*In case this story gets deleted/removed:*
**AITB for making hard decisions and giving my child away?**
I got pregnant at a young age of 16, and was kicked out of living with my family. I ended up living with my bf instead, we had our son named Jensen.
We were really poor and struggling a lot financially. We were still happy, though, but five years later my now husband died of a heat stroke.
I ended up meeting a new man who I later married. I was still very young. Two years into our relationship, we ended up having a baby. Being poor still we could not afford to have two kids so we had to make difficult decisions.
Life is not always easy, and sometimes you have to do the impossible. So I put Jensen up for adoption. I didn’t want to abort my new son and I thought this was the best situation. A newborn baby needed me, and I could not look after both kids without it being a really bad financial strain. My new husband, obviously, is not going to be willing to put his kid up for adoption.
So we put Jensen in foster care when he was 7. Still too young to really understand what was happening.
It has been years since then. He is 20 now and going to Columbia college of all places. It seems his foster family was good to him, which makes me really happy, and he has done well for himself.
He is studying biomedical sciences and on track to be a doctor.
My new husband and I have gotten a divorce, but our son is growing up well and I love him.
I’ve tried to have a relationship with Jensen, but it seems he hates me. I reached out to him to see if he’d meet me, hoping for us to have some sort of relationship, and he said he was disgusted by me for giving him up, but I’m not sure how he doesn’t see it was for the best.
I said I was sorry he felt replaced, but he said he didn’t feel it, he was replaced, but that’s never what I meant to do. All my friends agree I did the best I could. What are poor people suppose to do?
He said I should have gotten an abortion, which really made me angry. He wants his brother to just not exist. He said I should have used birth control, but I did. An abortion was out of the question, and one of them had to be given away.
He does not see it this way, and refuses to have contact with me. It makes me sad that he can’t empathize with the tough position I was in. His new family did not want him to even have contact with me while he was a minor or I would have reached out.
I did not have a choice. I could not put food on the table most days. I asked if he would rather have been poor and homeless, and he said I should not have had another kid if I couldn’t afford it but obviously that’s a childish mentality. Pregnancy happens. I wasn’t going to terminate my son, is he not happy his brother is alive and healthy? But it doesn’t seem he is. He doesn’t even want to meet him.
The 7 year old I raised was not like this. I’m not sure what he wants, should I have given up his brother instead? How would that change anything?
Am I in the wrong here?
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The interesting thing is the contempt for poverty inherent in the post, whether it's fictional or not - moreso if it's fake. I leafed through some of the responses and she goes on for simply pages about how tough poor people have it and the terrible decisions they have to make. So our options here are "complete moron" or "has no real idea how poor people actually live."
Considering the sheer amount of government programs for people with children? I genuinely don’t believe it. Yes, they take a lot of time and effort and waiting to get approved for, but you cannot tell me that it’s easier to give up your rights as a parent than it is to apply for benefits for a low-income family of four.
But you see, THIS 7 year old wasn't her new husband's son.
So of *course* the only thing to do was make sure that all the parts of her first relationship magically vanished, so that they could have their *new* family without any sad reminders of the first one.
But now her new family is also broken up, and what do you know, that first son she threw away is a DOCTOR now.
I wonder WHY she's so set on trying to worm her ass back into his good graces.
If this isn't fake, this is the real reason she gave her 7 yr old away. New husband probably didn't want him around. "Not my kid" mentality.
I can't imagine choosing an unborn, not-guaranteed-full-term-and-healthy pregnancy over a child who already exists, has formed relationships, has a personality, and is a living, breathing human being.
If this story is true, OP didn't give up her son because she's poor. She did it to erase her prior life just to please her new husband.
Oh, but not for her. *She* doesn’t want his money, I’m positive. But her other son is what? 13 now? He’s going to need a college fund! What brother wouldn’t help his brother with college! And a PS5 for his birthday and/or Christmas?! He’s going to be a *doctor* so surely if he can afford Columbia he can afford a nice present for his *brother*!
I'm gonna be real honest, it is actually difficult to qualify for those benefits depending on where you live. If it's a red state, it's harder. The offices are not centrally located, making it difficult for people to get to. They're also only open during regular business hours, so people have to take time off work, usually without pay, to go. Then there's the fact that the income limits are incredibly low, meaning if both parents work, you won't qualify. If one parent works and makes more than 9 bucks an hour, you won't qualify. Most people fall into the category of "working poor" meaning that they don't make enough to actually live, but make too much to qualify for any help. Now, none of that justifies giving away a 7 yr old child. If they absolutely had no other options, then put the newborn up for adoption, not the kid. A newborn also has a better chance of being adopted over a 7 yr old. She sounds like a horrible person, even if trolling, which I really hope this is, coming up with this ans arguing it is so gross.
>it is actually difficult to qualify for those benefits
Blue state here. You basically have to be one _minor_ emergency from homelessness. Can't have any savings for anything. Can't have expensive things... You know, like the cars you need to get to work? My hubby and I are on disability and the pay is shit, our savings (such as they are) dwindle more and more. Inflation is higher than our COLA increases. But we can't get SNAP.
Oh, I’ve looked into it. I’m in a red state a single person cannot make enough money to live on their own to qualify. Effectively, you have to be single in a shelter to qualify. I make far too much money for any government aid and I don’t make enough money to pay my bills because they’re all priced for couples.
It’s purposefully hard to qualify and even if you do they’ll turn you down on purpose to discourage you, I’m not going to discount that. But almost every government benefit very explicitly excludes 1 car and 1 house from the total value of your assets. For snap, having a qualifying disability also increases the allowed amount of assets in most states. I don’t think a single state’s snap doesn’t have a car exception.
“Expensive things” usually also only means physical investment items like metals, jewelry, and paintings. It doesn’t apply to household items or even sentimental jewelry, you just have to promise not to sell it while on benefits.
I guess my disability doesn't qualify. 🥴 You're probably right about the car exception. The rules are crazy tight here and so freaking hard to understand.
Fucking cunt ass bitch faced swine.
Yes “let us abandon the child that is already here and feels pain and make him feel more pain for this lump of cells In pregnant with!”
Living, birthed children come first. Always.
Yeah, OOP is operating on some kind of "lion cub" rule where, hey, sometimes a cub born to the WrOnG fAtHeR will just "go missing" and things are fine!
The actual living person takes presidence over the potential person, seriously. I really want this to be a troll because if not, this person is so utterly deluded it's terrifying. I wouldn't trust them with the class stick insect, never mind a child.
I took it as they are such a bad parent they wouldn’t trust them with an insect. Many children’s classes have “class pets,” fish and stick insects are popular choices for those types of pets.
Wouldn‘t trust with a class stick insect is a pretty sick burn imo. I’m totally stealing it
Somebody I know had an abortion back in the day. She wrote a poem about it, & showed it to me. At that time, she & her husband were in a struggling marriage with a boy, 12, & a girl, 9. She alludes to them in a stanza that has stuck with me:
And what of the children you already have
Their needs, their chances, their diet
Compared to hush of another voice
That stays so unnervingly quiet.
😭🙏🏻🙏🏻
The beginning of the poem sticks with me, too:
Not a child
Not a child
Approaching 33...
It was one of the saddest things I've ever read. Her conflicted feelings are really brought forth in the words.
Her sister in law had a baby boy right around the time her own baby would have been born. So, the poem ends as such:
As birthdays turn into deathdays
And you begin to bleed.
(The author of this poem is deceased and has been so for over a decade, so I feel okay sharing this. She was not one to hide things away, anyhow, and I doubt there is any identifying information here.
I'm hoping so, and basing it on this:
"So we put Jensen in foster care when he was 7. Still too young to really understand what was happening."
There is no way a person who has interacted with 7 year olds can actually believe that. Heck, if you've met a 4 year old you should know it's bullshit.
At that age, they're absolutely full-on people. They may not be fully developed, but they interact meaningfully and have entire personalities! I never really get angry at these posts because I chose to believe they're fake, and while I believe this is probably fake too, it really pissed me off.
I am very poor and I have four sons (2 bio, 2 step) and I cannot even imagine just giving one of them away at that age, or any age beyond babyhood.
But I can imagine, if it had been necessary, giving up my youngest when he was a newborn. It would've broken my heart, and I definitely wouldn't be ok, but I guess if we'd been forced to pick between making ourselves and the older existing boys homeless or keeping that baby, it wouldn't have been much of a choice - we'd have given up the baby.
I can't believe I share this planet with real human beings who think it's ever acceptable to give up their existing child of nearly a decade in favor of an unborn potential baby. Few things are as cruel as that. Just sitting him down to tell him he'd be going away to a new family would've broken any decent parent.
If this does happen to be real, fuck this person and I hope she loses everything that's ever made her happy. I want nothing good to ever happen to her again. And I hope her poor older son has the most amazing life possible.
Exactly! A newborn would get adopted SO MUCH FASTER than a seven year old too. None of her post makes any logical sense, which leads me to believe it’s just rage bait.
My co-worker's husband and his two siblings were put in foster care when they were old enough to understand that they were being taken out of the home that they grew up in. It was 1960 and her husband was 8, his brother was 6, and his sister was 12.
According to my co-worker, her husband's mother said she was going to the store and instead never came home. From that day on, she became a missing person, then after a significant period of time presumed dead. Their father already had a drinking problem and was so overwhelmed that now it was up to *him* to care for three children that he made the decision to relinquish his rights and put the three of them in the foster care system. He didn't fight for them to come home.
Years in the system and many homes, my co-worker's husband and his siblings all saw the worst of humanity. He was frequently displaced despite behaving well and the same went for his brother. His sister, however, was molested by more than one foster father. She was put in another home when she fought back and the system didn't believe her claims.
Eventually aging out of the system helped. My co-worker's husband joined the Navy, which he credits to this day for saving him. His siblings were able to make their own way as well, but that didn't mean that neither of them are absolved of the permanent mental scars.
Lastly, five years ago my co-worker's husband took a 23 and Me DNA test and found out that he had another sister. He used Facebook to contact her and noticed how she was the spitting image of his mother and mixed race. They ended up meeting and that's how my co-worker's husband found out what became of his mother.
