The best thing we've ever done

“If I speak to people who have no idea about her background, I say the word ‘adopted’, but it doesn’t feel like it’s needed: she just feels like my daughter.” Tony smiles and shrugs: “It just feels like ‘family’”.

The ‘family’ I am speaking to is made up of Tony and Carol, their adopted daughter, Cassie, 12, and a couple of children from Carol’s previous relationship, Plaxy, 29, and Jamie, 22: long grown up and moved out but still ‘coming and going’ on a regular basis.

“I suppose our family is atypical in some ways,” says Carol. “I’m white British, Tony is black Jamaican, and Cassie is white British and black African-American, so we’re a mixed race family. I’ve been married before. But all this is normal for many families these days!”

In fact, Carol and Tony are proof that you can be an older parent, in your forties or even fifties, and still be able to adopt, depending on the needs and age of the child. And you don’t have to be rich or living a life of leisure. Carol and Tony work full time – Carol as a special needs teacher and Tony as a dental technician. It seems like the couple have always led a busy life, both socially and professionally – so what drew them to adoption in the first place?

“We were sitting down with a glass of wine one evening,” recalls Carol, “Talking about where our lives were going as a couple. We decided that we would get married and build a family life together, possibly through adoption.”

“The next time I went into school, I saw a pile of leaflets about adoption in reception. It was like they were sitting there, waiting for us. I took them home, got in touch with the agency, and here we are now!”

Carol and Tony’s experience of the adoption process is a positive one. “It was all relatively stress-free and simple. We didn’t have a long searching process, which I know is unusual. On the day we went to panel to be approved, our social worker told us about a potentially suitable child – which was Cassie.”

Carol continues: “We were sent the ‘papers’ on Cassie, which told us lots of information about her, but we did ask to see papers of other children too. It’s a bit like buying a dress: if you like the first one you see and you haven’t compared, how do you know it’s right? Not that I’m comparing you to a dress, Cassie!” Cassie, who has been sitting at the table in the garden with us, rolls her eyes playfully. Her mum pulls her closer: “But in the end, you just felt right, like you were meant to be here!”

Carol and Tony insist that nothing is kept from Cassie about her adoption, and she seems to love listening to these stories of how she found her ‘forever family’. She doesn’t say much, but grins shyly, her big, brown eyes full of twinkles. Especially when Carol tells the story of their introduction…

“I think that it was one of the most magical times in our lives – that week of anticipation, between Christmas and New Year, which we spent meeting Cassie. There were hundreds of miles of travel, with the radio playing in the car, driving to and from her foster home in Kent. On January 6th, she finally came to live with us.”

Carol and Tony always celebrate that day now, usually by doing what they did the first day she moved in – going to the water garden centre to look at the fishes there.

“It’s getting boring now,” pipes up Cassie, breaking her silence. “I’d rather have a big party!” Carol and Cassie spend a few moments working out how long it’s been since she joined them and a compromise emerges: Cassie will get a party, but only when the anniversary clocks in at ten years! This isn’t all that far away, I remind them…

For Cassie is now nearly a teenager, with a busy after-school life that revolves around things like Guides and singing lessons. Halfway through my chat with Carol and Tony, she leaps up to leave the table, realising she is running late for choir! Meanwhile, Carol’s birth children are adults in their own right, working and travelling and getting on with things independently.

“Cassie is like an only child now, and I sometimes wonder if she might have thrived in an adoptive family with lots of other children – but we’ll never know. She’s had a different experience. She’s had our undivided attention, which she has probably needed.” Carol and Tony go on to tell me about some of Cassie’s difficulties. She can display challenging behaviours, and needs help with some emotional, social and academic needs.

Carol says she has drawn from her years as a special needs teacher – and a parent. Just as every family is different, every child is different too, needing and thriving on different things. Not every prospective adopter needs previous parenting or childcare experience, but Carol has found it invaluable. “I think it’s why I’ve found everything a bit easier than Tony. It’s still the hardest thing I’ve ever done – but it’s also the best thing.” “Yes, this is my first experience of having a child,” says Tony. “And it’s been… interesting.” They both burst out laughing at his diplomacy.

Carol and Tony’s advice to prospective families is straight to the point – don’t rule yourself out. No, it’s not for everyone, they say: but for those with the drive and willingness to adopt, all you need is the right support.

Carol and Tony haven’t liked baring their soul, but agree that they’ve benefited from social work and professional involvement. Both
have attended sessions at the Post-Adoption Centre and gone on lots of training courses. Good friends are crucial too – whether or not they have personal experience of adoption. Feeling supported is imperative, wherever it comes from.

“Don’t feel inadequate,” pleads Tony, as if the prospective adoptive family is right there in front of him. “Needing support doesn’t make
you a failure. Love is not enough.”

Yet it is clear that Carol and Tony are united in their love for Cassie. I am barely out of the door and the couple are already discussing the coming weekend, with Cassie very much at the centre of events. The couple tell me that they have loved her from the very first time they saw her.

“I know it sounds odd,” laughs Carol, “But I can imagine how she was as a baby – as if I’ve had that experience, as if I’ve got the memories! It just feels like she is ours, like we’ve had her from the beginning.”

So would they do it all over again? “It’s not been an easy ride, but adopting has been so worthwhile.” Tony leans back in his chair and
radiates happiness: “Oh, you feel so fantastic. Sometimes, if I’m at work, and things get busy, I think about home and some of the things Cassie says that make me laugh. Or the night she lay in my arms and asked me to show her the difference between left and right – to think that for ever and ever she’ll remember that her daddy was the one who showed her. It’s all those little moments. I never thought that something like this would happen in my life. We both feel so lucky.”

Originally published in the Be My Parent newspaper in November 2009.

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.

Last updated: 30 April 10

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