Certainty is different to assumption. When I was 12 years old I was
certain that I would play rugby for England. I had good skills. I was
fit. I would work hard, and I wanted it. If all those things were in my
favour how could I fail?
At the same age I assumed one day I
would be a father. I didn't think about it, or care that much. I
certainly didn't plan for it. But sometimes people would make a comment
like 'Just remember this when you have kids.'.....and all boys become
men...and all men become fathers. Right?
As I got older my certainty
of rugby success was gentle with me. It gradually faded to hope, then to
realisation, then to an almost humerous bemusement. I mean, thousands
and thousands want to pull on the white shirt and a fraction of a
percent actually make it. What right did I have to think I would? But
all the time my assumption of fatherhood sat there. Tacit but
unwavering.
So years pass and marriage happens and lots of life
is lived, and then questions start to be asked about becoming a family.
More time passes and when that question is still being asked you go to
the experts for the answers. But still the assumption of fatherhood
stays strong. After all, something can always be done, any man can be a
father...right?
My assumption didn't let me down gently. One
minute I was going to a father sometime, the next I never would be. It
was swift, it was brutal, and it exploded like a grenade in my stomach,
sending shrapnel through my heart, mind and soul. It tore little jagged
holes in places I wasn't convinced existed. But they never broke the
skin. Nobody can look at you and see the damage.
This isn't an
adoption manual. Nobody should think this IS how it's done. It's just a
personal observation of how we went through it and the things we go
through now,in order to let two gorgeous little boys into our life that
have repaired all the damage.
...and if 1 person who is unsure
about adopting reads this and thinks' well if that nonsense spouting
idiot can do it, then I can!' then it's a worthwhile exercise. Because
sometimes these kids do more for you than you can ever do for them.
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ReplyDeleteIsn't it funny how the addition of an s, changing a single to plural, can sometimes turn something that is ridiculed into something to be be feared.....at least in the eyes of our lovely popular press.
ReplyDeleteTake a social worker. Depictions in 70's sitcoms and much of the fourth estate seem to fall into 3 main catagories.
1) The timid 'earth mother'. Usually wearing glasses and a kaftan she wafts around dropping things, espousing hippy philosophies of love and togetherness, quietly smelling of various herbal therapies...and having her bike nicked.
2) The angry lesbian. Short haired, wearing DM's and furious sense of her own place in the world. She condems men as the sole reason the earth is going to hell in a handcart and spitting angry phlegm at any male who may brush against her in tescos as a potential rapist.
3) The world weary scouser. Straight from Alan Bleasdale central casting. Hangdog and shabby. Broken from years of trying to fight the good fight and trying to keep Marx from being given the mother of all wedgies from nasty capitalism.
Wether you believe in these stereotypes or not they all depict people to be made fun of. They are safe to be laughed at, certainly not scared of. But the press CAN make you scared of them, when they want to. They add an s. Think back to any inflammatory story about child care involving local authorities. All of a sudden 'social workers' raid homes, ripping children from families. 'Social workers' come early in the morning and destroy lives. The Social Service is a bumbling, farcical institution. Social Services is a Terminator like machine, grinding peoples bones into the dust before hordes of rabid social workers swarm in to clean up the kills. The SAS has nothing on Social Services.
I don't say any of this to praise or condem social workers. I know none of the details of any situation involving social work except that which affects my children. I suspect, like any walk of life, there are good and bad ones. I only mention it because, prior to my wife contacting social services to ask to be assessed to be an adopter, I had never met a social worker. And I read newspapers......
I like to think of myself as a fairly sane, reasonably intelligent bloke, and I am aware that , ultimately, newspapers only exist to sell newspapers, but as I sat in my flat awaiting my first contact with the woman who could quite possibly change my life forever, you cannot imagine the thoughts racing through my enfeebled mind. Would the knock on the door be too timid and quite for me too hear? Did I have the right tools to rehang the door if she just decided to kick it in? If I try to shake hands will she put me in a headlock? Have I got enough wheatgrass smoothie? Should I have displayed a well thumbed copy of The Socialist Worker artfully on the coffee table? Why was I being so mental?
