"Minus one!" That means one less orphan. "Plus one!" - this means your family has become one more person. These are words behind which there is so much: both joy for this child, and a sense of guilt in front of all those children who have not yet found a family, and the hope of someday still “scoop the sea”. For this simple arithmetic to become happy life, and a book was written by the wonderful psychologist Lyudmila Petranovskaya. In his book, the author tells how to prepare for this difficult decision, go all the way without losing hope, increase your family by one wonderful child. The book will make you feel that you are not alone on your journey.

On our website you can download the book "Minus One? Plus One! An Adopted Child in the Family" by Petranovskaya Lyudmila Vladimirovna for free and without registration in fb2, rtf, epub, pdf, txt format, read the book online or buy the book in the online store.

Lyudmila Vladimirovna Petranovskaya

Minus one? Plus one! Adopted child in the family

A bit of an odd name, right?

But not for those who communicate a lot with foster parents, especially on the Internet. There is a tradition on the forums and blogs of adoptive parents: when someone reports that they have taken a child from orphanage, everyone who was rooting for this family and for the child, supported and helped with advice, write in response as a password: “Minus one!” These words are sometimes repeated dozens of times under the message that the child has found a family, like a salute in honor of the replenishment of the family, especially if it was not easy to find a family for this child or it was possible to pick him up with great difficulty (and this happens often).

"Minus one!" means that there is one less orphan. One less child in the System. One less childhood in a state-owned house. These are words behind which there is so much: both joy for this child, and a sense of guilt in front of orphans, and the hope of someday still scooping up the sea.

But before "Minus one!" will sound in honor of replenishing your family, you have to go through the path of preparation and decision making. This can take weeks, months, or even years - as long as you and your family need. After all, getting a child out of a state-owned home is half the battle, you still need to raise him, you need to live with him, you need to build relationships.

Understanding your motives and assessing your strengths is important before any serious life decision, but when it comes to the fate of a child and the fate of your family, this is a hundred times more important. We are really responsible for those we have tamed. What these beautiful words mean in reality, everyone who has come across children returned from foster families back to institutions. We couldn’t, didn’t cope, were disappointed, divorced, got married or gave birth to our children - there are always some objective reasons. Anyone who has ever had close contact with such a second time rejected child, who has seen his eyes, as if sprinkled with ashes, will never forget this meeting.

So let's think "on the coast". It is not in vain that nature has given nine months to prepare for parenthood. This is a huge change in life, consciousness, soul.

This book is written on the basis of many years of experience in advising prospective adoptive parents and providing training to prepare prospective adoptive parents. It will help you go through all the stages that a family usually goes through, starting from the question: “Should we take a child?” and ending with the moment when the excited parents return home with a new family member, where new life. This book is about preparing for the adoption of a child, about “pregnancy” with an adopted child. Not about “what documents are needed”, but about what is inside, in the soul. Many of the subsections sound like questions—and these are real questions that my colleagues and I hear from prospective adoptive parents.

There will be many who want to intimidate you (“What are you? They all grow up to be bandits!”) And many who want to agitate you (“Save the unfortunate orphan!”). Try to isolate yourself from both. What you need now is not emotional slogans, but comprehensive information and a leisurely, meaningful decision. And if this decision is negative: “No, this is not for me, not for my family” - this is also an honest, responsible choice: you will not ruin the life of a child and your loved ones.

There will still be a time when you will have to devote yourself completely to the child, when you will need to do a lot, ignoring your “I don’t want”, and sometimes my “I can’t”. There will still come a moment when you realize with all your heart that it’s too late to decide and choose, there is a child, his life is in your hands, and you have to cope, no matter how hard it is. You will still read many books and articles about your child, you will spend many more hours thinking about how to help him. And this book is about you, this time is for you. Everything you do for yourself now, you will do for your unborn child.

I would be glad if this book becomes your friend and helper, it will tell you something, console you sometime, and most importantly, it will make you feel that you are not alone on your path.

Introduction

There is no adopted child in your family yet. Not a single call has yet been made to the authorities, not a single certificate has been collected.

But you look around the room with your eyes and suddenly catch yourself thinking that here a baby sofa would be quite right here, and next to it is a rack for toys.

