1. Want to be a Positive Parent? : Click Here
    Dismiss Notice

Dealing with Pre and Post Announcenemt of your decision of Adoption in your family...

Discussion in 'Adoption' started by shweta02, Oct 18, 2012.

  1. shweta02

    shweta02 New IL'ite

    Messages:
    5
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    3
    Gender:
    Female
    As a couple, when you are firm enough about your very important decision of adoption, its the time when you declare and share your thoughts on it to your family and friends.

    The first thing you need to understand is your family and friends are very important part of your life and your child is also going to deal with them every now and then so its necessary that you have a "yes" or "alomst-a-yes" from all of them. At the same time you cannot make everyone happy around you so its necessary to educate them about adoption and your motive behind it. Educate them about the procedures involved in the adoption and the legal steps too.
    The more you talk about this to different people, you may have to face many opinions, oppositions, acceptance, ignorance but its your duty to wisely take all this and revert back politely explaining your motivation behind adoption. Understand that by doing so you are setting an example and also inspiring many others.

    So its important that before announcing the same, the couple need to understand that they might have to face many unexpected reactions from the family and friends, so its better to be prepared emotionally about this. The mutual support factor should be strong and firm enough.

    Always remember that the entire process of adoption must be handled with lot of patience and understanding. Its a divine process of happiness so enjoy it every moment.

    All the very best and if you have any questions related to the same then feel free to ask.
     
    Loading...

  2. Viswamitra

    Viswamitra IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    13,370
    Likes Received:
    24,115
    Trophy Points:
    538
    Gender:
    Male
    Re: Dealing with Pre and Post Announcenemt of your decision of Adoption in your famil

    Dear Shweta,

    Thank you for writing an excellent guidance for adopting parents. I have a few questions to ask about informing the relatives about adoption:

    1) if the couple's parents or one of the couple's parents are not happy about adopting a child from outside and advice the couple not to do adoption, how do you think the couple should handle this situation? Obviously, the relationship with the parents is important at the same time, the child being accepted by the grandparents is also equally important

    2) In general, when adopting parents communicate about their decision to adopt, likely scenario could be other close relatives may not object to it as they would be considered mean, if they say anything bad. However, their behavior towards the child and their actions might communicate indifference. How do adopting parents protect the child from such ill-treatments?

    Viswa
     
    2 people like this.
  3. Anitap

    Anitap IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    5,026
    Likes Received:
    10,428
    Trophy Points:
    438
    Gender:
    Female
    Re: Dealing with Pre and Post Announcenemt of your decision of Adoption in your famil

    I agree with viswa sir Points 100%.

    If a couple decides to adopt, they should inform only close family (parents,siblings) and go ahead (with or without their approval)

    No need to babysit the emotions or opinions of other adults. Nor is it necessary to convince anyone about the validity of one's personal decision.

    Announcing to the whole relatives and friends clan about adoption plans is totally unnecessary and will raise unwanted issues and comments.

    When we treat our personal decisions as 'personal....off limit for others", there is a chance of limiting snoopy trouble maker's comments and only then the couples will have a chance to enjoy the process.

    Once the parents make it a point that their personal adoption process is not up for debate, the child will also be treated with respect.
     
    1 person likes this.
  4. Anitap

    Anitap IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    5,026
    Likes Received:
    10,428
    Trophy Points:
    438
    Gender:
    Female
    Re: Dealing with Pre and Post Announcenemt of your decision of Adoption in your famil

    Google can't educate????? (unless they want to know personal juicy gossips ;-))

    They could always visit an orphanage and ask the social worker there if they want to be "educated".

    If someone is not happy about a couple's plans to build a family of their own, they are just plain unhappy people. :-(


    .

    Why talk to different people ?????

    Duty towards whom???? why???? Duty because they are childless, they have to go around discussing about their personal lives and getting "yes" and "almost yes" permissions???

    Will every couple planning to have a bio child be expected to go around explaining to "different people" about their decision??????

    Nor is that couple expected to tell the date and other details when the sperm and egg had a party. :oops: :mrgreen:

    Why adoption should be treated different?

    The "opinions, oppositions, acceptance, ignorance" are worthless.


    If another couple approaches with a request for more info about adoption as they are also planning to do the same, then yes...

    If this is not the case, no one can inspire more than google. :)

    It should be the other way around.

    Wouldn't it be better if the couple is given their space and others show a lot of patience till the couple deal with this??

    Why put the burden of
    educating,
    motivating,
    inspiring,
    Being wise
    Answering politely and
    exhibiting lot of patience
    on a couple who are on the verge of taking a scary yet exciting journey of their life?

    The world should back off and let the couple mind their own business. Or we have to teach it to do so. :) (the child will not have to Face such wagging tongues later).

