T and W explore the idea of “love at first sight” and discuss whether or not it’s possible in a fost/adopt situation. Also hear our thoughts on Andrea’s first romance and the theme for her upcoming birthday party.
We also recommend this Nuclearity episode.
Why don’t you have some guest speakers on about foster parenting with teenagers. I could use a little help here. Just a suggestion.
I thoroughly agree with you about love at first sight. I have seen it ruin marriages like you talked about. Also, I think one of my most traumatic experiences happened the day we met our baby in a different country. Our baby was only 6 months at the time, so she came to us pretty peacefully even though she had a blank stare (it still haunts me how confused she must have been). But the older children were crying, screaming, and trying to hang on to their nannies, and their nannies were supposed to let them go. I was able to hold my baby a total of 1 minute before the chaos of paperwork was started. After all the reading and prep we had done before adopting, this was obviously not the way to do things. I know of one foster home in that country which is run by a lady who keeps scrapbooks for each child and has multiple visits with the families while they are still in the country after the child is placed. Then after they go home with their families, there is communication between her and the family. When I heard about her I hoped she might have more influence on the system, because the attachment part of it is definitely broken. I am happy to say that attachment has gone well for our baby and many of our friends adopted children also from that traumatic day. But the transition could have been so much smoother for the children. . and parents.
Thank you for your podcast. It is so informative, fun, and interesting.
Jessica, thanks for commenting and sharing your story. I think that if prospective parents are just aware of the issues that might be going on for their children, they can make some requests that would really change how hand-offs happen. And it seems that there are a lot of places that are getting the message about attachment, like the woman you mentioned.
Once we get that it’s not a personal response against us, we can set up meetings that are easier for the kiddos.
In our own situation, we were hoping they would hurry up the placement for a number of reasons. Now that I know our kids and recognize how stressful it was for them, I’m so glad the social workers required several visits and didn’t listen to us!!
Also, a note to Linda… we’ll be on the lookout for some foster parents to teenagers. Please let us know if there are specific questions you’d like answered.
Loved this episode!!! This is a huge pet peeve of mine. It was something I read about, but it was not covered in any of our training. As you say weekly, fostering can extremely frustrating, and not just because of the system. How awful to go into it with the idea that everything will be a fairy tale experience. We would have had a very rude awakening for us! It has not all been fun and games. Our kids, like yours smiled and charmed our socks off immediately because they are also have attachment issues. What a difference a few weeks made! Now they charm others continuously, not so much with us. If we had not understood the commitment aspect, if we had not understood love would take time, if we had not understood that foster kids aren’t normal, we’d have given up and that is sad.
Awesome episode. Had never quite thought of the “love at first sight” aspect of international adoption in that way. Never heard of the pregancy channel, either… a new world of TV options
I have to say parts of this episode bugged me a little. Having been through 2, international adoptions over the past 5 years, I think I can say…that the children…are not attached to anyone in particular. At least not in our case. With the revolving door of nannies (in our case China) they might have had a Nanny or two who was particularly fond of them, but it’s not like they were ripped from the loving arms of those they were really “bonded” to. Parents have had this little photo and have longed for an planned for these children. While it certainly isn’t love at first sight and while absolutely expectations can be challenged when you actually have your child in your arms…I think that those parents are “in love” with their child. I know we were. Yes, you are foreign smelling and looking, the kids may regress a little (or a lot) at first, but wow…watch them thrive after 7-10 days of 1:1 parenting love. Like I said, just our experience…which was not as negative as portrayed by this episode.
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I totally understand why this became a topic. It’s important that we dismantle what the media/movies may misrepresent. But I have to share that my adopted daughter and I did in fact experience love at first sight. I didn’t even know she was an orphan when we met (she was in the US through a program called Kidsave). I couldn’t get her out of my mind and after later found out she was an orphan visiting from Colombia. She felt the same about me and we’ve had no attachment issues. That doesn’t mean she didn’t grieve, I don’t get on her nerves or everything is perfect. But we did fall in love with each other and experienced something quite supernatural in our first encounter. And I truly consider it a miracle and a gift from God.