Or, having stumbled upon a photograph in a magazine Hollywood star on a walk in the park with your adopted children, you suddenly feel a vague anxiety that does not let go for several hours.

Or your youngest, when the elders are at school, sadly pulls, sitting on the floor: “Mom, let's find a child, as small as me.” Or you don’t have any youngest, and the elders already have mustaches themselves, and there is still so much strength and love.

Or maybe, after many years of waiting, painful treatment and bitter disappointments, someone (doctor, mother, girlfriend) will suddenly say: “Stop suffering, there are already born children who need parents!”

It also happens that for some reason you know for sure from childhood: someday you will bring an orphan into the house and try to raise him in love and care.

It happens that the question arises about a specific child: a familiar boy or girl was left without parents, or one of the children in a sponsored orphanage suddenly becomes more than just sponsored, and it is not clear how to say goodbye again and go home without him.

The first thought comes to everyone in different ways. For some, it will remain just a flashing thought, someone will return to it again and again, think, discuss, worry. This is how the path that the adoptive parent goes through begins. And there are many more questions at the beginning of this path than answers.

Take a child - what? Younger? Older? Boy or girl?

They say that all orphanage children have diagnoses. What does it mean?

Everyone assures that children are “difficult”. What does it mean? What should be prepared for?

Will we make it? How to understand in advance?

How do you even know that it's ours? Will we be allowed to choose?

And if one of the spouses wants, and the other does not? And what will our children say? What about our parents?

They say that it is necessary to go through the School of foster parents - why? Is it possible to teach how to raise children?

Guardianship authorities: they say there are queues, bribes and rude talk. This is true? Fear them or not? And how do you even talk to them?

There are different forms of family organization. And which one is right for us? What is more important - to be “completely ours” or to have benefits?

Here we come to the child. How to get to know him? What if we don't like it? What if he doesn't want to?

How to prepare the house and life for the arrival of the child? Need something special?

Quite understandable and reasonable questions, right? Take it, psychologist, and answer. That's just to answer them, no specialist in itself can not. Because even if he knows absolutely everything about children (and it is impossible to know everything about them, every child is special), then surely no one knows you and your family better than you. And it’s worth starting with this - not with questions: “What kind of child do we want?” and “How to find it?”, but with the question: “What can we do and what can’t we, what is easy for us as a family and what is difficult?” Therefore, the first section of the book is about families, very different and very important.

Families are different and important

Oddly enough, such a familiar and dear to each of us concept as a family is very difficult to define. The "reference" family, which is depicted in commercials and in photographs in glossy magazines - mom, dad and two charming children - is not so common in life and not everyone seems to be a reference. For example, to our ancestors, and to many of our contemporaries, a family with two children would have seemed deprived, with few children. Not everyone will consider the absence of grandparents in a family portrait a plus. There are families of two people, and there are families of thirty; families from one generation (husband and wife) and from four (with great-grandparents); families without children and families without parents (for example, adult siblings living together); families connected by consanguinity, and families consisting of people who are not related by blood (stepfather or stepmother and adopted children). However, the members of all these so different associations feel that they belong to something whole, to a certain community - to their family.

Psychologists, sociologists and lawyers argue about what can and cannot be considered a family, but we are interested in a very specific question: who are the people who decide to take the child, and who are the people who will take responsibility for his upbringing, will they raise him?

A bit of an odd name, right?

But not for those who communicate a lot with foster parents, especially on the Internet. There is a tradition on the forums and blogs of adoptive parents: when someone reports that he took the child from the orphanage, everyone who was rooting for this family and for the child, supported and helped with advice, write back like a password: “Minus one!” These words are sometimes repeated dozens of times under the message that the child has found a family, like a salute in honor of the replenishment of the family, especially if it was not easy to find a family for this child or it was possible to pick him up with great difficulty (and this happens often).

"Minus one!" means that there is one less orphan. One less child in the System. One less childhood in a state-owned house. These are words behind which there is so much: both joy for this child, and a sense of guilt in front of orphans, and the hope of someday still scooping up the sea.

