hgma

I offer no opinion on the rights or wrongs of this matter. I do not know the full facts and my guess is that nobody else here does either. Reason enough to keep fingers off the keyboard?

However compare this to the situation inThailand where children are farmed out to grandparents without apparently too deleterious an effect. My brother in law who lives and works in BKK was left caring for two young children after his wife took off with a farang. I am happy to say that six months later the farang booted her out and she sought to return to the family home. But things had moved along meanwhile. BIL brought the children to my wife in Pattaya who was a stranger to them, and these frightened babes wouldn't stop crying to the point that my wife could not cope. I returned from a trip to find a distraught wife and two hysterical kids. Immediately the children, their meagre belongings and my wife bundled into my truck and we took off to her sister's place in Lomsak. Her sister could not, it was thought at the time, bear children and over the past eight years has proved to be a wonderful mother. The kids are healthy, strong and proving to be very intelligent and doing very well at school. To all intents and purposes the children's aunt IS their mother and the change in their circumstances has been an unqualified success and of benefit to them. Their father contributes as best he can to their support and visits them regularly as well as speaking to them on the telephone. My wife and I take care that they do not lack any of life's essentials indeed that they have one or two deserved and earned luxuries. I now find myself to my delight their favourite uncle. BTW BIL's wife was told to 'go forth and multiply' and has made no further contact with her ex-husband, nor does she know where the children now are.

Simillarly in South Africa the native children live in extended families and my unmaried Zulu maid had borne three children with different fathers but told me that the children now had, as most of the other kids in her village have, several fathers viz uncles and other family members. They seem to grow up without psychological problems.

If this American father has acted in the best interests of his child and that this can be demonstrated, I hope that the Judge will show some compassion and a large degree of sympathy to him. I hope that the decision to award custody to the mother be reviewed and that how the mother has conducted herself for the past 8 years will be a salient factor in any deliberation of the matter. No sentient person can believe other that the child's best interests and happiness are of paramount importance.

Unfortunately all too often in this mad World, doing the right thing is seldom rewarded. One has only to see the results of 'whistleblowing' bestowed on good  and honest people.