Dad Refuses to Give Up Newborn Son With Down Syndrome

[Lulu14]

Probably a lot. $100,000.00 was raised for the SURROGATE who chose to keep the child she carried who has down syndrome, after his parents abandoned him: http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/pa...o-thai-surrogate/story-fnet08ck-1227009760126

That lady breached their contract, she should pay for it, not be rewarded.

 

[Nova]

Im sorry, I just don't see this as some great thing. Apparently his wife is a jerk but why should he be praised for raising his own child?? ?

You're right. That's how it should be a in perfect world. But in our world, men are socialized to be providers, but not necessarily "fathers".

We admire those who break the mold and act as you so rightly say they should.

 

[TrackerSam]

I see it as a story where the world comes together to support a father and son.



Probably a lot. $100,000.00 was raised for the SURROGATE who chose to keep the child she carried who has down syndrome, after his parents abandoned him: http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/pa...o-thai-surrogate/story-fnet08ck-1227009760126

ITA. As a great-grandparent, I can not for the life of me, understand how anyone can abandon, put up for adoption or abort their child. I can only believe that those who disagree are not parents. In life, you play the hand you're dealt. Your birth mother should be your most precious asset.

 

[PrairieWind]

This is a great story of a man and his son. A few here support him. The rest have displayed a sickening desire to see this man and his son fail. I know there will be all sorts of "that's not what I said", but it's what you meant. Unbelievable.

 

[eileenhawkeye]

This story is going to turn out to be a hoax anyway. It's just a ploy to make money.

 

[K_Z]

ITA. As a great-grandparent, I can not for the life of me, understand how anyone can abandon, put up for adoption or abort their child. I can only believe that those who disagree are not parents. In life, you play the hand you're dealt. Your birth mother should be your most precious asset.

May I recommend a book title? For those interested, it might help explain how and why this is a different mindset for women in some other places in the world.

http://www.amazon.com/Message-Chine...ywords=message+from+an+unknown+chinese+mother

Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of Loss and Love

Xinran has written one of the most powerful accounts of the lives of Chinese women. She has gained entrance to the most pained, secret chambers in the hearts of Chinese mothers—students, successful businesswomen, midwives, peasants—who, whether as a consequence of the single-child policy, destructive age-old traditions, or hideous economic necessity, have given up their daughters. Xinran beautifully portrays the “extra-birth guerrillas” who travel the roads and the railways, evading the system, trying to hold on to more than one baby; naïve young girl students who have made life-wrecking mistakes; the “pebble mother” on the banks of the Yangtze River still looking into the depths for her stolen daughter; peasant women rejected by their families because they can’t produce a male heir; and Little Snow, the orphaned baby fostered by Xinran but confiscated by the state.

 

[Sonya610]

ITA. As a great-grandparent, I can not for the life of me, understand how anyone can abandon, put up for adoption or abort their child. I can only believe that those who disagree are not parents. In life, you play the hand you're dealt. Your birth mother should be your most precious asset.

I get your point but not to the level of including abortion. Taking the morning after pill, or having an abortion to terminate a pregnancy very early on is often a reflection of understanding what it MEANS to be a parent.

Realizing that it means providing for a couple of decades, and living up to very high standards, and if one is not capable of that then stopping the process asap before conscious beings are harmed. Not everyone has what it takes to be a good parent, and the world's problems aren't because of folks that took parenthood "too seriously" but because of those that didn't take it seriously at all. Squirting out babies without a plan and without the ability to raise those babies until they are decent contributing adults destroys any type of civilized society.

 

[eileenhawkeye]

Why demonize this woman for deciding that she is not fit to be a mother, and then act outraged when you hear about a mother killing her child? Why tell women that she should not get an abortion, just put the baby up for adoption instead, but demonize this woman for doing something very similiar?

 

[jjenny]

That lady breached their contract, she should pay for it, not be rewarded.

What contract did she breach?
I don't think you are informed about the case.

 

[jjenny]

Why demonize this woman for deciding that she is not fit to be a mother, and then act outraged when you hear about a mother killing her child? Why tell women that she should not get an abortion, just put the baby up for adoption instead, but demonize this woman for doing something very similiar?

Who says the women shouldn't get abortions? As for this particular woman, she felt she was fit to be a mother (the child was long awaited for, from what she claimed in her statement) but when she found out the child had Down syndrome after he was born, it would appear she changed her mind.

 

[gitana1]

Why demonize this woman for deciding that she is not fit to be a mother, and then act outraged when you hear about a mother killing her child? Why tell women that she should not get an abortion, just put the baby up for adoption instead, but demonize this woman for doing something very similiar?

I thought you said this was a hoax? So either it is a hoax perpetrated by dad or the mom simply made a loving decision that she couldn't care for her child? Hmm.

In any event, she didn't decide SHE wasn't fit to be a mother - she would've been fine had also been born without Down Syndrome- she decided Leo wasn't fit to be her child. I do not admire that.

 

[K_Z]

I thought you said this was a hoax? So either it is a hoax perpetrated by dad or the mom simply made a loving decision that she couldn't care for her child? Hmm.