But before "Minus one!" will sound in honor of replenishing your family, you have to go through the path of preparation and decision making. This can take weeks, months, or even years - as long as you and your family need. After all, getting a child out of a state-owned home is half the battle, you still need to raise him, you need to live with him, you need to build relationships.

Understanding your motives and assessing your strengths is important before any serious life decision, but when it comes to the fate of a child and the fate of your family, this is a hundred times more important. We are really responsible for those we have tamed. What these beautiful words mean in reality, everyone who has come across children returned from foster families back to institutions knows. We couldn’t, didn’t cope, were disappointed, divorced, got married or gave birth to our children - there are always some objective reasons. Anyone who has ever had close contact with such a second time rejected child, who has seen his eyes, as if sprinkled with ashes, will never forget this meeting.

So let's think "on the coast". It is not in vain that nature has given nine months to prepare for parenthood. This is a huge change in life, consciousness, soul.

This book is written on the basis of many years of experience in advising prospective adoptive parents and providing training to prepare prospective adoptive parents. It will help you go through all the stages that a family usually goes through, starting from the question: “Should we take a child?” and ending with the moment when the excited parents return home with a new family member, where a new life awaits him. This book is about preparing for the adoption of a child, about “pregnancy” with an adopted child. Not about “what documents are needed”, but about what is inside, in the soul. Many of the subsections sound like questions—and these are real questions that my colleagues and I hear from prospective adoptive parents.

There will be many who want to intimidate you (“What are you? They all grow up to be bandits!”) And many who want to agitate you (“Save the unfortunate orphan!”). Try to isolate yourself from both. What you need now is not emotional slogans, but comprehensive information and a leisurely, meaningful decision. And if this decision is negative: “No, this is not for me, not for my family” - this is also an honest, responsible choice: you will not ruin the life of a child and your loved ones.

There will still be a time when you will have to devote yourself completely to the child, when you will need to do a lot, ignoring your “I don’t want”, and sometimes my “I can’t”. There will still come a moment when you realize with all your heart that it’s too late to decide and choose, there is a child, his life is in your hands, and you have to cope, no matter how hard it is. You will still read many books and articles about your child, you will spend many more hours thinking about how to help him. And this book is about you, this time is for you. Everything you do for yourself now, you will do for your unborn child.

I would be glad if this book becomes your friend and helper, it will tell you something, console you sometime, and most importantly, it will make you feel that you are not alone on your path.

Introduction

There is no adopted child in your family yet. Not a single call has yet been made to the authorities, not a single certificate has been collected.

But you look around the room with your eyes and suddenly catch yourself thinking that here a baby sofa would be quite right here, and next to it is a rack for toys.

Or, when you stumble upon a magazine photo of a Hollywood star walking in the park with their adopted children, you suddenly feel a vague unease that does not let go for several hours.

Or your youngest, when the elders are at school, sadly pulls, sitting on the floor: “Mom, let's find a child, as small as me.” Or you don’t have any youngest, and the elders already have mustaches themselves, and there is still so much strength and love.

Or maybe, after many years of waiting, painful treatment and bitter disappointments, someone (doctor, mother, girlfriend) will suddenly say: “Stop suffering, there are already born children who need parents!”

It also happens that for some reason you know for sure from childhood: someday you will bring an orphan into the house and try to raise him in love and care.

It happens that the question arises about a specific child: a familiar boy or girl was left without parents, or one of the children in a sponsored orphanage suddenly becomes more than just sponsored, and it is not clear how to say goodbye again and go home without him.

The first thought comes to everyone in different ways. For some, it will remain just a flashing thought, someone will return to it again and again, think, discuss, worry. This is how the path that the adoptive parent goes through begins. And there are many more questions at the beginning of this path than answers.

Take a child - what? Younger? Older? Boy or girl?

They say that all orphanage children have diagnoses. What does it mean?

Everyone assures that children are “difficult”. What does it mean? What should be prepared for?

Will we make it? How to understand in advance?

How do you even know that it's ours? Will we be allowed to choose?

And if one of the spouses wants, and the other does not? And what will our children say? What about our parents?

They say that it is necessary to go through the School of foster parents - why? Is it possible to teach how to raise children?

Guardianship authorities: they say there are queues, bribes and rude talk. This is true? Fear them or not? And how do you even talk to them?

