Before Shaun and Blue could have
a child, government officials wanted to ring up their ex-partners. Officials
also interviewed their parents, conducted personality assessments and made both
Shaun and Blue do a work experience stint with local children.
The couple passed every test with
flying colours, and after a three-year battle earned the right to adopt a cute,
baby boy – Joshi – who had spent the first 15 months of his life being shuffled
between five different foster homes.
At first, Joshi “was very
unsettled, with his primary attachment to food,” says Shaun. But the new
parents put their careers on hold and invested hundreds of hours providing
their baby with intensive care and support. Within a few years, they helped
turn Joshi into a well-adjusted kid who now excels at primary school.
Their second adopted son, Dylan, proved
an even greater challenge given the circumstances surrounding his birth. But
again, patience and resilience won the day.
You can imagine their horror, when
emigrating to South Australia, their new government told them they’re not
recognised as a real family.
Shaun and Blue are a UK couple
who started a family in England. They decided to move to Adelaide in search of
a better lifestyle, and all seemed well at first when they were granted residency
visas. But it was never going to be that easy.
“The day before we were due to
fly out we received an email informing us our visas were suspended pending
further checks. We were given no reason,” says Shaun.
With flight tickets bought and
flat already leased, the family flew to Singapore, where they spent eight weeks
in limbo before finally being allowed entry into Australia. Only later did they
find out the nature of the problem.
“South Australian law doesn’t
recognise same sex adoption,” say Shaun. Although eventually granted residency,
he says “the state has more rights over our children than we do”.
Shaun and Blue are now leading an
advocacy campaign to legalise same sex adoption in South Australia. They’ve
collected over 15,000 signatures in an online petition, and written to over 70 politicians.
“It’s odd, we’ve felt so welcome
here. Even when taking the kids to monster truck rallies, nobody bats an
eyelid,” says Blue, “there’s this real disconnect between what the people want
and what policy makers do”.
The couple are touched by how
supportive people have been, but also frustrated at the lack of understanding
about adoption and non-traditional families. “When you’re with me, I’ll be your
mother,” a teacher once told Joshi, not knowing how such sentiment can “mess up
attachment,” says Blue.
Blue says educators here are
generally not trained to understand the trauma history of adopted children, nor
is there the “allocated budget” for post-adoption support that exists in the
UK. He says this may be because adoption is so rare in the state.
Only three local children were
adopted in South Australia last year – despite the fact over 1,300 kids have
been in foster care for more than five years, unlikely to ever return home.
Blue says: “I work in mental
health, so I’ve seen the toxic environments in which so many kids grow up. It’s
unbelievable that adoption is not seen as a viable option here”. He gets emotional
when he thinks about where his kids, now aged 6 and 4, might have ended up had
they remained on the foster care treadmill. “I’ve heard of foster kids here
being put up in hostels,” he says.
The South Australian government
are yet to enact adoption law reform, but the couple are determined to keep fighting.
“We’ve been on this road for years and we are
not getting off it,” says Shaun.
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