In any event, she didn't decide SHE wasn't fit to be a mother - she would've been fine had also been born without Down Syndrome- she decided Leo wasn't fit to be her child. I do not admire that.

That may be just a bit harsh. I don't agree that she decided Leo wasn't fit to be her child. It's just as likely that she felt able to parent a "normal" child, but was completely overwhelmed at the many difficulties and challenges of parenting a seriously disabled child, who would never be able to grow to live independently, for the rest of her life. In many places in the world, giving up that child ensures the child has a better life and more resources available to them than can be achieved with the birth parent. I don't admire anyone who is forced to make that awful decision, but I'd rather people who feel that they can't handle those pressures relinquish the child safely, before something bad happens.

I don't understand the undercurrent tone that we have to "make" mothers "be responsible", or "make" people parent newborns they don't want to parent. I know there are many families on waiting lists here and in many countries to parent both healthy and disabled kids (newborns are particularly desirable, who have no "baggage", or history, or bad habits yet). I am perfectly fine with anyone safely relinquishing a newborn, particularly birth mothers. The last thing any child needs is to be parented by a reluctant or resentful parent, IMO. Because that never ends well for the child, IMO.

Why is it not "okay" for a woman to feel unable to parent a seriously disabled newborn? I really don't understand this at all. I do understand some women could never abandon their child-- healthy or otherwise. But why are women/ mothers/ society so harsh on other women who make a decision that they would not be a good parent?

I have a really difficult time myself with the concept of "open adoption" that has become the norm for domestic adoptions in this country, but that's another conversation all together. IMO, those conflicted (and selfish) women want the best of both worlds-- the ability to abandon/ outsource the difficulties and responsibilities of parenting on a day to day basis, with the "option" to remain in the child's life, swooping in from time to time as it suits them. I know there are some happy Disney-esque stories of the nirvana of open adoption, but I don't agree with, or admire this policy of "open adoption" at all. I think it's bad for the kids, and I think it puts the child in a very conflicted position for life, when they should be focused on just growing up and making connections to their family. A bit off topic, but there it is, my opinion on that.

 

[jjenny]

I very much doubt that in Armenia, giving up the child would ensure better life for the child.
Here in US people might adopt a child with Down syndrome. Sure doesn't sound like that was going to happen in Armenia.
The child would end up in an orphanage.
I very much doubt he'd have a good life there.
And from what is claimed on the go fund me page, father wasn't going to be allowed into the home if he kept the child.
The mother denies that part, but I tend to believe his side.

 

[K_Z]

The fact remains that not every woman in the world is willing and able to parent a seriously disabled child. Not every woman feels an instantaneous deep and loving bond to their child. So what? Why do we care? It's not like we can fix that, by publicly bashing the bio-mom and her choice.

Let her relinquish the child safely, and then just go away, forever. Then the child has a CHANCE at a better life, IMO. Without a screwed up birth mom who doesn't want to parent them, for whatever her reasons are.

Once the mother made the decision to relinquish, she became irrelevant, IMO. She made her decision. The father made his. Let her go. I absolutely hate that the dad made her story and decision any part of his pleas for money. All he should have said is he was a single father raising his newborn son with Down syndrome in Armenia, and trying to get back to his native NZ, and left it at that. IMO.

The father exploited the birth mom in his pleas for money, IMO. She may be a disagreeable person, or even cold hearted and mean, in his opinion, but he should have left her out of it all together, IMO. She made her choice. Let her go.

ETA: I'm not being "soft" on this woman, or any woman who relinquishes. All I'm saying is we can't hope to fix all that is wrong in their psychology and their lives that leads them to a decision to relinquish their child, healthy or not. So let them go. It could be that a decision to relinquish their child is the most responsible thing they have ever done. If any woman on earth doesn't want to parent, we shouldn't "make" them, IMO.

 

[jjenny]

She made her decision. I am not sure why the father is supposed to cover up what that decision was. If the genders were reversed, and the mother wanted to keep the child, but the husband decided he didn't want to be involved, would anybody say she has to keep that quiet? By the way if the husband decided he didn't want to raise a disabled child, he wouldn't be off the hook. He'd still have to pay child support.
Whether he was ready to be a father or not. And would anyone be saying that him deciding not be involved in raising his child was the most responsible decision he ever had? In those type of situations, it's much more common for a man to leave, but I don't see anyone singing these man praises, or saying they are so very responsible by deciding they are not ready to be fathers.

 

[K_Z]

Again, this didn't happen in the U.S. I sincerely doubt that much effort is being taken in Armenia to track down and make bio-fathers pay child support. If he had walked away, and she kept the baby, she would have been on her own.

We just can't apply our culture and our laws and our norms to a country like Armenia. She was ASKED by the medical staff what she wanted to do, given the child's disability. She made her choice. That is THEIR cultural norm. Even if we don't happen to like it.

 

[gitana1]

That may be just a bit harsh. I don't agree that she decided Leo wasn't fit to be her child. It's just as likely that she felt able to parent a "normal" child, but was completely overwhelmed at the many difficulties and challenges of parenting a seriously disabled child, who would never be able to grow to live independently, for the rest of her life. In many places in the world, giving up that child ensures the child has a better life and more resources available to them than can be achieved with the birth parent. I don't admire anyone who is forced to make that awful decision, but I'd rather people who feel that they can't handle those pressures relinquish the child safely, before something bad happens.