And then the knock came. A normal knock. And I opened the door. And there was a woman there. And she smiled and shook my hand. And she came in and sat down. And she said she'd like just an ordinary cup of tea. PG Tips. And she talked about the traffic and parking and the weather. And it was....well...normal...
Surely this must be some kind of trap.......
It must have happened to all of us. You're sitting there, picking your nose, idly wondering if Jeremy Kyle could be persuaded to mimic David Blaine and bury himself, and pondering where life is taking you. Then an advert grabs your attention.
ReplyDelete" Fly to New York for JUST £10!" it screams. Yup CattleAirs latest offer seems to good to miss. So you think 'Yeah...I could do that. I want to see New York! SOD IT lets go!'
You fire up the laptop, which takes forever, you find the website, and there is the banner. 'Click here to fly to New York for JUST £10' it says. So, with a finger now trembling with excitement, you click on it.
Up pops the new page. And the first question is..."Where would you like to fly to?"
Well...New York! I clicked on the thing saying fly to New York so I want to got to New York. Sorry if I wasn't being obvious... So you scroll all the way down to U... for America. Seriously how many other Countries do you know with america in the title apart from the united one? You find the city, you find the airport. You click on them... and then you gradually begin to realize that the prospect of getting this done and dusted before the 'Loose Women' theme tune fires up is pretty remote. Indeed 'Deal or No Deal' might just have to wait until Channel 4+1.
You go through dates and times. You go through personal details. You go through personal details again because one answer didn't match what you put later. You go through the people your travelling with. How do you know them. Why are you travelling with them. Are you hoping to come back with them. Where exactly were you hoping to sit. How do..
..the phone rings..
You, like a fool, answer it. Seriously? You can save me money on my phone, mobile,internet and wash my towels? What do I have to do? Switch to BT? I'M ALREADY WITH BT!! You're talking to me on a BT line! Bugger off!!
Back to the computer...except you have been away from the page too long and it's timed out..details gone. Your excitement, at this time, has waned somewhat, but you have invested too much of your time already to give up now. Doggedly you press on, times, dates, travellers, done. Yes! Next. Baggage. Bugger. Forgot about the baggage. We all have some, and you can't hide it so better to declare it now..
And on and on it goes until you think you've cracked it..but the dates aren't available..or the email isn't correct..or something needs to be verified.
Finally, sat in pitch black because you felt unable to move to put a light on, with a slightly cracked screen from all the frustrated whacks it has taken, and an eye twitching like Dreyfus after a Clouseau visit, you have a screen in front of you. You can fly to New Jersey, standing, for a £875 plus tax. Confirm?
And now it's just got serious. Because it's not quite what you expected when you started. It's all changed. It's all different. It's a big commitment, but you have put so much time and so much effort into getting this far. You have to ask yourself. Did I want this holiday just on a whim? Or is there something inside telling me that I NEED this holiday? And if thats the case, just shut one eye and hit confirm. Cos it could be the best time of your life.
Now times that experience by 100...and you get some idea of how an assesment for adoption goes.
This isn't said to put anyone off. But anyone who saw those adverts featuring young kids and voiceover saying something like ' If you think you can give little Timmy a home, ring this number' and actually thinks they could adopt Timmy, may be a bit delusional. Brangelina will probably have got there years before you. But if you really want to adopt, and you're patient, good things can happen
But none of it begins until after your initial visit from the social worker and those wonderful words ' I think you could be suitable adopters.I will contact you soon to start the assessment’
..’soon’, in adoption, has a whole new meaning...
How do you find the words to convince somebody you're not racist? How do you clearly express you're views on ethnicity? Or multi culturalism?
ReplyDeleteHow do you frame a response to somebody proposing that you would not be able to promote to a child it's heritage and culture?
Ever thought about that?
No me neither.
When we closed the door to the Social Worker after her first visit we had much to ponder. She had agreed that we would be suitable to start the assessment which could lead to us becoming adopters. But there were a few caveats. The flat we were in was probably too small. There were stone steps directly outside leading to a road. We were near a pub. We were harbouring a portal to the underworld in our bathroom....... Ok the last one wasn't true but you get my drift.
