Good job opportunities don’t come often, so, when you get one, you have to take it. Unfortunately, it’s not always so simple. Sometimes, people pass on job offers overseas because of love, ill family members, and other commitments they just can’t ignore, no matter how good the salary or the benefits are.
This woman was ready to grab her new job opportunity instantly, but her family stood in the way: they didn’t want her to take her adoptive daughter with her overseas. So, her sister, the girl’s biological mother, even tried to kidnap her from school in a desperate attempt to regain custody.
A woman got a job opportunity overseas and planned to go with her 8-year-old adoptive daughter
But her family refused to let them go because the biological mother — her sister — wouldn’t see her daughter
Drama in the cases of kinship adoption stems from preexisting family relationships
As this story clearly shows, kinship adoption is often messy. Nevertheless, it’s a pretty common occurrence. Although the most common adoptive parents in kinship adoption are grandparents, aunts and uncles, or siblings who adopt their family members, too. In fact, in the U.S., roughly 25% of children adopted from the foster care system have gone into kinship arrangements.
What makes these situations so prone to drama is the preexisting family relationships. When an aunt becomes a mother, family members may experience cognitive dissonance: “How can my sister be the mother of my child?” the biological mother may think. In other words, familial relationships become ambiguous.
The adoptive parent becomes the de facto “bad cop” of the situation; they have to navigate visits with the biological parent even if it sometimes might seem dangerous or unsafe for the child, establish boundaries with grandparents who favor the biological parent, and provide a stable and healthy home environment for the child in the process.
Research shows that kinship carers struggle to reconcile the biological parent’s past actions with their current behavior. Even if a biological parent turns their life around and demonstrates they can be a responsible parent, it’s hard to gain their trust. That’s why, as Dr. Valerie O'Brien, researcher at the University College Dublin, explains, kinship adoptions are defined by the relationship between the kinship carer and the biological parent.
Biological parents essentially relinquish the right to their children after signing adoption papers
Perhaps the most common problem in kinship adoption is that kinship carers are seen as temporary placeholders. The biological mother and the grandparents probably thought that the aunt would only adopt the child temporarily, and once the bio mom gets clean, she’ll relinquish her rights and let her sister be the mother again.
However, kinship adoption doesn’t work that way. Unlike foster care or temporary adoption, kinship adoption is permanent. The biological parent who signs the documents agrees to transfer parental rights and responsibilities to the adoptive parent.
A biological parent can only change their mind during the revocation period, which is shortly before the adoption process ends. It’s a small time window before the judge rules to transfer parental rights to the adoptive parent. For a birth mother, that usually is some time after the birth, to make sure that she’s not coerced into a decision she doesn’t want to make. Naturally, after giving birth, a woman might be vulnerable, exhausted, and in pain, so, depending on the state in the U.S., she might have anywhere from three to 30 days to make her final decision.
After adoption documents go into effect, the biological parent has effectively relinquished any legal right to their child. If the biological mother wanted to contest the adoption, she’d need to prove that it was illegal. In this particular story, it could be argued that the biological mother wasn’t in the right state of mind to make such a decision because of her issues with dependence on illegal substances, but she would definitely need a lot of legal help and a very talented lawyer if she wanted to challenge the adoption.
In the comments, the woman gave more information about how she adopted her daughter
Commenters sided with the woman, urging her to ignore the emotional blackmail
However, the biological mother did something unhinged in hopes of preventing them from leaving
But the woman still planned to go ahead with the trip
“[Are] they actually trying to kidnap your child?” commenters wrote in disbelief
In her last update, the woman detailed how she and her daughter were doing in the new country
People cheered for her success and admired her courage
