She did not “give him back” to the orphanage. She arranged for a re-adoption. She gae up her parental rights and allowed another family to adopt him. I am so glad she let him be adopted by another family. HI slife will be so much better with parents who can get him the care he needs and give him more of their time. This lady had her hands full with 5 kids already and a husband away for longs periods in the military. Her adoption agency should be called out for this. The social worker should never have approved her for this adoption. This woman did not have the time or resrouces or support to properly work with this special needs child. No children are not sweaters but giving up parental rights was the right thing to do here. I just read a case in Georgia where the mother was convicted of almost starving her twin 13 month old biological sons to death. They were so malnourished their brains had shrunk. She said she was so messed up on drugs she went without feeding them for days at a time. She said she did not want to give them up because they were hers. So in that case she did think of her kids as property and when she got tired of them she tried to let them starve to death. Kudos to this adoptive mom for being honest with herself that she could not keep this child. Too bad more people are nto honest and bend to public opinion that once you accept a child you are stuck with the forever.

“Why would she open this very private and sad story?”

Because it got her an appearance on the Today show and has gotten visits to her blog and she probably will have a book deal by the end of the month. I am glad she gave the baby to people who are capable of loving him, but I the way she constantly implies that it was some flaw in him, and not a flaw in herself to be unattractive. I won’t be surprised if she has a reality tv show showing how she manages to raise her girls with her husband. What’s a little vilification on the internets when compared with the opportunity of becoming the next Kate?

Pick up my new book: “What Can Brown Do For You? (get you a book deal, that’s what! chaCHING!)

I totally agree with Alison.

“But Tadaldi won’t disclose specifics and she’s got a right to her privacy.” This is ridiculous. She writes a blog with details about her family, and then she goes on the Today show to talk about giving up her child. (And yes, when you adopt a child, it is still your child.) Then she has a right to privacy because she wants to leave out certain details. (Probably those details that don’t make her look so good.)

And I find it completely disgusting that she is putting blame on the child for not bonding with her. Thank goodness this child has finally found a family that will love him.

Comments Interesting that she stated, “We had expected his indifference toward my husband, who was deployed for most of this time, but our son should have been closer to his sisters and especially to me, his primary caretaker.”. Refers to herself as his “caretaker”, not as his mother. Did she really think that a young child who was severely neglected and who had “perhaps never known positive human contact” would be able to easily bond with anyone? The type of neglect this child experienced may effect his ability to bond well into adulthood. Sounds as if this child simply did not meet her expectations…like a toy that doesn’t do what it is supposed to do. I wonder if she expects her biological children to always meet her expectations? If so, I feel sorry for them. I hope this baby’s new family will adapt to his needs/expectations and cherish him for being the perfectly imperfect little person that he is.

poor kid…and exactly what message does it send to this woman’s bio daughters?

NC Working Mom,

You can argue the semantic all you want. The fact remains she returned the child. Granted under good circumstances (another family in the wings) but the core of this story really isn’t about giving the kid back, it’s about her inherent disinterest in connecting to the child in the first place and then blaming it on the kid. Did she do the right thing by passing him along to another family? Yes, and I said so in this article. But was it a mistake to try and adopt in the first place? In this case yes. I will admit, we bloggers write furiously to get this stuff out there in a timely manner and the posts therefore don’t get the rigorous thoughtfulness of a magazine article. However; you mistake blogging for journalism. I am required to be impartial and furthermore you might be mistaking a lack of sympathy for this woman as bad writing.

Comments All of you who are criticizing have NO IDEA how hard some of these “institutionalize” children are! Have YOU adopted any of them? Do YOU know what she and many others are going through??? we/they are trying their best to give them a better life? Showing them love, concern, caring for and teaching them…and what they give back are their rebellious attitudes, disrespect for others, the hitting, kicking, finding knives or any other object to hurt you or your other children? putting constant fear in those around them? What would YOU do with a child like that???..Do YOU know the heart ache and hurt and damage they do to a family? YOU have NO idea!!!! If you want to criticize, then you really need to be in HER shoes! Adopt a child with RAD or some other problem and see how well you do!!! No body has room to judge ANYBODY!!! Judge NOT, that ye be not judged!!!

Comments
Adoptions fail. When they do it inflicts harm on children who are often already have obstacles to overcome. I’m not inclined to criticise Anita for terminating the adoption even though I find it hard to understand.

I am however struggling with her decision to bring so much publicity in to this. Did she consider the little boy as a teenager reading what she and others have written about this situation? It’s clear that she had some consideration of the potential for public interest – reports make reference to conversations with her partner who did not want her to write about his issue.

And while I’m here, – Lisa Maez – There are lots of people whose job it is to pass judgement on others, like Judges and the social workers who approve people for adoption. Society does not expect them to have experienced all that they are called upon to consider when making their decisions. My point is lets just forget about “no one has a right to Judge” because it’s inaccurate.

Actually, yes, if your bio child is autistic, has Down’s syndrome, or even has absolutely nothing wrong with him at all, you can place him for adoption. People do it every day.