- What can couples who are unable to have children do to resolve their problem?
- Would you adopt even if you could have, or already have, your own children?
- Why might some couples prefer to have children that are biologically their own? Why do other couples choose to adopt?
- If a couple wants to adopt a child, do you think they have a right to choose the child's age,sex and race?
- When should parents tell the child that he/she was adopted?
- Where possible, should the adoptive parents maintain contact with the natural parents?
- Should the adoptive parents try to let their child be interested in his/her natural cultural background?
- Why do you think some people object to international adoptions?
- Why do some couples volunteer to be foster families (to look after a child for a period of time when the child's natural parents have problem or are in jail)? Would you volunteer to be a foster parent?
My parents have always sat me down from, from the age of two, from when I could talk really, and really sort of said you’re adopted, you know, told me what it’s about, so when I’ve always had relevant information given to me throughout the years.
Being adopted now feels no different from being normal because I have a family, so it’s great.
Did you, did you not ever feel like you didn’t have anyone to speak to anything?
It’s not been a huge issue for me actually, no, because I’ve never actually felt it’s been a bad thing, I’ve always seen the positive side of it, I’m not sure how it has been, for you has it been the same?
You know, it’s been different for me like before we had the Talk Adoption Group I literally, I felt so lonely like I didn’t have really anyone to talk to about it, so I don’t know, I just thought maybe you might have felt the same because I didn’t know anyone in Cardiff who was adopted, I just, I didn’t realize there were so many people out there.
I knew about the adoption but my family has always put positive on it, so I’ve never really seen the downside of being adopted.
Did you not have like, like in primary school I had this one time when they asked me to do like a family tree and I didn’t have any photos of myself and I felt really bad. Did you ever have that?
I have had photos of myself when I was quite small, I mean a small baby but not when I was like newly born, or anything like that, so it kinda started if on the family tree it kind of started from a few months old and then it kind of escalated from there really, so I kind of had a family tree but wasn’t from the very, very beginning.
Yeah, because I didn’t make one at all because I was told in primary school like because I didn’t have picture, I couldn’t take part.
Oh!
I know, it’s a bit harsh.
Yeah, that was a bit harsh.
I know, I felt, you know I was younger so I saw, I just, you know went along with it.
I think that’s the thing when you’re younger. You don’t quite understand why people are saying things like that, why people are acting towards you in that way. When you get older, you kind of understand it a lot more and you understand.
And the people do as well I find.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, to you you’re completely normal and I think to other people who have a family from the start, I think that’s kind of normal to them and then adoption is normal to us, so it works two ways, and I think that in-between there’s a kind of misunderstanding possibly with them. I mean, I’ve really never been asked the question, would you want to contact them, would you want to do this, and I mean, if I’m gonna answer that now, it would be not really, because I have a family, they’ve been there for me all my life and I don’t really think I need anyone else intruding in the kind of happy family I have now.
Yeah, well I see what you mean like but for me it’s different because a lot of my best friends I’ve told, like they do ask me like quite a lot what you gonna do when you’re 18, like you know, like which is fine for me because it helps me think about it, if I’m not thinking about it I wouldn’t know what I would do, so for that question at the moment I think I am definitely thinking about like having a look at my files and…
Yeah, of course.
… and then I’m gonna like make a decision on that whether I meet my birth parents, but at the moment I think I would like to because I feel like there is something missing and I’d like to see what they look like and things like that.
I think it’s nice to kind of know there is a bit of explanation in the files, but I’m not sure whether I’d actually want to have a look at them.
Really?
Because you’ve always got that chance that it may not be as exciting as you thought it would be, it may, might disappoint you, it may have something a bit kind of negative and I think I might kind of be like, well this is kind of weird because the people who actually gave birth to me weren’t ideal and I think, I don’t know, it’s, it’s a strange, strange thing, actually. I’m inquisitive to see what will be in the files. Whether I’d actually end up meeting them personally, I don’t really know.
