One thing I have learnt in life is that a parent is always a parent! However bad, cruel, uncaring or dangerous a parent can be they still are, by default, parents. I will not pretend that I don’t understand the foster parents. They were, in the first place, very kind to take care of an abandoned baby, treated the baby as their own and gave it all the love that its mother wasn’t able to give for such a long time. All of a sudden, a strange woman knocks at the door and says she wants her child back. Before we judge those runaway parents, let us first know the reasons as to why some of them make that hard decision to abandon their children. As we may know, poverty can make people behave in a bizarre manner, from robbing neighbours to selling some of their body organs, in particular, one of their kidneys, just to earn that miracle Rwandan franc. By the time a mother decides to dump her child at the doorway of some rich family, you must (be in position to think outside the box) wonder why she did something so inhuman. In the same spirit, you should also be grateful that she did not abort the child, or take its life. When mothers return to collect the child that they abandoned 10 years ago; ask for forgiveness and are willing to resume the relationship, the act portrays love and repentance. Foster parents should not deny their children a chance to be reunited with their real parents. Apart from runaway parents, the world is also faced with a generation of children who escape from home and bitterly break all ties with their parents, hoping to start an independent life based on their own rules. Having been hit by hardships, the runaway children come back running to their parents. Why is it that the parents don’t reject them? How come they don’t say, “Since you abandoned me, go back to where you’re coming from because you’re no longer my child”? This is because parents have a God-given love for their children. No matter what a child does, a parent will still forgive the child and be willing to rekindle the relationship. The same applies to children who have had the misfortune of having parents who abandoned them. Regrettable as it sounds, these children still have the right to know their biological parents. Of course, on paper the biological mother doesn’t deserve a chance, but for kindness’ and humanity’s sake, they should at least sit down with the mother and create a win-win situation, rather than telling the gatekeeper to escort the poor woman out and warn her never to step on the premises again. When some foster parents realize that the mother has finally returned to collect her child, they do everything in their power to make it impossible for the duo to be reunited. If they do love that child as much as they claim to, they should be able to allow the child to reunite with his or her real parents. mugishaivan@yahoo.com
