The experience of adoption in a biographical narration of adoptive parents

Abstract

The aim of the study was the analysis of key motives for adoption in the context of life experiences of childless couples. This article covers the selected aspects of the qualitative analysis of the biographical narrations obtained during the narration interviews conducted with Polish and French adoptive parents. The study was conducted using the biographical method. The choice of adoptive parenthood depends on achieving inner readiness to undertake an existential challenge. In general, this challenge involves acceptance of oneself and one's spouse in the context of infertility as well as a new dimension of parenthood. The interpretative and cognitive character of biographical narration gains a particular meaning in the case of significant events and experiences identified by the states of loss and pain, as well as of opening to another human being and presenting them with love. This includes the experience of infertility and adoption of a child. It is then, when a man facing the key choice between the alternative and often excluding one another, "projects" describing himself in the future must opt for one of them. This choice is impossible to make without constructing a complex biographical narration that facilitates intellectual work through the difficult experiences and re-construction of oneself. In the diversity and unpredictability of the individual biographical narrations, which are the "projects" of personal autocreation of childless spouses who are oriented to achieve the readiness to adopt a child, a particularly inspiring cognitive value may be found.