Introduction, Page 4
About Me and My Family
So who am I to write this book? What are my qualifications?
I am married. Our family includes four adopted children, two boys and two girls; three adopted in the UK, one while we were living abroad. All our children are of different ethnic backgrounds and were adopted at different ages from three months to seven years, all from different local authorities. Our first placement came after nine years of waiting, when we were 34 and 33 years old; our last came when we were 44 and 43. In one case it took only six weeks from initial enquiry to having the child living with us. Some of our adoptions were legally straightforward; some had complications, but none was really messy. One child came to us in the middle of the ages of the existing children. Some of our children we adopted after applying in general to an agency. One we applied for after seeing a profile in a clearing house publication. Some of our children have special needs. There are other adoptees in our extended family on both sides.
We have contact, of different kinds, with the birth parents of all our children. This ranges from annual letters from us via an anonymous mailbox run by the agency to full, face-to-face contact, exchanging letters, phone calls and visits with both birth parents (although this has now ceased). We have never had an adoption disrupt, although we have come too close for comfort. As I write this our children are 15, 18, 19 and 22 and three are living at home. I am now 57.
My wife and I are also of different ethnic backgrounds and from different countries. I am Iroquois Indian and white and was raised in the USA; my wife is Welsh. We both have congenital physical handicaps. Because of that we decided to adopt without bothering to find out whether we were infertile or not.
Our experiences with adoption agencies and social workers range from the diabolical to the excellent, but mostly they have been very positive. We have been turned down by agencies as unfit to adopt at all and we have had expected placements aborted when birth mothers or adoption panels changed their minds at the last minute. We have been approached out of the blue by agencies asking if we would like to apply for children on their books. We have withdrawn from potential placements when we felt they were not right for us or the child, although never after meeting the child.
I have no training in social work. I am a librarian by education and work part time as a researcher, while my wife is a retired teacher. I spent some years as a full-time house-husband and have always been an equal partner in raising our children (although my wife may see things differently!). We are long-time members of Adoption UK and I formerly edited their journal, Adoption Today, and spent some years as their local co-ordinator for the area where we live. But I am not a spokesman for Adoption UK and this is not an Adoption UK publication, nor is it endorsed by them. I also maintain a large biographical directory called Famous and Remarkable Adoptees, Foster Children and Others, with nearly 1000 short profiles of well-known and influential people. This is available from Adoption.com at http://famous.adoption.com.
Next: Chapter I: What is Adoption?
© Roger Ridley Fenton
