This sense of the normality of a multi-racial Britain should not be confused with people's attitudes to recent groups of immigrants. Some of the African asylum seekers, some refugees from war such as Albanian Kosovans, and the very large immigration of Poles have aroused familiar objections: 'they are taking our jobs, they are taking our benefits, they are jumping the queue for council housing'. The point is that the complaints will come from British white, British black and British Asian people who see themselves now as the indigenous group. Many of the new immigrants will return home. Those who stay and become British citizens will almost certainly have assimilated by the next or the following generation. Even the Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh who keep closely in contact with 'the old country' will not be able to prevent their children from looking at the world through British eyes.
Some people regard this assimilation as a matter for deliberate rejoicing while others say, 'What difference does it make, anyway? You either like a person or you don't.' Immigrants to Britain and (more importantly) their children have assimilated more swiftly than most, perhaps because of our (comparatively) successful legislation on race. With such widespread attitudes of acceptance among the majority of British people, it looks as if our multi-racial society is settling down into feeling comfortable with itself, at least as far as relationships, children and families are concerned.
When Peter and Linda realised that they would probably never be able to have their own biological children, they decided to apply to the adoption agency as prospective parents. They knew this would not be easy as there are far more people wanting to adopt than children for adoption. In other words, the whole attitude to adoption in Britain and in Russia is quite different.
Forty years ago it was easy to find babies to adopt; young unmarried mothers were encouraged, sometimes even forced, to give up their babies for adoption. But around 1970 two major changes took place in our society. First, the appearance of the contraceptive Pill made cheap reliable contraception available for all. Therefore far fewer unwanted or unintended babies were conceived. Secondly, attitudes towards sexual behaviour and family patterns altered, though more slowly. It became accepted, at least by many sections of society, that if a mother wanted to remain single and bring up her children by herself, that was fine. Many mothers did so. So where were the children for adoption in 1999 when Peter and Linda applied to become adopting parents?
These children come from families where their biological (or 'natural') parents have been unable to look after their children themselves. The parents may be helpless, mentally disabled, alcoholic, violent, abusive, or just unable to cope with all the difficulties that life piles on them. In these cases, their children are taken from them and put with foster parents who will look after them for a time, until suitable adopting parents can be found. As far as possible, the adoption services try to match children to new parents of a similar ethnic and cultural background. For example they try to find homes for black children with black families, or Catholic children with Catholic families. So if you are like Peter and Linda, white, already in your mid-thirties, with no religious beliefs, your chance of finding a baby to adopt are almost nil. You must think in terms of adopting older children who may have had a very difficult early childhood, and may be unhappy, traumatised, desperately needing a family, but as yet, no good at trusting people including would-be adopting parents.
(The reason why so many people from Britain and other countries came to Russia to adopt children is that you put tens of thousands of children into children's homes away from normal family life. Many of these Russian children would have certainly have been offered for adoption in Britain and thousands of British couples would have been very willing to adopt them. The problem is that the longer the children stay in a 'internat' where they are treated as though they are a different species - going to a special internat school, for example - the harder it is to acclimatise them to loving families and everyday social life. But for some reason, Russian culture does not encourage adoption, and I have met many Russians who are suspicious of the motives of those who want to adopt.)
In Britain, the overwhelming reason is, 'I want to love and bring up a child - or children.' Some adopting parents have children of their own, know that this is what they can do, and want to offer their home and family to a deprived and unhappy child. Some adopting parents, like Peter and Linda, cannot have children of their own.
Local authorities run adoption services, and there are also licensed private adoption agencies. Peter and Linda went through a process of several stages over some months in order to show that they were - as far as anyone could judge - capable of bringing up and looking after two brothers from a disturbed and violent family. Stuart, the younger of their two boys had been slightly disabled as a result of a drunken father hitting him when he was a baby. Craig could still remember some of the violence and chaos - and also being torn from his beloved mother (who was actually confused, sometimes drunk, and often forgetful of her children, but whom Craig did not remember like that). The two boys had been with foster parents for about a year. When they first met Peter and Linda, Stuart was prepared for a cuddle, for affection, but Craig was wary and shy. And Craig wanted to protect Stuart. Over several weeks, Peter and Linda visited the foster parents who were loving but firm with the boys, and slowly got to know their two future children. Eventually the boys, now calling them 'Mummy' and 'Daddy' came to live with them for ever. Adoption means that the child belongs to the parents as much as a birth child, and has exactly the same legal position and rights.
Nearly 5000 adoptions were confirmed in England in 1999 when Peter and Linda adopted Craig and Stuart. The children who were not adopted were some of those who were older, disabled either mentally or physically, or who seemed to be so disturbed that they would need to be in care for the rest of their lives. However, children with problems and disabilities are adopted, even when they are no longer small children - ten years or thirteen years old at the beginning of adolescence. Despite all the difficulties there is a queue of parents wanting to bring children into their families and love them as their own.
Inevitably there were problems, more than one might expect in a family with biological children who have always lived with loving parents. In their first two or three years, both Craig and Stuart could be violent, given to smashing and destroying things in their periods of distress. Sometimes Stuart behaved like a baby rather than a little boy. Craig has grown into a big boy, strong and good at some games, but he is not academically clever, and will probably never be able to get anything more than an unskilled or semi-skilled job. That is not a problem, for he is already able to do simple bicycle repairs.
For the parents, the most important thing is that the children feel loved and secure - and therefore happy except when demons from the past afflict them. With each year they believe that Craig's demons and Stuart's demons are fading, which makes them feel proud. Children's homes where the children are brought up together with trained adults to look after them, still exist in Britain, but as compared with forty years ago, social workers put immense effort into finding good foster homes and then adoptive homes for babies and small children wherever possible. So the children's homes are mostly for older children - teenagers who cannot find adoptive parents or who do not want to be adopted - and for a few children whose problems are so severe that they need to be in a special protected and secure place.