There are different forms of family organization. And which one is right for us? What is more important - to be “completely ours” or to have benefits?

Here we come to the child. How to get to know him? What if we don't like it? What if he doesn't want to?

How to prepare the house and life for the arrival of the child? Need something special?

Quite understandable and reasonable questions, right? Take it, psychologist, and answer. That's just to answer them, no specialist in itself can not. Because even if he knows absolutely everything about children (and it is impossible to know everything about them, every child is special), then surely no one knows you and your family better than you. And it’s worth starting with this - not with questions: “What kind of child do we want?” and “How to find it?”, but with the question: “What can we do and what can’t we, what is easy for us as a family and what is difficult?” Therefore, the first section of the book is about families, very different and very important.

Ludmila Petranovskaya.

Minus one? Plus one! Adopted child in the family

Author's Preface

A bit of an odd name, right?

But not for those who communicate a lot with foster parents, especially on the Internet. There is a tradition on the forums and blogs of adoptive parents: when someone reports that he took the child from the orphanage, everyone who was rooting for this family and for the child, supported and helped with advice, write back like a password: “Minus one!” These words are sometimes repeated dozens of times under the message that the child has found a family, like a salute in honor of the replenishment of the family, especially if it was not easy to find a family for this child or it was possible to pick him up with great difficulty (and this happens often).

"Minus one!" means that there is one less orphan. One less child in the System. One less childhood in a state-owned house. These are words behind which there is so much: both joy for this child, and a sense of guilt in front of orphans, and the hope of someday still scooping up the sea.

But before "Minus one!" will sound in honor of replenishing your family, you have to go through the path of preparation and decision making. This can take weeks, months, or even years - as long as you and your family need. After all, getting a child out of a state-owned home is half the battle, you still need to raise him, you need to live with him, you need to build relationships.

Understanding your motives and assessing your strengths is important before any serious life decision, but when it comes to the fate of a child and the fate of your family, this is a hundred times more important. We are really responsible for those we have tamed. What these beautiful words mean in reality, everyone who has come across children returned from foster families back to institutions knows. We couldn’t, didn’t cope, were disappointed, divorced, got married or gave birth to our children - there are always some objective reasons. Anyone who has ever had close contact with such a second time rejected child, who has seen his eyes, as if sprinkled with ashes, will never forget this meeting.

So let's think "on the coast". It is not in vain that nature has given nine months to prepare for parenthood. This is a huge change in life, consciousness, soul.

This book is written on the basis of many years of experience in advising prospective adoptive parents and providing training to prepare prospective adoptive parents. It will help you go through all the stages that a family usually goes through, starting from the question: “Should we take a child?” and ending with the moment when the excited parents return home with a new family member, where a new life awaits him. This book is about preparing for the adoption of a child, about “pregnancy” with an adopted child. Not about “what documents are needed”, but about what is inside, in the soul. Many of the subsections sound like questions—and these are real questions that my colleagues and I hear from prospective adoptive parents.

There will be many who want to intimidate you (“What are you? They all grow up to be bandits!”) And many who want to agitate you (“Save the unfortunate orphan!”).

Try to isolate yourself from both. What you need now is not emotional slogans, but comprehensive information and a leisurely, meaningful decision. And if this decision is negative: “No, this is not for me, not for my family” - this is also an honest, responsible choice: you will not ruin the life of a child and your loved ones.

There will still be a time when you will have to devote yourself completely to the child, when you will need to do a lot, ignoring your “I don’t want”, and sometimes my “I can’t”. There will still come a moment when you realize with all your heart that it’s too late to decide and choose, there is a child, his life is in your hands, and you have to cope, no matter how hard it is. You will still read many books and articles about your child, you will spend many more hours thinking about how to help him. And this book is about you, this time is for you. Everything you do for yourself now, you will do for your unborn child.

I would be glad if this book becomes your friend and helper, it will tell you something, console you sometime, and most importantly, it will make you feel that you are not alone on your path.

Introduction

There is no adopted child in your family yet. Not a single call has yet been made to the authorities, not a single certificate has been collected.

But you look around the room with your eyes and suddenly catch yourself thinking that here a baby sofa would be quite right here, and next to it is a rack for toys.

