Woman gives back her adopted son after 2 weeks - After years of trying to get pregnant and a long adoption process, a woman in the UK returned her 2 year old son to foster care after only two weeks with him because she felt she could not "love him properly". For his own safety, he was returned to foster care and later adopted again. Instead of looking at her son as a gift, she saw him as a reflection of her own personal failure to have biological children. I find it hard to believe that any person could be so self-centered and have their only thought be "but how does this make ME feel", especially when there is a child involved. What makes this story more tragic is how her husband was initially against adoption, feel in love with this child, but allowed her to make the decision to return him to foster care instead of addressing her obvious mental health needs.
This is a heartbreaking story, but I have a feeling there is more to it than is being presented (isn't there always?). Not having children myself, I don't know how long it would take to "bond" with or feel connected to a child, adopted or biological. Were her emotional expectations of having a child too high, especially after years of infertility? Did she set some impossible standard of perfection for herself and her child? The one question I don't have an answer to is: How do you know you don't love a child "enough"?
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3 comments:
This story makes me want to go out and adopt unwanted babies. And by "babies," I mean "kids" because babies have it made in the shade and get adopted up easily... unless you get stuck with this crazy lady.
Which only reinforces my belief that some people are NOT intended to have children and they need to heed the message before they go do crazy things like this.
I think it is a very commendable thing that the woman returned the child. I was adopted by two people who indeed did adopt because they could not reproduce biologically. And my care suffered for this fact. As did my relationship with extended family and grandparents. Worse than always being viewed as a "gift", I was viewed as "pretend". A 'pretend' grandchild, not "real blood". If a family is not really open to adoption, I think it is right for them to know and acknowledge their feelings on the issues. As to prevent a whole 18+ years of trauma to a kid.
Thanks for your comment M. I agree with you that if a family isn't open to adoption or if they have unresolved issues that they shouldn't adopt. I only wish that this woman would have realized that before she brought a child home.
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