Some people are just not fit to be parents...or they aren't aware of what they're getting themselves into.
These Parents Didn’t Realize What They Were Getting Into
Marcos Mesa Sam Wordley/Shutterstock
“I used to work in Child Services, and knew a few kids who were ‘returned.’ I actually agreed with the parents in some of those cases. In a couple of cases, the parents really shouldn’t have adopted a kid that was known to be troubled.
In one of them, they found out their adopted son (who had been very badly physically assaulted himself) was taking advantage of his sister and there were indications that he was taking advantage of their twin toddlers. They actually remained involved in his life after he was placed by in the care of state – they still cared about him but didn’t feel the other kids in the house were safe.
Another boy’s family decided to return him to the care of the state when one day they came home to find he shattered the toilet with a hammer and was caught assaulting the family dog. He also creeped out the couple’s teenage daughter to the point where she was threatening to run away to get away from him (to our knowledge he never did anything to her).
One of the sadder ones to me was a kid who had been abused in every way possible and a kind, but very naive, couple adopted him. They didn’t listen to any advice we tried to give them because they knew that ‘love conquers all’ and figured that if they were just nice enough he would be all better in a few months or maybe a year. They thought at the high end, after 2 years, he would be a normal kid. They weren’t prepared for his baggage at all. My understanding was that he did get better after some years with them, but after a while, they just gave up and gave him back. It destroyed him, and any progress he made vanished.”
She Ruined Their Lives For Fourteen Years!
Platslee/Shutterstock
“We had a family friend do this after 14 years. It seems cruel on the surface. I’m not sure there is a way to understand the horror unless you lived it.
Basically, they have tried to get pregnant and/or adopt for 10 years. Twice, the adoptions fell through after the babies were born and they thought it was a done deal. They were destroyed. 10 years in at 40ish each, she gets pregnant. Never have I seen anyone so happy, grateful, and blessed to have a baby.
One week after she gives birth, she finds out there is a baby for them to adopt being born that day. Somehow, they were happier. You’d think it was impossible! 2 kids?! They had a biological son and adopted a daughter, Jen. Jen was a good baby but by 3-years-old, she was physically abusive to her brother. They got all the therapy that exists, smothered her with love, she became their life. Their son suffered greatly but turned out wonderful. Jen was a problem. At 8-years-old, she first cried to her teachers at school that her parents abused her physically. That never happened, not even a well-deserved spanking. She was their daughter so they never considered giving up, even as they were investigated by child protective services and their son started exhibiting crazy anxiety and was terrified to be near his sister. At age 10, she tried to seduce a man on a family vacation. He immediately ran to her parents (who weren’t far) and Jen cried and said he’d touched her. They were all there so they knew he hadn’t. The accusations and abuse from Jen continued. Their son developed alopecia and lost all his hair at 11.
They tried tough love/not tough love, different institutions, outpatient programs, and nothing worked. They didn’t know anything about her biological family to know if there was a history or what, but she was diagnosed with all kinds of crap, and they couldn’t let her continue to ruin their son’s life, and theirs!
Every so often, an allegation of abuse would stick and they would be investigated again – it was all getting pretty old. At age 13, the school reported she was trying to entice boys, daily, and tried to use her body as currency. She ruined their lives and when she was 13 or 14, they gave her back to the state (not positive on legalities but basically sent to foster care). Their son is now thriving and they are happy, even though they feel like failures. She would have destroyed them. It’s hard to capture it all and I’m sure it seems unbelievable cruel and heartless and on and on.
I think they keep tabs on her, but honestly, I don’t ask, I know it’s really painful for them. She was their daughter and they loved her, but they tried everything they could and after 13 years, they had to, for once, put their poor son first – I believe they saved his life.”
Their Biological Mother Really Set Them Up For Failure
“My mom adopted the 2 children of a childhood friend. I was a toddler and she was pregnant with my birth sister, but she adopted a 6-year-old boy and an infant girl. My mom had lived in foster care and wanted to help these kids avoid it. Both kids were diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder (the ‘Russian orphan’ disorder), probably because their mother had a severe addiction problem. The mother would leave my brother sleeping in the car while she stripped. My sister also exhibited withdrawal symptoms until she was 6 months old, etc.
My mom kept my brother for a year and my sister for 7 years before putting them up for re-adoption through a private agency. My brother dislocated a baby’s arm, my sister was expelled from kindergarten and had a fascination with her own feces, and they both experimented with fire. Even all of the inpatient and outpatient therapy didn’t seem to help.
