Perfectparanoia, this is what I mean about “meaningful access”: I have a niece, my sister’s daughter, who lives with her good-old-boy father. Because of the tenuous relationship there, and his general dislike of our family, I can’t say much when she talks about poaching deer out of season with him, or says horribly racist things (“This looks like a nigger yard!”). That’s not abusive, but I’d hate to have to listen to my own son say things like that and not respond, for fear I lose the right to ever see him again.
I’m talking to the “woman who has a rightful biological claim to the baby - can prove it. She demands you give the baby back RIGHT FUCK NOW.” That’s why I quoted that part - sorry if I wasn’t clear.
FWIW, I am an adoptive parent. And the scenario of the bio-mom/dad showing up and trying to get my children away from me was a nightmare for me for years. Not so much now that they are grown up.
Thank you for the clarification. I thought you were an adoptive parent but couldn’t remember.
It is beyond hard for the child who gets caught in the middle of this sort of thing, however. Adults are supposed to have resources to deal with it. All the child knows is parents are fighting over her and no one asks her wishes.
But don’t you see that asking the child’s wishes also doesn’t help? If a parent (bio or adoptive or divorced, frankly) feels threatened by the other parent, then “asking” the child is always “making them choose”. No child should ever have to pick which parent to hurt, or be put in a place where they feel that loving one parent means rejecting another. It’s not healthy to have adults competing for your affection and attention like it’s a zero-sum game.
I feel like the courts could play a really meaningful role in these cases because they would give everyone a non-threatening framework that provides the opportunity for a relationship to grow or not–something that could only be determined by time. Asking a kid what he wants would not really make things easier for him: it would just make him feel like everyone’s pain was his fault.
I think if the kid was being raised to be racist, I would totally interfere.
I think my problem, in general, is that I am, generally, a kind person who puts the wants and needs of others above my own. This is a good thing, for the most part. The problem part is that in my naive little world, everyone is like this at heart.
I have had enough experience in the world to consciously know this is not the case. However, my subconscious doesn’t always get the message.
So, consciously, I realize that there is a 95% chance that the adoptive parents are going to be stupid/racist/selfish, etc. but my subconscious refuses to accept that as a possibility.
If my bio child were in any danger from their adoptive parents, I WOULD take it to court. I would work through the disruption with the child and it would be in their benefit in the end.
If they weren’t and the adoptive parents were just stupid/selfish/scared, I would try to work on them to get some kind of access. If that didn’t work, I would probably have to look to the courts to get SOME KIND of access. I just can’t believe a parent would do this (subconscious again).
Not at all. By calling the adoptive parents fences, you were implying (if not outright claiming) that they had done something illegal. I do not believe that to be the case in the scenario from the OP. They were ignorant of the crime. Calling them “fences” is like calling me a murderer because I sometimes go deer-hunting.
That’s why they are illegal here (Canada). In any adoption, no money is supposed to go directly to the parents of the child.
(Of course, you can do so and try not to get caught but if you do get caught, your parental rights might be in question since the adoption was not legal.)
First, I believe in adoption.
Second, I believe that it is in the interests of children, parents, and society as a whole if we know for sure who the parents of a child are.
So I think that an adoption, even if flawed, should have a rather short “statute of limitations” on it, and after that it should be binding and permanent. The only exception I would make for irregularities in adoptions voiding the adoption would be if the irregularity suggested the adoptive parents would be dangerous to the child. For example, even if a child is “adopted” by accident – for example a hospital accidentally switches two babies – I think that if it’s discovered at age 10, the legal status of the child shouldn’t change. They should remain the legal child of the parents who raised them.
I’m not sure exactly how much time can pass before the adoption should be inviolable, but this case is surely past that point.
If the adoptive parents had killed the mother, I’d consider them a risk and remove the baby. Or if they knew the mother was killed. But they didn’t. And while paying a woman to carry a child to term for you is distasteful and perhaps bad public policy, it is legal in many US states and by itself would not invalidate the adoption.
That doesn’t mean that there can’t be other consequences to a dishonest adoption. In this case, i think the lawyer might be disbarred – it was his job to make sure that the adoption was legal and proper, and he failed. And that’s a really huge failure. And in this case, I also think it would be fair and just if the biological father and grandparents were granted visitation rights - as a grandparent might in a divorce. But wrenching the child away from its parents? Absolutely not.
