This story was being discussed on Jeremy Vines show today on radio 2.
Dilemma of man 'asked by social workers to donate organ to son he is not allowed to see' - Telegraph
Perhaps someone who understands the law (Barry I need you) can explain to me why this man cannot even see his own son, let alone adopt him. I can't imagine how annoyed and upset I'd be in his situation. It seems terribly unfair on the father and the child.
I wonder if he also had a dilemma on how to tell his minister wife of 6 years, how he came to have a son of 5 years...
Let your mind go and your body will follow. – Steve Martin, LA Story
Doesn't stack up does it? But on Jeremy Vine they made a point of saying that he met and married his wife after a "very brief relationship" with the mother.
Anyway, regardless of the details, his wife is sticking by him and wanted to adopt the child too, which seems even more unfair. Surely the child is better off being brought up around his real father and being with his half siblings, no?
Let your mind go and your body will follow. – Steve Martin, LA Story
It's quite simple. Once a child comes under the purview of the family court then neither parent has any rights at all since the legislation makes it crystal clear that the interests of the child are the only real consideration. It is virtually axiomatic that once there has been a 'freeing order', allowing the local authority to seek an adoptive family, the natural parents don't get a look in. Sometimes they may be given a right to an annual letter from the child, on its birthday, or similar things. Child psychologists are currently of the view that the upset and instability suffered by a child with several sets of parents (natural; foster (possibly quite a few); adoptive - select your own combination) must be avoided even if that is horrible for the parents.
You get situations like Harry Potter's - knowing that the family you live with is not your real family and developing a fantasy life which revolves around the 'natural' parents; the actual parents are on a hiding to nothing because all discipline is resented as something that the natural parents wouldn't do; the child avoids developing a relationship with the actual parents because that seems to be a betrayal of the natural parents, and so on.
So, it might be a very bad solution but at the moment the sincere belief is that the child is better off having only one family and if that's a problem for the natural parents it's unfortunate. {Edit - I should have said that this applies to younger children; older children are treated somewhat differently, as it is considered that they are able to deal with the concept of parents and step parents and adoptive parents and so forth. Don't ask me what the dividing age is, I don't know - but the various reports will consider whether a child has reached that point, if appropriate.}
Clearly no system can cater to every single situation that a probabilistic universe can throw at it, and this is one that is clearly going to lead to more misery and unfairness than usual.
As you can see from the report, the father and his wife made applications but the judge decided that (whatever they were) they were not in 'the best interests' of the child. Bear in mind that the judge sees cases of child welfare, family implosion, adoption, fostering, inadequate parenting, and so forth, on a daily basis and that there would have been reports prepared by specialist counsellors so it wasn't just a spur of the moment decision.
Naturally the article is written entirely from the point of view of the distraught father with only an afterthought paragraph at the bottom in the neutral 'official speak' of some council officer. The journalist and the newspaper have no interest in writing such stories from the child's point of view because - er - children and social workers don't buy the Telegraph...
Last edited by Barry Shnikov; 3rd-November-2008 at 06:05 PM.
WARNING!
People who watch the Jeremy Vine show are at risk.
They are at risk of becoming as big a pompous platitudinous judgmental half-witted ill-informed moron as he is.
Prolonged watching can take 30 - 50 points off your IQ.
Don't say you weren't told.
Watch 60 minute makeover or I bet you can't auction whatever you can find in your attic to a celebrity chef on ice 2. (No IQ drops of more than 10 points have been recorded.)
Last edited by Barry Shnikov; 3rd-November-2008 at 06:11 PM.
I think I realised where I slipped up. I think of the gentleman not in question as Jeremy Vile - one consonant away from the real name. It's only one consonant away from Jeremy Vine as well. About whose existence I had forgotten...
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