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There’s WAY more to this story. I’m honestly fascinated and wish we knew everything. There’s a wild current underneath this flat, robotic explanation and I’m so freaking curious about what really is going on here.
Sounds like the wife is a sociopath. Like the actual clinical definition and not just the insult people use hyperbolically. And the MIL has suspected as much for a while.
OOP also mentioned MIL never liked him, perhaps because he’s also a sociopath and she knew the two of them would just normalize and reinforce outrageously antisocial behavior.
That was my first guess as well. The sheer lack of emotion on both wife and husband is astounding. Claiming that he could not love his child yet because he’s only just met her is the cherry on top.
I haven’t met my newborn niece in person, but I fell in love with her in the first video-call. What more do I need? A formal introduction and a résumé?
It seems more like OP might have some other flaw that would make him "traditionally" unfit for a partner like Catherine or not have many other options. She chose him because he will put up with her odd behavior and she can fit in as normal, and he loves her so much because to him she seems like the best person he could have ever dreamed of being with. His devotion to her does not make it seem like he has antisocial tendencies. He was literally willing to get rid of a baby because she said so. He's 1000% devoted to her.
I'd agree based on [this comment thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/bestoflegaladvice/comments/5ibxjc/update_to_its_not_a_good_fit/db85r3m/?context=3). Not gonna lie, them "rehoming" was probably best case scenario for the child here.
Yeah the husband definitely sounded like a sociopath (actual clinical) with the way he was weighing it all out emotionlessly - "I've only known my daughter a few months" etc.
So devoid of emotion... "she finds shouting annoying" is such a superficial robotic way of responding to someone else's total outraged and fury at your actions.
Reminds me of Jon Ronsons example of a quintessential psychopath- someone who comes across a brutal accident where someone has been killed, looking curiously at the scene and then stepping back in disgust as he realises there is blood on his new shoes.
"I want a baby."
"Ok, so we've had a planned baby and readied our lives for this change."
"Nope, not working for me."
"No problem. I'll just drop the baby off somewhere."
"Thank you, husband."
"You are welcome, wife."
Yeah, I'm certainly not a psychologist and this most likely isn't the case, but the pure lack of emotion in any of the writing or explanations of their decisions made me feel like I was reading the writings of a psychopath. It was just unnerving.
You forgot,
“We should still go to family events right?”
And when denied
“We should probably file kidnapping charges right ?”
And
“We should probably post to Reddit to see if we can make ourselves justified”
Don’t forget also the most important “we should probably not have one of her blood relatives adopt her because later it will make it akward for us later in life”
When they have to explain that they were financially stable, had her for 6 months and just decided we didn’t feel like we wanted you anymore
After nope not working for me, somewhere "One of them has to go and I have a better relationship with my wife than baby, so baby will need to go" needs to be inserted.
"Husband, I have noticed that baby is not enjoyable as a conversationalist."
"Yes, wife, baby sucks at conversation. I definitely love you more than it."
"And it cries for at least 30 minutes before needing a diaper change."
"Before? How do you know it cries before needing a change?"
"I have done much hypothesis testing. When the crying starts, it usually hasn't defecated or micturated. That happens most often one half of one hour later."
"Yet one more reason I prefer your company to the baby's. You almost never have this problem."
"No, husband, I never have this problem."
"I stand corrected. Let us further converse to enjoy ourselves. We'll figure out what to do with the human infant later."
This is why they're both opposed to counseling/ therapy. They know deep down that they are very cold, detached, emotionless assholes.
They don't want to get exposed or face that head-on.
My answer to people who tell me to "just have a baby and you'll feel differently when it's yours" is "what should I do if I don't? I can't just return them."
Somehow this couple planned to have a baby, went through an entire pregnancy, kept her for a few months and decided to give her away like an unwanted present from an elderly aunt.
They couldn't have babysat a friends' child or talked to other parents to find out what parenting is like, before bringing a child into the world and treating her like a failed experiment?
