Holy crap, folks...this one's a doozy...

[Dastardly]

Doesn't make much sense. Most of the people involved in the case are US citizens, and the US legal system is the one sorting through all of this at the moment. Just speaking logistics, that puts the solution on this side of the border for now.

It seems pretty unfair to only expect the mother to pack up and leave her home though. I think the child should be returned to her biological mother even though it is a tricky situation and, if that were to happen, no one seems to be entertaining the possibility of the adoptive parents moving if some sort of visitation/joint custody situation was to arise.

But no one is presenting any sort of compelling case for why she "should" be returned to her biological mother. It's this great big foregone conclusion that I do not accept.

Once a child is old enough to remember events and be formed (or scarred) by them, it's no longer just about a parent's rights. On either side of this. And it's not about letting the child decide, either. It's about figuring out what is best for the child -- the only person in this situation who can't really speak for herself.

Here's the thing:

What is the REASON most biological parents who put kids up for adoption are required to give up any rights to custody or contact? Basically, why do we have that law/policy?

It's not because of the paperwork. The paperwork is there to enforce the idea, it's not the reason for it. They do it because it can be phenomenally destructive to a child's home environment to be part of a custody battle, or to have conflicting parental influence.

So it's not the legality of the paperwork that concerns me. Whether or not the paperwork holds up in court, the reasoning behind the paperwork (That it's a bad thing to uproot a child and destroy a sense of safe, consistent "home" during these formative years) is what is forefront in my mind.

 

[Dastardly]

It is about property rights. A child is the property of their parent(s) until they either become adults or the parents do something to get their property confiscated. To claim that a child isn't the parent's property is absurd. Imagine that you gave birth to a child, only to be informed by the doctor that a very wealthy couple have taken in your baby as their own. Would you accept that? Would you be thrilled that your child is probably going to have a higher quality of life than they would with you? Or would you be angry because you had a child so that you could actually have a child.

A child is not your "property." I can beat the hell out of my car if I so choose. I can't paint swear words on it, take a crap on the hood, I can sell it to whomever I want. If I try to do any of those things with my child see how quickly (and rightly) I'll be burned at the stake.

A child is in parental custody until they are 18. They're under parental guardianship. That's wholly separate from property, because here's the thing: Property has no rights. Kids, however, do. I don't have to "consider what's best for my car" before I change the spark plugs. I can't be brought to court for failing to change my oil in a timely manner.

 

[userwhoquitthesite]

Soooooooo who does the girl go to?

As far as I'm concerned, it's all down to quality of life. Which parent is more well-off? Who has better access to schools and medicine? I don't know anything about guatemala, so it may be that the biological parent is the better choice.

If this was reversed - a US born child kidnapped and now being raised in Guatemala the US State Department would be sending in the FBI, or the Marines.

That this is even being debated is double standards and nothing else.

double standards exist for a reason.

 

[Dastardly]

It doesn't matter if they kidnapped here or not. The adoption is null and void, so, actually, in theory, even now they pretty much are kidnapping her. And the US is a accomplice.

The paperwork is null and void, yes. But that's not what's at issue here. We're not discussing the return of a wallet or set of keys. This decision can have tremendous impact on the child's emotional well-being. She's 7 years, not 7 months.

It does not matter. The moment you realize that the child is a foreigner everything changes. It becomes a matter of the US trying to dictate when they have 0 right to say ANYTHING whatsoever. You are essentially saying that the child should stay with whom are effectively kidnapping her because by now she is really effected by "Stockholm Syndrom".

The adoption is not legal, simple as that.

And you are essentially saying the child should go home just because. You're using paperwork as your excuse, but this isn't about the legality of some scribbles anymore. If it had just happened, sure. But she's seven years old now. She's not old enough to make the call herself, but she's certainly old enough to be permanently shaped by it.

The problem here is that you're thinking only about that paperwork. And, according to the paperwork, the adoptive parents should "lose" this fight. And the biological mother should "win" this fight. But it doesn't matter which of them "wins" or "loses," because they're not the ones most affected by this. They need to be sure the child wins, or any decision is the wrong one.

And either decision could be the better. But it has to be reached for the right reasons if we're to be sure.

 

[dumbseizure]

The difference being that we know that the mother (and her virtually unmentioned father) clearly loved her daughter and are fighting to have her back after she was taken from them.

At home is where a child belongs, and with her parents is where a child ought to be.
There is nothing to suggest the biological parents would not provide a suitable loving environment to grow up in.

I would be very interested in knowing how the adoptive parents feel about the situation. I'd bet they feel downright awful learning that the child they adopted had been the victim of a kidnapping and that her real parents have come forward and asked for their child back.

