Adoption

[Jarhyn]

So, I really want to have a thread on adoption. And not (just) the friendly aspects of pro-life myth but the real and uncomfortable truth of an industry that pivots on religious reporting exemptions, industrial links between Crisis Pregnancy Centers and child trafficking groups, the issues in the foster program, and the impacts all this and more upon the parents who birthed these children who, while they need parents, perhaps would be better served by a better way of finding them homes.

As much as I've thought about the problem, no really good solutions stick out for me.

I'm not sure I'm the best person to start a thread either. I'm too close to it, and again, I'm not the one whose voice needs to be most heard, even if this touches my own life; my adoption was in all honesty "one of the good ones": My existence was hidden from my parents until they were already planning on adopting my two older siblings just to keep my parents from developing a corrupt motive to "get a baby" using "those other two".

It's just... All so fucked up and I feel like while there's this big discussion about forced birth, there's very little discussion being had about the child trafficking industry, and the dark side of "pro-life".

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I had never thought of it as an industry before, but these days I think you're right.

 

[Jarhyn]

I had never thought of it as an industry before, but these days I think you're right.

My husband and I have looked into adoption. It's really expensive and it's not all just legal fees.

One senator outright said it, questioning where will babies for adoptions come from if abortions are allowed?

My only thought is that who "adopts" a child should be made as random as an unmitigated pregnancy, like 'hi, you're not specifically opting out, you've been selected for the placement of a child. Do you consent to having a child at this time (no additional information given)?'

It would be a lot less prone to corrupt motives of adopters, and influence from industrial trafficking.

But the practice today with CPCs and adoption agencies today is... It's a fucking human mill.

It's Handmaid's Tale, but not tomorrow, and not so obvious.

And then there's the foster system...

 

[Jarhyn]

It's interesting, I think, that some folks would so vociferously oppose abortion in favor of adoption when adoption is so broken, without even looking at discussing the ethical minefield of the subject.

 

[Politesse]

It's interesting, I think, that some folks would so vociferously oppose abortion in favor of adoption when adoption is so broken, without even looking at discussing the ethical minefield of the subject.

While pretending to oppose child trafficking, no less! Where do they think the illicit sex industry gets its minors in the first place? Pizzerias, I guess. But children in stable, loving homes don't just go missing without anyone asking questions.

 

[Jarhyn]

It's interesting, I think, that some folks would so vociferously oppose abortion in favor of adoption when adoption is so broken, without even looking at discussing the ethical minefield of the subject.

While pretending to oppose child trafficking, no less! Where do they think the illicit sex industry gets its minors in the first place? Pizzerias, I guess. But children in stable, loving homes don't just go missing without anyone asking questions.

And nobody seems to be talking about it.

The "solution" to abortion for mother's? Give your child away to someone else who will sell them. Maybe parents, but if they age out first, as a sex slave works just as well for some.

Records? Sir, this is a religious institution!

 

[Politesse]

Foster care reform is about as popular an issue as prison reform or the abolition of slavery or reparations for the Indian schools, and for many of the same reasons; if people don't want to think about uncomfortable topics, they must certainly don't want to talk about them, and no politician will ever get rich basing their campaign platform on an issue that no one wants to talk about. But that isn't really a good reason to ignore the suffering of children. Sometimes I feel like the American public at large have abdicated nearly all of their adult responsibilities toward others, and I wish I could say I didn't understand why, but I do... and it makes me very upset.

 

[Jarhyn]

Foster care reform is about as popular an issue as prison reform or the abolition of slavery or reparations for the Indian schools, and for many of the same reasons; if people don't want to think about uncomfortable topics, they must certainly don't want to talk about them, and no politician will ever get rich basing their campaign platform on an issue that no one wants to talk about. But that isn't really a good reason to ignore the suffering of children. Sometimes I feel like the American public at large have abdicated nearly all of their adult responsibilities toward others, and I wish I could say I didn't understand why, but I do... and it makes me very upset.

Yet people talk about the uncomfortable topic of abortion all the goddamn time!

Maybe the point is that there needs to be a discussion on this, and it needs to be elevated by the left. We need to steal adoption as a talking point.

Edit: the idea being if the pro-choice side comes out loudly and strongly to reform the failures of the foster and adoption system, the forced-birth side will truly only have forced birth on their platform. They want to speak to adoption?!? The system that is rife with corruption and sex slavery and child trafficking, that the pro-choicers are the only ones apparently willing to try and repair?