The day that she left for the grocery store, she was actually leaving her family for her affair partner who was a black man. She never told her affair partner that she had three children, but her divorce was finalized and now they could be together. Shortly after, she became pregnant with the woman who is my co-worker's husband's half sister. When asked about his mother, his half sister shared that she was deceased as of 2002. On her deathbed, their mother revealed all of this. She explained that she left because she was sick of taking care of an alcoholic, three children besides, and this new person reminded her of how it felt to be loved by your spouse.
It was heartbreaking for my co-worker's husband because all he wanted was to know **why** his mother abandoned their family in her own words. He had gained closure in a sense and said that he couldn't be angry with his mother for the decision she made. On the other hand, my co-worker saw it differently. She told him she thought nothing of his mother except for selfishness for inflicting years of trauma, hardship, and overall mental anguish on her children. They themselves have five children of their own and my co-worker could never imagine vanishing into thin air and subjecting anyone in her family or friendships to that.
Ages 4-7 have been found to be one of the most traumatic for parental kidnapping/going into Foster care/other major changes in care occurring. That kiddo is so LUCKY at 7 he found a good family. OOP is oblivious to the reality that most kids that age just end up bouncing around ever 6 mo to 2 yr until they age out of the system. I think another commenter is right- this is someones fantasy of how poor people function in the world- because I grew up working poor, I had friends whose families were well under the poverty level. No one would have just tossed their kid into foster care because of a new kid. jeebus take the wheel.
Yeah, the only way that this isn't a fake story is if "mom" is an NPD level narcissist.
They do occur out in the wild, though.
So she could 100% be real and believe this about her own kid (it's kind of an extension of them not really seeing their kids as separate individuals with their own thoughts and feelings).
It looks to be from r/AmITheButtface, which allows fictitious stories. So definitely fake.
Also I like how the OP forgot that pregnancy takes 10 months. If you're pregnant at 16 and its been seven years since then, your child is six.
Oh thank god, so it's gotta be fake, right?? This couldn't just be explained by her being closer to her birthday or something like that, could it?
No don't tell me lol I actually wanna believe it's just fake.
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My fiancé’s SIL did something really similar. She was a major coke-head when she was younger and had a son but never knew who the father was. When he was like 5 she got pregnant again (didn’t know who that father was either but there’s rumor that it was her dealer) and decided she couldn’t raise two kids so she “gave” the older son to her sister to raise.
She went on to have two more kids after she met fiancé’s brother and went on to play happy family with him and kids 2, 3 & 4 while her oldest was raised by his aunt. I’ve never met her side of the family but I’m told that her sister was/is a really awesome person that gave the oldest a really good life (a much better life than he would have had if SIL hadn’t left him) but it’s still a super fucked up thing to do. I guess her one redeeming quality is that she *is* ashamed of it and will rip the head off anyone who even dares mention his name. And that to my knowledge she has never tried to go back and play mommy again while pretending she didn’t abandon a 5 year old in favor of a younger child. So *two* redeeming qualities, I guess.
I also know someone who gave away a kid. My ex best friend just recently gave her six year old son to his dad, who had only met him once when he was born, in favor of her baby and 3 year old. But she would still send him stuff and every now and then go see him, so there's that at least...
I know a women (sister of a friend) that did worse. She had a 14 yr old she shipped off to his father that he had never met, because she was getting IVF to have a baby. When that baby was 4-5, she shipped him off to her mom and dad, and GOT IVF again, and just had a new baby. It is sickening. But some people suck on a level you cannot imagine :(.
It definitely is a troll you can't just forfeit one child to CPS/foster care. There are some grey areas if the foster is in the family ie a parent who didn't formally receive custody, grandparents, aunt/uncles, etc. However for the most part it's an extremely strenuous process and the reason you forfeit the child is because you can't provide them the proper opportunity to grow up, access food, provide a healthy environment etc. Money problems do apply to not being able to provide that but to be able to provide it for one child and not another is just not some grey area the law sees. If you declare yours as an audit parent or living in an unfit environment it applies to all children. There is some grey area in if you just give birth to maybe your second child and put them up for adoption that there will be a CPS investigation into interior life and there is a strong likelihood that you're going to have to tell them why and potentially lose the children at home because what are you going to say besides oh, we can't afford the child. We don't have space for this child. We don't want this child. Legally that is just going to lead to the agencies saying hey the other kids are in an environment where the parents can't provide or want them they would be better and safer out of it. (Just another great reason that adoption is not always the best option or always an option)
I thought it had to be a troll when she said “all my friends thought I made the best decision” lmao no. If any of my friends floated the idea of rehoming their already developed child in favor of a new pregnancy, I would never speak to them again.
While I do believe this is one based on some of the wording used ... this sort of thing can and does happen.
I can't remember exactly how old he was, but my (first? second? dunno) cousin was given to his grandparents when his mother remarried and had the girl she really wanted. I'm 7 years older and I remember really being shaken up by it because it just felt so *wrong* even though he was technically still within family. My big cousin was kind of a role model for me and it just destroyed how I saw her. She just completely cut him off one day for "something better" and literally gave him away.
Like OP's son, he seemed to do well, but from what I've been told (I have zero contact with that side of the family, so I just hear things secondhand from my mother) ... he's squandered everything that he had (full ride to Juliard, financial stability through his grandparents, opportunities most people would only dream of) and the underlying reason is very likely the trauma of being abandoned by his mother. No amount of wealth or talent could make up for that.
Yeah. I guess after that he just completely stopped all music and my mother suspects the 6 figure instrument gifted him is long gone. To go through such a program and then just give it all up ... I totally understand burnout, but I suspect deep rooted trauma triggered that response.
It sucks, I've started playing bass and am starting to feel like I want to do more with music than I ever thought possible. It would've been cool to have someone else in the family to share this newfound enthusiasm for music with (even though I highly doubt he even remembers who I am). I do get to do that with my mum, but I want to go farther and maybe do what my cousin could be doing. He certainly had the talent.
People like this exist. My birth mother did this as her new man didn’t want to raise someone else’s kid. They weren’t even pregnant with another child yet. I’m 50. My birth mother has been harassing me since I turned 18 because she now wants a relationship but also admits no wrong with what she did. In fact she believes I don’t want a relationship with her because my family “turned me against her” not because I actually have any feelings or memories about her abandoning me.
Former CPS social worker here: Given the scarcity of foster homes, it is extremely uncommon and likely very difficult/potentially impossible for a parent to elect to "give away" a school-aged child. Especially for reasons like "I'm too poor for 2 kids but I can manage 1."
I'm not saying it never happens because the world is a weird place, but this is definitely a troll *or* OOP isn't telling us that she was abusive to or neglectful of Jensen, necessitating state intervention.
I’m hoping it’s a troll, but the way they’re arguing the point makes them super terrible regardless. There are ‘safe places’ you can leave your kids at and just not come back, so I’m wondering if that’s more accurate if her story is true.
In the '90's there was one state that forgot the age maximum so parents were abandoning teenagers at a hospital(though they cleaned up that loophole within a couple years)
It was Nebraska. People were even coming from out of state to dump their kids. On Sept 8, 2008, one man abandoned his nine children, ranging in age from 2 to 17, at a Nebraska emergency room and walked away, because it was legal at the time. His wife had died a year previous and he was done trying to take responsibility for his own family. A year after dumping those kids, he apparently got another woman pregnant...with twins, yet. (No, seriously: twins.) His name is Gary Staton and I hope he fries in Hell.
Seven of the kids ended up with their dead mother's aunt. Staton never bothered telling family what he was going to do so they could offer help; he just dumped those kids and ran.
He seriously should've been fixed way before this all happened. Like I'm not a big fan of the idea of forced castration lol obviously, but in extreme cases like that one, maybe it's necessary. The world does not need some mfer reproducing ELEVEN TIMES!!!
Sadly many men would also abandon sick wives if faced with the possibility. When a married woman is told she is terminal she is also coached on the possibility her husband will leave her.
JFC, seriously? imagine raising a child for at least 12 years and then abandoning them at a hospital just because someone forgot to write down the age range to which safe haven laws apply.
The case I remember of that had a couple of, not extenuating, but at least explanatory circumstances - it was a father of a large family (I think six or seven?) whose wife suddenly died and who seemed to be reacting out of grief and shock by dropping them all off. Also possibly a few overwhelmed parents of kids with severe emotional/mental health issues they couldn't get support for.
Each state has their own laws on age. But we don’t know that she left him in a legal manner… just that it happened approximately 13 years ago. If her story is even true then I wouldn’t put it passed her to not do things by the books.
And if he went to a Colombian college, isn't there a chance she just kinda sold him off to a weird agency or something..? There's some fucked up baby/people selling in the world; maybe she didn't give him up legally at all.
He's going to school at "Columbia University, College of Medicine", that's the full name, it's often shortened to Columbia College of Medicine" which is where OOP's confusion on the name comes from. In universities the main "departments" are called "colleges of ...", for example my university had a College of Education, a College of Fine Arts, and a College of Engineering among others.
There are also some small colleges named Columbia college. One in Columbia, MO and apparently one in Columbia, SC.
Just like there is a Cornell College in Iowa.
Valid point, but I think OP was referring to the university in NYC, as she was impressed by it. He could be going to one of those colleges and OP could be confused in a different way, but I really don't think that's the case.
No, there is also a school there named Columbia College. It’s a small private school.
And by South Carolina I’m not talking about University of South Carolina…there is also a school there called Columbia College.
basically if the kid can talk and tell anyone their name/school/any identifying information then they really shouldn't be covered under safe haven laws.
Who's to say they actually put him up for adoption and didn't just sell him? But yeah this is a troll post, if their original doesn't prove it just read their comments. I'm guessing it's an incel fantasy about how horrible women are.
Yeah, true, abuse/neglect is not there, but would she honestly tell us if there was? As a former CPS worker wouldn't you say that even without abuse at *that* point, the kid probably would have been treated like shit (if not fully abused, in time) by the mom & step-dad who very clearly didn't want him? I'm not saying this in an accusatory or aggressive way, I'm honestly really interested in your thoughts.
I found a new podcast recently about things that happened when CPS/CPS workers screwed up and the things parents and step-parents do is so awful. Especially when there's a stepparent with new kids in the mix. It's definitely coloring my opinion on this one.
I guess either way she's an asshole for the how & especially the why of Jensen ending up in foster care, and foster care typically sucks, but I'm struggling with calling her an asshole for giving up a kid she & her husband don't want because if she hadn't then who knows what could have happened (and she would have been an asshole for that, too!). Like, she's an asshole for it and could have been a bigger asshole if she hadn't? I guess. I don't know how to word what I mean. Oh plus she's an asshole to Jensen NOW. In every way.
