How Much Is That Poppy In The Window...

People are more willing to adopt a puppy than a Poppy!

I know the process of adopting a kid is bare, long effort with so many intrusive questions and when you finally get approved it can be an emotional roller-coaster with a support system that often fails and nominal financial recompense but surely the moral rewards and sense of having done one's societal duty supersede all that?

It's an issue close to me because I was never adopted. I was always a bit to "full of beans" the social worker used to tell me but I knew she meant, trouble ha!

To me, societys' obsession with dogs always made me feel worth less than one of them, so I came to not want to be around any dogs at all. I would go into school mates houses and completely ignore them even when it was clear they were wriggling round my legs for a fuss. I would refuse to be fostered by a dog lover saying they made me sneeze and I think I am allergic. I would stare at them strung up outside shops until they barked at me so bad then I'd cry and make like I was scared until the owner came and yelled at them. I really saw them as direct competition to me for a home. As a kid I remember thinking, I want that affection and love, maybe if I stole their dog away, they might adopt me instead, haha... Who knows where I was going to stash all those yapping, stinky, stolen dogs. The flaw in my logic is that the idiot people would only go get another dam dog!

Ok so that wasn't the only flaw.

So here we are ten years later and majority of people still don't even consider fostering or adopting kids who have been abandoned by their parents or who have been taken away because of neglect or abuse.

I talk to people at length about this at every given opportunity, I try really hard at convincing people to look into it, seriously, what's one more kid? I ask people in their face, with intense eye contact, have they ever considered it....I can see they're uncomfortable and often stumble over their answer.....too funny! I know, maybe too mean as well. But I can't think of a solution to this problem and I try really hard to be an effective advocate but I have never convinced anyone to say yes they will start, or even look into the process.

I could be searching for an answer at the wrong end of the spectrum. What if the solution is in somehow stopping wasters from producing offspring year after year. Like if you are a drug addict then you have to be temporarily prevented from having kids. If you've been convicted of a serious crime or several serious crimes, same. Why should these people have rights to be a mum or dad when they clearly can't be trusted to be one? That should be part of the 'liberty' that is taken from them when they choose a path in life that is incompatible with basic parenting skills, rather than oftentimes irrevocably damaging a life and leaving the rest of society to pick up the pieces.

However, there's not much difference in that position than being vexed at fat people and smokers for overburdening the NHS and I fully reject it when people get all outraged about those with more easily identifiable habits than others with habits more hidden but still as burdensome to our health service.

Maybe I should get together a protest group outside Battersea Dogs Home, like they do outside abortion clinics with all the bad points of getting a dog then give out literature that says..."A kid won't lick it's bum in front of visitors, try to hump their leg or crap on your carpet. They won't bite the postman, give you costly vet bills or eat your expensive shoes!"