Or, when you stumble upon a magazine photo of a Hollywood star walking in the park with their adopted children, you suddenly feel a vague unease that does not let go for several hours.

Or your youngest, when the elders are at school, sadly pulls, sitting on the floor: “Mom, let's find a child, as small as me.” Or you don’t have any youngest, and the elders already have mustaches themselves, and there is still so much strength and love.

Or maybe, after many years of waiting, painful treatment and bitter disappointments, someone (doctor, mother, girlfriend) will suddenly say: “Stop suffering, there are already born children who need parents!”

It also happens that for some reason you know for sure from childhood: someday you will bring an orphan into the house and try to raise him in love and care.

It happens that the question arises about a specific child: a familiar boy or girl was left without parents, or one of the children in a sponsored orphanage suddenly becomes more than just sponsored, and it is not clear how to say goodbye again and go home without him.

The first thought comes to everyone in different ways. For some, it will remain just a flashing thought, someone will return to it again and again, think, discuss, worry. This is how the path that the adoptive parent goes through begins. And there are many more questions at the beginning of this path than answers.

Take a child - what? Younger? Older? Boy or girl?

They say that all orphanage children have diagnoses. What does it mean?

Everyone assures that children are “difficult”. What does it mean? What should be prepared for?

Will we make it? How to understand in advance?

How do you even know that it's ours? Will we be allowed to choose?

And if one of the spouses wants, and the other does not? And what will our children say? What about our parents?

They say that it is necessary to go through the School of foster parents - why? Is it possible to teach how to raise children?

Guardianship authorities: they say there are queues, bribes and rude talk. This is true? Fear them or not? And how do you even talk to them?

There are different forms of family organization. And which one is right for us? What is more important - to be “completely ours” or to have benefits?

Here we come to the child. How to get to know him? What if we don't like it? What if he doesn't want to?

How to prepare the house and life for the arrival of the child? Need something special?

Quite understandable and reasonable questions, right? Take it, psychologist, and answer. That's just to answer them, no specialist in itself can not. Because even if he knows absolutely everything about children (and it is impossible to know everything about them, every child is special), then surely no one knows you and your family better than you. And it’s worth starting with this - not with questions: “What kind of child do we want?” and “How to find it?”, but with the question: “What can we do and what can’t we, what is easy for us as a family and what is difficult?” Therefore, the first section of the book is about families, very different and very important.

Families are different and important

Oddly enough, such a familiar and dear to each of us concept as a family is very difficult to define. The "reference" family, which is depicted in commercials and in photographs in glossy magazines - mom, dad and two charming children - is not so common in life and not everyone seems to be a reference. For example, to our ancestors, and to many of our contemporaries, a family with two children would have seemed deprived, with few children. Not everyone will consider the absence of grandparents in a family portrait a plus. There are families of two people, and there are families of thirty; families from one generation (husband and wife) and from four (with great-grandparents); families without children and families without parents (for example, adult siblings living together); families connected by consanguinity, and families consisting of people who are not related by blood (stepfather or stepmother and adopted children). However, the members of all these so different associations feel that they belong to something whole, to a certain community - to their family.

Psychologists, sociologists and lawyers argue about what can and cannot be considered a family, but we are interested in a very specific question: who are the people who decide to take the child, and who are the people who will take responsibility for his upbringing, will they raise him?

It is one thing for a grandmother who lives in another city, who will see her adopted grandson once a year, and another for a grandmother who lives with her future adoptive parents, and they work, and she is expected to babysit. It is one thing - the eldest son, who has his own house, his own family and children, and another - the eldest teenage son, to whom it is planned to put a new brother in the room. Who is in your "near" family - only you know, no one except you will answer this question. It is important to understand one thing: any significant decision is made by the family as a whole.

In modern psychology, the family is considered as a system - a complex, in a special way organized and functioning unity. This means that any major change in the life of one of the family members affects everyone else. Imagine that beads are scattered on the table. You take and move or lift one of them. What happens to the rest? That's right, nothing. Because beads are not a system. Now imagine that there is a necklace on the table. We take one bead and lift it up. At the same moment, all the others will move - more or less, but all will move. The necklace is a system. And the family is a system a thousand times more complex.

