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Experience: We found a baby on the subway – now he's our 26-year-old son

theguardian.com

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Re: Experience: We found a baby on the subway – now he's our 26-year-old son

#31

Post by Digit-Al »

XorNot wrote: post #24
Digit-Al wrote: post #19

I find this story slightly odd. I'm not trying to suggest it's not true, I have trust in the Guardian not to print falsehoods; but do they really offer abandoned babies to just anyone in America? Here in the UK, I used to work with a guy many years ago who was trying to adopt. He and his wife had to go through months and months of vetting and paperwork to be allowed to become adopted parents. You basically have to pr…

My understanding is there's a very - superficially weird - sort of logic at play with this though. Basically if we're going to take a child not presently abandoned or in danger, and place them with someone, we need to know damn well that we're not worsening the situation for the child. But if you have a child who was already abandoned and in danger, and you start looking after them unprompted, the situation for the c…

I guess, if you really think about it, a lot of the safety checking is to make sure that the person trying to adopt is not a predator who will abuse the child. In this case, someone who was like that would not have called the police and handed the child in, they would have just taken the baby to abuse; so his handing in the child to the authorities automatically ticked the "not a child predator" box. Thanks for helping me to think about this in a different way :-)

> A comparable example I suppose would be the question of what's the best strategy for seeking help if you're lost: basically, statistically, it's approach the first person you see and ask for help.

Ah yes, from the Paul Graham article on security. I bring that one up myself from time to time :-)

Re: Experience: We found a baby on the subway – now he's our 26-year-old son

#32

Post by zemike »

Digit-Al wrote: post #19

I find this story slightly odd. I'm not trying to suggest it's not true, I have trust in the Guardian not to print falsehoods; but do they really offer abandoned babies to just anyone in America? Here in the UK, I used to work with a guy many years ago who was trying to adopt. He and his wife had to go through months and months of vetting and paperwork to be allowed to become adopted parents. You basically have to pr…

You can search for articles and you will find more info dating from the year 2000.

IIRC, there was a lengthy court “battle” to allow them to adopt, as the parents are a gay couple and that was not as openly accepted at the time. That’s why this story was so big back then and is still relevant today, it was a unique case.

Re: Experience: We found a baby on the subway – now he's our 26-year-old son

#33

Post by PaulRobinson »

Digit-Al wrote: post #19

I find this story slightly odd. I'm not trying to suggest it's not true, I have trust in the Guardian not to print falsehoods; but do they really offer abandoned babies to just anyone in America? Here in the UK, I used to work with a guy many years ago who was trying to adopt. He and his wife had to go through months and months of vetting and paperwork to be allowed to become adopted parents. You basically have to pr…

The judge didn’t ask him if he wanted to adopt there and then in that precise second and that was that.

The judge asked if he was interested.

Perhaps the judge asked this knowing that the circumstances showed this was a caring man who had the child’s best interests at heart and had demonstrated through actions - and described through testimony we have not heard - his feelings towards the child when finding him.

They did not just get given the child. There was still a process. They visited the child in care. They filled in paperwork. They were vetted. They were asked if they’d like to look after the child over Christmas - not forever, not straight away. The process took a little time, it just took a lot less time than if the child entered care and they had to find other adoptive parents.

The most important variable to identify in this situation is capacity to love and care for a vulnerable child. Financial stability and good character still need to be there - and it sounds like they were identified before the adoption was completed - but the head start was there.

Re: Experience: We found a baby on the subway – now he's our 26-year-old son

#35

Post by pjc50 »

throeididkf wrote: post #12
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #5

Everything about this story is so satisfying, that if I read it in a lesser source I would be doubting it. The person finding the baby was the person who eventually adopted him. The judge asking the guy to adopt the baby was the same judge that performed the wedding of the couple doing the adoption. Just so many great details.

[flagged]

Quite often in these cases the mother is an abused minor themselves.

Re: Experience: We found a baby on the subway – now he's our 26-year-old son

#36

Post by II2II »

wood_spirit wrote: post #22
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #5

Everything about this story is so satisfying, that if I read it in a lesser source I would be doubting it. The person finding the baby was the person who eventually adopted him. The judge asking the guy to adopt the baby was the same judge that performed the wedding of the couple doing the adoption. Just so many great details.

Many of us could easily imagine, once chance puts us in the position of the person who can’t walk past, taking a concerned interest in the outcome and, realising that the baby would go into the care system, stepping up and doing the massive step of talking it upon ourselves to provide that home?

Imagine, perhaps. Stepping up and doing it, that's more difficult. Then consider this scenario: two young men taking in a child when they did not have financial or social security. I'm not sure what the situation was like for gay men in NYC at the time, but it would be years until they could legally marry. Heck, they weren't even living together at the time. That takes a whole lot of bravery.

(I will acknowledge that it is not impossible to imagine. I have known people who have adopted the children of strangers after reporting their family for abuse.)

Re: Experience: We found a baby on the subway – now he's our 26-year-old son

#37

Post by bell-cot »

Digit-Al wrote: post #19

I find this story slightly odd. I'm not trying to suggest it's not true, I have trust in the Guardian not to print falsehoods; but do they really offer abandoned babies to just anyone in America? Here in the UK, I used to work with a guy many years ago who was trying to adopt. He and his wife had to go through months and months of vetting and paperwork to be allowed to become adopted parents. You basically have to pr…

> ... do they really offer abandoned babies to just anyone...?

NO - the 2nd sentence of the article says that the adoptive-father-to-be had "a good job in social care". In the same jurisdiction as the baby was found.

So he's not some nice-guy rando who called 911 - he's a vetted and experienced professional within the same social care system as the judge, who that judge might easily have looked into before "asking if he had any interest".

EDIT: Yeah, in the course of the court hearing where he was testifying about having found the baby, the judge was probably sizing him up, and asking him questions well beyond his "briefly witnessed, called 911" role.

Re: Experience: We found a baby on the subway – now he's our 26-year-old son

#38

Post by throwaway2046 »

Inspiring to see the couple accomplish this and in the early 2000s no less. Wishing them all the best. If you haven't already, watch the animated short film[1] by Zombie Studio. It was my introduction to this case before reading the article.

[1] https://vimeo.com/1092249009

Re: Experience: We found a baby on the subway – now he's our 26-year-old son

#39

Post by zamadatix »

throeididkf wrote: post #12
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #5

Everything about this story is so satisfying, that if I read it in a lesser source I would be doubting it. The person finding the baby was the person who eventually adopted him. The judge asking the guy to adopt the baby was the same judge that performed the wedding of the couple doing the adoption. Just so many great details.

[flagged]

God bless the woman who felt they had no other choice & give them help rather than punishment. We will never know the circumstances but we can obviously assume they weren't very much better than the baby's to have done this. Nobody doing something like this out of disdain for the child would have carried it to delivery (regardless of their stance on abortion).
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