The only thing to do was move. Easier said than done in a small town when we were going to have drop half of our income as one of us would quit there job when a child came along. It took at least 2 months from that initial visit to when the SW was ready to start the assessment. We didn't rest on our laurels. We house hunted. We furniture hunted. We looked for more suitable employment. We found every type of certificate we had. Birth, marriage, parents birth, parents marriage, driving licence, passport. My PHD was brought out and dusted off .(But as this was actually a Politeness and Helpfulness Diploma I was given from primary school I'm not sure how relevant it was)
What the hell I didn't think about was what questions they would actually ask. So when the SW next came around and showed us the weighty stack of papers with their weighty questions which would eventually be transformed into something called a 'Form F'(???), I dialled into my inner voice of calm reassurance, but found only white noise and something that sounded suspiciously like sobbing.......
There were sections on your family, your support systems, your life experiences, your beliefs, etc.etc.
A scary assault course in a noble quest for what is known as.....approval.
But then the SW starts to talk, and the questions start to get broken down into specifics. Small bitesize chunks. It's not easy, but it becomes less daunting. Do not be put off. And don't be afraid to talk. Eventually what you really want to say will come out. ( In my case wrapped in a whole lot of waffle).
Take the first question of this post. I'm proud to say that when I thought about it I realized that the best example I could ever give was something my wife had said years before. As a young woman she worked in a shop where one of the men working with her was a hugely disruptive influence. He just happened to be black. Anyway matters came to a head one day and an argument started. As it got more heated he shouted at my wife "You don't like me cos I'm black!" To which my wife replied without a single moments hesitation " I don't like you cos you're a prat!"
Just think about that. How many people would have pulled that answer because of who they were talking to? How many people would have hesitated and thought about it? Negative descrimination or positive descrimination, it still means you are thinking about a mans colour. My wife didn't. She saw a man who was acting like a prat and needed to be told that he was acting like a prat. As a man who has lived with her for over 20 years, I can confirm it's a mantra which she adheres to this day.
So you see. However small or insignificant you think an answer can be, there's always an answer.
And so onward to the SW weekly visits. Could it be I would actually start to not worry about them? Well we'll see....
Is torture making a comeback? Or did it never really go away?
ReplyDeleteTemporarily forgetting the horrors of recent true life, what is it about torture on the silver screen that seems to fascinate people? You can divide it into 2 types I think. There's the sadistic torture of a lot of horror movies. No rhyme or reason except for the torturers own gratification. And then there's the trying to get people to talk.
Several iconic scenes in movies are etched into popular culture with their ability to scare the crap out of us by just watching someone else be induced to talk aginst their will.
Everyone knows a famous torture scene. The bit in Marathon Man where Dustin gets an improptu dental check up. The scene in Casino Royale where Daniel ruins a perfectly good chair. And, of course, the bit in Mama Mia just after the opening credits where the whole cast says and sings stuff until just before the closing credits.
People love historic torture. Castle dungeons, the spanish inquisition, witch trials...etc. It's all worryingly popular
And now of course it seems not a month goes by without word of some atrocity.
So, have you ever wondered how you would fare if someone wanted to make you talk? Would you laugh in a manly way, a la Daniel Craig? Would you remain stoic and silent? Or would you spill everything as soon as possible? What do you think you could withstand?
I know my worst torture. It happened to me. Someone wanted me to talk and I cracked under the pressure. Want to know what horrors happened to me to make such a man of steel (yes...I mean me!) prattle on like a...prattling thing?
Uncomfortable silences.
Yup...that's it...I am a wuss. And my Social Worker picked up on this like a terrier on a rodent. She would ask a question. I would give what I thought was an adequate answer. And she would just look at me...and wait....silently......and I would start to sweat....and then I would snap and talk some more...and some more...and some more. Even when my wife was giving me that raised eyebrow 'if you don't shut the f#*k up I'm going to garotte you with a used teatowel' look I carried on talking.
Eventually the SW would look at her watch, flip her pad shut and cheerily wave us goodbye till the next time while I lay weakly on the sofa like half a freshly squeezed orange. No pulp.
How long could I survive the weekly sessions? Not very long at this rate,