Our daughter was two when she was placed with us 27 years ago. Post-adoption support was non-existent, not being a requirement until 2005, and we were confident that we could successfully parent a toddler. After all we had a birth son who was a textbook child, what could possibly go wrong!

We quickly realised that a great deal more was required to parent our daughter than we had anticipated.

After many years of asking we received therapeutic help which had a positive effect and began having shared care with a specialist foster carer. It felt as though things were working well.  Then, after a particularly bad week our daughter’s psychiatrist decided that she needed a few days away in an alternative foster placement, we could all then come back together and continue. 

She was 15 at the time and sent to a residential placement about 200 miles away. She has not been home to live since.  Since then, she has had multiple moves, had a year in a secure unit as an adolescent and has spent the past 9 years in adult secure accommodation.

We have learnt to “parent from a distance”.  It was exceedingly difficult at first; I felt a failure as a mother and let down by the very people who I thought were supposed to help.  Over time, I realised that our relationship has adapted to our new way of being a family. The limited time that we spent together in recent years has, on the whole, been positive. I am no longer scared of her, I am more relaxed, not constantly exhausted or on guard.  She now visits and we cook lunch together, chat and have a more usual mother-daughter relationship. 

I still believe that this was not the right way for social care to handle things, but we have adapted to our situation.  I would love to think that we could go shopping together, have coffee, do the usual mother and daughter things that I longed for, but that was not to be and what we have is sufficient. I have adjusted my expectations.  I have learnt to take care of myself.

I use baking as a therapy which my family and neighbours enjoy as much as I do. I often try different recipes and cakes, sometimes they work out and sometimes they don’t. Baking, like parenting, is not always a piece of cake.

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