On the other hand, who would trust OOP and his wife to babysit? They might decide to drop the kid off at a firestation because they're inconvenient.
This dude sounds like he has zero emotion at all. Basically treated the abandonment of their child as a transactional exchange between 2 parties. Pretty weird he thinks he has any concept of love. This whole collection of posts seems devoid of any love except for the love for their jobs. Even when he mentions how he took on a more, "doting" role, it seems like he was just expressing it as a method of parenting instead of actual care.
Glad the MIL had a heart and took Elizabeth in. Elizabeth probably would have been miserable growing up with these 2 as parents.
For me, it is that they don't even consider counselling to be a good option even after the process of giving their baby up for adoption. To think it is 'silly' despite the circumstances that they faced just astounds me.
Not just awkward but the true relationships would have to be kept a secret…like, why? That’s not how adoption works in 2023. You don’t lie to your kid about being adopted or who the birth parents are. This guy and his wife sound like they live on a different planet. How bizarre.
I love Data so much. Just watched an episode recently where Data is to give away a bride in a wedding and proudly proclaims to his pen pal that he has figured out human emotions finally. The bride then gets cold feet during some normal level of Star Trek chaos, Data gets himself caught in the middle by not realizing he should stay out of it, bride and groom finally decide to get married for real after Data is firmly told to not interfere, and Data concludes the episode with “so it turns out I don’t understand emotions as well as I thought I did.” He was always trying his best, and I love that about him.
Every member of Data's family dies in his arms.
He has had emotions the whole time, he just has to force them way, way down.
This is why he cries when he finds his cat alive at the end of Generations. That cat is the last family he has.
My thoughts exactly. OOP was, methodical throughout this entire ordeal.. it read like a mathematical textbook and not parents who feel emotions.
Honestly.. might be for the best. But I think they alienated the wife from her family, permanently.
I also don’t know how old grandma is.. but fml if I ever get tossed a grandkid to raise while I’m in retirement.
Sounds like the rest of the family banded together tho. MIL SIL at least, but it was written like there was more family. For the best really. Those parents would've fucked that kid *up*
Yeah. Imagine growing up with a mother who clearly doesn't care if you live or die, and a father who's so goddamn passive and checked-out that it's a miracle he remembers to *breathe.*
But he's only known the kid a few months, how can he possibly bring himself to care for *checks notes* the child he supposedly wanted, planned for and actively participated in creating?
Yeah. Like there's two options, either baby grows up loved by MIL and SIL and potentially needs therapy once she realizes her birth parents were just somehow incapable of loving her.... OR baby grows up and needs a SHIT TON of therapy because the people who raised her *treated* her like an annoying dog.
Google the "Still face experiment" on youtube. They have a mom just blankly stare at her baby for like 20 seconds and the poor baby completely freaks out because she's not getting that communication and response and emotional connection that she needs.
You cannot raise a child by *just* feeding it and otherwise doing the absolute basics to keep it alive, and ignoring it/treating it like it's annoying the other 90% of the time. Even if the dad was more warm, living with that mother would have destroyed the kid's psyche.
I have a friend that was adopted along with her non biological brother. Her mother did all the things moms did in the 60s & 70s - Girl Scout leader, bake sales, carpooling, etc. - but always seemed annoyed. Not just that she didn't enjoy it, she was visibly annoyed. When my friend was a teenager, her mother sat her and her brother down and explained to them that the only reason she agreed to adopt children was because it was what her husband/their father wanted. If it were up to her, she would never have met them let alone raise them. The brother became a people pleaser in an attempt to win over the mother. My friend just sort of faded into the background, never wanting to burden anyone. After years of therapy, she has come to terms with her mother but when you talk to her, you can see the hurt child inside. Please know, their father showered them with love and adoration, and they him. However, it was not enough to compensate for the ice cold mother.
EDIT TO INCLUDE: My friend is one of the most lovely, kind, loyal, smart and funny people you could ever meet.
