'End unfairness for adoptive mums by signing petition for statutory adoption pay'

As an adoptive parent, I’m backing a new petition: Make self-employed people eligible for statutory adoption pay.

The petition says: “Ensuring statutory adoption pay is available to a self-employed parent in the same way that ­maternity allowance is available for self-employed new mums would promote an equal and fair society inclusive of all routes to parenthood.

“A parent taking statutory leave regardless of it being adoption or ­maternity should be both recognised and supported fairly.

“Expecting self-employed parents to take unpaid adoption leave whilst supporting their child during a critical transitional period is unfair. This current policy is not inclusive of adoptive families and to many, reads as an act of discrimination.”

The petition urges the ­Government to introduce an adoption allowance comparable with the maternity ­allowance for the self-employed.

The adopter who set up the petition took on a little boy aged 21 months.

She explains her ­feelings, saying: “I’m a mother to the most beautiful boy I know. The only difference between my route to motherhood and that of the majority of women is my son being adopted.”

She tells how her son was so needy he would cry and scream ­whenever she left the room for fear she wouldn’t return.

She had previously spent a decade building up her career, but when her paid adoption leave came to an end, she ­ realised she couldn’t return to her job as she needed to be around for her son.

So in 2020, she founded her own company, Notafictionalmum – a clothing, greetings cards and accessories brand for adoptive families and those who have battled infertility.

When she and her partner decided it was time to increase their family by adopting another child, she assumed that as she was self-employed, she would be able to claim exactly the same ­statutory support as self-employed mothers having a biological child. She was wrong.

She says: “My government doesn’t deem this basic level of financial support for a mother like me necessary. I’m expected to adopt a child from the saturated care system, step away from the only independent financial means I have and do it all on one ­household income.

“It’s an unnecessary and discriminatory strain added to a family in the midst of those crucial early months.”

More than 13,000 people have already signed the petitionand I urge you to do the same. We need 100,000 signatures by May 23 so it can be debated by ­government.

I can’t believe that self-employed women like myself, along with thousands of others, are not regarded as being a proper “mother” because the baby did not come from our bodies.

Let’s end this awful and unfair discrimination now.

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