Author: Scottish Mum

Loyalty and fairness are words that we hear bandied around our family a lot.

Most readers know that my three boys are adopted.  They have many birth brothers and sisters who live in other adoptive and foster families.  Being able to cope with that, and treat everyone fairly is quite a tricky body of water to navigate, even for us adults.

As far as we can, we try to include the parents and children who live with other families in our news.  Just this morning, we received an updated picture of one of my boys birth sisters, which winged its way over to us from half way around the world.   From our side, returning the favour will be our next step in the keeping everyone up to date plan.  That’s no mean feat when there are seven other families to include.

For the boys, it’s also keeping the expectations realistic, as well as keeping their loyalty to their birth family, but not alienating their adoptive one at the same time.  It’s hard enough for adults to cope, but for the children, and hopefully, their long-term relationships with each other, it’s necessary.

It’s turning out quite nice really, as if they have some good news to share, they often pick up the phone to a sibling before telling anyone else.

There are occasions where they fall out, of course there are, so we are working to manage those awkward times, but so far, the boys have done a good job of working things out and remaining polite and respectful of each other.   Friends can come and go during our lifetimes, but we hope the boys sibling relationships will remain as good as they are now, where they are fiercely loyal to each other when it comes to those outside the family.

At the same time, the boys have to stay on good terms with their friends and of course the adoptive families they’ve all grown up in.

We have spells where the kids spend hours on the phone to one or other of their siblings.  Quite often, with them simply on the other end of the phone, while a child in each family goes about their daily business, eats meals, plays computer games etc, and they chat to each other as if they were in the same room.  There are some long spells of silences, and some disjointed conversations, but mostly, they simply comment on what’s going on at home in their own houses, and chat to each other as if they were sitting side by side.

Thank goodness for unlimited minute mobile phone contracts…..and Facetime (when it works, as our Internet connection is often diabolical).  Where money is concerned, any saving is a good one.

Talking about fairness, loyalty and money, brings me to the new Royal Bank of Scotland RBS Hello/Goodbye campaign.  Fairness and loyalty is an image that banks can often struggle to overcome, but I was pleased to see the RBS have decided to reward loyalty and not ignore existing customers.

I think that watching the video says it all.  I hate being treated differently to new customers when I’m looking for new services and I’ll tell other people I know too.  Just being fair at home isn’t enough, businesses need to be fair to all their customers too, just to make us feel special enough to stay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQDGm8sy7uU&feature=youtu.be

I’m working with BritMums and RBS on this project and have been compensated. All opinions are my own.