There is no island for both sides in that discussion.

 

[Politesse]

Foster care reform is about as popular an issue as prison reform or the abolition of slavery or reparations for the Indian schools, and for many of the same reasons; if people don't want to think about uncomfortable topics, they must certainly don't want to talk about them, and no politician will ever get rich basing their campaign platform on an issue that no one wants to talk about. But that isn't really a good reason to ignore the suffering of children. Sometimes I feel like the American public at large have abdicated nearly all of their adult responsibilities toward others, and I wish I could say I didn't understand why, but I do... and it makes me very upset.

Yet people talk about the uncomfortable topic of abortion all the goddamn time!

Maybe the point is that there needs to be a discussion on this, and it needs to be elevated by the left. We need to steal adoption as a talking point.

Abortion is something "bad people" do, though. In the conservative mindset at least, and they are the ones who wanted abortion to be the single issue. On the other hand, whatever their political sympathy. People are highly motivated to believe that foster carers are "good people", and don't being confronted with facts to the contrary.

Believe me, I'm campaigning on the not-unrelated issue of slavery every single election season, and it has made me all too familiar with the glassy-eyed look of someone who has just made a conscious decision to either disbelieve or intentionally forget a fact you've just shared with them.

 

[Jarhyn]

Foster care reform is about as popular an issue as prison reform or the abolition of slavery or reparations for the Indian schools, and for many of the same reasons; if people don't want to think about uncomfortable topics, they must certainly don't want to talk about them, and no politician will ever get rich basing their campaign platform on an issue that no one wants to talk about. But that isn't really a good reason to ignore the suffering of children. Sometimes I feel like the American public at large have abdicated nearly all of their adult responsibilities toward others, and I wish I could say I didn't understand why, but I do... and it makes me very upset.

Yet people talk about the uncomfortable topic of abortion all the goddamn time!

Maybe the point is that there needs to be a discussion on this, and it needs to be elevated by the left. We need to steal adoption as a talking point.

Abortion is something "bad people" do, though. In the conservative mindset at least, and they are the ones who wanted abortion to be the single issue. On the other hand, whatever their political sympathy. People are highly motivated to believe that foster carers are "good people", and don't being confronted with facts to the contrary.

Believe me, I'm campaigning on the not-unrelated issue of slavery every single election season, and it has made me all too familiar with the glassy-eyed look of someone who has just made a conscious decision to either disbelieve or intentionally forget a fact you've just shared with them.

A lot of it has to do with the direction it comes from. A heavy blow from the wrong angle injures you. A heavy blow from the correct angle shatters the block.

This is something to bring up from the grass roots, in the small places like this one.

The more we can discuss openly that the foster program is a hidden mill of sex slavery and child trafficking, and the more we can identify this as an awakening of liberal thought, the more readily we can stand on both answers to the issue of unwanted pregnancy.

 

[Politesse]

I hope so! I was fortunate in my birth situation and upbringing. But as a community college prof in a rural area, you can imagine (correctly) how many of my students are victims of our twisted foster care system. A future in which this issue is taken more seriously by policymakers is a future I can wholeheartedly embrace.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

400,000 foster children in our country. The worse thing than not having parents in America is not being a newborn and not having parents, as it gets much harder to get adopted. But remember, the Pro-Life movement is going to.... wait... don't these families already have lots of children on their own?

 

[Politesse]

400,000 foster children in our country. The worse thing than not having parents in America is not being a newborn and not having parents, as it gets much harder to get adopted. But remember, the Pro-Life movement is going to.... wait... don't these families already have lots of children on their own?

They'll be wanting to add even more children to the system as well, since the same faction also wants to take children away from their gay adoptive parents, as well as trans children from supportive parents. In general, the evangelical Christian movement prioritizes having as many homeless children as possible at any given time.

 

[Jarhyn]

400,000 foster children in our country. The worse thing than not having parents in America is not being a newborn and not having parents, as it gets much harder to get adopted. But remember, the Pro-Life movement is going to.... wait... don't these families already have lots of children on their own?

They'll be wanting to add even more children to the system as well, since the same faction also wants to take children away from their gay adoptive parents, as well as trans children from supportive parents. In general, the evangelical Christian movement prioritizes having as many homeless children as possible at any given time.

Which is entirely fucked.