My dad moved out. My mom was a single parent with 2 other small children. She gave my adopted siblings up.
It took me years to forgive my mom. I know she did what she thought was best and she really tried. My brother was adopted by a cool couple that did him a lot of good, my sister was adopted by a hardcore religious family who cut off contact with us.
Honestly, I found her on MySpace a few years ago and she’s still kind of a hot mess. She actually gave her own kid up for adoption and quickly got pregnant again.”
They Left His Biological Sister In Russia
“I have a friend who was adopted from Russia, and aside from being a little behind in school, he is a normal kid. His parents couldn’t have children so they flew to Russia to adopt a 4-year-old girl, him (2-years-old), and his biological sister (3-years-old).
Well when they got to the care facility, they go to pick up all the kids, who were all in separate rooms. They get my friend and his non-biological sister, but for some reason, they won’t let them see the biological sister. The parents spend the night there, expecting that the next morning that they’ll get to see their daughter.
Finally, the caretakers bring them to the little girl. When the girl saw them, she started throwing her toys, punching people, screaming, pulling her hair out, just going crazy. They decided not to adopt her.
The mother told me she now regrets it. She believes the orphanage told the girl to act that way because another family might have offered more money. The whole trip there was suspicious, she told me, and that if she had a choice, she would have demanded to adopt her anyway.
I know of another. I went to elementary school with this quiet kid named Daniel. He had really bad speech problems, but the only thing I ever heard him clearly say was how excited he was about his new adopted sister. So in the beginning of fourth grade, Daniel’s family adopts this adorable little girl. She was really shy and couldn’t speak English. Halfway through our fourth-grade year though, Daniel stops coming to his school. I talked to a mutual friend and she told me that his family wouldn’t answer the phone, so she and her mother eventually go to Daniel’s house to see what’s up. His mom tells them that they returned their daughter because ‘she was trouble and too immature.’ Daniel and his family moved away after that. I have no idea why they would have given up their 4-year-old daughter, I know adoptive children have a tendency to have issues, but giving up a tiny child who needs your help sounds selfish.”
The Making Of A Serial Killer!
“My husband and I fostered a six-year-old boy with the knowledge that it may be a situation where he ended up being available for adoption. They wanted a family that would be willing to adopt him if that happened. That was our plan. We were told that his only issues were some trauma over being separated from his family.
We showed up to the group home to pick him up with our three-month-old biological son in tow. The director of the group home said: ‘Oh my gosh, did they know that you have a baby?’ Um yeah, they did a very involved home study, they know it all. She was stunned, gave us the advice to ‘never turn your back on him with your baby.’ I felt slightly sick.
We got a six-year-old child that with severe psychological problems. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, reactive attachment disorder, and ADHD. He was extremely up and down and when he was up, he didn’t sleep (not a minute) for 2-3 days at a time. We had to keep all knives, scissors, etc locked up in high cabinets. He was in kindergarten and the school called me very frequently to tell me to come get him because he was so out of control and he couldn’t stay at school.
He hallucinated, frequently seeing ‘devils’ and ‘demons,’ and spent a lot of time alone, talking to people that were not there. His conversations had the normal ups, downs, pauses of real conversation, but there was no one else in the room. He started a fire in his bedroom. He would stand on his bed and urinate all over his bedroom.
All this time, I could not turn my back on him with our baby. I took the baby to the bathroom with us, kept the baby in bed with us, etc. We found out that Children’s Services had known about these issues – he had been labeled as suicidal and a danger to younger children and animals before they placed him with us, and yet they placed him in a home with a newborn and gave us no warning.
I saw where things were headed but tried anyway. He was on multiple medications, saw a psychologist weekly and psychiatrist monthly. His psychologist gave us her cell number and told us to call if needed, and I hated to, but we called for help several times. We signed up for Intensive In-Home Services. This is normally reserved for families that have children in danger of being taken into custody, they’d never used it for foster parents before. Basically, I had two social workers that came to the house for two hours a day to try to help us manage him. It was extremely invasive and they were just as lost as we were.
I took him for a psych evaluation to basically get a whole new opinion. The doctor said that the child had a high IQ, didn’t bond with people at all, and when he was talking to people that were not there, it was because he was separating himself from our world. He had questions where he had to fill in the blank. One question was: ‘I __ worry that bad things will happen to me.’ He had to answer never, sometimes, always, etc. He told the questioner: ‘Bad things have already happened to me.’ It broke my heart to hear that. Like he had no hope. He also had to finish the sentence: ‘Sometimes I think about…’ and he answered: ‘My mom being stabbed.’ His mother had never been stabbed, this was something from his mind.
