Sir, - Lest anyone assume from your Editorial (December 15th) that adoptive parents are against thorough assessments and against all social workers, nothing could be further from the truth. For many of us, our social workers have become our friends.
Everyone who has adopted a child has seen the in-depth investigations into their medical, psychological and financial backgrounds as a necessary and acceptable test of their suitability to adopt. What we object to is the assumption that these investigations must be unnecessarily intrusive, hurtful or objectionable. An aggressively intrusive form of assessing people for adoption is found almost solely in the Eastern Health Board area. How can the other health boards employ practices that are equally thorough, but respectful and considerate? Are east coast people different?
Those who contact us about these procedures are aged from mid-30s to early 40s. Generally, they have been married between five and ten years. Some social workers freely use the expressions "agony of infertility", "emotional hurt" - also used in your Editorial. Couples tell us that the only emotional hurt they have experienced is at the hands of these social workers! If they deny "being in agony" or "emotionally hurt" by their infertility, they are told they haven't grieved enough, that there is a "block", that it must be resolved before they can continue. If we need proof of their obsession with infertility there is the requirement for couples to arrange a ceremony in order to mourn the loss of the child that they will never have.
One couple said that every minute of a 11/2-hour "second preliminary meeting" was a discussion about their sex lives. As they said, "We do not engage in peculiar practices, we just love and fancy each other." They wanted to know how what they "got up to" in the privacy of their own bedroom could tell anyone whether they would make good parents.
Ann McWilliams (December 10th) states that questioning couples about sexual relationships within marriage is "about the stability of the relationship". We find it questionable that this most intimate, personal, and joyful expression of a couple's love for each other should be reduced to this intrusion, to be put on file for others to mull over and assess.
Questioning people about their pre-marital sexual activities serves no purpose other than to anger and humiliate. It does not prove that they are more (or less) "accepting of children born outside marriage", as suggested by Kieran McGrath (Opinion, November 14th).
As part of the assessment procedure there is a requirement for reports from doctors and gynaecologists into the medical background of the couple, particularly with regard to infertility. Why look for these (and other) reports if they are not taken into consideration? A couple, happily married for over 10 years, having already provided this information, were asked to arrange a new appointment for "further investigations" in a maternity hospital (at age 40!) before the next meeting could proceed.
Some social workers seem to find the concept of loving a child that has been born to someone else as our own to be incredible. Do they believe that we are all obsessed with the loss of our genetic blueprints for the next generations? Is that what not having a baby is all about, to them? A break in the DNA chain? How little they know.
We have often heard it said, with absolute truth and sincerity, "thank God we didn't have children ourselves, because if we had we wouldn't have had our adopted children"! While adoption would not necessarily have been planned at the start of a marriage, most adoptive parents would not subsequently have it otherwise. Adopted children are loved and cherished for what they are, not because they resemble one or other of us, or share our talents.
When the child has been adopted from overseas, the parents celebrate their child's ethnic and cultural background by joining the larger "family" of children who have adopted from the same place. Where possible, many of them already send back letters and photos to the birth family. In some circumstances there simply is no one from the birth family with whom they can correspond, particularly if the child came from an institution, but they usually maintain contact with the orphanage.
Some people do face serious problems with their children, particularly those who have had very difficult experiences in institutions. Those children who have suffered neglect, abuse, cruelty and deprivation of love must be helped to overcome their traumatic beginnings. Our association and others can offer informed and caring support, to enable the adoptive parents to be the best parents possible for their children.
Adoptive parents are not the enemy. They deserve no less than equal respect with all those involved in the search for a good and happy home for a child in need of the love and care that is its birthright. - Yours, etc., Helen Gilmartin,
Honorary Secretary, Adoptive Parents' Association of Ireland, Annamoe, Co Wicklow.