Why adoptive moms tend to struggle more than dads

Thank you Katie for putting this video out. It has shed some light on why i’m struggling as an adoptive mom and thank you for the encouragement that I will grow as a mom and things will get better. You are amazing, keep doing what you do 💝

From my experience, I have a harder time because I adopted my daughter when she was 5. She knew her bio mom so she didn’t in her head feel like she “needed” a new mom, she never had a Dad so that was an exciting bonus for her.

I honestly love this video thank you. I like how you dont sugar coat. Youre doing the right thing! As a future single adoptive mother id love if youd be able to interview one of your single friends so I can hear what its like from a single parents pov. Im already a mom to my 6 yr old bio child and want to adopt siblings within the next few years. Thank you for the work youre doing!

The way I had it explained in training. If the mom is responsible for the abuse/neglect they blame the mom for abusing/negecting them. If the dad is responsible for the abuse/neglect they blame the mom for failing to protect them from the abuse neglect. Which ironically is also the abuse charge given to moms in DV situations.

I guess we are backwards lol. We talked about adopting long ago but it was my husband who brought it up again as something we should consider. My husband is very involved but I’m still the default parent to our 2 bio kids (1 with severe cognitive & learning disabilities) and the majority of child-related stuff between 6am & 5pm falls on my shoulders. Women tend to be the planner in their family who organizes trips, extracurricular activities, meal plans, takes inventory and reorders supplies for the household, buys clothing, schedules medical appointments, etc. That mental load is hard enough with 2 kids. I know adopting will increase that load on me. My husband will help as much as he can, but still. I’m less worried about societal expectations because my family never fit the mold in the first place. Having a severely disabled child is isolating in ways most people don’t understand or expect but I’m happy and comfortable with my life. :)

Good video! As a foster dad of one bio kid and two foster kids, I think there's a lot of things you identified that are absolutely true. If I can add a few things: 1) Kids preferences: One of the things I've noticed is that all three of my kids have a preference of going to Mom first, even if they're rational minds know dad is closer and can give an answer more quickly. I can be sitting right next to them and they go to Mom for help, and Mom says " your dad is right next to you, can you ask him?" and their response is "Oh Yeah." We certainly didn't coach them to do this them to this, but I think there's some biology to it. They learn the earliest to go to Mom for their needs and they never really fully shake that pattern. 2) Generational influences: Grandparents and great grandparents often influence how this works as well. My grandmother-in-law always makes a point to let me know how good of a dad she thinks I am, and she does not do the same for my wife. And some of that is her situation, my wife's grandfather was not active participant in raising her dad, and I think sometimes those experiences are transposed down to mom's. In those generations the moms were expected to carry the burden, and even if they don't say it explicitly, the way their attitude presents to my wife's tells a different story. Not necessarily in a malicious way, but just a transposition of their experiences. I think you're right about this societal expectation though, especially concerning hair. We have a daughter of A different race and I actually do her hair, not my wife, and we've had several comments about how her hair is done from various people in our ether. What I have found though, especially living in a predominantly minority city, is that those opinions tend to be all over the map. Some people of color think we're doing a great job with her hair, some don't think we're doing a good job at all. There doesn't seem to be any consensus. We have settled on simple but neat until she's old enough to decide what she wants to do with her own hair.

oh my goodness, have you heard my thoughts?! This is very timely for me.

I can certainly confirm that’s been my experience with our biological child … unrealistic expectations on mom vs dad (both as working parents). I think I’m mentally prepared for that to persist as we adopt, this year, but… it is super frustrating, from society, for sure

It it going to be too hard if we limit our choices to south Asian kid/ brown kid since we come from that background ?

A thought, I heard ab two dads who got a kid together, they decided to call dad 1, Daddy and dad no 2 Dad or something similar. Could that might help in a period in the beginning? To get rid of some of the negative lojalty, to for example if they call their bio mum, mum for example to choose another way to say mum for the adoption mother, for example Mommi or some other similar but different word so they get like 2 different "names" during a period in the beginning.