The child, sad is it may be to leave her adopted parents, will probably come to terms with the events eventually. She is still very young however, if she was say 14 years old I think there would be more things that could go wrong. As it stands, the child has barely started to build a family bond with her adopted parents and it certainly isn't too late for her to do the same with her real family.

Life is generally a ***** most of the time. There is nothing ideal about it and there isn't room for a lot of fairness. That the child may suffer some distress over being reunited with her parents is just one of those things. Just the same way that kidnappings happen, and often people don't end up in such a nice place. That the child already has a set of loving parents that are willing to do all that is possible to have their child back their lives (as she always should have been), goes a long way to making the case that a child belongs with their parents.

I am sorry, but this just blows my mind.

For starters, at home is where a child should be and with her parents? What is to say that she does not consider her where she lives and her foster parents her home and family? A large amount of people who have foster parents from a young age consider them their "real family and home".

This also blows my mind.

Will PROBABLY come to terms with it EVENTUALLY? You are not building a strong case for this. What you are pretty much saying is that it may happen, or it may not, and yet you are for this based on chance.

Also, it wouldn't be worse at 14, because at the age she would have an understanding of what is going on. How do you explain to a 7 year old that the family she currently lives with isn't her real one, and that she has to move away to be with a family she may not even remember?

I don't really think you can comment that "she has just started to build bonds". There is nothing in that article related to the child's current status with the foster family.

In your own words, "life is a *****", so if it is deemed that the child will be better off with the foster parents, then the biological parents can visit and such. I am trying to stay as objective as possible in this but it annoys me that you think she belongs with her mother just because she is "biological", and it also annoys me that you keep saying "parents" as if the foster parents are just impostors. They have raised this girl for the last few years. They have been her family.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Let the kid decide. Although, that never happens. And she's a bit too young for that.

Kid stays with her parents, and the original mother gets expenses paid to visit them. They chould be able to settle the deal themselves.

 

[Dastardly]

You somehow think that she grew to be 4 and never learned Spanish while living in Guatemala? Sure it'll be far from perfect, but to say she won't be able to communicate?

We have no idea what went on between 2006 and 2008. She had a family until she was two, and then she was adrift for 2 years, and then she was adopted in 2008. Even assuming she was in Guatemala the whole time, given what we know of language development, it's not a stretch to think she's more a native English speaker than anything.

Most language development takes place at home and among family. Familiar faces, familiar voices, consistent speech patterns and vocabulary. And then being in school ramps that up another notch, but that's not until 4 or 5, depending.

Now, I don't think the language problem needs to be a deal-breaker, or even a central fixture in the proceedings... but I don't think it can be as casually dismissed as you think.

 

[Dastardly]

1. They are rich enough to live in the suburbs, which in Latin America is a big deal.

2. All her paperwork is illegal, and falsified by international law. She will have a hard time getting anything legal done because she wont even be a US citizen let alone have any paperwork to her name. I doubt she even has a birth certificate since everything was proven to be false. She will be like the Amish kids who were born outside the system.

1. Not sure what bearing that has on what I'm talking about. I'm not one of the ones assuming the parents are in some kind of slum or anything. Either family can provide for the child materially. I'm talking about the emotional cost it places on the child.

2. This one's an easy fix, and well within the jurisdiction of the State department. She's spent more time with this family than with any other. She's spent more time in this country than any other. If the courts find that it's best she stay with her current family, it'd be a simple matter to get the paperwork legalized.

Why? Because paperwork doesn't care. It doesn't have feelings or wants or needs, it doesn't undergo trauma or have emotional crises. And that's why this decision doesn't need to be made based on the paperwork.

 

[dumbseizure]

1. They are rich enough to live in the suburbs, which in Latin America is a big deal.

2. All her paperwork is illegal, and falsified by international law. She will have a hard time getting anything legal done because she wont even be a US citizen let alone have any paperwork to her name. I doubt she even has a birth certificate since everything was proven to be false. She will be like the Amish kids who were born outside the system.

1. Not sure what bearing that has on what I'm talking about. I'm not one of the ones assuming the parents are in some kind of slum or anything. Either family can provide for the child materially. I'm talking about the emotional cost it places on the child.

2. This one's an easy fix, and well within the jurisdiction of the State department. She's spent more time with this family than with any other. She's spent more time in this country than any other. If the courts find that it's best she stay with her current family, it'd be a simple matter to get the paperwork legalized.

Why? Because paperwork doesn't care. It doesn't have feelings or wants or needs, it doesn't undergo trauma or have emotional crises. And that's why this decision doesn't need to be made based on the paperwork.