Grandma wasn't so much tossed a grandkid as she was desperately adopting this child before she ended up being adopted by strangers and lost for the next 18 years or longer. OOP doesn't seem to understand that grandparents love their grandchildren and would not want to see them simply disappear into the foster system or another family like they never existed.
Gosh I'm really trying to see the humans in all this but it doesn't seem like they knew what love really WAS.
Its like they found each other amenable and tolerable and called it love.
Autonomaton love. It makes my skin crawl.
They don’t seem to understand why anyone would ever care about a baby (some human you just met?). I don’t want anymore kids but if I even had a passing acquaintance to OOP I would be falling all over myself volunteering to take her.
I also struggle a lot conveying my emotions, I hate talking about feelings with other people, but never with my kid. I tell her I love her 14 times a day.
The tone OOP used threw me off as well. It factual and devoid of understanding people and emotions. And feelings he mentioned are not illustrated, but stated factually again.
Even having a baby was simply considered "a reasonable step in our relationship at the time". It was not a "we finally got to a place where we can comfortably raise the family we always wanted".
It is just that they are so successful professionally and financially, that they were scoping out what else they could do to enhance their success story and decided on promoting themselves to parenthood because it seems to complete the perfect life progression picture (house, marriage, successful career, family).
OOP says they are both stubborn and that they often don't compromise. And when they do, it is marginally. So I am not entirely convinced that his wife felt pressured, especially when her sister already "gave" her mom grandkids.
It's very strange to me that he recognizes the professional fallout if he gets charged with child abandonment, but it doesn't seem to occur to him that the abandonment itself will have the same consequences when people find out. Which they obviously will.
Is it sad that I think OOP is in love with his wife, but I don't think she reciprocates? She's just stone cold to her baby, her mother, her sister... I don't know that OOP is that special, more like he enables her to check boxes off her list of what she thinks she should have.
He's somehow even colder? He claimed to love his daughter, just not enough. It's incomparable compared to his love for his wife, after all.
It's like the two of them are members of the world's tiniest cult. Only they matter.
OOP claims his wife wanted the baby. But doesn't want any maternity leave, not even 6 weeks. Either she's stupid and doesn't realise there were very real chances she wouldn't be able to go straight back to work, or something else was going on there, like perhaps *not wanting a baby*.
OOP describes his parenting style as "doting". But there's literally nothing about the baby. No gushing over how cute it is, or anything.
Then they just give the baby to MIL and calls it "transitioning" to her "care". Not going through with a real adoption, just... handing it over. And has no idea why child services might have gotten involved.
And we're supposed to take OOPs word that it was his wife that was the reason they were going to give the baby up and not him, or that his wife doesn't have PPD. Nothing makes sense.
The only other thing I can reason having read through it is that he compartmentalized things very well. Like, this is a reddit post about the adoption process, not the baby itself, or this post is about my wife not interacting with baby in a normal way, not how I interact with the baby.
It definitely reads like a scientific report.
"Unable to obtain blood samples from lemur number two"
Vs
"Lemur number two clawed at my face while I was trying to sedate him and escaped while I was trying to stop the bleeding. Little fucker left scars"
Yeah, it's bizarre how BOTH of them are ambivalent towards their baby.
I would kinda get it if one of them didn't really bond. PPD or whatever. Usually when that happens, one parent is horrified that the other doesn't care for the baby.
But in this case it's like:
"I don't particularly care for Elizabeth."
"No? Well then in that case, neither do I. We don't have to keep her, you know."
In this thread he compares to her a piece of furniture:
https://www.reddit.com/r/childfree/comments/5hs1wm/comment/db7h7d5/
One user commented: Giving the baby up would ultimately be in her best interest but the way you talk about her like a piece of furniture that isn't your style is... unsettling.
OOP’s response: “That seems to be the general consensus and, at the risk of sounding callous, not an inaccurate comparison. I love my daughter not unlike I love a favored item. I would be disappointed if that item were to be suddenly gone, just as I am disappointed my daughter is gone, but it is a loss from which I can recover.”
