For heterosexual couples, there is a social expectation that parenthood will be achieved by biological means. Thus, there is an assumption that prospective adoptive married couples are likely to have suffered trauma at the experience of infertility (Kirk, 1964). There are different discourses that permit exit routes from pronatalist pathways for prospective adopters that include adoption as an altruistic choice for the greater social good. However, the participants in this study rarely positioned themselves on this dualistic spectrum as their contemplations included both individual and social factors. For Rachel, these issues manifested themselves as she contemplated single adoptive motherhood, envisaging the possibility that time was against her ability to have a biological child within a heterosexual relationship.
Rachel: “Well I think my (.) my parents would prefer me not to be a single parent. I don’t think they would mind if I was an adoptive parent or had a baby of myself, they’d just want there to be someone else in the relationship so (.) I mostly, don’t really talk to them about it very much (laughs)”. (Lines: 3570-3573).
To make sense of her deliberations, Rachel drew on her what she perceived her parents would want for her. Although she thought they
182 would accept her becoming a parent by either giving birth or adoption, Rachel thought they would want that event to take place within a relationship. However, she had not explored this with them in any detail suggesting reluctance. This is different from the participants in Ben-Ari &
Weinberg-Kurnik’s (2007) study whose participating single adoptive mothers were empowered by their choice to adopt. Interestingly, Rachel’s experience raises a tension between assertions that adoption is a political tool to curb single birth motherhood (Kim, 2015) and the acceptance of single women as adoptive parents.
Charvi: “We also want to get married first because I think it’s, it’s easier for married couples in this country to (.) adopt, um, because it shows that there’s commitment and things like that, so, I definitely would want to anyway so, so yeah.” (Lines: 1638-1641).
Charvi’s experience perpetuates the view that marriage is likely to be indicative of relationship security and as such, a more reliable basis for adoption. However, those participants who were coupled were not united in all their views which raises potential challenges for those conducting assessments and who need to form a view of the prospective adopters’
relationship.
Ramneet who always wanted to adopt a child also discussed challenging familial expectations of achieving motherhood within a marriage. Her desire to become an adoptive mother contributed to the end of her last relationship, as her partner only wanted to have biological children.
Ramneet: “Even if it was my own child or an adopted child there wouldn’t be any difference for me because I would love him or her the same, and seeing and working with children and seeing how neglected they were, has made me think I could offer so much more and as a single person as well too um to kind of give back and to have some self-satisfaction too, rather than just having my own children.” (Lines: 227-233).
183 Ramneet did not expect to experience any difference in her parental feelings towards an adopted child. She uses her experiences of working with children to imagine what she as a single mother, could offer a child.
This contemplation of herself as a mother related to her experience of neglected children. Ramneet’s expectations of herself as a mother is of someone who had much to offer that would in return give her a sense of self-satisfaction. Phenomenology allows us to explore intersubjective relationships that we share with each other, and to reflect on how they help us to make sense of our being in the world (Gentile, 2010). In this extract, Ramneet’s experience allows us to understand how thinking of herself as a prospective mother is also situated as ‘giving back’ to the world which is self-satisfying. Despite, her views of adoption as an act of social good which returned a personal sense of good, Ramneet also experienced expectations that had been held by her family for generations which challenged the concept of single parenthood (Cornejo, 2008).
Ramneet: “I guess the other thing that would ever put a stop on it was that I come from a generational family where you have to be married in order to have kids [um] so if I was to adopt without the marriage that was going to have issues, so, as I familiarised myself with it more and more um I started speaking to my mum about it more and more. It was, it was okay I didn’t have to be married so upon those, now I’ve come to terms that I wouldn’t mind being a single parent and adopting. It’s more; it’s more and more about I’m not getting married, and I won’t get married, so that’s where. I’m going to do it the opposite way around, but I’ve given it a lot of thought in terms of my mum and my, and myself will moving away from London, so that um she can start familiarising herself with areas so that if I do have an adopted child she can help look after it too.” (Lines: 238-244).
To negotiate these traditional contours Ramneet became reliant on her mother, not only to find a means of accepting her becoming a single adoptive mother but also in the future care of an adopted child. Thus, although Ramneet did not envisage adopting as part of a couple, she did see her mother’s assistance as crucial in her parenting a child. However, more than this, her experience reflects the longevity of motherhood and
184 the dependence that can exist for even an adult child to seek advice and support from a parent. Ramneet’s narrative details how her conversations with her mother grew alongside her own increasing understanding of becoming a single adoptive parent. However, it also reveals a tension in going the opposite way around to the social pronatalist assumptions that dictate routes to parenthood should be within heterosexual marriages. In addition, the challenges of single parenthood are prevalent when Ramneet suggests her mother would move with her as they began to establish a new life that would encapsulate an adopted child. This leads us into exploring the next subsection of this theme, which examines the expectations of family members.
Ann’s description of her fiancé Iain as a ‘traditional’ man, from a
‘traditional family set-up’ who upholds ‘traditional values’ further complicates this paradox. Unsurprisingly, she describes a pendulum of experiences as they try to make sense of an inherent difference in their anticipated route to parenthood.
Ann: “I feel like we’re on this pendulum sometimes, sort of swinging back and forth, with, do we want to have them? Do we not? And I think we do want to have children but, I think, we were always unsure if we wanted to adopt or if we wanted to have our own. I think the more we thought about it, adoption seemed to become more natural, normal way that we felt if that makes sense rather than having a baby” (Lines:
9-14).
The influence of Ann’s intersubjective exploration is apparent in her use of the term ‘we’, throughout the extract above (Heidegger, 1953/2010). Thus, despite their reportedly different individual outlooks, as a couple, their contemplations of parenthood intertwine. Heidegger (1953/2010, p. 119) explores the intricacy of our always being with others, even when we are alone, and distinguishes that aspect of being-in-the-world from ‘being with one another’ For Ann, her contemplations of adoptive parenthood are fully entwined in her being with Iain, as a
185 potential parental couple. Interestingly, the temporality of their joint decision-making is reflected in how they are ‘sometimes’ ambivalent about the route they would take to become parents. This suggests that there are times when they ambivalence extends to whether they shared a desire to become adoptive parents. Ann’s reflections of the shared explorations with Iain change from ‘thought’ to an embodied sense of what they ‘felt’, as she began to position adoption as a ‘more natural and normal’ route to parenthood than pregnancy. As Ann’s narrative continues, detail of her experience of an intra-subjective tension emerges, which she responds to and makes sense of by discussing it with her fiancé Iain from which they achieve a shared understanding.