How did this even happen?
And why would the PAPs ever think this was okay? The father never terminated his rights. The mother withdrew hher consent. Yet they fought for three years to keep this poor little boy, bouncing him back and forth, who was never ever "theirs"?
I’m an AP – and this story makes my blood boil. Something has got to change.
Does anyone have any legitimate insight as to why they would fight for so long – when TPR never took place???
http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/myfox/pages/ News/Detail?contentId=8162388&versio n=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY &pageId=3.2.1
apparently, yes, there was an agency:
http://www.adoptionagencyratings.com/bet hany-christian-services.htm#comment-2480
Sorry, they fought for six years, not three.
THIS is exactly the sort of thing that makes me most angry with adoption… and almost exactly what happened to me. Only I saw the damage fighting long term for my child would do to HER so I was the one who walked away and the reason my child is where she is now, after I had already won a court case and gotten her back. It completely destroyed me to walk away and lose her again but I didn’t want her being tossed back and forward like some play thing… she deserved more than that and I could tell they would never leave me alone and they would keep fighting me for her.
Sadly, I am not alone in these situations and have received several emails about cases like this one where the mother withdraws her consent but the PAP’s keep fighting her… regardless of the fact they know coercion played a huge role in these particular cases.
The whole sense of entitlement is the thing that does my head in… no one is entitled to a child… we are lucky when they are in our lives no matter what.
Its nice to see that these sorts of things are not looked favourably on by other AP’s.
myst1998 | Jan 14, 2009
It makes me sick as well. Some people feel entitled to a child, and will stop at nothing to make sure that child stays with them. This unfortunate story SHOULD make people stop and think about coercive adoptions.
It makes me shudder when I think of how many adoptions are in fact illegal due to the child’s natural father not being notified, or the falsification of documents stating, "father unknown".
cantstopLinnyG | Jan 14, 2009
We don’t get any insight as to what the bio-mom’s status was directly after the birth. In other words, what was going on in her life, was she in a position to care for him, etc. If her conditions were extremely bad, they might have considered that their home was actually best for the little boy. Then, with him having bonded with them, it was just extremely difficult for them to return him to his bio-mom.
That being said, her revocation of consent, along with no TPR for the bio-father, should have put an end to this case in short order. The people handling the potential adoption should have seen to it.
This doesn’t exonerate the PAPs, but it does give us a little more insight.