‘Our aim was to give a child a home’
The moment the couple saw a photo of the baby they would adopt, the emotional bond began
When parents-inwaiting Ashley and Alethea were shown a photograph of the fivemonth-old girl, adoption became a reality.
“The emotional connection starts there,” says Ashley as he and Alethea try to find words to describe the moment they first met their daughter Madison, fulfilling their longstanding plan to adopt.
After months of research, the couple approached an adoption agency in April 2019. Their screening process only started in July that year because of the numerous documents that needed to be filled out.
It was a great surprise when they were told in September that a child had been found for them. The intense screening process can take up to two years.
Ashley ascribes the speed of their outcome to the liberal approach they took towards the criteria list.
“We weren’t specific about gender, race or circumstances. Our aim wasn’t to get a child like us. Our aim was to give a child a loving, happy home, and a chance for a better future and to be a part of our family,” he said.
On the morning of 21 November 2019, Ashley and Alethea were introduced to Madison. Arriving at the children’s home the social worker briefed them about the baby.
“They make you comfortable and then the carer brings in the child. But slowly,” recalls Alethea. “We say ‘hi’ from a distance, just to make sure the child does not cry.”
And then Madison was handed over to her new parents.
“In our case, she didn’t cry. She just felt comfortable. She fell asleep in Ashley’s arm,” says Alethea. “You feel that warmth, that love, you feel that appreciation. Keeping her in your arms, bringing her home, it was so surreal.
“We were surprised how easy the transition for her was. She didn’t cry in the car seat, and had these big eyes wandering around all the time.”
Both laugh as they relate how the baby’s grandparents are the problem — in a good way. “Madison is completely loved, accepted, appreciated and … completely spoiled,” says Ashley.
Like themselves, the couple’s parents were initially uncertain about adoption, but were always “accepting and supportive”.
“And once Madison came, she was the apple of their eyes,” says Ashley.
As much love Madison receives, she also gives, says Alethea, who often finds it difficult to observe Covid-19 physical distancing rules when Madison — now a two-yearold — accompanies her to the grocery store, because the child happily greets everyone she comes across.
Despite always nurturing the thought of adoption, Ashley and Alethea had to work through misconceptions and uncertainties about it. For a better understanding, the Mail & Guardian contacted adoption agencies and social workers.
“It is not like what we sometimes see in Hollywood movies,” says
Katinka Pieterse, the director of Abba Specialist Adoption & Social Services.
“A study was done by the HSRC [Human Sciences Research Council] in 2010. They looked at the perceptions and beliefs of South Africans when it comes to legal adoption. And that study actually showed that people are quite negative about adoptions and there are certain impediments when it comes to adoption and the way that adoption is viewed in South Africa.
“When you start talking to people, they would say adoption is either buying a child or it is taking the child away from the biological family, or children that grow up with adoptive families end up having serious problems,” Pieterse says, partly attributing this to media coverage which has tended to focus on adoptions gone wrong.
Nicolette van der Walt, the national manager of child protection at the nonprofit organisation, ACVV, dismisses the belief that adopted children often have emotional and behavioural problems. “This is not true,” she says. “Children from all backgrounds, whether adopted or living with their birth parents, could have these types of problems.”
Established in 1904 in Cape Town by a group of women wanting to help those affected by the South African War, the ACVV’S services have changed from emergency relief, primary health care and educational services to comprehensive social work and child protection services for children and older people.
Van der Walt says there is a difference between adoption and foster care. With foster care, a court order is made for up to two years and foster parents receive a grant. With adoption, there is no grant and adopting a child is forever.
Perceptions are changing
Between 2011 to 2020 the number of adoptions dropped by a staggering 53%, from 2434 to 1123, including family and stepparent adoptions.
Pieterse notes the low adoption rate with concern, especially when compared with the number of children in foster care or in child and youth care centres.
“Around 500 000 foster grants [are] being paid and there are approximately 13 250 children that live in registered child and youth care centres,’’ she says.
In South Africa, there are cultural issues affecting adoption, “which is still regarded as a Western concept”, says Sue Krawitz, the vice-chairperson of the National Adoption Coalition of South Africa, an umbrella body for adoption organisations and practitioners.
“In African culture, and some other cultures, children were taken up into the family but there was no legal process. So that child doesn’t have any formal rights and the child would be left quite exposed. For the most part, it’s been working for hundreds of years,” says Krawitz.
“It is ubuntu. You take a child and then you raise it as your own, which is a wonderful concept, but in the real world of documents and formalities it becomes difficult.”
When Krawitz started facilitating adoptions 32 years ago, no black children were available for adoption. But this has changed.
“We found there were more and more black children available. And it really became evident around the HIV crisis,” says Krawitz. “We had children being left in hospitals for months, and sometimes years”.
The high number of black children prompted transracial adoptions, Krawitz says, citing in part the fact that there are fewer traditional families taking in children and the lack of documentation for some people.
“We have had periods where there are many children available and not enough parents, especially for the children who have special needs.”
Decades ago it was conventional white couples adopting white children, but this too has evolved, says Krawitz. Nowadays, transracial adoptions happen more, for both white and black people. The increase in interracial marriages has also seen more couples willing to adopt a child of either race.
In addition to this, “we see single black women coming forward, who never would have had a chance of having a baby. We’re seeing homosexual couples, both gay and lesbian, coming forward to adopt,” she says.
According to Pieterse, in the past 10 years the majority of parents applying for adoption at Abba have been black South Africans. “This is very positive,” she says.
In South Africa, adoption is regulated and legislated. This means having to use service providers accredited by the department of social development.
In the case of Madison, her parents approached multiple organisations but found comfort in a professional adoption agency that gave in-depth training and workshops about adoption.
“There are so many kids but so few people wanting to adopt. We encourage people, if they have the means and they want to open their home for a child, to do so,” says Alethea, adding that they want to adopt a sibling for Madison.
‘We weren’t specific about gender, race or circumstances. Our aim wasn’t to get a child like us’