Dear Frankie,

Do you know one of the reasons our adoption profiles were matched?

Because of the colour of our skin!

When I began the adoption process I thought I would be able to adopt any baby born in this country that needed a forever Mum.

The truth is it wasn’t quite as simple as that.

It took 3 years to go through an amazing adoption process and did you know, I started my journey of becoming your Mum, before you were even conceived by your birth parents.

This is why I believe you are my destiny.

You wouldn’t believe how many boxes there are to tick before you can bring home a cute and cuddly baby to call your own.

After ticking lots of boxes, I fell into a certain category which meant I was ‘suitable’ to be your Mum.

I wanted to adopt a sibling group of two at first.

Did you know that?

I didn’t tick the right box though.

I was approved to adopt one baby.

I wanted to be considered to adopt a baby with any ethnic or religious heritage, it didn’t matter to me.

I didn’t tick the right box for that either.

You see it wasn’t just about me, it was about you too and all the other children living in the care system.

Adoption is not as straight forward as you may think and matching children with alternative parents is complicated.

You know me, I love children, ALL children, even the ‘naughty’ ones but I had to go on a soul searching journey before I was ready to be given the greatest privileges of raising someone else’s baby.

And to begin with, I didn’t tick the right boxes for that.

First of all, I want you to know, children aren’t taken away from their birth families without very careful thought and consideration. If anything the main goal is to support and hopefully reunite birth families.

Your birth heritage is taken very seriously because it is very important for everyone to respect it.

After 2 years of tick boxing, form filling, referrals, tests and interviews I was approved to adopt an able bodied white or duel heritage child from 0-2 years.

When you are in your teens, I will sit down with you and we can talk in greater detail about the protocols and the complexities of the Adoption System in the UK.

The main reason you were matched with a white adoptive mother is because of the complexities surrounding ‘attachment.’

I studied attachment theories for years before I fully understood why I would be considered the right match for you.

Whether I liked it or not, our skin colour mattered.

When I look at children I see many things.

Colour is one of them. It would be wrong for me not to notice the beauty and the complexities of human diversity.

This is one of the reasons I love children, they are all different, every single one of them.

White children are different, black children are different, you and I are different.

Everyone’s different.

No one on this planet is the same as you.

You are special, unique, one of a kind, the same as everyone else.

I hope the world one day will learn to live in harmony as one race…

The Human Race.

Pure and simple.

Fovever yours,

Mum x
23/06/2023