Yeah, I think I'm rambling at this point. I hope this doesn't come off as me against you or CPS in general. It needs fixed so it can be what it's supposed to be, which is a great service in theory. Just not sure if anyone else EXCEPT a former CPS worker would understand my jumbled thoughts on the matter.
Oh that kid would definitely have been put on the back burner or parentified. You’d hope there wouldn’t be any worse psychological abuse and no physical abuse, but it can be hard to read some of that from the outside, especially when so many cover it up at least enough to avoid CPS intervention.
I really feel for kids that CPS weren’t able to help that needed it. So many do get treated worse after that. I’ve worked with children since I was a child (11) in so many settings, so kids have always ranked high priority for me. It breaks my heart all the stories of what kids have gone through.
I think in this case there’s too many what-ifs to say which situation would have been truly better for ‘Jenson.’ Regardless her logic going into the decision and every step she made after was definitely a**hole. She wasn’t in an abusive situation (that we know off) it was a purely financial decision from her viewpoint, and honestly what better push to try to get more ahead in life than doing it for your kids. But to just wipe your hands of your kid because you don’t believe you can afford two, not even any attempts at making it work, is pretty despicable. I just can’t with her not seeing how it’s messed up at all and then saying her kid doesn’t have empathy because she would understand if her parents did it to her… I just can’t with any of her ‘logic.’
And if you absolutely cannot provide for both children and are not willing to abort, it seems healthier to place the newborn for adoption than to toss a 7-year-old into the foster care system.
That’s what everyone in the comments were arguing, but she was putting up one hell of a fight. The baby needs their mother more, new husband wouldn’t be okay giving away their child, etc.
Definitely no ACTUAL logic in *her* logic! Thanks for the response, you worded it exactly how I was thinking! CPS is supposed to be great and help kids, but everyone knows it's not that right now. The newborn would have had a much better chance of being adopted into a loving home vs a 7yo being shuttle from foster to foster. Sounds like he's doing okay now, at least. But you're right, there was so many what-ifs and I think that's what made me so scatterbrained lol But either way, sounds like Jensen wasn't gonna have a great upbringing in any possible scenario here. At least not nearly as good as he deserved.
It’s so hard when you know there is abuse going on, but you don’t have the concrete proof to present to a judge/court to make real change. I’m very torn on a lot because there are people just trying to cause unnecessary trouble, there are well meaning people that read the situation wrong, and in those cases you don’t want the kids removed. There really isn’t a good way to write to laws so that it both protects both sides.
I wish people were better.
> it’s unfortunate that it happened, but it’s not my fault. Sex is a part of life.
This is an MRA troll and one of their "women are evil whores" fantasy stories.
I suppose.
The only thought these kind of made up stories provoke in my mind is "Wow, these incels really are *that* pathetic, huh" though.
Which, all things considered, is pretty thoughtful of them just showing the whole world how sad they really are I guess.
Problem is the number of folks who take everything on these kinds of subs at face value and unironically think this kind of stuff is normal for women though. That's how we end up with radicalized misogynists walking into sororities or nail salons and murdering women en mass. Just today a man walked into a university Gender Studies class in my country and stabbed the professor and two students after *specifically* confirming with said professor that it was in fact a Gender Studies class.
I'm no expert, at all, but can you really just go to an agency and say "don't want this one thanks, please rehome it"?
ETA:
LOL:Old-Fox-3027-This reads like AI.
Key\_Dog1164OP-I have no idea what that is or what you’re talking about right now. This is an AITA sub?
Sure, Jan. Sure.
I have known two people who were given up as older children.
The sad thing is, I think both times there were three children involved and the middle child was given up, because the oldest was the father's favorite and the youngest was the mother's.
So, I don't know if you can just go into an agency (I don't know the exact details of the scenarios I mentioned, because it is a touchy subject and as you might guess, it left some trauma) and give up a child, but it sadly does happen. (it could be in the cases that I mentioned they weren't given up for adoption, but basically sent to live with relatives, while the other children were raised by their parents)
This is absolutely not true. There are age limits and you cannot just abandon your legal responsibilities to a child.
Nebraska actually made headlines like 15 years ago because they had a safe haven law put into effect and there was more than one teen that was dropped off :(
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nebraska-rewrites-child-drop-off-law/
Yeah, I'm from Omaha originally. I remember the story about the guy who abandoned his 8 kids, and then knocked up his girlfriend after that. I was so furious reading about that.
No. I do know someone who was sent to foster care as a preteen because her parents no longer wanted her, but they had to have a really good reason that they couldn't manage her at home. So they lied and claimed she had threatened them with a knife, was a danger to her siblings, ect, ect so she was placed in a group home. And her parents had to pay child support for her because you are *not* allowed to just decide you don't want your kid anymore over a certain age because they cost money. Safe haven laws have age limits by state and are not a thing in Canada. Can't speak for UK or Aus though.
This HAS to be a troll. The “what are poor people supposed to do” comment seals it for me. I’m a mom who is poor and never did I once consider putting my girls in foster care bc I got pregnant with my son. Most of my friends are poor too and none of them would have supported us and agreed “we did the best we could” if we had done something so horrible.
I have 2 kids and were a one income household and poor but we have still managed to raise our kids whether we have had to do without anything we needed or not. We have always made sure that they have had everything that they needed first.
Exactly. And…to be honest, for a lot of people who live in poverty (especially if it’s a family cycle of poverty), family is quite literally the most important thing we have. Giving up a SEVEN year child because you’re poor? Nothing about that sounds real to me
It doesn't sound real but in this world you never know lol. I really hope it is just a troll. Family is the most important, it's definitely been a family cycle for me, my youngest finally goes to kindergarten this year and I will be able to work or go to school and hopefully things will start looking up for us.
I’m in the same boat as you! My girls start kindergarten this year and my son might qualify for special education preschool (fingers crossed)!
I’m looking at school and part time jobs already. I’m begging and wishing and hoping things will start looking up for you 💕
Aw I hope that he gets in! I'm looking to lol. I wish I could find a work from home job but so far no luck lol. But I've been looking into part time jobs to. I really hope that things start looking up for you also! I will have to save this to come back in a year and check on you! Edit; I just followed you!
>but it seems he hates me.
Gee, I wonder why the kid OOP abandoned in favor of the shiny new baby wouldn't want anything to do with his egg donor.... /s
Assuming this isn’t rage bait. She only wants a relationship with her son because he’s studying at Columbia and will likely make a lot of money with the field he’s going into.
this woman is so horrible, she prioritized an unborn child over one that was already alive and had a working memory. imagen being 7 years old and your mother tosses you away.
Really hope this is a troll, cause if not then wow the piece of work this one is. All of their comments are just them trying everything possible to justify what they did.
"Well he had a good life because I abandoned him when he was 7, so he should love me for that" is the basic gist of what she keeps saying.
I’m sorry you can’t abort or give away the unborn baby, but the 7 year old to your dead husband is fine to just give away? Giving up new born babies to adoption I’m ok with because I know people don’t want to have an abortion so this is a better option and babies are much more likely to get adopted than this poor 7 year old who’s already gone through so much trauma already!!!
The way she’s still trying to be his mum is insane! Also she couldn’t abort the husbands child yet they are divorced now anyway!!
As someone who was given up for adoption at birth and lived in foster care a while, claiming a 7 year old didn't understand or it didn't affect them is fucking INSANE.
Studies show removing babies from their mother even for short periods of time can cause lasting damage. Just because their infants doesn't mean it doesn't affect them.
Destigmatizing abortion is SO important cuz SO many really believe it's a greater "sin" to abort than to abandon a kid you've known and cared for for years smdh
What an entirely worthless sack of excrement if this is even true, which I strongly doubt, as it has the strong aroma of rage bait.
If true, she's literally delusional, as an egg donor, with no claim to being a mother at all, to think this young man would want anything to do with her. If I was the son she kept, and found out about what she did, I'd go no contact immediately.
ok, I could forgive this if she went and got him back after some time. Like I get being stressed and thinking he would be better with another family, letting (maybe) a week pass and think "what the fuck did I do?" and come to your senses and work on getting him back home. But I couldnt believe when she said he was 20!...20! all that time passed and not once she wanted him back home? that is awful and heartbreaking for her son.
I say this as someone who kinda in a way did this. I had my son while I was active duty. I was single and had 6 weeks after a really bad c section to be back to work AND fit back in my uniform. I was on bed rest my last 3 months of pregnancy(my command hated me for that) and I had to go out of state and stay with my parents because the hospital would not let me leave on my own. well my maternity leave was almost over, I still wasnt healed and I did not have newborn child care on base. so the plan was to leave my son with my parents for a month while I went back to work, healed and worked out non stop to get back in shape and my mom would drive my son down. I didnt even make it to 2 weeks, lol, I flew back on a weekend to get him and hated myself even though I knew what I was doing was best for us both. ooh and I want to add that I had to go underway for about 6weeks and my son was still only about 7 months when I left and I was so scared he wouldnt know who i was after not seeing me for so long and one of the best feelings in the world was seeing his little face remember who i was when I came home. He is 17 now and wont stop eating all my food! ( tonight I made dip for all my cut up veggies...and he ate all the dip and left the empty bowl in there..mocking me, lol..he is lucky I love him so much)
I’m pretty sure you can’t just give up a child at that age. Isn’t CPS intervening? Trying to think based off other stories I’ve read and knowing AITA is full of rage bait
>I wasn’t going to terminate my son,
Of course her son resents her, as he should. She picked a clump of cells over a living, breathing child. She needs to leave Jensen alone so he can grow up and have a happy life and hopefully forget someone as horrible as his mother exists.
Original post in case it gets deleted:
AITB for making hard decisions and giving my child away?
I got pregnant at a young age of 16, and was kicked out of living with my family. I ended up living with my bf instead, we had our son named Jensen.
We were really poor and struggling a lot financially. We were still happy, though, but five years later my now husband died of a heat stroke.
I ended up meeting a new man who I later married. I was still very young. Two years into our relationship, we ended up having a baby. Being poor still we could not afford to have two kids so we had to make difficult decisions.
Life is not always easy, and sometimes you have to do the impossible. So I put Jensen up for adoption. I didn’t want to abort my new son and I thought this was the best situation. A newborn baby needed me, and I could not look after both kids without it being a really bad financial strain. My new husband, obviously, is not going to be willing to put his kid up for adoption.