Yay, a voice of reason.

 

[manic_depressive13]

A child is not your "property." I can beat the hell out of my car if I so choose. I can't paint swear words on it, take a crap on the hood, I can sell it to whomever I want. If I try to do any of those things with my child see how quickly (and rightly) I'll be burned at the stake.

A child is in parental custody until they are 18. They're under parental guardianship. That's wholly separate from property, because here's the thing: Property has no rights. Kids, however, do. I don't have to "consider what's best for my car" before I change the spark plugs. I can't be brought to court for failing to change my oil in a timely manner.

It's illegal to beat your pets but I'm pretty sure I own my dog. The possession of limited rights doesn't make something not property. All the same, let's call it custody. The birth mother still has custody of the child because the adoption papers were not legitimate. She should therefore be allowed to take her child back.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I read something similar to this years ago but it was a relative who kidnap their baby daughter. She was arrested and the girl was reunited with her real mother who she is happen to have.
Granted I'm not saying if they do this, it will be the same result.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

You somehow think that she grew to be 4 and never learned Spanish while living in Guatemala? Sure it'll be far from perfect, but to say she won't be able to communicate?

We have no idea what went on between 2006 and 2008. She had a family until she was two, and then she was adrift for 2 years, and then she was adopted in 2008. Even assuming she was in Guatemala the whole time, given what we know of language development, it's not a stretch to think she's more a native English speaker than anything.

Most language development takes place at home and among family. Familiar faces, familiar voices, consistent speech patterns and vocabulary. And then being in school ramps that up another notch, but that's not until 4 or 5, depending.

Now, I don't think the language problem needs to be a deal-breaker, or even a central fixture in the proceedings... but I don't think it can be as casually dismissed as you think.

If she was kidnapped when she was 2, adopted in 2008 and it's 2012 NOW and her given ages is 7, doesn't that mean she'd more likely be three when she's adopted than four? I'm getting lost in the calculations people are having here where they tweak the numbers so she spent more time in Guatemala like that justifies their view somehow? Or am I imagining that?

 

[phantasmalWordsmith]

Punish the kidnappers to the extent the law can, but leave the girl with her adoptive parents as far as legal custody goes and when she is at the age of consent, allow her to make her own decisions on the matter. To me, family is nurture over nature.

 

[Kukakkau]

Well there's the choice of the only family she has ever known and has cared for her most of her life, or the mother she knows nothing of who is in an area where children get kidnapped.

Pretty sure I'd side with adopted family for the child's sake and welfare.

 

[Ickorus]

*reads comments*

Right. Well. Okay. Here's the thing:

In these situations you have to consider the welfare of the child to be paramount because the child is the most vulnerable person in this situation. The child is in a loving home, presumably, and disrupting that and using her as a token in some sort of weird game of moral brinksmanship is going to do nobody any favours.

I can appreciate the sentiment, truly, and also agree that sending the child back to her biological mother seems like the common sense approach but common sense isn't always right. Afterall, common sense would tell us that the world is flat.

1. no it wouldn't.

2. The parents don't live in shacks. They live in the suburbs. That's where the middle class/rich Latin Americans live.

It does really, whilst it is getting better Guatemala still isn't a the most stable of countries and crime is still extremely high; not the best country to raise a child, she'd have a much better life in America.

What sort of life you have isn't solely dependant on what sort of country you live in. Nor is there a direct link between happiness and what country you live in.

Just because the parents who adopted her live in the USA doesn't necessarily mean she will have a better life there than in Guatemala. It is also a horrible argument to use because it is essentially saying "These people can have her because they are American. Sorry, you don't get to have your child anymore".

That is NOT what I'm saying.

Think about it, why did she get kidnapped? most likely because she lived in a country with an extremely high crime rate.

There are over twenty five murders a day in Guatemala city alone and that's completely discounting all other crimes violent or otherwise.

When it comes down to it I don't care about which parents she gets, they both clearly love her dearly if neither party is willing to give her up but I'm thinking about what is best for the child here and it's absolute fact that she would live a far better life in America than in Guatemala so that is where I believe she should remain.

See: The comment above me, he knows what I mean.

Look up.

I swear the Escapist is plagued by more racists every day.

Don't you fucking DARE call me racist.

You don't know how much of my willpower is going into keeping my post to at least a reasonably polite degree because I want to go absolutely ape shit on your ass right now for making such a disgusting accusation.

I was merely going on the FACT that Guatemala is a country with extremely high crime and that Missouri definitely has a much lower crime rate, that is NOT a racist observation, I have nothing against any race of people because racism is fucking stupid.