But more to the point of the ethics of it, I keep coming around to the idea that because children deserve parents and the motive of anyone involved in deciding to adopt or even those who decide NOT to adopt older children, the best way keeps seeming to revolve around just placing the kids with married couples more -- and to be frank this is a rather bad analogy that needs improving -- like jury duty or the draft or like an accidental pregnancy.

 

[Toni]

Foster care reform is about as popular an issue as prison reform or the abolition of slavery or reparations for the Indian schools, and for many of the same reasons; if people don't want to think about uncomfortable topics, they must certainly don't want to talk about them, and no politician will ever get rich basing their campaign platform on an issue that no one wants to talk about. But that isn't really a good reason to ignore the suffering of children. Sometimes I feel like the American public at large have abdicated nearly all of their adult responsibilities toward others, and I wish I could say I didn't understand why, but I do... and it makes me very upset.

Yet people talk about the uncomfortable topic of abortion all the goddamn time!

Maybe the point is that there needs to be a discussion on this, and it needs to be elevated by the left. We need to steal adoption as a talking point.

Edit: the idea being if the pro-choice side comes out loudly and strongly to reform the failures of the foster and adoption system, the forced-birth side will truly only have forced birth on their platform. They want to speak to adoption?!? The system that is rife with corruption and sex slavery and child trafficking, that the pro-choicers are the only ones apparently willing to try and repair?

There is no island for both sides in that discussion.

I think that most people think of adoption as a positive —what could be better than helping a family who wants a child have a child? Or of ensuring that children without parents are raised in loving homes by parents who wanted them?

To a certain extent, people are ‘aware’ of parents so hungry for a baby of their own go overseas to adopt. In my community, I was aware of a number of children who had been born in Korea but who were adopted by very Caucasian American couples in my town. A friend of one my kids was born in India and adopted by a local couple. An acquaintance had adopted a toddler from India and had ongoing struggles related to her earlier life in an orphanage. Family friends from my childhood were foster parents for years and eventually adopted one of their charges, who was 9 or 10 at the time. Other foster kids were reunited with siblings in a new family. I’ve often wondered how those kids did, afterwards. A series of unrelated events put our families out of touch and so I never knew. Indeed, I believe that further contact with their foster kids was discouraged or even forbidden at that time.

More often we hear about pregnant couples scamming hopeful parents. Rarely, about failed adoptions. Rarely about stolen children sold in adoption schemes.

 

[Jarhyn]

Foster care reform is about as popular an issue as prison reform or the abolition of slavery or reparations for the Indian schools, and for many of the same reasons; if people don't want to think about uncomfortable topics, they must certainly don't want to talk about them, and no politician will ever get rich basing their campaign platform on an issue that no one wants to talk about. But that isn't really a good reason to ignore the suffering of children. Sometimes I feel like the American public at large have abdicated nearly all of their adult responsibilities toward others, and I wish I could say I didn't understand why, but I do... and it makes me very upset.

Yet people talk about the uncomfortable topic of abortion all the goddamn time!

Maybe the point is that there needs to be a discussion on this, and it needs to be elevated by the left. We need to steal adoption as a talking point.

Edit: the idea being if the pro-choice side comes out loudly and strongly to reform the failures of the foster and adoption system, the forced-birth side will truly only have forced birth on their platform. They want to speak to adoption?!? The system that is rife with corruption and sex slavery and child trafficking, that the pro-choicers are the only ones apparently willing to try and repair?

There is no island for both sides in that discussion.

I think that most people think of adoption as a positive —what could be better than helping a family who wants a child have a child? Or of ensuring that children without parents are raised in loving homes by parents who wanted them?

To a certain extent, people are ‘aware’ of parents so hungry for a baby of their own go overseas to adopt. In my community, I was aware of a number of children who had been born in Korea but who were adopted by very Caucasian American couples in my town. A friend of one my kids was born in India and adopted by a local couple. An acquaintance had adopted a toddler from India and had ongoing struggles related to her earlier life in an orphanage. Family friends from my childhood were foster parents for years and eventually adopted one of their charges, who was 9 or 10 at the time. Other foster kids were reunited with siblings in a new family. I’ve often wondered how those kids did, afterwards. A series of unrelated events put our families out of touch and so I never knew. Indeed, I believe that further contact with their foster kids was discouraged or even forbidden at that time.

More often we hear about pregnant couples scamming hopeful parents. Rarely, about failed adoptions. Rarely about stolen children sold in adoption schemes.