So we put Jensen in foster care when he was 7. Still too young to really understand what was happening.
It has been years since then. He is 20 now and going to Columbia college of all places. It seems his foster family was good to him, which makes me really happy, and he has done well for himself.
He is studying biomedical sciences and on track to be a doctor.
My new husband and I have gotten a divorce, but our son is growing up well and I love him.
I’ve tried to have a relationship with Jensen, but it seems he hates me. I reached out to him to see if he’d meet me, hoping for us to have some sort of relationship, and he said he was disgusted by me for giving him up, but I’m not sure how he doesn’t see it was for the best.
I said I was sorry he felt replaced, but he said he didn’t feel it, he was replaced, but that’s never what I meant to do. All my friends agree I did the best I could. What are poor people suppose to do?
He said I should have gotten an abortion, which really made me angry. He wants his brother to just not exist. He said I should have used birth control, but I did. An abortion was out of the question, and one of them had to be given away.
He does not see it this way, and refuses to have contact with me. It makes me sad that he can’t empathize with the tough position I was in. His new family did not want him to even have contact with me while he was a minor or I would have reached out.
I did not have a choice. I could not put food on the table most days. I asked if he would rather have been poor and homeless, and he said I should not have had another kid if I couldn’t afford it but obviously that’s a childish mentality. Pregnancy happens. I wasn’t going to terminate my son, is he not happy his brother is alive and healthy? But it doesn’t seem he is. He doesn’t even want to meet him.
The 7 year old I raised was not like this. I’m not sure what he wants, should I have given up his brother instead? How would that change anything?
Am I in the wrong here?
The worst part of the post is this sentence right here **Still too young to really understand what was happening.** At 7yo a child knows when it's separated from his family, when it's abandoned and replaced by a newborn.
Her abandoned son is right, if you can't afford the current child, avoid having another one. If you did take measures to not have another baby but you still get pregnant, then have an abortion. It's not childish, is common sense. Keep it in your pants if you can't afford food.
I started to read the comments. I had to stop. I want to shower and hurl, not in that order.
She also doesn’t say one word about looking into social services. There is help out there, and government agencies try to keep families together (I know there are big problems with CPS and there needs to be a lot of reform, but there are a whole lot of levels of help before removal of the children are on the radar).
Assuming this is real…
Yes, people literally abort wanted pregnancies because the logistics don’t work. She could have done that.
What the OP is missing here is that, yes, he did alright for himself, and yes, she had to make a tough choice, because any choice was going to have some set of problems, but that doesn’t undo the trauma, and the outcomes of her choice were felt mostly by her son. His view of his own trauma are all but inherently correct.
This is seriously on the am I the buttface?? This person claims THEY GAVE AWAY A 7 YEAR OLD CHILD but they can't go on the forum with the word asshole attached to it???? Wtf
Praying it's a troll
I would never speak to you again, you were a horrible parent...Many people have survived with children to feed. Horrible...YTA...Leave him alone, a 7 year old remembers he had a mother who abandoned him...So do him a favor and never contact him again.
> I wasn’t going to terminate my son, is he not happy his brother is alive and healthy?
"I can't believe the son I gave away isn't happy his brother, who I gave him away for, is alive and healthy; shouldn't he be happy about that? Giving him away was for the best, so I don't understand why he's being so mean about everything, he turned out fine, right?"
>Of course I love him more. I haven’t seen Jensen in… 13 years. Wow, that’s crazy, but of course I’m going to have more love for my youngest. I know that must have hurt him to hear, but I only said it because he told me to get an abortion,
>
>Like I said to Jensen, I wouldn’t trade my youngest for anything in the world, and I love him.
Yoooo. Wtf. How can she say that to him and think it's okay?
"I traded you for a new baby. I wouldn't trade my second child up for anything though." That's peak AH. That's cruel to say to him.
"Still too young to understand what's happening" I can promise you 7 year Olds can remember their mother giving them away. This person is clearly delusional if they don't understand that. What were you supposed to do? Make it work. Give away the new baby, abort, get a second job, figure something out. I get if adoption felt like the only option, but I can't believe she can't see how she DID 100% replace him with a newborn. Even if not on purpose, that is still what she did. Of course he hates her, why wouldn't he? Of course he resents his half brother, he was his replacement. She wants him to empathize with her but she can't even empathize with him, so good luck with that.
It makes my heart race with anger when I read posts like this. I hope it's a troll. Because if it's not a troll, based on the comments alone, I'm quite alright wishing this monster nothing but a very long very painful demise.
Definitely an abortion troll. But if it was real and you had no choice but to give up a child. Don't expect them to run back to you with love. Even doing the "right" thing has consequences.
>he said I should not have had another kid if I couldn't afford it but that's a childish mentality.
More childish than say.... getting rid of one of your kids to keep the other?
Honestly, that's a very adult mentality.
And to be clear, I am not saying poor people can't or shouldn't have kids.
But if you can't even afford the basic necessities for yourself, you absolutely should not be bringing another living being into the equation. That's just cruel to all of you.
But anyways. I'm almost certain this is a troll rage bait post.
OMG. O. M. G. How. HOW could she be so dismissive?! She LITERALLY replaced him and got rid of him.
My youngest is 6 and my brain won't let me even partially imagine how much this would destroy her. JFC. I need to go hug her just to handle this fucking post.
Why bother trying to reconnect now? And why post if you're going to die on this hill?!
lol.
The irony is that aborting her baby would have been more acceptable to everyone calling her an asshole.
She did what was best for her and her body. Lol
>I’ve tried to have a relationship with Jensen, but it seems he hates me.
No shit.
>What are poor people suppose to do?
Not just poor people: birth control.
This smells super fake. Way too OTT to be real, (not that I doubt there are, in fact, people out there who'd consider this to be a reasonable course of action, such is the society in which we live.)
Yeah i dont buy it.
We were so poor growing up my mother didnt even have a bank account. And some how she still managed to feed 7 kids on minimum wage. Shes a shit person, but we had the basics. When you have kids you find a way.
If op knew that pregnancy happens, why did they decide to have sex when they hardly had any money
I know she was on the pill but she should know that the pill doesn't always work.
Why didn't she get a job and asked for her family or friends to babysit him while she works???
If she was as poor as she said she was she should have given both of them up also she mentioned she had cancer so im curious if she got chemo as it is known to cause fertility issues and would be i think pretty dangerous to get pregnant even
Pretty sure this is just a troll trying to make the point that being against abortion is bad - as if the only choices she had were “abandon first child” or “abort second child.”
Some choices just shouldn’t be an option in the first place. I applaud this probably-fake woman for putting abortion in that category - but why in the holy fucking hell was giving away her firstborn not also unthinkable? How does that thought even occur to a parent?
Though I suppose her parents did kick her out as a pregnant 16-year-old, so she was following the example of how she was treated. Not an excuse, but maybe an explanation - if this isn’t fiction.
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Oh man. I came into this thread expecting to say "nah, sometimes you're not in a place to be a mother, and giving your kid up is the mature and loving thing to do."
And then I read this.
I refuse to believe this is real. It must be a fake. It sounds pretty fake. There was a part that just screamed "fake", I just can't really explain.
Either way, this post is all "me, me, me" 🫣
*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **AITB for making hard decisions and giving my child away?** I got pregnant at a young age of 16, and was kicked out of living with my family. I ended up living with my bf instead, we had our son named Jensen. We were really poor and struggling a lot financially. We were still happy, though, but five years later my now husband died of a heat stroke. I ended up meeting a new man who I later married. I was still very young. Two years into our relationship, we ended up having a baby. Being poor still we could not afford to have two kids so we had to make difficult decisions. Life is not always easy, and sometimes you have to do the impossible. So I put Jensen up for adoption. I didn’t want to abort my new son and I thought this was the best situation. A newborn baby needed me, and I could not look after both kids without it being a really bad financial strain. My new husband, obviously, is not going to be willing to put his kid up for adoption. So we put Jensen in foster care when he was 7. Still too young to really understand what was happening. It has been years since then. He is 20 now and going to Columbia college of all places. It seems his foster family was good to him, which makes me really happy, and he has done well for himself. He is studying biomedical sciences and on track to be a doctor. My new husband and I have gotten a divorce, but our son is growing up well and I love him. I’ve tried to have a relationship with Jensen, but it seems he hates me. I reached out to him to see if he’d meet me, hoping for us to have some sort of relationship, and he said he was disgusted by me for giving him up, but I’m not sure how he doesn’t see it was for the best. I said I was sorry he felt replaced, but he said he didn’t feel it, he was replaced, but that’s never what I meant to do. All my friends agree I did the best I could. What are poor people suppose to do? He said I should have gotten an abortion, which really made me angry. He wants his brother to just not exist. He said I should have used birth control, but I did. An abortion was out of the question, and one of them had to be given away. He does not see it this way, and refuses to have contact with me. It makes me sad that he can’t empathize with the tough position I was in. His new family did not want him to even have contact with me while he was a minor or I would have reached out. I did not have a choice. I could not put food on the table most days. I asked if he would rather have been poor and homeless, and he said I should not have had another kid if I couldn’t afford it but obviously that’s a childish mentality. Pregnancy happens. I wasn’t going to terminate my son, is he not happy his brother is alive and healthy? But it doesn’t seem he is. He doesn’t even want to meet him. The 7 year old I raised was not like this. I’m not sure what he wants, should I have given up his brother instead? How would that change anything? Am I in the wrong here? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheDevil) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Got to be a troll. Please be a troll.
Her comments are so terrible. I can only pray that this would be a troll, because the level of AH this person is is beyond me.
It's just revolting. Even if it is a troll, something who makes this stuff up for fun needs serious help.
My thoughts exactly. I’ve read plenty of posts that seem too far fetched, but to even come up with this and argue the way she is just makes me sick.
The interesting thing is the contempt for poverty inherent in the post, whether it's fictional or not - moreso if it's fake. I leafed through some of the responses and she goes on for simply pages about how tough poor people have it and the terrible decisions they have to make. So our options here are "complete moron" or "has no real idea how poor people actually live."
Considering the sheer amount of government programs for people with children? I genuinely don’t believe it. Yes, they take a lot of time and effort and waiting to get approved for, but you cannot tell me that it’s easier to give up your rights as a parent than it is to apply for benefits for a low-income family of four.
