Couple adopts teenage mom to help them both with their education

Adoption is a positive option for both couples and children, because at the end of the day, everyone gains a new family. However, a sad facet of this process is that the older the children, the less likely they are to adopt them, since everyone wants a newborn baby to raise as their own, and not someone who has already developed one. own personality.

According to statistics from the National Directorate of the Single Registry of Aspiring Guardians for Adoption Purposes, less than 1 percent of couples seeking to adopt accept adolescents. Now imagine the possibility that a teenager who is also already a mother, finds a family.

Meet Susana and Lionel

Susana Cantarelli and Lionel Aguiar are an Argentine couple who, after two unsuccessful fertility treatments, decided to focus on adoption as a way to have the family they had always wanted. During the process they learned the story of a young adolescent who was still waiting to be adopted and who also has a baby.

When I came across this story, we started chatting about this possibility that appealed to both of us a lot. What we knew about her at that time was very little, but we did have a lot of desire to progress, to study, to have a trade or a profession tomorrow, and this with her son was going to be very difficult. We also really liked the idea of ​​accompanying her in her upbringing.

Dads and grandparents at the same time

Susana and Lionel decided that she was the one they wanted as a daughter, and that’s how they became parents and grandparents at the same time. In their daughter they saw the opportunity to positively impact someone’s life and give a new opportunity to mother and son.

Our great goal for her is that she can make, as far as possible, within what her motherhood allows, the life of any adolescent. That she can have a group of belonging, that she can have her leisure spaces, connect with other things that she likes, that she can progress in what she decides to do tomorrow.

It’s a challenge

The quarantine situation that occurred last year helped the family adjust. Of course, not everything has been easy, since the girl was used to doing everything alone and it is strange for her that there are people advising her or taking care of her. Being in a home for four years, accepting schedules and rules as simple as meal times was not an easy matter. Besides, the point was that they were adopting a daughter and a grandson and they should allow the girl some autonomy to raise the little one.

For me it is very challenging to respect the parenting that she proposes and, at the same time, to guide on issues that were very established. It was quite a matter to support her in her authority, in her role as mom, but at the same time guiding her in things that were not so good.

“You literally change their lives”

Despite this, the family has moved on and Susana is aware that they changed the lives of two people. In addition, the well-being of the girl and the baby are the priority.

With the baby we have everything ahead. We are very attentive to what you like. What his mom wanted for him is for him to grow up in a home. I don’t know if she would have made this decision for herself, everything is thinking about her son and the best possibilities for him.

According to Susana, it is incredible how she can love them more every day and the bond that is created is something really beautiful.

Many times it is not love at first sight, you have to build it. But that is adoption: a wonderful experience.

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