I told the doctor, doing the evaluation: ‘Forgive me for being a worst-case scenario, but a high IQ, no attachment to people and a lot of anger seem like the makings of a serial killer.’ She said: ‘He definitely has those cards in his hand, let’s just hope it goes the other way.’
We kept him for six months.
One time, after months, with no hint of trouble toward the baby, I turned my back. Apparently, he had been waiting for me to mess up. I instantly heard the baby start screaming. I don’t know what he did, no marks on the baby and he wouldn’t tell me. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when we were riding in the car. Things seemed peaceful, baby dozing in his car seat, kiddo looking out the window when all of a sudden the baby started screaming. Turns out that the child had punched our infant son just out of the blue. When I asked him why he had done it, he said: ‘I was just giving him what he deserves.’ I decided that my first duty in life was to protect my infant son, though I couldn’t make the call to Division of Family Services that they had to take him back, I made my husband do it. It was devastating. I was so sure that all he needed was a good, loving home, and that wasn’t enough.
He bounced around a lot after that. No one after us kept him longer than six weeks. There was the talk of putting him in a locked-down mental facility (he was six!). I had visits with him for quite a while after he left our home. He eventually went back to his mother. She wouldn’t let him see us anymore. He is 18 now, but I last talked to him when he was 13.”
Her Aunt Got Jealous Of The Girl
Johan Larson/Shutterstock
“My Aunt and Uncle gave back a little girl that they adopted and my family has still not forgiven them for it. She was eight years old and I’ll call her Casey.
Casey’s backstory – When she was 5, her mother died giving birth to her sister on the bathroom floor. I guess she walked in on it and it traumatized her (obviously). She was sent to live with her father for a little bit, but he gave her to his brother who then gave her to his father – meaning she lived with her father, uncle, and then her grandfather. It was later suspected that she was physically assaulted by either one or two of these men. The grandfather ‘adopts’ Casey and her sister. Child Services pays a visit to the house one day and Casey is hanging out of a window. She starts talking to the guy and tells him that her and her sister have been locked in a room for hours while the grandfather went shopping. Mind you, she is about 6 at this point and she’s taking care of a one-year-old baby all by herself. Apparently, he would lock them in a room constantly and just leave. Casey and her sister are immediately taken out of his house and put into foster care.
My Aunt and Uncle were together for about 3 years when they decided they wanted children. My aunt is infertile so they decided to adopt. All they were concerned about was how cute the child was. They were foster parents when Casey came into their lives and all they talked about was how cute she was. They decided she was the child for them, based on her appearance. Now as you can imagine, Casey had a lot of issues. She was found messing with objects a bunch of times (this is why we thought she was physically assaulted) and had a disorder – which I forgot the name of – that caused her to seek negative attention and lash out in violent episodes. For example, she purposely pooped in her bed to get attention from my Uncle. She would scream and kick and cry over the smallest things. They took her to see an idiot psychiatrist who suggested hiding Hershey kisses around the house for her to show her they loved her. My Aunt and Uncle NEVER actively sought information about her disorders or how to deal with them. They did not handle the situation correctly. My Aunt would do such ignorant things that it blew my mind. For example, Casey had this little box of possessions from when she was a kid living with her mom, things like toys her mom gave her and stuff, and my Aunt tried throwing it away.
My experience with Casey – She was a sweet, loving child. I babysat for her about six times and loved every minute. We would play games and talk and just hang out. I loved having a little cousin and I never had any problems with her. She came over to my house to bake Christmas cookies and wanted to spend the entire time watching TV with my dad. She loved men and would instantly form a severe attachment to them.
Giving her away – My Aunt became JEALOUS of this freaking eight-year-old. She hated how much Casey loved my uncle, but it was obviously because her entire life was spent with men.
At a birthday party for Casey, my aunt gave her a bunch of clothes and then proceeded to make fun of her weight (she was a little heavy, but still). It was obviously completely inappropriate. At the same party, everyone was playing games and my Aunt set out to viciously beat Casey at the game. She beat an 8-year-old at her favorite game during her first birthday party. My aunt couldn’t deal with the jealousy or problems and decided to gave Casey away. Child services came, my aunt locked herself in the bathroom and my uncle cried as she was put in the van. Casey was heartbroken. So was I, and my entire family. I have never, ever, forgiven them for that. They now have two babies which are officially adopted and they can never ‘give them back’ thankfully. I still think about Casey every day. I hope she is in a happy home with people who love and take care of her.”
