I love my children for who they are

Sharing family life

“As a family, we are all involved in fostering,” says Avril. “My husband, Ron, has always fitted childcare around his shifts as a firefighter and is even more involved since retiring four years ago.” The couple have a birth daughter of 28, married with her first baby, another daughter of 27, who is a boat builder in Bermuda, and a 21-year-old son at home. They also have two adopted sons, Simon, aged 14, and Dominic, 41/2, and are currently fostering two young children.

“Our children have always accepted having foster children around, but of course,” says Avril, “they had to share not only their house and their toys but also their parents, which most children don’t have to do. There have only been two occasions when a problem has occurred: one foster boy was violent with our birth son, while another hit Simon. That boy stayed with us for two years. He calmed down by the week until he was ready to be adopted. He recently came to visit us, and Simon and he were thrilled to see each other!”

Avril adds: “All our children are good with children. Simon is particularly good with babies, although he doesn’t really like four to seven-year-olds much, while our 21-year-old is not as hands on but loves carrying babies down to the bottom of the garden to have a look at the trees!”

Fostering children

Even after caring for some 120 foster children, Avril is still shocked at how some of the children have been treated. A few were so neglected that they could only take liquids. They couldn’t talk and just grunted. Others just sat in a pushchair and couldn’t walk any distance. One toddler she particularly remembers was very small and still incontinent. He didn’t smile and rarely laughed. “What I do find exciting,” reflects Avril, “is seeing the change in the children. It’s wonderful to help them learn to do things and become happier, whether you’re preparing them to return home or to move on to an adoptive family.”

As a foster carer, Avril often has to introduce foster children to their prospective families and is very aware of their needs: “For their first visit, one couple had been told they could only stay one hour, but I agreed they could stay longer – three hours in the end! Some foster carers get very possessive about their children, and it does hurt to let them move on, but you have to. They are not pieces of property. We say to new parents: ‘This is your child, and we’ll support you while you get to know them. It’s very important that you feel comfortable and easy.’ And it works!”

Adopting Simon...

“I like playing guitar, rugby, and cycling and a little bit of swimming. I especially like guitar – Guns N’ Roses. I’m self-taught. I like heavy metal, but hate Metallica, well there is one of their songs I like...

I’m not doing bad at school, taking my mocks this year, German, Latin, economics, three sciences, and so on. I’m doing good in English with As. Later, I want to study medicine. I’ve got lots of friends at school and get on with most of my teachers, except one I hated as she was really picky.

Adoption is normal for me really. I’ve grown up with it and this is my real family. There’s nothing odd about it. It all happened so long ago. All my friends know about it

I like having the foster children in the house. I just look after them for my mum. She forces me to do it, change their nappies and all that... well I volunteer! I’ll make a terrific dad, but my friend will be crap. He doesn’t even know how old a child is! I look like a skinhead, but I’m just lively and bubbly. My mum says I’m an extrovert, but I say I’m ignorant and arrogant. I’m cool and break too many hearts... I’m also delicate, fragile like a little flower...”

Avril and Ron initially fostered Simon. When a new family was found for him, they had a suspicion they were not really right for him, as: “Simon was not quite what they expected. They were rather quiet people,” explains Avril, “and he was a strong, outgoing, vibrant, intelligent, confident boy of four and a half, and he soon ruled the roost! Simon stayed in his new family for two years, but in the end they felt they could not adopt him and returned him to care just before the adoption hearing.” Throughout this time, Avril and Ron kept in touch: “We told the social workers that if anything happened, we wanted him back and would adopt him, but they only rang us a week after he’d gone to another foster family, and it took nine months to get him back. We had little contact with him. He was not told that we wanted to adopt him, and he felt that nobody loved him, which was devastating. He used to cry when he saw us, and I had to peel him off me.” Avril adds: “It was a very traumatic period for us as a family, and on top of all that we went on fostering children.”