That's the thing though... Women are convinced to be pregnant and then the baby is often hauled away straight from the delivery room, to be held for some months in foster care (its own special hell) at minimal expense on taxpayer dollars while a family is lined up to shell out 20-50k to the agency to adopt them.

A successful adoption, under the current infrastructure, is as much a trafficked human as anything else.

Moreover, there is heavy religious bias even to who is given access to this dubious process, both in encouraging those who would otherwise think such thoughts to not think such as they are "religious" and "godly" agent and parent both.

And international adoptions are straight up RIFE with child trafficking situations.

I'm increasingly under the belief that the only ethical adoption is the one in which the parents are volun-told rather than volunteers, drafted from the population of those in registered domestic partnership contracts of some form and with allowance to opt out, but very much opt out than in, perhaps with an extra box filled out that gives extra weight (but not much) under "yes please", and this "less additional weight" particularly on account of suspicion of motive.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Since the pro-lifers will desire to end IVF if their ideologies are consistent (think of all the 'babies' murdered in that process!), there should be more customers for adoptions, right?

 

[Toni]

Foster care reform is about as popular an issue as prison reform or the abolition of slavery or reparations for the Indian schools, and for many of the same reasons; if people don't want to think about uncomfortable topics, they must certainly don't want to talk about them, and no politician will ever get rich basing their campaign platform on an issue that no one wants to talk about. But that isn't really a good reason to ignore the suffering of children. Sometimes I feel like the American public at large have abdicated nearly all of their adult responsibilities toward others, and I wish I could say I didn't understand why, but I do... and it makes me very upset.

Yet people talk about the uncomfortable topic of abortion all the goddamn time!

Maybe the point is that there needs to be a discussion on this, and it needs to be elevated by the left. We need to steal adoption as a talking point.

Edit: the idea being if the pro-choice side comes out loudly and strongly to reform the failures of the foster and adoption system, the forced-birth side will truly only have forced birth on their platform. They want to speak to adoption?!? The system that is rife with corruption and sex slavery and child trafficking, that the pro-choicers are the only ones apparently willing to try and repair?

There is no island for both sides in that discussion.

I think that most people think of adoption as a positive —what could be better than helping a family who wants a child have a child? Or of ensuring that children without parents are raised in loving homes by parents who wanted them?

To a certain extent, people are ‘aware’ of parents so hungry for a baby of their own go overseas to adopt. In my community, I was aware of a number of children who had been born in Korea but who were adopted by very Caucasian American couples in my town. A friend of one my kids was born in India and adopted by a local couple. An acquaintance had adopted a toddler from India and had ongoing struggles related to her earlier life in an orphanage. Family friends from my childhood were foster parents for years and eventually adopted one of their charges, who was 9 or 10 at the time. Other foster kids were reunited with siblings in a new family. I’ve often wondered how those kids did, afterwards. A series of unrelated events put our families out of touch and so I never knew. Indeed, I believe that further contact with their foster kids was discouraged or even forbidden at that time.

More often we hear about pregnant couples scamming hopeful parents. Rarely, about failed adoptions. Rarely about stolen children sold in adoption schemes.

That's the thing though... Women are convinced to be pregnant and then the baby is often hauled away straight from the delivery room, to be held for some months in foster care (its own special hell) at minimal expense on taxpayer dollars while a family is lined up to shell out 20-50k to the agency to adopt them.

A successful adoption, under the current infrastructure, is as much a trafficked human as anything else.

Moreover, there is heavy religious bias even to who is given access to this dubious process, both in encouraging those who would otherwise think such thoughts to not think such as they are "religious" and "godly" agent and parent both.

And international adoptions are straight up RIFE with child trafficking situations.

I'm increasingly under the belief that the only ethical adoption is the one in which the parents are volun-told rather than volunteers, drafted from the population of those in registered domestic partnership contracts of some form and with allowance to opt out, but very much opt out than in, perhaps with an extra box filled out that gives extra weight (but not much) under "yes please", and this "less additional weight" particularly on account of suspicion of motive.

Oh, I absolutely do NOT agree that people should be randomly given a child for any reason other than the express desire to have a childamd being emotionally and financially equipped to do so. Period. It takes more than a notion and good intentions to be even a halfway decent parent--starting with the express desire and wherewithall to be one.

