Post-adoption experiences of adoptive parents in Maseru, Lesotho

Abstract

The general objective of this study was to explore the adoptive parents’ experiences of post-adoption in Maseru, Lesotho. The study was conducted in Maseru as most of the adoptive parents reside there, using semi structured interviews. A qualitative, interpretative phenomenological study was undertaken with ten participants of adoptive couples, five females and five males from Maseru District. The participants were between the 31 and 62 years with different careers. Participants were selected using purposive snowball sampling techniques, while data was collected using semi-structured interviews and analysed using thematic analysis. The study findings revealed that psychologically the adoptive parents are fulfilled and satisfied by their post adoption experience. Even though, they are fearful of the society that might disclose their adoptive child status before them they are seen to be emotionally stable in their adoption journey. Adoptive parents are also emotionally drained from the parenting roles that they assume, their priorities change. Socially, society is not judging the adoptive parents rather supporting them in everything, this they attribute to the changing parenting paradigm that the society is accommodating of step parenthood, so adoption is not seen a s taboo anymore in contrast they are hailed as brave for breaking the patriarchal norms. Financially, the adoptive parents are experiencing the financial challenges just as any other parent would, but when they are in the financial breakdown most people think their problem is self-brought so they are sometimes resistant to help them. Similar to the common believe that adoption is for the rich people, adoptive parents report that adoption is quite expensive, require saving especially because the processes are not times for proper budgeting. Furthermore, in attachment, the study revealed that the adoptive parents are attaching well to their children and mostly secure styles are formed in the process. It is the adoption disclosure that is worrying as post placement coaching is not sufficient to equip them with enough skills to do it, as such they resort to shunning the topic. vi Consequently, the study recommendations include need for more adoption information dissemination, reduction of adoption cost, post placement services and a need for further intensive research.