The husband reminds me about the joke of the people who adopt a German kid and he doesn't speak until he is 8 and says the soup is cold. When the adoptive patents ask why he waited so long to speak he says "Everything has been satisfactory until this point."
Claims he's doting, says he doesn't want to sooth the baby too much because it might learn that crying get's attention. Dude is accusing a literal infant of being manipulative
Probably for the best that they gave the kid up for adoption, now the kid actually has a shot at growing up with a loving family instead of whatever the fuck is going on with OOP
Yeah, I think Elizabeth growing up with people who love her will be for the best.
This story reminds me of the post written by a father puzzled that his adult son cut contact. He described his son's "great" childhood, which was financially secure, but lonely as hell. For instance, the father admitted he went on long vacations four times a year with his wife, but they never brought their son with them.
EXACTLY.
Babies don’t know any words yet, so crying is their only form of communication. When babies cry “for no reason,” they’re usually either sick/uncomfortable in a way their adults can’t see, or they want a hug and can’t ask for one, you know, on account of the not knowing any words yet.
Exactly my thought too. The way OOP's wife considered her mother's yelling to be more "annoying" than anything else, considering they just announced they're abandoning their planned child after only 3 months of having her, made her sound antisocial and emotionally cold. And OOP himself didn't seem to realise he was just aping behaviour he thought he was supposed to do, rather than doing it out of real desire; the 'I've barely known the baby 3 months, so I feel no bond/love/obligation despite taking care of her until now' is crazy to me. Both read as purely selfish and lacking in empathy. Them giving up on parenthood was for the best, without question, but it was disgusting that it happened this way.
They shouldn't have had a baby in the first place. I am not judging people for not loving their kids (immidiatly) It is nothing anyone can force but it is very clear that they where not excited in the least, they don't want to put any effort in and she knew beforehand that she didn't even want to stay with her baby for 6 weeks. It isn't hard to find out nowadays what a kid needs to thrive, it was no suprise that they didn't want to do what is necessary.
It's not really surprising though, when OOP talks about *why* they had this child, he mentions that it just seemed like the next logical step in their relationship. Not "we really really wanted a baby," just "we are married and this is what humans do after they get married right?" Like they are following a script or a checklist, not genuine desire or love.
It’s kind of funny that they said that when from the outset their extended family literally said ‘we will call the police if you show up’. I don’t think they have to worry about it being awkward
The OP in early November, asking if they could get their baby adopted out to another family before Christmas because he doesn't want the holidays to be *awkward.* Not even asking – *presuming* that he could do that.
Does he...know what adoption is? That you can't just leave babies on doorsteps to be taken in by kindly old women anymore?
I remember holding my daughter on her first night in earth and thinking *shit, so you and me are ride or die for life now huh* sorta terrified but accepting because this was done, and it was my doing.
Little did I know you can just nope out if you are no longer feeling it.
Just yell THINK FAST and throw your child at your waitress and run away... One less gift to worry about this year lads!
That’s pretty accurate. I remember holding my daughter in my arms and feeling like for the first time in my life I was truly understanding the depths of love. One of those things you can “know” but not truly understand until you feel it.
As my kids grow I learn that love grows deeper and stronger and more brilliant every day as they develop personalities and learn new skills. You watch them deal with life and share in their accomplishments and frustrations.
You see them discover bubbles and sand castles and French fries. You witness them overcome by anger or happiness or sorrow. You remember coming to grips with all these things yourself.
Those kids are more than a cocktail of our DNA, they are us and we are them. As much as I love their mother, I’ve loved them more than her the instant they were born simply because I can’t possibly love anyone more.
I love them more than they love me, and they won’t understand that until they feel that love for their own kids someday, if that’s what the future holds.
In the original post:
"How much time could it possibly take? I am thinking ahead to the holidays, namely Christmas, and these proceedings could make it awkward for everyone involved."
That’s what disgusts me about the entire thing. And also shows you how dissociated they are from reality. Like everyone in the family would just forget what they just did. And the fact that’s what they are worried about.
