) or cutting it superfine if not late (my words) kind of guy. But Today is not a day to cut it fine.
The silence between us is intense. Not in the flammable way that you get between two people spoiling for a fight, when the air crackles with tension that a match would ignite. No, it’s intense because of the emotions that seep out of our rigid bodies. Powerful, extreme emotions that arise from the overwhelming importance of Today.

A day we will never forget

I feel so many conflicting things that I don’t know where to start, or what to say, or even if I dare say anything at all in case I break the magic spell we are under. I am giddy, excited, nervous, scared and more. Mostly I think I should be ready, after all the preparation we have done and courses we have attended. But I am not.
I am not ready.

I can’t silence a mantra that fills me with dread . . .
‘What have we done?’ (For of course, in blame, we stand together.)

After what seems like forever our social worker arrives. And such is our tedium that the arrival of another car is something worth remarking upon. This simple change in our environment releases us for a few minutes from the endless checking of our phones, which we justify to ourselves in case 10am suddenly sneaks up and surprises us.

She parks near us, but not too close and walks over. I wind down my window and she leans in. The not-stakeout just got marginally more interesting again. She goes over The Plan again: The Plan we have heard and agreed to several times during multiple meetings already. I feel like the stupid kids being told how to line up for assembly for the umpteenth time.

No, we won’t go in.
Yes, we will act normal.
Yes, we will stick to The Plan, we intone in robotic response.

Because there is no way we are blowing this, not when we have come so far, invested so much already. It’s just another (insert adjective) hoop to jump through. Yet we both know that nothing about this day is normal. We normally go in. We normally say hello. We normally have a cuppa. I normally don’t feel this strange, this freaked out. Today my stomach churns with queasiness, my knees wobble, my plastered-on smile is strained and fake. So we nod our heads and promise to act normal even though The Plan is as far from normal as it could possibly be. And we return to limbo and wait some more.

As 10 o’clock approaches, my already intense emotions shift into overdrive. I wrestle them down, leaving a suitably stiff upper lip and all that emotionally restrained balderdash because my alternative is to be a blubbering wreck. I need something to distract me. So I thumb onto Facebook ‘just four minutes to go, eep.’ I post and run. I dare not wait for responses or read the messages of support, for my façade will crumble at the slightest nudge.

The clock finally changes from 09:59 to 10:00

For twenty-some minutes we’ve been stuck in time that won’t move forward. But now it has. Hundreds of seconds have crawled by and we are finally at the finishing line. This is all so strange I am having an out-of-body experience.

A shiver of blessed relief courses through my body as we coast our car down the hill and onto the drive. We get out of the car and the doors clunk closed in synchronisation. We try to act normal.

The front door swings open

There are no words today (weird), just strained smiles. We focus on the children and gently take them into our arms, on the doorstep (weird). Neither in nor out of their house, it’s a spy-like handover in neutral territory. I catch the adults’ eyes, and shy away. I focus on my little girl (for calling her my daughter makes me feel like a fraud) and carry her to our car without a backwards glance. We strap them in, chatting about the fun we are going to have at the play gym today. They seem happy, excited.
I can breathe again.

The deed is done

I want to drive out of here as fast as possible. To leave behind the tension and the anguish and the strangeness of this experience.
‘Ready?’ asks my husband as he revs the engine. Everyone’s strapped in and yes is on the top of my teeth and it stops at my molars. Suddenly I jolt alert. My spidey senses are tingling: something is wrong. What can it be? What have we forgotten?
‘STOP!’ I yell, as my brain solves the conundrum.
‘Where are Nibbles and Bubbles?’ I ask.

The engine fades…

We search frantically under car seats and then I get out, dash to the back of the car and rifle through the bags of their overnight kit in the boot. I swear silently and profusely as the realisation hits: they are not here, and if they are not here, they have to be in the house. Back in the house. The Plan didn’t plan for this.

Nibbles and Bubbles are cuddly toys: a rabbit and a dog.

But saying they are just toys is like saying today is just Thursday

They are the first things we ever gave to our children, fluffy vehicles of hope and love and expectation and joy, and they are saturated with an emotional element that elevates them to the status of Gods. My husband and I spent hours searching for the perfect toys; two different but equally loveable softness-incarnate. I slept with them next to my skin for a week, so our children would recognise our scent when they finally met us. Our daughter has not let go of Nibbles and loves her obsessively: we can’t leave without them.

My husband offers to go and I shrug him off in my frustration, a choice I would later regret. I storm quickly back to the house, deviating dangerously from The Plan and silently fuming that today of all days, we get this wrong. I stride in the front door and come face to face with things I was never meant to see.

‘Where are Nibbles and Bubbles?’ I demand abruptly, as I enter the front room. Ken turns away, wipes his face with his hand and starts to look for the toys, but I have already seen too much.

There is devastation here

As quick as my lighthouse glance was, it was too slow not to see Mary, crumpled against the wall, sobbing relentlessly, her knees buckled with the weight of this separation. Her grief, just beneath the surface these past few weeks, broke the moment that door closed.

We are not rescuing these children – they were rescued nearly a year ago.

We are ripping them from a family that loves them deeply. A family who held them when they knew not how to be held and went rigid with fear. A family who nurtured them through sleepless nights, panic, pain and tantrums. A family who cherished them as they blossomed and taught them how to love and be loved.

Mary made us promise that one day she would see the children again. We didn’t know if we could, but she made us agree, even if we were lying, she said, because she couldn’t bear to think that this was the end. So we made the pact anyway, believing it was null and void before it even left our mouths, in a vain attempt to lighten her grief and assuage our guilt.

I finally find both toys and dash out, unable and unwilling to say or do anything to help. For we are the cause of their grief. Our gain is their loss. In every way this is a happy day for us, it is a sad day for them.

I pout childishly

Annoyed that my special day has been tainted.
I slam their door behind me and I run back to the car, away from scenes I would rather forget. I hold the toys aloft, triumphantly, feeling anything but. Then my little girl sees her bunny and delight spreads across her face like a sunrise on a glorious morning — an expression of sheer joy. She grabs her bunny and hugs him to suffocation.
I’ve saved the day. Yay for me.

I don’t feel like celebrating. My husband drives off and asks if I am okay, although I suspect he knows the answer already. I stare out of the window and mumble ‘not really’. I am filled with a sorrow that I did not invite to this party. My perfect day has soured. I want to forget the image of grief that haunts me, but it is etched forever in my mind.

I shake my head and focus on the future, turning to marvel at the sheer cuteness of our new additions. Tiny perfect humans. One mass of curls with a bunny on her lap and one mischievous boy sit behind me. A girl who reminds us constantly of who we have become:

**‘You’re my mummy, you’re my mummy, you’re my mummy’**

Today we take these children home.
Tonight they will sleep (or not) in the beds that have been waiting for their arrival for months, in our house. Their family of two joins our family of two and we become four. It feels like we have reached the end at last. The end of our long journey to become parents.

and then there were four

~~THE END~~