3-year-old returned to biological father
TOLEDO, OH (WAVE) - It was a heart wrenching day for a Southern Indiana family entangled in an adoption battle.
The Vaughn family has been fighting to keep a three-year-old boy they tried to adopt. On Saturday, they had to hand him over to his biological father, Benjamin Wyrembek.
Ed Vaughn, who considers Grayson his grandson, told WAVE 3, Christy and Jason Vaughn were in Ohio and turned Grayson over to Wyrembek.
Ed says it was traumatic for the Vaughn's to let go of Grayson who they've been raising since birth. Wyrembek, had an affair with Grayson's mother, who was married to someone else at the time. Wyrembek asked for a paternity test soon after the baby's birth, but the Vaughns' adoption was already in the works.
Wyrembek filed a lawsuit Friday against the Ohio adoption firm that handled the case...claiming negligence.
An Ohio Supreme Court ruled against the Vaughn's forcing them to hand Grayson over.
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As I read this story, I cannot help my mind from flashing back to the case of David Goldman of New Jersey.
The case involved a five-year international custody battle between the U.S. Congress and Brazil, where Goldman's wife, mother of the child in question, Bruna Bianchi, took the child to her native Brazil in 2004. There, she divorced Goldman and eventually married a Rio de Janeiro lawyer. After she died giving birth to a daughter in 2008, the abduction case started getting attention around the world.
Goldman traveled repeatedly to Brazil to visit his son. But he did not get to see the boy until U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, began accompanying him last year.
POINT is that the whole country was on the side of the natural father of this boy. Everyone rooted for HIM! They cheered when he finally got his son back! No one in this country had one ounce of sympathy for the Brazilian grandparents (though in Brazil it was quite the opposite). Here, there was unanimous agreement that the boy belonged with his father.
Why is any less clear cut when the word adoption enters the equation? If anything, it should be more clear. In a case like the Vaughns versus a natural father, you have non-related STRANGERS fighting a father for his child! There is no relationship or natural right as grandparents have.
So what is it about the word adoption that carries with it such strong judgmental overtones and negative stereotypes? Even in a case such as this where the father never agreed to any adoption - yet he was vilified - and the potential adopters adored by all!
As we enter into the month of November - the month of extreme adoration of adoption - we need to pres shard on all of our blogs and via letters to the editors of our local newspapers to demystify adoption. Speak truth to power!
Ed Vaughn may think of himself as Grayson's grandfather but he is no mor that child's relative than is any babysitter or neighbor. he has no biological or legal right and neither do any of the Vaughns. They were vultures from the start - in the delivery room - grabbing a child away while expecting their second natural child themselves. They knew from the tart that Benjamin was fighting to prove paternity and once porvcen sough the return of his son, yet they fought him tooth and nail. The held Grayson captive like kidnappers!
And the press played into their pleas for sympathy. See this video packed with LIES! Reporters incorrectly claim the Vaughns were trying to get a transition plan into effect! LIE! They refused the mediators suggestions for transition.
The media pushes all the buttons, tears...and saying "it's... every adoptive parets nightmare" when they are NOT adoptive parents! And did they say it 2 times or 3 that he is being taken from "the only family he has ever known"?
Does that matter when a child is kidnapped?
Yet, even Jason Vaughn admits that Ben was involved from day one!! I am just glad the Vaughns didn't make a medic spectacle of the hand overas others in there position have.
4 comments:
just because you share the same dna doesn't make you a "parent", let alone a "fit parent."
i certainly don't know the biological father nor enought about the case to root for or demonize him. however, one wonders why the petition for paternity was filed after the birth, and if he was so interested in being a father, did he not have 9 months to become involved? i know that it was a sticky situation due to the extramarital affair, so one wonders how much communication (if any) there was between him and the birthmother that kept him in the loop that a) she was pregnant, b) when the due date was, or c) that the baby might be his.
while it's seemingly easy to demonize him and look only at his criminal record and questionble morals (for the affair), as a parent myself, i cannot imagine what either side feeling the anguish and loss that they must feel. i hope that he truly does love his son and want to be a father - and always strive to be the best father he can be.
there are no winners here, most especially not Grayson.
I celebrate any child being returned to the legal and biological family - just as the whole nation celebrated the return of David Goldman's son or Jaycee any other kidnap victim being held ILLEGALLY by captors!
The fact that these people wanted to adopt the child does not make them any less criminal and immoral in their actions to violate court order after court order and keep a child from a father who loved him enough to fight for him for THREE YEARS!
I can only begin to imagine what Grayson is feeling now. I don't think for one minute that he's a happy child right now. this is nothing at all to celebrate!
You are right! Grayson is having a very hard time right now because the Vaughns kept him so long.
And let me ask you: Why is it no one is concerned about children being removed from the only family they've ever known when a family has children removed by social services because they are in poverty?
Why no tears shed for children like the one in the film Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy http://familypreservation.blogspot.com/2010/10/wo-ai-ni-i-love-you-mommy.html who was taken from her family at eight years of age, and from her language and culture.
Funny how when the taken from and to is "to adoption" it's all fine and dandy! The best interest of the child are assumed to be adoption and no thought given to all they lose.
I feel sorry for Grayson, this should never have happened. The vaughns should have let go as soon as ben appeared and proved paternity. I feel sorry for the Vaughns other children. They hurt all of them with their stubborn selfishness to keep a child from a caring parent. Shame on them. I am sorry for their other kids but glad they have to deal with that part of the mess THEY created!
And the Vaughns have Grayson in all their family photos...their kids can never forget as Grayson will.
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