The High School Teacher Who Couldn’t Have Kids…
“My chemistry teacher in high school had to return her child.
She was unable to bear children, for whatever reason, so she looked into adoption. She was obviously very excited and shared the news with her students – there was a very young mother (like a pregnant teenager) who was looking to give her child to her. After she was born, she brought in pictures of her new daughter to class and we spent the first couple of minutes sharing that moment before we returned to balancing equations and other chemistry stuff.
Well, it turns out that in the adoption process, the birth mother has something like 60 days to change her mind and null the contract and ask for her child back – something which both parties sign off on. On day 59, the birth mother changes her mind, insists that she wants her kid now, so my teacher had to return her daughter.
The next day, she came to school as composed as one can be after such a traumatic event, but we all could tell she obviously had been crying before she started her lecture and barely made it through the period without breaking down and running away in class.
I don’t want to vilify the birth mother too much, but she really did wait until almost the last minute to change her mind and my teacher surely thought this was all but a done deal. I can’t imagine the heartbreak at returning home to an empty crib.”
Her Best Friend Never Came Over Again…
“I had a neighbor named Melissa. She was about my age (about 8) and her brother was slightly older, Giovanni. I remember when they moved in because her baby brother was named Kermit and I thought that was extremely bizarre. She was eccentric, to say the least.
My mom let her come over pretty much whenever she wanted during the summer because she always seemed to be ignored by her parents. Giovanni used to come over too, but I remember he would leave a lot to go run errands with his parents or for dinner. Whenever I asked her if she had to go, she said she couldn’t eat what they could or go with them anywhere. They basically shushed her out of the house. It was concerning, so I told my parents. My mom tried making friends with her mom several times but the woman was just cold.
Anyway, turns out, Melissa was adopted. I remember coming home from school one day and Melissa wasn’t there. She normally waited outside of my house. A week or more went by, and she still didn’t come over. Our neighborhood was very gossipy, but someone found out that they gave her back because she was chatty and they originally wanted all boys. Her family moved out shortly after this.”
Bullying Into Having An Eating Disorder
Jamie Hooper/Shutterstock
“My little sister is actually friends with a girl whose family ‘returned’ their adopted daughter. I’m not too clear on all the details, but this is what I know:
The parents adopted this girl when she was in middle school, so she was well beyond the essential developmental years. They kept her for several years, but it is to my understanding that she bullied their biological daughters into eating disorders. It was behavior like that that ended up pushing the family into giving her back.
The weird thing is if anyone ever mentions the un-adopted sister to her, my sister’s friend will completely deny her ever having existed. It’s probably just some weird coping mechanism, seeing as this adopted sister caused her to develop an eating disorder.
The family who sent the girl back has a reputation for being an extremely kind, loving, religious, family. If this is true, the girl’s behavioral problems had to have been pretty awful. That must be a really hard decision to make if your heart is in the right place. Or you could just be an insensitive jerk who had no business looking into adopting in the first place.”
He Threatened To Burn Down The House
Jan H Andersen/Shutterstock
“When I was in middle school, some family friends adopted a boy a year or so younger than me. They already had 3 biological kids of their own, one of which was a girl a little older than me.
They ended up quietly returning him after caring for him about 8 months. He was in therapy but often threatened to burn down the house, assault their daughter, and frequently stole and hurt the family pets. Sometimes he had days when he would be completely kind and caring, and others when he tried to kill the cat.
I guess they were in a position of putting their other kids at risk by keeping him. I know the mom still wonders if she should have done things differently.”
The Girl Who Stole Her Parents’ Money
LightField Studios/Shutterstock
“There was this girl in school who got into A LOT of trouble for stealing her parents’ money and buying lots of chocolate, expensive gifts, and the like. It was her way to get our attention. We were 11. We knew this was weird, but we were given a lot of free stuff, so we’d just stay quiet (and munch on the expensive, imported chocolate).
Two months later, I moved out, so I lost contact with old friends. Years later, I asked what happened to the girl, and I was told she was ‘given back.’ I wasn’t even aware that she was adopted, but I heard that despite getting into massive trouble for stealing family money once, she did the same thing later.
She did look kinda crazy, the look of hers. Nevertheless, I was shocked. I didn’t even know you can ‘return’ a kid.”