 

[Jarhyn]

Foster care reform is about as popular an issue as prison reform or the abolition of slavery or reparations for the Indian schools, and for many of the same reasons; if people don't want to think about uncomfortable topics, they must certainly don't want to talk about them, and no politician will ever get rich basing their campaign platform on an issue that no one wants to talk about. But that isn't really a good reason to ignore the suffering of children. Sometimes I feel like the American public at large have abdicated nearly all of their adult responsibilities toward others, and I wish I could say I didn't understand why, but I do... and it makes me very upset.

Yet people talk about the uncomfortable topic of abortion all the goddamn time!

Maybe the point is that there needs to be a discussion on this, and it needs to be elevated by the left. We need to steal adoption as a talking point.

Edit: the idea being if the pro-choice side comes out loudly and strongly to reform the failures of the foster and adoption system, the forced-birth side will truly only have forced birth on their platform. They want to speak to adoption?!? The system that is rife with corruption and sex slavery and child trafficking, that the pro-choicers are the only ones apparently willing to try and repair?

There is no island for both sides in that discussion.

I think that most people think of adoption as a positive —what could be better than helping a family who wants a child have a child? Or of ensuring that children without parents are raised in loving homes by parents who wanted them?

To a certain extent, people are ‘aware’ of parents so hungry for a baby of their own go overseas to adopt. In my community, I was aware of a number of children who had been born in Korea but who were adopted by very Caucasian American couples in my town. A friend of one my kids was born in India and adopted by a local couple. An acquaintance had adopted a toddler from India and had ongoing struggles related to her earlier life in an orphanage. Family friends from my childhood were foster parents for years and eventually adopted one of their charges, who was 9 or 10 at the time. Other foster kids were reunited with siblings in a new family. I’ve often wondered how those kids did, afterwards. A series of unrelated events put our families out of touch and so I never knew. Indeed, I believe that further contact with their foster kids was discouraged or even forbidden at that time.

More often we hear about pregnant couples scamming hopeful parents. Rarely, about failed adoptions. Rarely about stolen children sold in adoption schemes.

That's the thing though... Women are convinced to be pregnant and then the baby is often hauled away straight from the delivery room, to be held for some months in foster care (its own special hell) at minimal expense on taxpayer dollars while a family is lined up to shell out 20-50k to the agency to adopt them.

A successful adoption, under the current infrastructure, is as much a trafficked human as anything else.

Moreover, there is heavy religious bias even to who is given access to this dubious process, both in encouraging those who would otherwise think such thoughts to not think such as they are "religious" and "godly" agent and parent both.

And international adoptions are straight up RIFE with child trafficking situations.

I'm increasingly under the belief that the only ethical adoption is the one in which the parents are volun-told rather than volunteers, drafted from the population of those in registered domestic partnership contracts of some form and with allowance to opt out, but very much opt out than in, perhaps with an extra box filled out that gives extra weight (but not much) under "yes please", and this "less additional weight" particularly on account of suspicion of motive.

Oh, I absolutely do NOT agree that people should be randomly given a child for any reason other than the express desire to have a childamd being emotionally and financially equipped to do so. Period. It takes more than a notion and good intentions to be even a halfway decent parent--starting with the express desire and wherewithall to be one.

More, I think that they should be randomly given the opportunity, that they then have to answer.

As you have said, "unexpected but not unwanted".

I just suspect that the current model is too desire-based, too thirsty.

At the very least the selection mechanism needs less targeting and interviews and more people who needs parents ending up having parents.

As it is, this would mesh with my expectation that the state provide for every child, including and especially these.

There would be fewer unwanted and uncared for children if there was less of a burden in having and raising them.

 

[Toni]

Foster care reform is about as popular an issue as prison reform or the abolition of slavery or reparations for the Indian schools, and for many of the same reasons; if people don't want to think about uncomfortable topics, they must certainly don't want to talk about them, and no politician will ever get rich basing their campaign platform on an issue that no one wants to talk about. But that isn't really a good reason to ignore the suffering of children. Sometimes I feel like the American public at large have abdicated nearly all of their adult responsibilities toward others, and I wish I could say I didn't understand why, but I do... and it makes me very upset.

Yet people talk about the uncomfortable topic of abortion all the goddamn time!

Maybe the point is that there needs to be a discussion on this, and it needs to be elevated by the left. We need to steal adoption as a talking point.

Edit: the idea being if the pro-choice side comes out loudly and strongly to reform the failures of the foster and adoption system, the forced-birth side will truly only have forced birth on their platform. They want to speak to adoption?!? The system that is rife with corruption and sex slavery and child trafficking, that the pro-choicers are the only ones apparently willing to try and repair?