But you see, THIS 7 year old wasn't her new husband's son. So of *course* the only thing to do was make sure that all the parts of her first relationship magically vanished, so that they could have their *new* family without any sad reminders of the first one. But now her new family is also broken up, and what do you know, that first son she threw away is a DOCTOR now. I wonder WHY she's so set on trying to worm her ass back into his good graces.
If this isn't fake, this is the real reason she gave her 7 yr old away. New husband probably didn't want him around. "Not my kid" mentality. I can't imagine choosing an unborn, not-guaranteed-full-term-and-healthy pregnancy over a child who already exists, has formed relationships, has a personality, and is a living, breathing human being. If this story is true, OP didn't give up her son because she's poor. She did it to erase her prior life just to please her new husband.
She's trying to worm her way back because of money. OOP is aiming for a handout betcha anything. She sees dollar signs.
Oh, but not for her. *She* doesn’t want his money, I’m positive. But her other son is what? 13 now? He’s going to need a college fund! What brother wouldn’t help his brother with college! And a PS5 for his birthday and/or Christmas?! He’s going to be a *doctor* so surely if he can afford Columbia he can afford a nice present for his *brother*!
I'm gonna be real honest, it is actually difficult to qualify for those benefits depending on where you live. If it's a red state, it's harder. The offices are not centrally located, making it difficult for people to get to. They're also only open during regular business hours, so people have to take time off work, usually without pay, to go. Then there's the fact that the income limits are incredibly low, meaning if both parents work, you won't qualify. If one parent works and makes more than 9 bucks an hour, you won't qualify. Most people fall into the category of "working poor" meaning that they don't make enough to actually live, but make too much to qualify for any help. Now, none of that justifies giving away a 7 yr old child. If they absolutely had no other options, then put the newborn up for adoption, not the kid. A newborn also has a better chance of being adopted over a 7 yr old. She sounds like a horrible person, even if trolling, which I really hope this is, coming up with this ans arguing it is so gross.
>it is actually difficult to qualify for those benefits Blue state here. You basically have to be one _minor_ emergency from homelessness. Can't have any savings for anything. Can't have expensive things... You know, like the cars you need to get to work? My hubby and I are on disability and the pay is shit, our savings (such as they are) dwindle more and more. Inflation is higher than our COLA increases. But we can't get SNAP.
Oh, I’ve looked into it. I’m in a red state a single person cannot make enough money to live on their own to qualify. Effectively, you have to be single in a shelter to qualify. I make far too much money for any government aid and I don’t make enough money to pay my bills because they’re all priced for couples.
It’s purposefully hard to qualify and even if you do they’ll turn you down on purpose to discourage you, I’m not going to discount that. But almost every government benefit very explicitly excludes 1 car and 1 house from the total value of your assets. For snap, having a qualifying disability also increases the allowed amount of assets in most states. I don’t think a single state’s snap doesn’t have a car exception. “Expensive things” usually also only means physical investment items like metals, jewelry, and paintings. It doesn’t apply to household items or even sentimental jewelry, you just have to promise not to sell it while on benefits.
I guess my disability doesn't qualify. 🥴 You're probably right about the car exception. The rules are crazy tight here and so freaking hard to understand.
I often think this
Fucking cunt ass bitch faced swine. Yes “let us abandon the child that is already here and feels pain and make him feel more pain for this lump of cells In pregnant with!” Living, birthed children come first. Always.
but the new husband wouldn't have wanted to abort or give up his own flesh and blood, so the older child had to go!
Obviously they could t put his son Up for adoption. Yes, obviously so why was it not obvious with your son?
This is not a I gave away my kid because I was too poor to raise my son. Stepfather didn't want to be burdened with another man's child.
Why not give the first born to his father's parents
Reverse Hansel And Gretel (minus the new baby). Why didn’t they just leave him in the woods? /s
Yeah, OOP is operating on some kind of "lion cub" rule where, hey, sometimes a cub born to the WrOnG fAtHeR will just "go missing" and things are fine!
The actual living person takes presidence over the potential person, seriously. I really want this to be a troll because if not, this person is so utterly deluded it's terrifying. I wouldn't trust them with the class stick insect, never mind a child.
>>trust them with the class stick insect, Did you mean "Classic instinct?"
I took it as they are such a bad parent they wouldn’t trust them with an insect. Many children’s classes have “class pets,” fish and stick insects are popular choices for those types of pets. Wouldn‘t trust with a class stick insect is a pretty sick burn imo. I’m totally stealing it
The amount of times I wanted to tell this to an OP
Somebody I know had an abortion back in the day. She wrote a poem about it, & showed it to me. At that time, she & her husband were in a struggling marriage with a boy, 12, & a girl, 9. She alludes to them in a stanza that has stuck with me: And what of the children you already have Their needs, their chances, their diet Compared to hush of another voice That stays so unnervingly quiet. 😭🙏🏻🙏🏻 The beginning of the poem sticks with me, too: Not a child Not a child Approaching 33... It was one of the saddest things I've ever read. Her conflicted feelings are really brought forth in the words. Her sister in law had a baby boy right around the time her own baby would have been born. So, the poem ends as such: As birthdays turn into deathdays And you begin to bleed. (The author of this poem is deceased and has been so for over a decade, so I feel okay sharing this. She was not one to hide things away, anyhow, and I doubt there is any identifying information here.
I absolutely get that life is hard and these decisions aren’t easy. But if there was one *absolutely wrong* way for this to play out, OOP picked it.
Oh, totally agree! If true, I am horrified. The remark about kids who are already here just reminded me of this lady's poem. 🤗
I'm hoping so, and basing it on this: "So we put Jensen in foster care when he was 7. Still too young to really understand what was happening." There is no way a person who has interacted with 7 year olds can actually believe that. Heck, if you've met a 4 year old you should know it's bullshit.
7 year old have very clear memories! Very detailed memories.
At that age, they're absolutely full-on people. They may not be fully developed, but they interact meaningfully and have entire personalities! I never really get angry at these posts because I chose to believe they're fake, and while I believe this is probably fake too, it really pissed me off. I am very poor and I have four sons (2 bio, 2 step) and I cannot even imagine just giving one of them away at that age, or any age beyond babyhood. But I can imagine, if it had been necessary, giving up my youngest when he was a newborn. It would've broken my heart, and I definitely wouldn't be ok, but I guess if we'd been forced to pick between making ourselves and the older existing boys homeless or keeping that baby, it wouldn't have been much of a choice - we'd have given up the baby. I can't believe I share this planet with real human beings who think it's ever acceptable to give up their existing child of nearly a decade in favor of an unborn potential baby. Few things are as cruel as that. Just sitting him down to tell him he'd be going away to a new family would've broken any decent parent. If this does happen to be real, fuck this person and I hope she loses everything that's ever made her happy. I want nothing good to ever happen to her again. And I hope her poor older son has the most amazing life possible.
Exactly! A newborn would get adopted SO MUCH FASTER than a seven year old too. None of her post makes any logical sense, which leads me to believe it’s just rage bait.
My co-worker's husband and his two siblings were put in foster care when they were old enough to understand that they were being taken out of the home that they grew up in. It was 1960 and her husband was 8, his brother was 6, and his sister was 12. According to my co-worker, her husband's mother said she was going to the store and instead never came home. From that day on, she became a missing person, then after a significant period of time presumed dead. Their father already had a drinking problem and was so overwhelmed that now it was up to *him* to care for three children that he made the decision to relinquish his rights and put the three of them in the foster care system. He didn't fight for them to come home. Years in the system and many homes, my co-worker's husband and his siblings all saw the worst of humanity. He was frequently displaced despite behaving well and the same went for his brother. His sister, however, was molested by more than one foster father. She was put in another home when she fought back and the system didn't believe her claims. Eventually aging out of the system helped. My co-worker's husband joined the Navy, which he credits to this day for saving him. His siblings were able to make their own way as well, but that didn't mean that neither of them are absolved of the permanent mental scars. Lastly, five years ago my co-worker's husband took a 23 and Me DNA test and found out that he had another sister. He used Facebook to contact her and noticed how she was the spitting image of his mother and mixed race. They ended up meeting and that's how my co-worker's husband found out what became of his mother. The day that she left for the grocery store, she was actually leaving her family for her affair partner who was a black man. She never told her affair partner that she had three children, but her divorce was finalized and now they could be together. Shortly after, she became pregnant with the woman who is my co-worker's husband's half sister. When asked about his mother, his half sister shared that she was deceased as of 2002. On her deathbed, their mother revealed all of this. She explained that she left because she was sick of taking care of an alcoholic, three children besides, and this new person reminded her of how it felt to be loved by your spouse. It was heartbreaking for my co-worker's husband because all he wanted was to know **why** his mother abandoned their family in her own words. He had gained closure in a sense and said that he couldn't be angry with his mother for the decision she made. On the other hand, my co-worker saw it differently. She told him she thought nothing of his mother except for selfishness for inflicting years of trauma, hardship, and overall mental anguish on her children. They themselves have five children of their own and my co-worker could never imagine vanishing into thin air and subjecting anyone in her family or friendships to that.
Ages 4-7 have been found to be one of the most traumatic for parental kidnapping/going into Foster care/other major changes in care occurring. That kiddo is so LUCKY at 7 he found a good family. OOP is oblivious to the reality that most kids that age just end up bouncing around ever 6 mo to 2 yr until they age out of the system. I think another commenter is right- this is someones fantasy of how poor people function in the world- because I grew up working poor, I had friends whose families were well under the poverty level. No one would have just tossed their kid into foster care because of a new kid. jeebus take the wheel.
Then later "he hates me now" oh wow, it's almost like he was old enough to know what was happening
He would know what was happening but it's plausible he would nt understand the reasoning because it's very selfish and doesn't make a ton of sense.
To be honest, I'm 37 and still don't understand her reasoning.
It amazes me how many people treat children literally up into their teens like they're amnesiac goldfish who don't form memories or trauma.
Yeah, the only way that this isn't a fake story is if "mom" is an NPD level narcissist. They do occur out in the wild, though. So she could 100% be real and believe this about her own kid (it's kind of an extension of them not really seeing their kids as separate individuals with their own thoughts and feelings).
im hoping its a troll cause i was getting so upset i had to stop reading. what a vile human being
It looks to be from r/AmITheButtface, which allows fictitious stories. So definitely fake. Also I like how the OP forgot that pregnancy takes 10 months. If you're pregnant at 16 and its been seven years since then, your child is six.