The family system is made up of many components: the personalities of its members, the characteristics of the families from which they come from, shared experience, established relationships, decisions made at different times, and much, much more. Each family has its own unique way of life, lifestyle, that inexplicable “it is customary for us”, which makes each family unique.

There are no “right” or “wrong” families, there are no formal signs that indicate whether this family can or cannot raise an adopted child (those that are are listed in the law: serious crimes in the past, social failure, very serious illness). A child can be well in a noisy large family, and together with an unmarried mother (unmarried father); in parents of young, cheerful and experienced, calm; in a family where there is a daily routine and everything is in its place, and in a family where things are lying around and sometimes there is ice cream for lunch instead of soup; in a small apartment in a big city and in a big rural house; in a family where parents have completed 8 classes, and in a family where they have scientific degrees. Believe me, in my professional life I have seen thousands of successful families with adopted children, and they are all very different. They have one thing in common - they love, understand, support their adopted children, and they consider their family to be the best in the world.

You don't have to "match" any pattern. The best thing is to know and understand your family as it is. This will allow you to anticipate difficulties, prepare something in advance, and avoid some possible problems. Let's try to take a closer look at families that are different in composition and history, precisely from this angle: what will be easier for them, and what can be difficult? It makes sense to read not only a subsection about a family like yours, but also others. Because the families are different, but the division “by composition” is very arbitrary, and the problems are very similar - and you can find something important for yourself in the subsection dedicated to a family that is completely different from yours.

Family without children

Most likely, you did not immediately (right on your honeymoon) think about a foster child. Behind - some experience married life. It seems to be a pretty successful experience if, after going through all the hopes and disappointments together, you think of a new family member. The union that did not break up after the terrible diagnosis of “infertility” is no longer an accidental union. You have learned to be together in sorrow and in joy - this is your strength, your support.

There are many childless couples who do not suffer at all from their situation. They are absorbed in work, hobbies, their relationships and are quite satisfied with what they have, and maybe they look with sympathy at friends leaving with fun party"bathing and laying" or turning down an interesting business trip because "the children will be bored." If the child had been born on his own, he would most likely have been welcomed and loved, but to do something on purpose, to take foster children, is too much.

You recognized yourself in this description and, honestly, do not really want to become parents, but your relatives put pressure on you or just the desire “to make everything like people”? Put mentally on one side of the scale this pressure - unpleasant, of course, and on the other - the whole nightmare of a situation when you take responsibility for the life of a baby and only then you will clearly understand that you do not want this, you cannot, you are not ready, it's not for you. You have every right not to want to become parents. There is even a childfree (freedom from children) movement in the world that opposes the imposition of a parental role on everyone without exception. No one has proven anywhere that people can be happy only by having children. As the presence of children does not guarantee happiness, so their absence does not doom to misfortune. To each his own, and in your case, more concern for children will not succumb to external pressure, but listen to yourself.

You can't help but think about the hundreds of thousands of children in orphanages who dream of mom and dad? But you can help them, not only by taking them into your family. You can help foster families you know (whether with money or business, or simply by supporting them) or offer your help to a community organization that deals with family placement or a child placement service. For example, print promotional materials and distribute them, take high-quality pictures of the children from the orphanage, organize additional training or developmental activities for them, offer an interesting recreation program for foster parents. But you never know what you can think of, depending on whether you are a teacher or a doctor, a publisher or a businessman, a pensioner or an avid tourist! Help is always needed. By the way, it is very likely that by helping and supporting you will get to know families and children better, get rid of some of your fears and stereotypes, and your attitude “this is not for me” will first turn into “this is not for me ... at least for now” and then “why not?”. The experience gained on this path will be useful in the future, and you will not have to reproach yourself for the hasty decision.

All of the above - not about you? Since childhood, have you dreamed of children, waited for pregnancy with hope, with great difficulty survived the verdict of doctors and can’t look at the neighbor’s children in the sandbox without tears? It would seem - what is there to think, running after the child! Still, let's pause to listen to what's going on deep down.

