Parenthood is for life!
Martha and I were well into our forties and had already been married for about 15 years when we decided to adopt a child. We already had three birth children and had made sure we couldn’t have any more!
To many of our friends it seemed an odd decision, taken at the stage in life when most parents are beginning to think about the time when their children will leave the nest and there will be more time and money for child-free holidays, hobbies and home improvements!
We’d enjoyed being parents, and had been lucky enough to have three children, all born within less than four years of each other, and who all seemed to be on course to turn into reasonably happy, well-adjusted adults.
We were warned that there were risks associated with the adoption of children into families that already had birth children – the disruption rate is higher than with other placements – so we thought long and hard about whether it was a good idea, and about the type of child that we could manage and who would fit in with us. Above all, we didn’t want to push our other children into something that could make them unhappy. We knew families who had adopted children, and we knew families who had children with disabilities, and, perhaps naively, we decided that a child with mild disabilities, and with a decent age gap between him or her and our other children, would pose the least risk to the others in terms of rivalry and emotional demands. And so we went ahead.
William came to live with us six years ago, when he was four and our other children, Ed, Kate and Jake, were aged 14, 12 and 11. He’s our son now in every sense of the word, and I think the others regard him just as they would any brother. All their friends think he’s really cool! Ed and Kate are away at university now, and among the clutter in their rooms they both have photos of William, beaming out, bluetacked to the wall. He speaks to them on the phone, loves it when they come home and cries when they go away. Jake recently said he felt closer to William than to the other two (probably because they are now both away) and William himself, though he still sometimes gives them all a hard time, adores all three.
Adoption hasn’t been an easy ride for us as parents. William proved to have more complex disabilities than we’d anticipated. He has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair just about all the time. He has a visual impairment, suffers from migraines, and isn’t keen on eating! The house is full of equipment, such as standing frames, special tables and chairs, sleep system, fancy bed and so on.We have had an extension built so that he has a downstairs room with an en-suite shower-room. We are about to have a ramp installed at the front of the house, and we’re currently researching adapted vehicles.
Becoming part of the disability world has been an eye-opener for all of us. It’s a battle to combat William’s social isolation, although he’s in a mainstream school that is very supportive. But in the early years, the greatest challenge by far for us, as parents, was meeting his emotional needs, rather than managing his disability. He had spectacular tantrums in which he said he hated us and wanted to go back to his birth family, about whom he had constructed an elaborate soft-focus fantasy of love and lost happiness. He told his brothers and sister that he hated them too. It was hard to motivate him to do anything for himself, and he needed just about constant attention.
Six years on, it’s still difficult. William, now aged ten, still has temper tantrums (only yesterday he screamed, sobbed and complained for two hours when we had to leave a family party before the end). He still needs lots of attention and still occasionally says he hates us (but usually demands a cuddle afterwards). He can cruelly needle away at Jake (but then they’ll disappear to cook pot noodles secretly in the kitchen together).
So would we do it again? it’s an irrelevant question – he’s our son and parenthood is for life! We’re proud of all our children, including William, who has so much to contend with, but who doesn’t complain and who is blossoming into an engaging, confident child. Yes, he’s hard work at times, but we love him and will fight for him to the last, and we know he loves us, really. Martha and I think adopting William is probably one of the best life-decisions we’ve made. If you ask any of the other three if adoption was a good thing, they look at you as if there’s a piece of your brain missing! He’s their brother and that’s that. They were great kids before we adopted him, and if anything, they are greater still now.
As told to Be My Parent by Robert
Have you seen the Be My Parent features on children with special needs?
Originally published in the Be My Parent newspaper in September 2007.
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: 04 December 07