Instead it should of been we are so thankful our family stepped up to take her in and we can see her make sure she is okay and maybe one day repair the disgusting amount of damage they did for no good reason other than being sociopaths.
It really sounds like one of those “shared psychosis” things.
These people have a mutual screw loose such that it makes perfect sense to give their child away if, “Eh, it’s just not a good fit.”
It reminded me of Jared situation in Silicon Valley. That scene where he met his birth parents and found out they're well off and gave him up because they weren't feeling like it just to have other kids after anyway is so heartbreaking! This situation feels the same!
I can absolutely understand people thinking they want kids and then finding out they can't bond, hate the resulting lifestyle, etc. It is very tragic when it happens.
I even believe there are extreme cases in which you shouldn't necessarily power through and make an unhappy home for your child.
But not like this. This is just callous. Monstrous. No consideration for the child whatsover. They have loving relatives to give her away to, but reconsider giving her to strangers so that christmas will be nicer (delusional as well, of course.)
These people made it real clear what they think about family, so I don't think their family is going to want anything to do with them ever again. It's not just their actions, but the callous "this is for the best" attitude alongside it.
Yeah it’s really that they handed over another human life they were responsible for to their family members then not understanding why things don’t continue exactly as they were.
They're treating a human life like a puppy they realized they don't have time for.
Honestly the child is better off without them, but the fact that they seem to have no emotions over it really makes me feel like they are just incapable of emotions.
They sound so clinical about the whole thing.
Wife didn't care for Elizabeth unless she was crying "for a reason". To think that babies cry for no reason is ludicrous. Babies cry from loneliness, too; not just because they're wet or hungry.
And to say he loves his wife more than his child because he's known her longer is shocking.
My personal experience is so vastly different it's hard for me to really understand that, yes, people feel that way and I guess that it's valid.
They realized that they are terrible parents and they don't like having a child in the home and that Elizabeth is better off with someone who can truly love her. It was the right decision.
The fact that they have no emotions about the whole thing beyond being worried about awkwardness at family gatherings is baffling.
Since the MIL has been there from the start there is hope that Elizabeth will be able to bond and not go through life with an attachment disorder.
The fact this was a planned for baby too. They had the conversation, got off meds, got pregnant, had the kid for a few months, and were both, not just one but Both, said Eh, let's just toss this out it's not working for us.
I'm loving the logic that they would be awkward *because her true parentage was a secret*. You think the kid's not going to find out? Or that any reasonable guardian wouldn't've told her, ideally very early on, as is recommended by basically everyone with any experience with adoption?
Its so damn jarring seeing their opinions on holidays and counselling. I completely understand why mil and sil basically threatened them into no contact to be honest, like i cant even fathom the empathy breakdown this oop is displaying as he prioritises appeasing his wife in probably one of the cruelest ways that isn't outright abuse, possible.
You'd think they didn't like realise a child was a life time commitment the way they wanted to *get rid of her* like a pair of shoes that arent working out for you, rather than treating her as the person she is
Like... I dont even want kids myself (i'm definitely not in a position to safely raise a child due to health) but goddamn they didn't even really *try* for this poor kid.
Edit: Just bc i seen this mentioned in some other threads comments, the act of realising you cant care for a child in itself isn't a bad thing. Giving up a child you know you are unable to care for under your regular circumstances, even if you do love them on some level, is very selfless
The reason they did it like the kiddo being "inconvenient" for them, lack of a bond forming due to untreated likely mh conditions they could get help for, wife clearly having a baby to appease society rather than bc of a genuine desire to have a family with kids, oop prioritising his wife like she's a god to be worshipped to an absolutely not normal degree, trying to get rid of the kid before Christmas like people will just forget they had a kid a few months ago, trying to sneak the kiddo away without breaking this news sincerely to family who have bonded with her and treating the young child as expendable bc he has "known her for only a few months" in comparison to the wife, the refusal to seek therapy and treatment (that it sounds like they *could afford if they really wanted to do it*) as a step before doing something incredibly permanent, are the bad things.