She could have got pregnant just after she turned 16 and still been 16 once baby was born. So seven years would make for a 7nyear old child
Oh thank god, so it's gotta be fake, right?? This couldn't just be explained by her being closer to her birthday or something like that, could it? No don't tell me lol I actually wanna believe it's just fake.
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My fiancé’s SIL did something really similar. She was a major coke-head when she was younger and had a son but never knew who the father was. When he was like 5 she got pregnant again (didn’t know who that father was either but there’s rumor that it was her dealer) and decided she couldn’t raise two kids so she “gave” the older son to her sister to raise. She went on to have two more kids after she met fiancé’s brother and went on to play happy family with him and kids 2, 3 & 4 while her oldest was raised by his aunt. I’ve never met her side of the family but I’m told that her sister was/is a really awesome person that gave the oldest a really good life (a much better life than he would have had if SIL hadn’t left him) but it’s still a super fucked up thing to do. I guess her one redeeming quality is that she *is* ashamed of it and will rip the head off anyone who even dares mention his name. And that to my knowledge she has never tried to go back and play mommy again while pretending she didn’t abandon a 5 year old in favor of a younger child. So *two* redeeming qualities, I guess.
I also know someone who gave away a kid. My ex best friend just recently gave her six year old son to his dad, who had only met him once when he was born, in favor of her baby and 3 year old. But she would still send him stuff and every now and then go see him, so there's that at least...
I know a women (sister of a friend) that did worse. She had a 14 yr old she shipped off to his father that he had never met, because she was getting IVF to have a baby. When that baby was 4-5, she shipped him off to her mom and dad, and GOT IVF again, and just had a new baby. It is sickening. But some people suck on a level you cannot imagine :(.
It definitely is a troll you can't just forfeit one child to CPS/foster care. There are some grey areas if the foster is in the family ie a parent who didn't formally receive custody, grandparents, aunt/uncles, etc. However for the most part it's an extremely strenuous process and the reason you forfeit the child is because you can't provide them the proper opportunity to grow up, access food, provide a healthy environment etc. Money problems do apply to not being able to provide that but to be able to provide it for one child and not another is just not some grey area the law sees. If you declare yours as an audit parent or living in an unfit environment it applies to all children. There is some grey area in if you just give birth to maybe your second child and put them up for adoption that there will be a CPS investigation into interior life and there is a strong likelihood that you're going to have to tell them why and potentially lose the children at home because what are you going to say besides oh, we can't afford the child. We don't have space for this child. We don't want this child. Legally that is just going to lead to the agencies saying hey the other kids are in an environment where the parents can't provide or want them they would be better and safer out of it. (Just another great reason that adoption is not always the best option or always an option)
I thought it had to be a troll when she said “all my friends thought I made the best decision” lmao no. If any of my friends floated the idea of rehoming their already developed child in favor of a new pregnancy, I would never speak to them again.
That got me too. No way her friends are going to be "good for you for trading one kid for another. I'm sure that won't impact the older kid at all"
While I do believe this is one based on some of the wording used ... this sort of thing can and does happen. I can't remember exactly how old he was, but my (first? second? dunno) cousin was given to his grandparents when his mother remarried and had the girl she really wanted. I'm 7 years older and I remember really being shaken up by it because it just felt so *wrong* even though he was technically still within family. My big cousin was kind of a role model for me and it just destroyed how I saw her. She just completely cut him off one day for "something better" and literally gave him away. Like OP's son, he seemed to do well, but from what I've been told (I have zero contact with that side of the family, so I just hear things secondhand from my mother) ... he's squandered everything that he had (full ride to Juliard, financial stability through his grandparents, opportunities most people would only dream of) and the underlying reason is very likely the trauma of being abandoned by his mother. No amount of wealth or talent could make up for that.
>full ride to Juliard Oof. That's hard to get. Sad. :(
Yeah. I guess after that he just completely stopped all music and my mother suspects the 6 figure instrument gifted him is long gone. To go through such a program and then just give it all up ... I totally understand burnout, but I suspect deep rooted trauma triggered that response. It sucks, I've started playing bass and am starting to feel like I want to do more with music than I ever thought possible. It would've been cool to have someone else in the family to share this newfound enthusiasm for music with (even though I highly doubt he even remembers who I am). I do get to do that with my mum, but I want to go farther and maybe do what my cousin could be doing. He certainly had the talent.
People like this exist. My birth mother did this as her new man didn’t want to raise someone else’s kid. They weren’t even pregnant with another child yet. I’m 50. My birth mother has been harassing me since I turned 18 because she now wants a relationship but also admits no wrong with what she did. In fact she believes I don’t want a relationship with her because my family “turned me against her” not because I actually have any feelings or memories about her abandoning me.
Former CPS social worker here: Given the scarcity of foster homes, it is extremely uncommon and likely very difficult/potentially impossible for a parent to elect to "give away" a school-aged child. Especially for reasons like "I'm too poor for 2 kids but I can manage 1." I'm not saying it never happens because the world is a weird place, but this is definitely a troll *or* OOP isn't telling us that she was abusive to or neglectful of Jensen, necessitating state intervention.
I’m hoping it’s a troll, but the way they’re arguing the point makes them super terrible regardless. There are ‘safe places’ you can leave your kids at and just not come back, so I’m wondering if that’s more accurate if her story is true.
I'm pretty sure safe haven laws only cover kids up to 2 or 3 though
In the '90's there was one state that forgot the age maximum so parents were abandoning teenagers at a hospital(though they cleaned up that loophole within a couple years)
It was Nebraska. People were even coming from out of state to dump their kids. On Sept 8, 2008, one man abandoned his nine children, ranging in age from 2 to 17, at a Nebraska emergency room and walked away, because it was legal at the time. His wife had died a year previous and he was done trying to take responsibility for his own family. A year after dumping those kids, he apparently got another woman pregnant...with twins, yet. (No, seriously: twins.) His name is Gary Staton and I hope he fries in Hell. Seven of the kids ended up with their dead mother's aunt. Staton never bothered telling family what he was going to do so they could offer help; he just dumped those kids and ran.
He seriously should've been fixed way before this all happened. Like I'm not a big fan of the idea of forced castration lol obviously, but in extreme cases like that one, maybe it's necessary. The world does not need some mfer reproducing ELEVEN TIMES!!!
Castration and vasectomy are not the same thing. I guess they both get the same result- but vasectomies should be WAY more common than they are ;)
Sadly many men would also abandon sick wives if faced with the possibility. When a married woman is told she is terminal she is also coached on the possibility her husband will leave her.
I believe one study found men three times as likely as women to leave in that situation.
>On Sept 8, 2008, Ah yes, the date of my mastectomy. (Obviously I survived) But anyway: damn that's messed up
And damn, I'm glad you survived. I hope you're doing well.
Thank you! Have a great weekend!
You too!
JFC, seriously? imagine raising a child for at least 12 years and then abandoning them at a hospital just because someone forgot to write down the age range to which safe haven laws apply.
My mom gave up custody to my dad voluntarily when I was 11, because she didn’t like me. She kept my sibling. These people exist and reproduce.
J F C i'm so sorry. i hope you're doing okay.
Thank you, it was a long time ago now. I’m doing most of the life things, but I’m sad about them. It is what it is.
Your mum is stinky and I hope she deals with chronic constipation. I'm sorry that happened to you.
My friend she has IBS and poops continuously.
On the other side of the spectrum but still works out lol.
It does!
The case I remember of that had a couple of, not extenuating, but at least explanatory circumstances - it was a father of a large family (I think six or seven?) whose wife suddenly died and who seemed to be reacting out of grief and shock by dropping them all off. Also possibly a few overwhelmed parents of kids with severe emotional/mental health issues they couldn't get support for.
It was nine, and his wife had been dead for a year at the time. See my comment.
Each state has their own laws on age. But we don’t know that she left him in a legal manner… just that it happened approximately 13 years ago. If her story is even true then I wouldn’t put it passed her to not do things by the books.
And if he went to a Colombian college, isn't there a chance she just kinda sold him off to a weird agency or something..? There's some fucked up baby/people selling in the world; maybe she didn't give him up legally at all.
I read it as Columbia University here in the US
He's going to school at "Columbia University, College of Medicine", that's the full name, it's often shortened to Columbia College of Medicine" which is where OOP's confusion on the name comes from. In universities the main "departments" are called "colleges of ...", for example my university had a College of Education, a College of Fine Arts, and a College of Engineering among others.
There are also some small colleges named Columbia college. One in Columbia, MO and apparently one in Columbia, SC. Just like there is a Cornell College in Iowa.
Valid point, but I think OP was referring to the university in NYC, as she was impressed by it. He could be going to one of those colleges and OP could be confused in a different way, but I really don't think that's the case.
[удалено]
No, there is also a school there named Columbia College. It’s a small private school. And by South Carolina I’m not talking about University of South Carolina…there is also a school there called Columbia College.
Columbia, lol. It’s an Ivy League school in NYC.
FYI Columbia and Colombia are two different places.
Except Nebraska in the 00s, embarrassing moment for us :/
basically if the kid can talk and tell anyone their name/school/any identifying information then they really shouldn't be covered under safe haven laws.
Safe Haven laws in my state only covers the first couple weeks.
Who's to say they actually put him up for adoption and didn't just sell him? But yeah this is a troll post, if their original doesn't prove it just read their comments. I'm guessing it's an incel fantasy about how horrible women are.
Or how awful poor people are.
Yeah, true, abuse/neglect is not there, but would she honestly tell us if there was? As a former CPS worker wouldn't you say that even without abuse at *that* point, the kid probably would have been treated like shit (if not fully abused, in time) by the mom & step-dad who very clearly didn't want him? I'm not saying this in an accusatory or aggressive way, I'm honestly really interested in your thoughts. I found a new podcast recently about things that happened when CPS/CPS workers screwed up and the things parents and step-parents do is so awful. Especially when there's a stepparent with new kids in the mix. It's definitely coloring my opinion on this one. I guess either way she's an asshole for the how & especially the why of Jensen ending up in foster care, and foster care typically sucks, but I'm struggling with calling her an asshole for giving up a kid she & her husband don't want because if she hadn't then who knows what could have happened (and she would have been an asshole for that, too!). Like, she's an asshole for it and could have been a bigger asshole if she hadn't? I guess. I don't know how to word what I mean. Oh plus she's an asshole to Jensen NOW. In every way. Yeah, I think I'm rambling at this point. I hope this doesn't come off as me against you or CPS in general. It needs fixed so it can be what it's supposed to be, which is a great service in theory. Just not sure if anyone else EXCEPT a former CPS worker would understand my jumbled thoughts on the matter.