Infertility is a special diagnosis. The ability to procreate is very important for every man and every woman (even during those periods of life when they take all measures to avoid possible pregnancy). The consciousness that, in principle, you can do it, and here it is the proof - your child, gives us a sense of our own usefulness, consistency, compliance with a certain norm. There is no ability to bear children - that means I am “not quite a woman (man)”. One can agree or argue with this, but this feeling lies in our still sensible, natural depths and you can’t just brush it aside. “I don’t want to have children” is one thing, “I can’t” is quite another.

Consciousness of one's futility causes a whole range of difficult feelings: shame, the pain of a lost dream, despair, guilt before a partner and his family. Feelings of guilt can be absolutely unfounded: a person did nothing that doctors warn against, there is nothing to reproach himself with - but still ... And now a saving way has been found: to take a foster child. There is a very fine line here, which is important to understand.

If the decision to take a child is made only out of hopelessness, foster parenthood is involuntarily perceived as “inferior”, “surrogate”, “flawed”, so to speak, “cancer for lack of fish”. Unfortunately, the stereotype that a typical adoptive parent is a person who has not managed to give birth to his children is pushing spouses to such a perception. By the way, this is not the case: according to statistics, both in Russia and in the world, the majority of adoptive parents are people who already have children. However, behind this stereotype is the belief that there is a “correct”, “good” way to become parents and some fallback option for the “unsuccessful”, which they go for only if it cannot be completely avoided. All this may not be expressed directly, but hang in the air, slip in communication and constantly, steadily put pressure on future adoptive parents. As a result, they begin to be ashamed of their decision (and later of their child), make incredible efforts to keep the secret of adoption, and are terrified of condemnation and provocations from others.

Already raising a child, such parents often do everything too and too much, as if proving to themselves and others their usefulness: they go to doctors too much, they prepare too hard for school, they worry too much about any trifle. As soon as the child causes trouble, the spouse with whom the couple's childlessness is associated begins to feel especially guilty (" native child wouldn't do that). It’s good if, in the heat of a quarrel, accusations like: “It’s all because of you, you figure it out” or “If I married a normal man, I would have a normal child” are not uttered aloud. All this, of course, does not add family life stability, and parents confidence and ability to cope with difficult behavior of the child. The result is a self-validating prognosis: based on the premise that the adopted child is a “surrogate” of the child, a “second-class” child with whom, by definition, “everything is not right”, adoptive parents voluntarily or involuntarily behave in such a way that the child’s problems are aggravated, and, as a result, it really turns out “not that”. And most importantly, in such a situation, there is little chance of correcting everything, because there is no incentive to look for mistakes in one’s own behavior, because a convenient explanation is always ready: “This is all because the child is not native.”

What to do? First of all, do not allow a feeling of spiritual discomfort to “drag you by the collar” to the threshold of the orphanage. It is important to realize that an adopted child allows you to become parents, but does not solve the problem of infertility. He cannot and should not replace for you the child that you failed to give birth to. Your infertility has nothing to do with it at all, it is a pain that you must deal with yourself, together with your spouse and your entire family. And get it done before your foster child needs your mental strength. Otherwise, the newly found child, instead of joy, will become for you a constant reminder of “how things could have been”, and you will involuntarily be angry with him for being “not the same”. How “happy” your adopted child’s childhood will be in this case - I think you can not explain.

So give yourself time to figure it out. Can you discuss this issue with your spouse? Talk to him about your feelings? Talk about it with his and his parents? If infertility is associated with only one of you, it is very important that a frank conversation takes place about whether the other spouse is ready to save the marriage under these conditions. Because often the other side begins to implicitly consider themselves free from obligations, although they do not say it out loud until a conflict erupts or an “alternative” appears on the side. Or the marriage is saved, but there is some implicit feeling of inequality in it, as if one spouse did a favor to the other, not leaving him, despite the barrenness.

By the way, some psychologists believe that this is how it should be: if one of the spouses is infertile, then the other has every right to leave without any feeling of guilt. If he stays, then a certain “debt” is formed to him from the side of his wife or husband. I cannot fully agree with this point of view, because such a complex phenomenon as marriage is not reduced to the tasks of childbearing. But it is certainly important to openly discuss the situation, including feelings of “debt” and guilt. And if your spouse confirmed that he is staying with you, even knowing that you will not have common children with him, do not be shy to express gratitude to him for this. As is known, The best way get rid of the vague feeling that you owe something to someone - just say from the bottom of your heart: “Thank you! It's very important to me, I really appreciate it."