I don't understand the undercurrent tone that we have to "make" mothers "be responsible", or "make" people parent newborns they don't want to parent. I know there are many families on waiting lists here and in many countries to parent both healthy and disabled kids (newborns are particularly desirable, who have no "baggage", or history, or bad habits yet). I am perfectly fine with anyone safely relinquishing a newborn, particularly birth mothers. The last thing any child needs is to be parented by a reluctant or resentful parent, IMO. Because that never ends well for the child, IMO.

Why is it not "okay" for a woman to feel unable to parent a seriously disabled newborn? I really don't understand this at all. I do understand some women could never abandon their child-- healthy or otherwise. But why are women/ mothers/ society so harsh on other women who make a decision that they would not be a good parent?

I have a really difficult time myself with the concept of "open adoption" that has become the norm for domestic adoptions in this country, but that's another conversation all together. IMO, those conflicted (and selfish) women want the best of both worlds-- the ability to abandon/ outsource the difficulties and responsibilities of parenting on a day to day basis, with the "option" to remain in the child's life, swooping in from time to time as it suits them. I know there are some happy Disney-esque stories of the nirvana of open adoption, but I don't agree with, or admire this policy of "open adoption" at all. I think it's bad for the kids, and I think it puts the child in a very conflicted position for life, when they should be focused on just growing up and making connections to their family. A bit off topic, but there it is, my opinion on that.

Maybe it's harsh but I don't think too much so. Because it's true.

Look, I understand contextual ethics but I can't be a 100% moral relativist. I'm not buying the excuse that she made a wise or hard decision to give up her child because she was "overwhelmed" and felt she couldn't properly care for him. She had a husband and an extended family to help. She didn't agonize. The moment her kid was born and she found out she told her husband to choose. Thank God he chose wisely.

This isn't about a mother making a hard choice. This is is about a woman for whom shame and status are more important than love and protection. This about gross discrimination against the disabled. And I'm sure there are plenty of decent parents in Armenia who don't dump their kids merely for being disabled. Because love is more important than the gossip of neighbors. Just not for her.

 

[gitana1]

The fact remains that not every woman in the world is willing and able to parent a seriously disabled child. Not every woman feels an instantaneous deep and loving bond to their child. So what? Why do we care? It's not like we can fix that, by publicly bashing the bio-mom and her choice.

Let her relinquish the child safely, and then just go away, forever. Then the child has a CHANCE at a better life, IMO. Without a screwed up birth mom who doesn't want to parent them, for whatever her reasons are.

Once the mother made the decision to relinquish, she became irrelevant, IMO. She made her decision. The father made his. Let her go. I absolutely hate that the dad made her story and decision any part of his pleas for money. All he should have said is he was a single father raising his newborn son with Down syndrome in Armenia, and trying to get back to his native NZ, and left it at that. IMO.

The father exploited the birth mom in his pleas for money, IMO. She may be a disagreeable person, or even cold hearted and mean, in his opinion, but he should have left her out of it all together, IMO. She made her choice. Let her go.

ETA: I'm not being "soft" on this woman, or any woman who relinquishes. All I'm saying is we can't hope to fix all that is wrong in their psychology and their lives that leads them to a decision to relinquish their child, healthy or not. So let them go. It could be that a decision to relinquish their child is the most responsible thing they have ever done. If any woman on earth doesn't want to parent, we shouldn't "make" them, IMO.

You are being very soft. In fact, you're strenuously defending her. People shouldn't get a pass for discriminating against their own children. She wanted to parent. Just not this child. This woman's utter rejection of her child to the point that she immediately filed for divorce, for the sole reason that he is disabled, is a key part of Samuel and Leo's story. And it is hugely important.


What you are advocating, IMO, is brushing discrimination under the rug in order to allow a fully grown married woman with family to support her (rather than some poor single teen mom, for example), to save face. But her actions need to be discussed if attitudes around the world toward the disabled are going to change.

 

[gitana1]

Again, this didn't happen in the U.S. I sincerely doubt that much effort is being taken in Armenia to track down and make bio-fathers pay child support. If he had walked away, and she kept the baby, she would have been on her own.

We just can't apply our culture and our laws and our norms to a country like Armenia. She was ASKED by the medical staff what she wanted to do, given the child's disability. She made her choice. That is THEIR cultural norm. Even if we don't happen to like it.

Yeah, well our cultural norm used to be slavery. Just because something is a cultural tradition doesn't mean it must be accepted or is okay. (Bride burning in India? Genital mutiliation in Africa? Honor killings in the Middle East?) Shushing up the ugly doesn't change anything.

 

[Lulu14]

ITA. As a great-grandparent, I can not for the life of me, understand how anyone can abandon, put up for adoption or abort their child. I can only believe that those who disagree are not parents. In life, you play the hand you're dealt. Your birth mother should be your most precious asset.

If I had a mentally disabled child, I would not feel it is my child at all. Guess that won't make me a parent.