There is no island for both sides in that discussion.

I think that most people think of adoption as a positive —what could be better than helping a family who wants a child have a child? Or of ensuring that children without parents are raised in loving homes by parents who wanted them?

To a certain extent, people are ‘aware’ of parents so hungry for a baby of their own go overseas to adopt. In my community, I was aware of a number of children who had been born in Korea but who were adopted by very Caucasian American couples in my town. A friend of one my kids was born in India and adopted by a local couple. An acquaintance had adopted a toddler from India and had ongoing struggles related to her earlier life in an orphanage. Family friends from my childhood were foster parents for years and eventually adopted one of their charges, who was 9 or 10 at the time. Other foster kids were reunited with siblings in a new family. I’ve often wondered how those kids did, afterwards. A series of unrelated events put our families out of touch and so I never knew. Indeed, I believe that further contact with their foster kids was discouraged or even forbidden at that time.

More often we hear about pregnant couples scamming hopeful parents. Rarely, about failed adoptions. Rarely about stolen children sold in adoption schemes.

That's the thing though... Women are convinced to be pregnant and then the baby is often hauled away straight from the delivery room, to be held for some months in foster care (its own special hell) at minimal expense on taxpayer dollars while a family is lined up to shell out 20-50k to the agency to adopt them.

A successful adoption, under the current infrastructure, is as much a trafficked human as anything else.

Moreover, there is heavy religious bias even to who is given access to this dubious process, both in encouraging those who would otherwise think such thoughts to not think such as they are "religious" and "godly" agent and parent both.

And international adoptions are straight up RIFE with child trafficking situations.

I'm increasingly under the belief that the only ethical adoption is the one in which the parents are volun-told rather than volunteers, drafted from the population of those in registered domestic partnership contracts of some form and with allowance to opt out, but very much opt out than in, perhaps with an extra box filled out that gives extra weight (but not much) under "yes please", and this "less additional weight" particularly on account of suspicion of motive.

Oh, I absolutely do NOT agree that people should be randomly given a child for any reason other than the express desire to have a childamd being emotionally and financially equipped to do so. Period. It takes more than a notion and good intentions to be even a halfway decent parent--starting with the express desire and wherewithall to be one.

More, I think that they should be randomly given the opportunity, that they then have to answer.

As you have said, "unexpected but not unwanted".

I just suspect that the current model is too desire-based, too thirsty.

At the very least the selection mechanism needs less targeting and interviews and more people who needs parents ending up having parents.

As it is, this would mesh with my expectation that the state provide for every child, including and especially these.

There would be fewer unwanted and uncared for children if there was less of a burden in having and raising them.

Actually, I think that adoption should be free.

I think that we absolutely need to overhaul the foster care system. I think that there needs to be better financial support for children who are being fostered and for certain, a good program that is universal and helps children raised in the system to successfully transition into adulthood--i.e. prepares them for life as an adult, provides transitional housing, education (college, trades, whatever the kid wants/needs), health care, SUPPORT for at least 10 years after 18th birthday. Some foster families do maintain an ongoing relationship with their foster kids, even after the child 'ages out.' Some will adopt foster kids, but this is a situation that is heavily fraught for the kids and for the parents of origin and the foster families. The system is heavily biased towards reuniting families for a good reason: most kids want to be reunited with their family, however broken it is. I've watched kids in foster care struggle with this. I've had serious discussions regarding simply housing and providing care for one of my kids' friends who was in a terrible, terrible family situation but the grandmother refused to let him live with us where he could attend the same high school instead of changing 10 times (literally) before he graduated--that graduation was nothing short of a miracle, btw, as was his getting into a good college. Unfortunately, when your grandma and your uncle literally steal from you, leaving you with nothing to pay rent or tuition, you're kind of out of luck there. But still: this kid wanted to know his father, a bigger POS I've never met in my life--dude never paid a dime of child support, never made any effort to see the kid who looked like his twin. Literally gave him a set of bedding for his dorm room at graduation--the first time they met, btw. Did invite him to meet his 'new family and new kid. The one he raised.' Makes my blood boil just thinking about what that kid had to endure. (He's doing well, employed, two kids, mental health issues -duh but still intelligent, hard working and reliable against a lot of odds).

Even kids whose birth parents abused them, neglected them, abused alcohol, drugs, etc. still love their parents and still want to be with their 'real' family. Most of them. No matter how unrealistic. I've watched too many kids break their hearts trying to fix a broken family.