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"the best interest of the child?"
That was the reasoning that my son was raised in a single parent low income family instead of with me.
I have posted my story before, but the readers digest version is that my birth son & I found out that his adoption was orchestrated in 1969 by a well meaning social worker and the nun's at the hospital he was born at. When I changed my mind about placing him, and wanted to take him home with me I was told he needed to stay for more observation (he was slightly premature). I checked out and returned for him later. I was told when I returned that I had already signed the papers and he had been "placed". Even the CI that handled our reunion suspected his legal relinquishment papers were a forgery. The handwriting wasn't even close to the preliminary documents I had completed.
As my life stabilized his adoptive family disintegrated. His parents divorced and his a/mom was left to raise him alone. She was a wonderful lady that truly loved him, but in this case the "tuna eating" was done in the adoptive family at a time when his bio family could afford steak.
Hind sight is always 20/20, who's to say the "best interest of the child" today will be the same in the future? More than one well to do family has gone bust and to the best of my knowledge divorce has no social or economic boundaries.
In a time when the powers that be are advocating "maintaining the family unit" I can't imagine a better place to start than keeping mothers and children together if at all possible.
At the very least there should be laws that regulate open adoptions the same as custody arrangements with legal repercussions for non-compliance.
Ray - I agree with you about safe havens. A mother that would use a "safe haven" is caring and would not just throw away her child anyway. I also think safe havens provide an opportunity for other family members to remove a child that ordinarily they would not have the legal right to do. I would wager often the child's mother is given little or no choice in the matter.
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