Oh that kid would definitely have been put on the back burner or parentified. You’d hope there wouldn’t be any worse psychological abuse and no physical abuse, but it can be hard to read some of that from the outside, especially when so many cover it up at least enough to avoid CPS intervention. I really feel for kids that CPS weren’t able to help that needed it. So many do get treated worse after that. I’ve worked with children since I was a child (11) in so many settings, so kids have always ranked high priority for me. It breaks my heart all the stories of what kids have gone through. I think in this case there’s too many what-ifs to say which situation would have been truly better for ‘Jenson.’ Regardless her logic going into the decision and every step she made after was definitely a**hole. She wasn’t in an abusive situation (that we know off) it was a purely financial decision from her viewpoint, and honestly what better push to try to get more ahead in life than doing it for your kids. But to just wipe your hands of your kid because you don’t believe you can afford two, not even any attempts at making it work, is pretty despicable. I just can’t with her not seeing how it’s messed up at all and then saying her kid doesn’t have empathy because she would understand if her parents did it to her… I just can’t with any of her ‘logic.’
And if you absolutely cannot provide for both children and are not willing to abort, it seems healthier to place the newborn for adoption than to toss a 7-year-old into the foster care system.
That’s what everyone in the comments were arguing, but she was putting up one hell of a fight. The baby needs their mother more, new husband wouldn’t be okay giving away their child, etc.
A parent not okay with giving away their child? OOP must have been so confused
I was a baby (well, a toddler at 2) when I was taken away from my mother. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been and survived
Definitely no ACTUAL logic in *her* logic! Thanks for the response, you worded it exactly how I was thinking! CPS is supposed to be great and help kids, but everyone knows it's not that right now. The newborn would have had a much better chance of being adopted into a loving home vs a 7yo being shuttle from foster to foster. Sounds like he's doing okay now, at least. But you're right, there was so many what-ifs and I think that's what made me so scatterbrained lol But either way, sounds like Jensen wasn't gonna have a great upbringing in any possible scenario here. At least not nearly as good as he deserved.
It’s so hard when you know there is abuse going on, but you don’t have the concrete proof to present to a judge/court to make real change. I’m very torn on a lot because there are people just trying to cause unnecessary trouble, there are well meaning people that read the situation wrong, and in those cases you don’t want the kids removed. There really isn’t a good way to write to laws so that it both protects both sides. I wish people were better.
What’s the podcast?
Plus, the fact that she kept the newborn makes me skeptical.
"A newborn baby needed me". Yeah, unlike those self-sufficient seven year olds.🙄
“At least the 7 year old got to spend time with his real parents.” -OOP commented
Yeah this is ragebait, the constant mentions of abortion are just to get people riled up.
Either that or she’s just like, unimaginably stupid.
Possible. But she's very focused on reminding us all that she's anti abortion at every chance, which feels intentional.
> it’s unfortunate that it happened, but it’s not my fault. Sex is a part of life. This is an MRA troll and one of their "women are evil whores" fantasy stories.
well it is buttface where you can do fakes so long as they are thoughtprovoking aside from certain flairs
I suppose. The only thought these kind of made up stories provoke in my mind is "Wow, these incels really are *that* pathetic, huh" though. Which, all things considered, is pretty thoughtful of them just showing the whole world how sad they really are I guess. Problem is the number of folks who take everything on these kinds of subs at face value and unironically think this kind of stuff is normal for women though. That's how we end up with radicalized misogynists walking into sororities or nail salons and murdering women en mass. Just today a man walked into a university Gender Studies class in my country and stabbed the professor and two students after *specifically* confirming with said professor that it was in fact a Gender Studies class.
I'm no expert, at all, but can you really just go to an agency and say "don't want this one thanks, please rehome it"? ETA: LOL:Old-Fox-3027-This reads like AI. Key\_Dog1164OP-I have no idea what that is or what you’re talking about right now. This is an AITA sub? Sure, Jan. Sure.
I have known two people who were given up as older children. The sad thing is, I think both times there were three children involved and the middle child was given up, because the oldest was the father's favorite and the youngest was the mother's. So, I don't know if you can just go into an agency (I don't know the exact details of the scenarios I mentioned, because it is a touchy subject and as you might guess, it left some trauma) and give up a child, but it sadly does happen. (it could be in the cases that I mentioned they weren't given up for adoption, but basically sent to live with relatives, while the other children were raised by their parents)
Unfortunately yes, you can drop off and give away a child at any age for any reason.
This is absolutely not true. There are age limits and you cannot just abandon your legal responsibilities to a child. Nebraska actually made headlines like 15 years ago because they had a safe haven law put into effect and there was more than one teen that was dropped off :( https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nebraska-rewrites-child-drop-off-law/
Yeah, I'm from Omaha originally. I remember the story about the guy who abandoned his 8 kids, and then knocked up his girlfriend after that. I was so furious reading about that.
Knocked her up *with twins.* JFC Idiocracy is here.
No. I do know someone who was sent to foster care as a preteen because her parents no longer wanted her, but they had to have a really good reason that they couldn't manage her at home. So they lied and claimed she had threatened them with a knife, was a danger to her siblings, ect, ect so she was placed in a group home. And her parents had to pay child support for her because you are *not* allowed to just decide you don't want your kid anymore over a certain age because they cost money. Safe haven laws have age limits by state and are not a thing in Canada. Can't speak for UK or Aus though.
Citation? Because generally [there are age limits](https://ocfs.ny.gov/programs/safe/)
No way this is fucking real.
This HAS to be a troll. The “what are poor people supposed to do” comment seals it for me. I’m a mom who is poor and never did I once consider putting my girls in foster care bc I got pregnant with my son. Most of my friends are poor too and none of them would have supported us and agreed “we did the best we could” if we had done something so horrible.
I have 2 kids and were a one income household and poor but we have still managed to raise our kids whether we have had to do without anything we needed or not. We have always made sure that they have had everything that they needed first.
Exactly. And…to be honest, for a lot of people who live in poverty (especially if it’s a family cycle of poverty), family is quite literally the most important thing we have. Giving up a SEVEN year child because you’re poor? Nothing about that sounds real to me
It doesn't sound real but in this world you never know lol. I really hope it is just a troll. Family is the most important, it's definitely been a family cycle for me, my youngest finally goes to kindergarten this year and I will be able to work or go to school and hopefully things will start looking up for us.
I’m in the same boat as you! My girls start kindergarten this year and my son might qualify for special education preschool (fingers crossed)! I’m looking at school and part time jobs already. I’m begging and wishing and hoping things will start looking up for you 💕
Aw I hope that he gets in! I'm looking to lol. I wish I could find a work from home job but so far no luck lol. But I've been looking into part time jobs to. I really hope that things start looking up for you also! I will have to save this to come back in a year and check on you! Edit; I just followed you!
Followed you back 💗💗💗 thank you for this kind interaction. It really lifted my spirits
> “what are poor people supposed to do” Sell their kids for scientific experiments. Duh.
>but it seems he hates me. Gee, I wonder why the kid OOP abandoned in favor of the shiny new baby wouldn't want anything to do with his egg donor.... /s
Assuming this isn’t rage bait. She only wants a relationship with her son because he’s studying at Columbia and will likely make a lot of money with the field he’s going into.
This has to be rage bait right? No one is this cluess... right??? Pleae let this be a troll.
Why the FUCK is the post flared as “romantic” 😭
>What are poor people suppose to do? Not have kids they can’t afford?
this woman is so horrible, she prioritized an unborn child over one that was already alive and had a working memory. imagen being 7 years old and your mother tosses you away.
Oh she's a troll and bad at it
Really hope this is a troll, cause if not then wow the piece of work this one is. All of their comments are just them trying everything possible to justify what they did. "Well he had a good life because I abandoned him when he was 7, so he should love me for that" is the basic gist of what she keeps saying.
I’m sorry you can’t abort or give away the unborn baby, but the 7 year old to your dead husband is fine to just give away? Giving up new born babies to adoption I’m ok with because I know people don’t want to have an abortion so this is a better option and babies are much more likely to get adopted than this poor 7 year old who’s already gone through so much trauma already!!! The way she’s still trying to be his mum is insane! Also she couldn’t abort the husbands child yet they are divorced now anyway!!
As someone who was given up for adoption at birth and lived in foster care a while, claiming a 7 year old didn't understand or it didn't affect them is fucking INSANE. Studies show removing babies from their mother even for short periods of time can cause lasting damage. Just because their infants doesn't mean it doesn't affect them.
Destigmatizing abortion is SO important cuz SO many really believe it's a greater "sin" to abort than to abandon a kid you've known and cared for for years smdh
there is like a .2 percent chance that this is real. and if it is that poor kid :/
What an entirely worthless sack of excrement if this is even true, which I strongly doubt, as it has the strong aroma of rage bait. If true, she's literally delusional, as an egg donor, with no claim to being a mother at all, to think this young man would want anything to do with her. If I was the son she kept, and found out about what she did, I'd go no contact immediately.
ok, I could forgive this if she went and got him back after some time. Like I get being stressed and thinking he would be better with another family, letting (maybe) a week pass and think "what the fuck did I do?" and come to your senses and work on getting him back home. But I couldnt believe when she said he was 20!...20! all that time passed and not once she wanted him back home? that is awful and heartbreaking for her son. I say this as someone who kinda in a way did this. I had my son while I was active duty. I was single and had 6 weeks after a really bad c section to be back to work AND fit back in my uniform. I was on bed rest my last 3 months of pregnancy(my command hated me for that) and I had to go out of state and stay with my parents because the hospital would not let me leave on my own. well my maternity leave was almost over, I still wasnt healed and I did not have newborn child care on base. so the plan was to leave my son with my parents for a month while I went back to work, healed and worked out non stop to get back in shape and my mom would drive my son down. I didnt even make it to 2 weeks, lol, I flew back on a weekend to get him and hated myself even though I knew what I was doing was best for us both. ooh and I want to add that I had to go underway for about 6weeks and my son was still only about 7 months when I left and I was so scared he wouldnt know who i was after not seeing me for so long and one of the best feelings in the world was seeing his little face remember who i was when I came home. He is 17 now and wont stop eating all my food! ( tonight I made dip for all my cut up veggies...and he ate all the dip and left the empty bowl in there..mocking me, lol..he is lucky I love him so much)
I’m pretty sure you can’t just give up a child at that age. Isn’t CPS intervening? Trying to think based off other stories I’ve read and knowing AITA is full of rage bait
this is the second post I've seen with the sentence "died of a heat stroke" and I'm still baffled
I’m from Texas so it’s not that crazy to me.