If you feel that the topic is so painful that you cannot talk about your infertility without tears and are generally unable to discuss it in the family, it is better to start with a visit to a psychologist and perhaps work with him for some time. There is nothing to be ashamed of: the loss of fertility (the ability to procreate) is a serious loss, for many comparable to the loss loved one Your feelings deserve respect and care.

Lyudmila Vladimirovna Petranovskaya

Minus one? Plus one! Adopted child in the family

A bit of an odd name, right?

But not for those who communicate a lot with foster parents, especially on the Internet. There is a tradition on the forums and blogs of adoptive parents: when someone reports that he took the child from the orphanage, everyone who was rooting for this family and for the child, supported and helped with advice, write back like a password: “Minus one!” These words are sometimes repeated dozens of times under the message that the child has found a family, like a salute in honor of the replenishment of the family, especially if it was not easy to find a family for this child or it was possible to pick him up with great difficulty (and this happens often).

"Minus one!" means that there is one less orphan. One less child in the System. One less childhood in a state-owned house. These are words behind which there is so much: both joy for this child, and a sense of guilt in front of orphans, and the hope of someday still scooping up the sea.

But before "Minus one!" will sound in honor of replenishing your family, you have to go through the path of preparation and decision making. This can take weeks, months, or even years - as long as you and your family need. After all, getting a child out of a state-owned home is half the battle, you still need to raise him, you need to live with him, you need to build relationships.

Understanding your motives and assessing your strengths is important before any serious life decision, but when it comes to the fate of a child and the fate of your family, this is a hundred times more important. We are really responsible for those we have tamed. What these beautiful words mean in reality, everyone who has come across children returned from foster families back to institutions knows. We couldn’t, didn’t cope, were disappointed, divorced, got married or gave birth to our children - there are always some objective reasons. Anyone who has ever had close contact with such a second time rejected child, who has seen his eyes, as if sprinkled with ashes, will never forget this meeting.

So let's think "on the coast". It is not in vain that nature has given nine months to prepare for parenthood. This is a huge change in life, consciousness, soul.

This book is written on the basis of many years of experience in advising prospective adoptive parents and providing training to prepare prospective adoptive parents. It will help you go through all the stages that a family usually goes through, starting from the question: “Should we take a child?” and ending with the moment when the excited parents return home with a new family member, where a new life awaits him. This book is about preparing for the adoption of a child, about “pregnancy” with an adopted child. Not about “what documents are needed”, but about what is inside, in the soul. Many of the subsections sound like questions—and these are real questions that my colleagues and I hear from prospective adoptive parents.

There will be many who want to intimidate you (“What are you? They all grow up to be bandits!”) And many who want to agitate you (“Save the unfortunate orphan!”). Try to isolate yourself from both. What you need now is not emotional slogans, but comprehensive information and a leisurely, meaningful decision. And if this decision is negative: “No, this is not for me, not for my family” - this is also an honest, responsible choice: you will not ruin the life of a child and your loved ones.

There will still be a time when you will have to devote yourself completely to the child, when you will need to do a lot, ignoring your “I don’t want”, and sometimes my “I can’t”. There will still come a moment when you realize with all your heart that it’s too late to decide and choose, there is a child, his life is in your hands, and you have to cope, no matter how hard it is. You will still read many books and articles about your child, you will spend many more hours thinking about how to help him. And this book is about you, this time is for you. Everything you do for yourself now, you will do for your unborn child.

I would be glad if this book becomes your friend and helper, it will tell you something, console you sometime, and most importantly, it will make you feel that you are not alone on your path.

Introduction

There is no adopted child in your family yet. Not a single call has yet been made to the authorities, not a single certificate has been collected.

But you look around the room with your eyes and suddenly catch yourself thinking that here a baby sofa would be quite right here, and next to it is a rack for toys.

Or, when you stumble upon a magazine photo of a Hollywood star walking in the park with their adopted children, you suddenly feel a vague unease that does not let go for several hours.