Parenting Clubs.....

It occurred to me whilst chatting to a fellow adoptive mum friend the other day that expectant mothers, with a baby in their actual tummies, are encouraged at every turn to join bump to toddler clubs with companies such as Boots, Sainsburys and Tesco.  They are given vouchers for nappies and creams and food and little joining gifts and magazines.  If you join Emma's Diary you can get £150 worth of Argos vouchers.  There are obviously financial incentives to join these groups with money off vouchers etc but there is also a wealth of help, support and advice available from the websites and forums.

As an adoptive parent you are not barred from joining these clubs (as far as I can tell) but they do usually have a preclusive upper age limit of around 2 years of age and seem to be mostly aimed at the "bump to babies" mothers .  When you think that the average child isn't adopted for around 18 months of being in the care system (at the least) then the majority of us newly adoptive parents have children above the age range specified for joining these clubs. When we first brought Katie home she was 2 years and 4 months old, too old to join any of the clubs and get all the exciting things that new parents can get from the big companies.  Yet I was still a new, first time, mum with all the anxieties that a new mum has and nobody seems anxious to get us to sign up to their parenting clubs or give us a free changing bag!  I can remember gazing longingly at the Boots Parenting Club leaflets and feeling sad that, after all this time of waiting to become a mum, I still wasn't eligible to join their club.  In fact, as an adoptive parent, you have to go out and buy an enormous amount of "stuff" in a very short space of time.  We don't get many months of preparation to slowly stock up on nappies and take our time choosing our prams.  We almost have to run into Mothercare and grab whatever is available to take home that day.  We rarely get any financial support from our Local Authorities to buy all the paraphenalia that goes with bringing a new child home so it's a very expensive and very frentic time. 

As an adoptive mum you miss out on all the bonding that pregnant mums get to do with other mums.  You don't do pre-natal yoga classses; you don't do ante-natal classes; you don't bond with other mums in the hospital after giving birth.  Being an adoptive mum is actually quite an isolating experience.  Yes, we have visits from our Social Workers but the emphasis is on us to get out there and meet other people.  Now this is a great thing to do but you're actually advised to keep things simple when you first bring your child home.  You are discouraged from introducing too many people to them in the early days.  This serves to further isolate the newly adoptive parent, especially once your partner's adoption leave is up (if you are adopting as part of a couple) and you are the one at home literally holding the baby.  For the adoptive parent our world seems to be full of little reminders that we have become a parent in a non-traditional sense.

So with that thought and feeling in mind I am sending this post out as a call to all the parenting clubs out there and asking:

Is there a space for adoptive parents in your clubs?
Can you be more aware of our needs as well?

Many of us have waited years to become a parent 
and the little things, like feeling included in things like this, 
would make such a big difference. 

P.S. Plus we're consumers as well and we're going to be spending a lot of cash in a short space of time.......

.......why not give us an incentive to come and spend it with you!

 

Edited to add: From the response this post has received on Twitter, it appears I'm not the only adopter who has experienced this issue. I'm hearing responses from various adopters who feel maginalised by the big parenting clubs and some have even been refused to join.

Additional Edit to add that Adoption UK have been in touch to say that they are going to see what they can do about this issue - Big thank you to them!!!