Cast Out

The small brother and sister to be sent for adoption outside their family when their grandparents wish to bring them up are an indictment of the false values embodied in our social services.

Grandparents, even when the grandmother is only 46, are not like parents, they are an alternate generation and act very differently from parents. However, the least we might expect a 'social' service to do is provide support to a family disrupted by the long term unavailability of the mother. Infants so disadvantaged are cared for in most societies by grandparents or parents' siblings - indeed by all of them. They are never put out of the family.

We know this, we all know this because this is really our culture too. Which raises the question of what kind of people would seek to persist in adopting these children in the face of their own family's efforts to bring them up, and determined opposition to their being removed to the care of strangers?

A better explanation than not commenting on specific instances, which could be cast in the most general terms, had better be offered soon or a great deal of damage will be done to potential adopters of all kinds and, worse, irreversible damage could be done to these two small children.