This Is Just SO Wrong!
There is a family in our area that is trying to regain custody of their daughter after giving her up to foster care when she was a few weeks old. She’s now eight years old.
The Baker family has reared this little girl for eight years; they are what she knows as “her family.” Her birth parents, the He family, want her back now that their situation has stabilized. I don’t think the Bakers have kept it a secret from the child that she is not their birth daughter, and, from what I understand, the child knows the He family and knows that Mr. and Mrs. He are her biological parents.
I can fully understand and appreciate the Hes’s desire to have their daughter with them. They are, after all, her birth parents. The emotional and mental anguish of not being able to parent your own child must be intense.
But we need to think about what is best for the child. This little girl is the same age as my younger son. I can tell you now that if we changed the custody arrangements today, it would cause my son severe trauma, even though he knows and loves his dad, and spends alternate weekends and holidays at his dad’s house.
What is best for an eight-year-old is stability. Knowing that the general tenor of her life is not going to be ripped apart. Knowing that the people whom she has trusted and relied upon for all of her life will be there for her tomorrow, next week, next year.
What is not best is to rip a child from the only parents it knows (remember, a parent is not a DNA-donor; a parent is the person who is with you and teaches you life skills) for no better reason than “her bio-parents want her back.” If her foster parents had been killed in a tragic accident, if they’d suddenly become mortally ill, if they had been abusing her … that would be different. But none of those is the case. The only reason that this child is being uprooted from the life she has known is that her bio-parents want her with them now.
I think this is just horrifically wrong.
3 Comments
I have had a lot of people give me grief about not wanting to adopt or take in foster kids when It is clear my husband wants more kids, and I am infertile.
But situations like this make me say NO THANK YOU!!! I’ll be happy with the two I have.
No matter what, I’m sorry for the He family and for their daughter. They need to take it slow. They need to get to know their daughter by many visits over a long period of time. When they know each other, then the transition can be made. That is, of course, if the girl wants to leave her foster parents at all.
I agree with you. It’s the one reason I never have had the desire to contact the daughter I gave up for adoption in 1980. She needs people she can count on in her life, even at age 27 (that’s her age as of her next birthday, in June). I have strong feelings about abortion, which is why I didn’t have one even though abortion was legal in 1980. I felt this was in her best interest.