Tough Decision - Do you agree?

Question

Once upon a time I had a very loving friend who had a very loving wife. However, this loving wife up and vanished one day with their infant daughter. It's been about twelve years and we've only recently discovered that his wife had died of a drug overdose, and a foster family overseas had been raising his daughter for all these years.

Now, the hard part... he is a single man making only $600 (roughly... he has strange british money instead) a bi-week, has no future plans, no girlfriend/mother/wife/sister to help him out, and only a few months experience being daddy. The foster family - who were going to have officially adopted the girl last month before intervention - already has six children, and two experienced, stable parents with jobs in dentistry.

Now, I'm going to be honest and tell you that he already allowed them to adopt his daughter and she's off with them in a private school for the gifted... but would you have made that same decision?

Answer 1

Yes. I'd like to believe I would have. It was a good and wise decision on his part to allow this family that has been raising her to make it official. It sounds like she's doing very well. If he had stopped the adoption and tried to take custody of her, it would have been devastating. They don't know each other at all and (according to you) he has very little to offer in the way of stability. He definitely did the right thing and you should be very proud of your friend.

Answer 2

Oh, what a very tough, sad situation.  I do think that it would not be in the best interest of this girl to be uprooted again.  I hope though, that this father can develop a relationship and become a regular part of his daughter's life.

Answer 3

i would want the best for my children

Answer 4

I'm a mother so I couldn't answer what a father would or should do. But, for me, if the scenario was that the father up and vanished with my daughter and then I found her years later, I would want my child back. I would be devastated knowing that I found her and I couldn't be with her and raise her. I would do my very best to raise her. If I needed help from outside sources i.e., the state, church organizations, etc. as much as I would hate to go to those levels, I would so that I could raise my daughter to the best of my ability. This is only if I didn't have a safety net of family around to help me. If all else failed only then would I allow her to be adopted. But, it would haunt me the rest of my life if it turned out that way.

Answer 5

That is a really difficult decision. Thank God I don't have to make it. But, I think the father made the best decision he could for his child. He obviously can't afford to care for her and knew that a move would be traumatic at her age. I believe he had her best interests at heart.

Answer 6

Maybe he should have asked his daughter what she wanted.  Speaking from an adoptees point of view, I would give anything for my natural father to want me. Regardless of where I was and what kind of family I had.  It's nature.  We want to be wanted by those whose who created us.

Answer 7

As an adopted child myself, I feel he made the right choice for her. Although he is her biological father, she has bonded with and come to trust and love her current parents.

My birth mother found me when I was 25. Despite having a difficult relationship with my mother [adoptive] and the fact that I longed to know and meet my birth mother, there is no changing the fact that the woman who raised me is my mother.  She is, in every since of the word, my mother. Legally and emotionally.

It was confusing and painful enough for me at 25. I cannot imagine the pain, confusion and upset that would have occurred had I been 12 and my birth mother took me from my parents.

Please know  and share with him that he did the right thing for her. Doing what you know is right for your child is often the most difficult thing to do.

Having said all that, I would want to know her and vice versa. I hope he will pursue that. A child can never have too much love.

Best wishes to both Father and Daughter.

Answer 8

No....I would want my child, no matter what!

Answer 9

I think that was a very noble thing for your friend to do for his daughter.  Not only is her adopted family providing her with some great opportunities, but if she has been living with them for a while and is comfortable with them and considers them her family, it would be VERY difficult for her to readjust to living with a father who she had never known.

If anything, he can still be a friend to his daughter if it is okay with her and her adopted family.  If not, I hope he can at least get satisfaction in knowing that he did the right thing for her.

Answer 10

I would have probably done the same thing but I would have asked for visitation.  He may not be able to raise her but I hope he would be able to be in her life in some capacity.

I can not imagine the pain he must be going through to have not known where his little girl was for all those years (or she him for that matter).  That is every parents worst nightmare.

Answer 11

i think i probably would have.

Answer 12

That's a really hard decision, but I think he did the right thing for his daughter.  After all, she know nows what happened, and that her father did not abandon her.  However, if she's already been with this family for so long, it would have been extremely traumatic to rip her out of it.  I think he did what a father is supposed to, protected his child to the best of his ability.

Answer 13

No

Answer 14

yes, because she is established already & he would be removing her from her home... I would ask 2b able 2 know her.

Answer 15

Wow, very tragic, indeed.  But glad that the child who had no choice has a happy ending.  As for the father, if I were in his place, I could only hope I could make the same choice.  If you truly love someone, you will want what's best for them, regardless of your own feelings.  Even though I'm sure it tears him up, he sounds like the greatest father his child will never know.

Answer 16

Very tough decision. I would hope that I would have been able to do the same thing.

Answer 17

THis poor man. I can't imagine ever having to make such a decision, but I think I would have made the same decision in the same situation.

That child, although his daughter biologically, is effectively a stranger to him. At 12 years old, she would resent being taken out of a stable, loving home to be reunited with someone she doesn't know.  

I think he did the right thing for his daughter.

Answer 18

you tell your friend he is not only loving but intelligent. unfortunately he got screwed over but he was able to see that the life she was living was stable and healthy. not that he couldnt give her many things, but stability is a staple. for him to come along years later and take her away from what she had known for so long would have been tragic.

i urge him to try to establish some sort of relationship with her, for her but mostly for him. he was robbed by a very selfish person of the potential of great joy, and he should no longer be punished for things he had no control over.

i wish him and his daughter the best. i truly hope this can have a happy ending after so many years of heartache.

Answer 19

No I would not.  I know many fathers who want to raise their children who are not being allowed to because of certain state laws that have stripped them of their rights.  They followed all the rules but because the mother chose to go another state and they didn't know, they have now lost their rights.  There are many resources that can help mothers and fathers raise their own children.  Its a shame that he wasn't told about them.

Answer 20

I am not trying to judge your friend, but it is not a situation I would've found myself in to have to make the decision. After my spouse disappeared with my child, I would've had them tracked down using any means necessary, and I would've been paying child support. I would've done my absolute best to find her and be a part of her life for those 12 years so she could've been with me instead of going to a foster home.

If, for some reason, private investigators, the government (my child support checks), and the police couldn't find my daughter for me to have a relationship with her after my spouse took her from me, and she ended up in a foster home after 12 long years of me searching for her, I would let her make the decision of who she wanted to live with.

Answer 21

I think he made the right choice.  However painful it may be, you have to think about what's best for the child.  Had your friend taken his daughter back, she would have been miserable and resentful of being taken away from the only family that she's ever known.  Hopefully, he can still develop a relationship with her though.  Maybe she could visit him from time to time, and he should try to keep in regular contact with her.  All in all, I think your friend made a very wise decision and proved that he truly loved his daughter by sacrificing some of his own happiness for that of his child's.