Someone I know lost her custody battle...

I don't know her well, but a friend of hers had created a facebook group supporting her.

Essentially, she lost custody of her son because she had quite a rough life, was homeless for a period of time, and the child's father basically abandoned her. Her son, who's now around 10 or 11 years old, I believe, has lived in the foster care system for most of his life. His first adoption failed, his second adoption didn't go through, and now he's back living in foster care.

His mother is now a prominent activist and harm reduction worker, and is going to law school. Her life is back in order, and she has fought long and hard to get her son back.

Unfortunately, she couldn't.

She is an amazing human being and I know she's heartbroken over this.

Please, if you have some vibes to spare tonight, could you send them her way? And to her son, as well - he must be having a rough time.

:(

Your beautiful friend will someday have her son back. She's making a difference, and her whole world has changed. You must be so proud of her....I will hold her in my heart...Mother and son will reunite in time.
Sending warms thoughts...and hope.

peace~

custody.

I've had more patients like her son that I can count. Children who were ignored, abused, neglected, thrown away. Two failed adoptions? Seriously? That child is a mess and she has no one to blame but herself. CPS doesn't take children away because their parents are homeless. They take them away because their parents are negligent fucks who care more about their own pleasure than providing their children with a stable environment. And, I don't mean economically stable. I had several patients who were living in Welfare Motels, but their parents were THERE for them, loved them and cared for them and frankly? THe only reason they were seeing me was to complete the utter humiliation of their parents for asking for help.

You're not getting the full story. Her life is 'back in order'? Whoopee for her. It's only about a decade too late.

having served as guardian ad litem for far too many kids whose parents were complete fuck-ups, and who then "got their lives in order" and wanted them back, even though the kids were so messed up, no one could help them.

She had her chance. The child, if he's been through two failed adoptions, has problems that far transcend her ability to help me. She can take comfort in knowing that she did this to her child, and sometimes, it's just too damn late.................................

The blame lies elsewhere. Since I have as few facts as you do, I can only assume she has improved her life sufficiently to try to recover her son from a foster care situation.

In my experience with child custody, being judgmental leads to bad judgments.

they wouldn't even come see the drunken brawling when eyewitnesses called them. Then never did pull my niece - my fucked up sister just left her with us and never came back.

Most of the scandals in AZ are about them NOT taking kids, not taking them for little reason. (although I don't doubt that happens too, on occasion).

Once you have been homeless there is a HUGE bias against ever giving you back custody. :(

It is just one of many ways that people who are, or have been homeless get totally screwed.

I hope she is able to try again, and I hope she has stable income and able to be there for her kid and is able to succeed next time. :hug:

I hope the best for the child involved. Poor thing. I am sure he feels unwanted, along with many many other things.

I'm sure the rules are different in Canada, so I don't know how deeply screwed up a situation has to be for custody to be taken away, but if things work anything like they do here somebody decided long ago that this child was not a candidate for family reconciliation (returning to the mother) or there would be no investigation of adoption placements.

Further, if this child has had *two* failed adoption placements, there are almost certainly complicating factors, likely behavioral but they could be something else, precluding placement. If that's the case and the kid's got issues that were insurmountable even for a hand-picked family who probably have exceptional resources, than those issues could possibly be much worse with the bio-mother due to their past history.