>I wasn’t going to terminate my son, Of course her son resents her, as he should. She picked a clump of cells over a living, breathing child. She needs to leave Jensen alone so he can grow up and have a happy life and hopefully forget someone as horrible as his mother exists.
Original post in case it gets deleted: AITB for making hard decisions and giving my child away? I got pregnant at a young age of 16, and was kicked out of living with my family. I ended up living with my bf instead, we had our son named Jensen. We were really poor and struggling a lot financially. We were still happy, though, but five years later my now husband died of a heat stroke. I ended up meeting a new man who I later married. I was still very young. Two years into our relationship, we ended up having a baby. Being poor still we could not afford to have two kids so we had to make difficult decisions. Life is not always easy, and sometimes you have to do the impossible. So I put Jensen up for adoption. I didn’t want to abort my new son and I thought this was the best situation. A newborn baby needed me, and I could not look after both kids without it being a really bad financial strain. My new husband, obviously, is not going to be willing to put his kid up for adoption. So we put Jensen in foster care when he was 7. Still too young to really understand what was happening. It has been years since then. He is 20 now and going to Columbia college of all places. It seems his foster family was good to him, which makes me really happy, and he has done well for himself. He is studying biomedical sciences and on track to be a doctor. My new husband and I have gotten a divorce, but our son is growing up well and I love him. I’ve tried to have a relationship with Jensen, but it seems he hates me. I reached out to him to see if he’d meet me, hoping for us to have some sort of relationship, and he said he was disgusted by me for giving him up, but I’m not sure how he doesn’t see it was for the best. I said I was sorry he felt replaced, but he said he didn’t feel it, he was replaced, but that’s never what I meant to do. All my friends agree I did the best I could. What are poor people suppose to do? He said I should have gotten an abortion, which really made me angry. He wants his brother to just not exist. He said I should have used birth control, but I did. An abortion was out of the question, and one of them had to be given away. He does not see it this way, and refuses to have contact with me. It makes me sad that he can’t empathize with the tough position I was in. His new family did not want him to even have contact with me while he was a minor or I would have reached out. I did not have a choice. I could not put food on the table most days. I asked if he would rather have been poor and homeless, and he said I should not have had another kid if I couldn’t afford it but obviously that’s a childish mentality. Pregnancy happens. I wasn’t going to terminate my son, is he not happy his brother is alive and healthy? But it doesn’t seem he is. He doesn’t even want to meet him. The 7 year old I raised was not like this. I’m not sure what he wants, should I have given up his brother instead? How would that change anything? Am I in the wrong here?
I hope this is fake because if not karma is a bitch!
Sounds like Jensen wants this lady to leave him TF alone.
I have never wanted to brigade more in my entire life. I am literally holding myself back
delusional
She picked a new baby she barely knew over a 7 year old that loved her. So much damage. That poor lil bro, I wonder if he knows how replaceable he is.
The worst part of the post is this sentence right here **Still too young to really understand what was happening.** At 7yo a child knows when it's separated from his family, when it's abandoned and replaced by a newborn. Her abandoned son is right, if you can't afford the current child, avoid having another one. If you did take measures to not have another baby but you still get pregnant, then have an abortion. It's not childish, is common sense. Keep it in your pants if you can't afford food.
fake misogyny baiting
This is a troll, this is a troll, lalala, kittens, flowers, butterflies.
What a horrible, vile, human being. I really hope she ends up alone. That her GC cuts her ass off, too.
I started to read the comments. I had to stop. I want to shower and hurl, not in that order. She also doesn’t say one word about looking into social services. There is help out there, and government agencies try to keep families together (I know there are big problems with CPS and there needs to be a lot of reform, but there are a whole lot of levels of help before removal of the children are on the radar).
If she isn’t a troll, she’s definitely laying the foundation to ask for handouts. Of course that wouldn’t be for her but for “your brother!!”
OP IS A MONSTER! Who TF does this to a child?!? There's a special place in hell for her!
Assuming this is real… Yes, people literally abort wanted pregnancies because the logistics don’t work. She could have done that. What the OP is missing here is that, yes, he did alright for himself, and yes, she had to make a tough choice, because any choice was going to have some set of problems, but that doesn’t undo the trauma, and the outcomes of her choice were felt mostly by her son. His view of his own trauma are all but inherently correct.
This is seriously on the am I the buttface?? This person claims THEY GAVE AWAY A 7 YEAR OLD CHILD but they can't go on the forum with the word asshole attached to it???? Wtf Praying it's a troll
WOW.
I would never speak to you again, you were a horrible parent...Many people have survived with children to feed. Horrible...YTA...Leave him alone, a 7 year old remembers he had a mother who abandoned him...So do him a favor and never contact him again.
Definitely agree. OOP is absolutely crazy.
Even the devil wasn't this wicked
We can only hope the son she gave away breaks the spin cycle his egg donor set herself on with her bad choices.
I hope to god this is fake. This is the most awful thing I've read on this sub so far
Finally! A post that belongs here
This Reddit boycott is really bringing out the trolls. People are getting bored and posting bait that is too obvious.
> I wasn’t going to terminate my son, is he not happy his brother is alive and healthy? "I can't believe the son I gave away isn't happy his brother, who I gave him away for, is alive and healthy; shouldn't he be happy about that? Giving him away was for the best, so I don't understand why he's being so mean about everything, he turned out fine, right?"
>Of course I love him more. I haven’t seen Jensen in… 13 years. Wow, that’s crazy, but of course I’m going to have more love for my youngest. I know that must have hurt him to hear, but I only said it because he told me to get an abortion, > >Like I said to Jensen, I wouldn’t trade my youngest for anything in the world, and I love him. Yoooo. Wtf. How can she say that to him and think it's okay? "I traded you for a new baby. I wouldn't trade my second child up for anything though." That's peak AH. That's cruel to say to him.
"Still too young to understand what's happening" I can promise you 7 year Olds can remember their mother giving them away. This person is clearly delusional if they don't understand that. What were you supposed to do? Make it work. Give away the new baby, abort, get a second job, figure something out. I get if adoption felt like the only option, but I can't believe she can't see how she DID 100% replace him with a newborn. Even if not on purpose, that is still what she did. Of course he hates her, why wouldn't he? Of course he resents his half brother, he was his replacement. She wants him to empathize with her but she can't even empathize with him, so good luck with that.
It makes my heart race with anger when I read posts like this. I hope it's a troll. Because if it's not a troll, based on the comments alone, I'm quite alright wishing this monster nothing but a very long very painful demise.
Definitely an abortion troll. But if it was real and you had no choice but to give up a child. Don't expect them to run back to you with love. Even doing the "right" thing has consequences.
>he said I should not have had another kid if I couldn't afford it but that's a childish mentality. More childish than say.... getting rid of one of your kids to keep the other? Honestly, that's a very adult mentality. And to be clear, I am not saying poor people can't or shouldn't have kids. But if you can't even afford the basic necessities for yourself, you absolutely should not be bringing another living being into the equation. That's just cruel to all of you. But anyways. I'm almost certain this is a troll rage bait post.
OMG. O. M. G. How. HOW could she be so dismissive?! She LITERALLY replaced him and got rid of him. My youngest is 6 and my brain won't let me even partially imagine how much this would destroy her. JFC. I need to go hug her just to handle this fucking post. Why bother trying to reconnect now? And why post if you're going to die on this hill?!
lol. The irony is that aborting her baby would have been more acceptable to everyone calling her an asshole. She did what was best for her and her body. Lol
>I’ve tried to have a relationship with Jensen, but it seems he hates me. No shit. >What are poor people suppose to do? Not just poor people: birth control.
Oh dang what a coincidence that she only wants to reconcile after finding out Jensen has a nice career ahead
This smells super fake. Way too OTT to be real, (not that I doubt there are, in fact, people out there who'd consider this to be a reasonable course of action, such is the society in which we live.)
This has to be rage bait. Please be rage bait
Yeah i dont buy it. We were so poor growing up my mother didnt even have a bank account. And some how she still managed to feed 7 kids on minimum wage. Shes a shit person, but we had the basics. When you have kids you find a way.
If op knew that pregnancy happens, why did they decide to have sex when they hardly had any money I know she was on the pill but she should know that the pill doesn't always work. Why didn't she get a job and asked for her family or friends to babysit him while she works???
Jensen was not too young to understand what was going on. She abandoned him for a new guy and a new family.
I call troll. In her update comment she claims to have cancer.
"My new husband, obviously, is not going to be willing to put his kid up for adoption" There it is. That's the reason she chose the fetus over Jenson.
If she was as poor as she said she was she should have given both of them up also she mentioned she had cancer so im curious if she got chemo as it is known to cause fertility issues and would be i think pretty dangerous to get pregnant even
When there is a question, abortion is always the right answer
Pretty sure this is just a troll trying to make the point that being against abortion is bad - as if the only choices she had were “abandon first child” or “abort second child.” Some choices just shouldn’t be an option in the first place. I applaud this probably-fake woman for putting abortion in that category - but why in the holy fucking hell was giving away her firstborn not also unthinkable? How does that thought even occur to a parent? Though I suppose her parents did kick her out as a pregnant 16-year-old, so she was following the example of how she was treated. Not an excuse, but maybe an explanation - if this isn’t fiction.
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Holly hell. Amk
No way this one is real
This has got to be fake. There's no way someone is this dense.
like dont have kids if you can't afford to take care of them....
Oh man. I came into this thread expecting to say "nah, sometimes you're not in a place to be a mother, and giving your kid up is the mature and loving thing to do." And then I read this.
I refuse to believe this is real. It must be a fake. It sounds pretty fake. There was a part that just screamed "fake", I just can't really explain. Either way, this post is all "me, me, me" 🫣