When did mum become a dirty word?

Posted by Francesca on Feb 24, 2014 in Blog | 0 comments A day doesn’t go by when i don’t read a blog, a Facebook post, a tweet by mums claiming that their job is the hardest, most unrewarding in the world. I know they are trying to be funny. But it’s just getting boring. And offensive. It’s another twist on the “God it’s hard being a woman” industry, the one which spawned the similarly misguided “All men are useless” narrative. Cliche? You bet. Yes...
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Why blood isn’t thicker than adoption

Posted by Francesca on Jun 20, 2013 in Blog | 1 comment My husband and I are the parents of adopted children. We are their real parents because we are the only ones they have. We know their seasons, we know when it’s bad, we know when it’s good, we know when they are not themselves. How is this possible? When we’d just adopted our first child, Gaia, the question was “Do you know anything about her ‘real mum’?” Now we...
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Tories don’t want to know about Oxford. Funny that

Posted by Francesca on May 16, 2013 in Blog | 0 comments This week, a group of men were convicted for grooming girls in Oxfordshire. The crimes they committed are disgusting enough. What concerns us is that one of the girls – who has very eloquently given her story to the media repeatedly asked her local social services for help as well as the police. Her mother also ‘begged’ for help. The child who was adopted, said that nobody listened, they...
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The unintentional conspiracy against adoptive parents

Posted by Francesca on Oct 29, 2012 in Blog | 0 comments If you were wearing your cynical hat, you might think it was intentional. I’m talking about the way in which potential adoptive parents are left to fend for themselves once an adoption is imminent. This is in stark contrast to the unparalleled scrutiny their lives receive the moment they apply to be parents. The fact that this is likely a result of ignorance and fractured processes rather than...
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Even celebrities fail to adopt

Posted by Francesca on May 17, 2012 in Blog | 0 comments A few weeks ago I was contacted by Olga Rudneva. She’s a film maker who’s been making a documentary feature about adoption. It’s an international movie inspired by the failed adoption of  Sir Elton John and his partner, David Furnish, in which a couple who are considering adoption go on a voyage of discovery visiting orphanages and learning about adoption. You probably know what’s coming next:...
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Time for Cameron and Loughton to pay more than lip service to adoption

Posted by Francesca on May 12, 2012 in Blog | 0 comments Yesterday I had an uplifting and inspirational chat with the one and only Bruce Oldfield, who has graciously been supporting my work on adoption. While we talked about the need for change, David Cameron was giving his Queen’s speech. Like many others I didn’t expect very much at all and I think we got even less. The London Independent newspaper put it perfectly: “Lots of style...
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