... and then Dominic

Dominic joined the family in 1999 when he was six months old, together with his much older sister. He came as an emergency placement in the middle of the night, after a violent, drunken argument involving the police. Avril remembers: “It was November and he had no clothes on. He had a heart monitor, and the neighbours kept hearing this monitor bleeping and no-one attending to him!” Dominic was a very sick child, who was not expected to live. He has severe foetal alcohol syndrome, which affected not only his heart, but also his eyes, vertebrae, fingers, toes and legs. He is fed by gastrostomy tube. “They said he ould get chest infections,” says Avril, “but he didn’t, and he has thrived and grown in our house. He has just started walking and never stops talking, laughing and screeching!” Avril continues: “Dominic can be hilarious, and he draws in people wherever he goes. He says sweet things like: ‘I can’t do that, I’m too small.’ He’s cheeky in a nice way, and very endearing.”

As planned, an adoptive family was found for Dominic (and another for his sister), but Avril felt rather disappointed as it was a single carer with several special needs children: “I thought he would do better in a busier, more inclusive environment, but there was not much choice as his limited life expectancy put off a number of families.” Meanwhile, Simon and the family’s three birth children came up individually to Ron or Avril, saying, ‘why are you letting him go?’ In the end, the family sat down and discussed the situation: “We felt it made every difference having Dominic in our family, and we just couldn’t live without him,” says Avril. Not long after, Dominic had major heart surgery. Avril is sure he would have died if he had moved to a different family: “He feels we’re his family. His heart surgery was very touch and go, and it would have been terrible if he’d had a broken heart as well. They rebuilt his heart but did not need to rebuild his soul!” Dominic has recovered remarkably well and now has a normal life expectancy, although he may need some more surgery at 16.

Asking for support

Avril is keen that people should understand more about adoption and fostering, and has been interviewed for National Adoption Week’s GMTV, with Simon and Dominic, as well as in the London Evening Standard and the local press.

It all started when she took part in a writing competition for Adoption Net, and won sponsorship to go on the BAAF fundraising trip to the Great Wall of China – “a dream come true, as with foster children you are usually restricted to holidays in the British Isles!” Sadly, she was taken ill and had to return early, but the reporters were there to hear her story.

Avril gets a great deal of her support from reading everything she can. Personally, she’s less keen on going to meetings with other carers, but is very open to therapeutic support. She was delighted that this was an option for Simon, with family therapy through Family Futures. She feels strongly that you have to be very careful to get the therapy right and that individual talking therapy would not have suited Simon, while Family Futures has been good for him and very supportive for the rest of the family. The downside is that this type of therapy takes up a lot of time. “Also,” says Avril, “it seems as if Social Services are becoming a bit reluctant to fund it, but I feel it’s really worth it, and far cheaper than risking a disruption or keeping a child in the care system.”

Avril adds: “Adoption has changed, it’s no longer just about babies needing adoptive families. Nowadays, a lot of the children come from abusive homes. Simon’s background was horrendous and it’s been difficult to know how much you should tell him at each stage. We’ve had to weigh how much he can take at any one time.” Some time ago, an accidental meeting brought him in contact with members of his birth family and this proved quite traumatic, but the therapy helped. “Some social workers feel you shouldn’t let the child think that their birth parents are bad,” says Avril, “and that may be right in many situations. But, for Simon, Family Futures recommended we should explain to him honestly that his birth parents were not good parents and that is why he had to be adopted. This enabled him to move from imaginary thoughts and feelings to accepting the reality of the situation. I would have found it difficult to know what to say without their help.”

A deep bond

A lot of people don’t really understand about adoption and fostering, Avril feels. “They seem to think that the adopted child is a kind of secondclass child that you can’t love as much as your own child. With us, our two adopted children are wholeheartedly part of the family. They are equal to our three birth children.” She adds: “I love my children for who they are. It’s true I gave birth to my own children and they share part of my genes, but you also go through emotion and trauma when adopting. Adoption involves a bond that is just as deep as with birth children. Of course, it can be hard work, but so can birth children. You can’t quantify love. Love is equal. I wish people would understand that.”

Interviews of Avril and Simon by Leonie Sturge-Moore

Originally published in the Be My Parent newspaper in January 2004.

This article is published with the kind permission of the people involved. You may download it for your own reference but if you wish to use it for any other purpose, please contact Be My Parent for authorisation: Be My Parent, BAAF, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Telephone: 020 7421 2666/5/4.

Last updated: 10 September 07

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