"Mommy can't have a beard!" Petr Lana and his partner are already raising two children, but the second adoption was not without homophobia
Petr, you and your partner have been in the media waters in the Czech Republic when you decided to adopt your first son. The whole "process" was not easy. That's why you mentioned several times that "you wouldn't do anything like that again". But some time has passed - and your family is now a family of four. What made you decide to try adoption a second time after all?
I would just like to set the record straight right away that under Czech law, you cannot apply for adoption as a couple in a registered partnership. Only an individual can adopt. So although my son, now actually sons, will of course be raised by both my partner and I, in the eyes of Czech law I am their father. And I find that very unfair and disturbing in relation to our children.
And as for the second adoption, my partner and I talked about it a lot, and at first we really agreed that we would never do it again. (laughs) But during the pandemic, something broke in us - and we said to ourselves that our Vojta should not grow up as an only child. In spite of the many negative experiences we had already had, we finally decided to go for adoption again.
You live in the Netherlands, which is considered a very open country, even towards LGBT people. Yet you decided to go through the whole adoption process again in the Czech Republic, why? Were you hoping that you would at least know what to expect?
Even if we had hoped for something like that, it would have been completely futile. (laughs) But my partner and I do not have Dutch citizenship yet, it is only possible to apply for it after five years of residence in the country. And since at the time we wanted to adopt, there were a number of scandals about foreign adoptions, the situation was very opaque. So the government even decided to suspend them completely for a while. To be clear, there are no orphanages in the Netherlands, so couples - regardless of orientation - have to rely solely on working with adoption agencies that arrange adoptions of children from abroad. Not only is this very expensive, but as it turned out, it was not always completely 'clean'. So we first tried contacting the Czech International Adoption Office, which turned out to be a step in the wrong direction. And we ended up at the Prague City Hall, where I was still registered as a prospective adopter. I had the foresight not to have my name removed from the register of applicants. (laughs) Fortunately, our whole escapade turned out well in the end. Although this time it was also full of many missteps, bureaucratic mistakes and homophobia...
I was originally going to ask if your previous experience was of any use to you, but it seems not...
In some ways it was an advantage. First of all, we were vetted applicants and had already taken all the mandatory courses and done psychological evaluations. So there was no need to go through it again for the Prague municipality. And then we also knew what we were getting into. That's true in a negative sense (laughs), but at least I could be patient and I didn't get all these blows below the belt right away.
You mentioned bureaucratic mistakes and homophobia - so there are still people working in the relevant offices in the Czech Republic who have a problem with two dads?
We were lucky in Prague, where we came across one of the workers who was at our first adoption. She was very friendly and everything seemed to go quite smoothly. But we adopted Tobias, just like Vojta, in the Moravian-Silesian region. And there was a completely different situation at the local office. They weren't exactly sympathetic to us. It didn't help that we already had one child. The clerk there refused to admit that we could even take care of a child. She also kept asking me why we wanted this child if he was of Roma origin. And the one who was not sympathetic at all was Tobi's temporary foster mother. She told us right after the first meeting that she wouldn't give us Tobi. She said his mother couldn't have a beard.
But not to make it look like the problems were only on the Czech side - after we managed to push everything to a successful end in the Czech Republic, the interference started in the Netherlands. The official at the town hall had no experience with the whole issue at all, it took an incredibly long time before I was registered in the Netherlands as Tobi's father. This led to a whole series of complications - including the fact that they refused to take him to the doctor here, to the kindergarten...
Despite all the complications, the second adoption went well in the end. How did your older son Vojta accept his new brother?
Vojta was very excited about his sibling all the time - and he wanted to be the "big brother". In the Netherlands, it is the norm for families to have three children. So all of Vojta's classmates have siblings. The arrival of Tobi into the family was so exciting, but then of course there was the classic sibling rivalry. At the moment, the best moments are when Tobi is with me and Vojta with my partner. That's at least a few minutes of peace and quiet. (laughs)
Did your experience with caring for Vojta come in handy in the end to help you cope with Tobi's arrival?
It's true that we were more at ease. But in the end it turned out that with Tobi it would not be as difficult as with Vojta. He came to us from a really bad background and his personal history was quite problematic. He had a lot of traumas and they are still manifesting themselves today. Moreover, we didn't get him until he was much older than Tobi. He came to us when he was already six months old, and it is obvious that the smaller the child is, the easier and faster it is to get used to the new family. He is now almost three years old, already attending a special kindergarten here dedicated to learning Dutch and just a few days ago he already said his first full sentence in Dutch! Vojta started there later and then it showed in the language delay. Unfortunately, you can see in him how much he had a hard time in the beginning of his life and I am so sorry. He has problems with concentration, but he's very good at sports. He is also very friendly, communicative and popular in the team. Otherwise, I must also say that we are constantly surprised by how different children can be (laughs).
Both of the boys you and your partner are raising now are Roma - and as you indicated, at least Vojta had quite a problematic start in life, which you probably won't "erase". Aren't you afraid of the scenario described by Tereza Boučková in her book?
There are some things you can't change. In my opinion, we really give our best to parenting. In fact, sometimes we wonder if we are overdoing it with our parental commitment. (Laughs) Children who have similar stories to ours need a lot of love. But if something is going to happen, it's probably going to happen. On the other hand, Tereza Boučková, of all people, took much bigger children, and from an orphanage. And I think that's a very difficult environment to work in.
So currently you all live in the Netherlands, where - although it is not formally so - they also take your partner as the father of both children. So it's actually a bit of a happy ending. But I can't help but ask - you wouldn't really go through something like that again as another adoption? Or have you already had your name removed from the applicant register?
I dare say for both my partner and I that we're perfectly happy with the way things are now. I think we did the right thing with the second adoption, even though we tear our hair out sometimes when the boys are together. (Laughs) But that's like any siblings. At the core, the boys love each other, Tobi absolutely loves Vojta. But there's a five-year gap between them, so I understand Vojta sometimes it's too much for him. And as for the other children... I'm no longer on the applicant register. (laughs)