    I do appreciate your good intention behind your post. :thumbsup
     
    1 person likes this.
  5. shweta02

    shweta02 New IL'ite

    Messages:
    5
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    3
    Gender:
    Female
    Re: Dealing with Pre and Post Announcenemt of your decision of Adoption in your famil

    Dear Viswa,

    Let me try and let you know, how can someone deal with your given scenarios:

    1)As I have mentioned, that its so very improtant to convince the family about your decision but at the same time we cannot make everyone happy, so if one of the couples' parents are unable to accept this then the best thing the couple can do is go ahead with the adoption and gradually when the grandparents watch the strong bonding between the parents and the child and the happiness around them they might want to be a part of their world.

    2) Its always better to keep the child away from those relatives(atleast the parents can try to keep an eye on the child when he/she is near to those relatives to confront them when ill-behaved), its difficult but when the parents are already aware of the intentions of those relatives its better to avoid frequent contact. Trust me its easier to do what I mentioned here than changing someone's perspective inspite of educating them because they are capable of making differnces with the child but unable to understand the void that could have been there in those parents' lives.


    Thank you for reading and have a great day!!
     
    sindmani and Viswamitra like this.
  6. shweta02

    shweta02 New IL'ite

    Messages:
    5
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    3
    Gender:
    Female
    Re: Dealing with Pre and Post Announcenemt of your decision of Adoption in your famil

    @Anitap

    Thanks for reading and responding to my piece of thought which was meant to encourage the concept of adoption and not to hurt anyone here, if I did hurt anyone here then I apologise.

    True, google is a great way of discovering and a great search engine but when it comes to some families where the senior members are unable to use internet, it becomes very necessary to let them know about adoption by the PAPs. The motive behind this article was to make sure the PAPs remain sticked to their decision inspite of rejections by their lovedones and if they arnt unable to then not to percieve it further.

    Moreover this article is for PAPs who care for their family and value their presence and blessings.
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2012
  7. Anitap

    Anitap IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    5,026
    Likes Received:
    10,428
    Trophy Points:
    438
    Gender:
    Female
    Re: Dealing with Pre and Post Announcenemt of your decision of Adoption in your famil

    I disagreed with some of your points.

    That does not mean I was hurt. We're adults here. We can disagree and discuss without walking on egg shells. IL is a great place for this.

    I made a clear demarcation between two sets of people the prospective adoptive parents (PAP) will be dealing with. (will write again one last time)

    Parents and sibling -

    1. Inform plan to adopt
    2. Answer sensible and reasonable questions.
    3. Do not entertain discussions that are not in the best interest of the couple.
    4. If plan opposed, don't bend over backwards trying to convince or get an approval or educate.
    5. And do not waste time to change anyone's mind as the process is itself a long one.

    All others (relatives and friends - net savvy or other wise, old or young doesn't matter)

    1. They have to wait till the couple is ready to talk about it.
    2. In the mean time they can educate themselves to behave with sensitivity with the help of google or by visiting a pn orphanage (elders who are not net savvy). This will show the pap that they genuinely care and are supportive.

    Most of the questions from this group is motivated by curiosity rather than a helpful mentality.

    The pap should know to put their foot down and enforce this boundary. This practice will come in handy after the baby has arrived.

    For me it looked like pap was advised to bend over backwards to educate, inspire, patiently answer etc etc for approval of others.

    Here comes the subtle(?) emotional blackmail... When someone tells us not to interfere in their personal matters, they don't love us or care for our presence in the family or our blessings :rotfl (we guys have to grow up and stop making one another miserable)

    The fact that pap is willing to inform the close family members and answer reasonable questions is proof in itself that they care for the family members and value their presence.

    But using this adoption as an opportunity to make the couple prove that they "care for their family and value their presence and blessings" is selfish, immature and manipulative.


    The focus of adoption should be on the couple and the baby to ensure a smooth and happy process for the three of them.

    It is not the time to have ego wars and make insensitive and irrational demands on the couple.

    How about the family making use of this opportunity to show that they care for the PAP and value their presence"????

    To any PAP who might read this,
    do not allow anyone to make you feel guilty about anything.

    Focus only on yourself and the baby. Ignore everyone else.

    If they decide to get hurt by your adoption, too bad... Tell them to buzz off and enjoy the time with the new member of your life. :thumbsup

    P.s I cannot make myself any clearer. So this will be my last post in this discussion. I have conveyed all I could.
     
    3 people like this.
  8. shweta02

    shweta02 New IL'ite

    Messages:
    5
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    3
    Gender:
    Female
    Re: Dealing with Pre and Post Announcenemt of your decision of Adoption in your famil

    There is a fine line between dicussion and sarcasm ...hope you would know that and if not atleast you have your saviour "google". Kindly hold on and dont respond this way ever atleast to my posts...I am here for some positive stuffs and not to waste my time on replying your sarcastic negaive responses so save your time as well as mine. Thanks again for understanding!
     
  9. vjbunny

    vjbunny IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    4,873
    Likes Received:
    1,811
    Trophy Points:
    315
    Gender:
    Female
    Re: Dealing with Pre and Post Announcenemt of your decision of Adoption in your famil

    Hi Shwetha
    A good thread worth a debate...
    I agree with the points Anitap has made and I find her points are worth discussing... I state this from personal experience... Please take the views lightly it will help in healthy debate....
     
    1 person likes this.

Share This Page