How could you do this to a child you have raised from the age of 4 months??

[Freckle]

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3048747.ece?EMC-Bltn=M3XYK4

Can you imagine what that poor little girl is going through, suddenly being abandoned by the only parents she has ever known at the age of 7??

It smacks of a whim on the part of the "parents" to adopt a local child, but the reality didn't match their vision, so they dump her. Truly awful.

Oh my fucking god!
How on earth could these people do what they're doing?
They were blessed with the gift of a child and after 7 years they chuck her away like rubbish! Who are these people? And how is social services not seizing their other children as they're obviously not very humaine parents.
A 4 month old baby doesn't know enough to be unable to adapt to a new culture how dare they use this as an excuse!
In any case they must have known when then adopted her that she didn't have dutch roots and that there would be some abandonment issues!
Cold brutal evil people!

This is a very sad and strange story. Apparently directly after the child's adoption as a four month old baby, the dutch parents should have applied for dutch nationality for her. They never did, their excuse being more or less that they never got around to it because of her 'ill health'

Since the family gave her up, she has been living with an english speaking foster family, and she has changed a lot and is now 'noraml, healthy and happy' but she knows that her stay with this new foster family is temporary

It is a desperately sad story but did you read the stats at the bottom of the article? 10% of adoptions involving babies don't work out and up to 40% of adoptions involving older children with much higher risks of overseas adoptions failing. That is truly horrific.

Is a four month old baby a blank canvas? Really? I thought what happened in the early months was crucial.

Kathy - yup all the stuff that happens to and around a child makes a big difference to their development, at any stage but at 4 months the child is still very much in the 'soak stuff up like a sponge' stage and so would adapt to a complete new way of life etc very very easily

Apparently though she has bonded well with the new foster family from this dutch article here and no longer shows any sign of 'illness' or pyschological problems, which is damning for the original dutch family.

here's the latest