There simply lacks enough detail in the story to know anything, and people are forming sides in the absence of facts.
For example, it isn’t established from the story that the court had made any reliable decision re awarding custody to the mother, other than for a “trial period”. It suggests (from this limited info) that the courts were not exactly “trusting” her so much as allowing her custody to see if that would work out, with a final decision to be determined later based on the evidence generated from the “trial period”. This process was frustrated by granny and gramps fleeing with the kid.
There is no way of knowing from the story if granny and gramps had any reason for this that would be in the least reasonable to outsiders. The story says that mom had issues with the bio-father, and that she was somewhat developmentally disabled and living in a homeless shelter at one point - none of which in and of itself seems at all sufficient to flee in terror of her having a “trial period”. We simply cannot know.
We also know that the kid at 5 wanted to live with his grandparents and wasn’t exactly busting himself (and still isn’t as an adult) to be reunited with mom - but how much of this can be attributed to the grandparents poisioning the kid’s mind against mom we also can’t know. It is of course very common for kids who are kidnapped by one family member to take their “side”.
And while we don’t know a lot, we do know that his grandparents are kidnappers and broke the law, and that given that they abandoned their lives and changed their names, I think it can be safe to assume that this isn’t some horrible misunderstanding.
The issue is whether these law-breakers had some good reason to break the law or not.
The answer is that we don’t know.
Assumptions work both ways here. On the one hand, it is very natural to be biased against law-breaking kidnappers - they are criminals. On the other, it is also very natural (assuming these folks are not habitual criminals) to assume that older, settled folks don’t abandon their whole lives and properties to kidnap a grandson without any cause.
Of course it could very easily be that the “cause” was all in their heads.
Interesting that the boys stepfather is the one that gave the cops the boy’s current SSN. That’s another mystery. After 18 years, how did step daddy get this info? Is he the same guy that mom married 18 years ago?
Also, as it turns out, she was living in a house rather than a car.
This detail doesn’t seem right to me. How can a court award custody, even on a “trial period”, to someone living out of a car - when they have lived elsewhere since birth?
Again, lack of details and a contradictory story. According to the earlier story, “… she was living in her own home, working and remarried”. According to this story, she was unemployed and living in a car with her husband - also unemployed.
If they had a good reason to do what they did, to take that risk, it should still be good enough to face prosecution with. Grandparents, you achieved your objective in raising the kid away from their mother; now make your case for why it was necessary and how you were able to determine this when others did not. And if your argument is not persuasive, face the music.
In my experience, nobody with a verified mental illness should be allowed to raise a child. The risk is too great, and unlike drug addiction, you can’t wake up one morning and decide to stop being mentally ill.
The grandparents cannot escape justice, but I don’t fault them for what they did. They clearly had the child’s best interests in mind while the courts and the daughter did not.
Since we’ve all apparently decided to make shit up - maybe the mother planned to raise the child as an atheist, and the fundamentalist grandparents wanted to make sure that he was implanted with the Fear of God, as well as a healthy hatred of Muslims, homosexuals, liberals, and other undesirables.
Well, I think this helps explain the grandparent’s actions. Imagine a baby that you raised. Diapers changed. Burping him on your shoulder. Watching him learn to talk. Learn to walk. You’re looking forward to that first day of school.
Then age five the courts want to rip him out of your home. I know it happens a lot. But, it’s heart wrenching to go through. The US Family Court system has needed improving for a long time. There’s so much emphasis on birth rights and not enough on the people that are actually raising these kids.
One thing it does explain is that they could not know whether his mother would be a decent parent or if the child would indeed be unsafe - they never even gave her a chance once she was on her feet.
They knew when they accepted custody of their grandchild that the state would work to reunite him with his birth parents if possible at some future date. If they didn’t want that risk, they didn’t need to take the responsibility.
However, his mother had parental rights. The grandparents took those away from her. Its possible to loose parental right, but that is the courts responsibility done through due process, not a unilateral decision made by grandparents.
Whether she was “on her feet” at the time depends on whether one believes her lawyer, or the sheriff involved in the abduction case.
Her lawyer today says she had troubles in the past but was employed and livinhg in her home when she applied for custody.
The sheriff allegedly says she and her husband were unemployed and living out of their car at the time.
Which adds some force to my original observation - that people in this thread are jumping to firm conclusions without having firm evidence.
I don’t think anyone would argue it’s in the best interests of the 5 year old to be taken from the grandparents he was raised to age 5 with and laced with a couple of people he’s never lived with, who are unemployed and living out of a car … if that happens to be true. Which we don’t in fact know, as the stories are contradictory.
Regardless, it was the job of social services and the court system to determine if she was or was not on her feet at that time. Now, we will not know, and the mother has been not been able to excercise her parental rights, or been given due process to have them denied, been denied her sons childhood, and perhaps any relationship with him at all because the grandparents decided that they knew better than the people who had the responsibility and authority to decide.
Well the Grandparents sure did a great job raising their son. The husband who left his wife homeless and abandoned his child. Yep, that is some first class parenting.
I hope the mother sues the pants on those grandparents.