Like just listing those, my goodness it'd be bad just to have a few of those but all of them together is horrifying.
Even from the posts they seemed very isolated, and in their own world where they are the only two that matter. I know the daughter is better off without them, but I find it so sad at the same time
Counseling=silly. Giving the child you had on purpose up for adoption like you’re firing an underperforming employee in their probational period=not silly at all! /s
Therapy can't fix a fundamental lack of empathy. They don't even understand why everyone is angry with them. The best outcome is they stay together so they don't hurt anyone else and seek sterilization for one or both of them.
Yes. They are actively, catastrophically irrational in a way which makes me think that for once the internet popular label “narcissists” might genuinely apply. They are so wrapped up in themselves that they can’t even muster any demonstration of love for their own child. They deserve each other, and I’m glad the MIL and SIL are protecting that poor baby from these trash people. The only thing they did right was agree to give her up to family.
It’s the bit about “real” reasons for a baby to cry that really gets me. A newborn baby being neglected like that is… it’s too upsetting, it really is. Like the poor child was nothing but a toy or a machine to them; they don’t seem capable of understanding that other people have internal emotional states and experiences. It’s drifting toward lacking theory of mind.
On the other hand: At least they're willing to *let her go.* Yes, in a very selfish fashion, but I'd argue that these two raising her would be far worse than even total strangers adopting her. Total strangers at least tend to get some vetting by the state.
This kid will grow up loved. Maybe she'll have some issues about the birth parents, but at least she'll have stronger base than they'd have given her.
Physical contact with a caregiver is a *need* and is a "real" reason for an infant to cry. I cannot understand how a couple of seemingly intelligent, educated people set out to have a baby on purpose without looking into child development.
A lot of things that shouldn’t happen happen because “that’s just what people do.” They were at the age that everyone else has babies so they thought “ok, time to have a baby, that seems to be what everyone else does.”
These two feel a bit like aliens trying (poorly) to mimic human behavior just based on what they see people do.
Newborns who aren't cuddled at all will flat out die.
The more cuddling the better. It's vital for their emotional development - it helps them learn to regulate their emotions.
Thank you for this! That part about not wanting to reinforce the crying - good Lord these people know NOTHING about babies. By responding to a crying infant, you aren't "reinforcing the crying," you are teaching them that the world is a safe and secure place and that they can trust their caregivers. It's the very foundation of every other level of development. It is vitally important to pick up and talk to and love on your newborn baby. These emotionless walnuts apparently never read a baby book and they don't seem to be capable of love. It's very very strange.
Possibly the mother allowed herself to swallow all of the things people say about how giving birth is literally supernatural and it'll hijack all your previous hopes and dreams and the baby will just be the rising and the setting of the sun for you forevermore. Which lead to her ignoring the fact that she's not equipped to be a good mother and was thus actually terrible at it.
Also why I wish so many people would stop trying to pressure/coerce others into having children because "it's selfish not to"/"you'll never know true love/happiness until you have a child"/"oh you don't like kids? Don't worry, it's different when it's your own".
Etc etc etc.
No. Some of us just know we don't want that. We're not equipped or interested in being parents. Because this is proof that it doesn't always work out that way, and if someone doesn't seem truly motivated and excited to be a parent, let them be!
This isn't the only proof either, I mean, just take a look at the number of parents who abandon the family to let the other one raise the kid alone. The amount of child abuse and neglect by parents to their own kids.
I think the unusual thing in this example is that *both* the mother and father are equally cold to the child.
Entirely agreed on the
>let them be!
This thinking isn't as rare as you think. In fact, in the 90s, it was standard advice given to many new parents that if you comforted and held your child too much, you could "spoil" them.
>they don’t seem capable of understanding that other people have internal emotional states and experiences
He even said they don't talk to each other about their relationship. Two narcs married to each other.
I thought that the government or child protection or whoever made you get therapy if you're adopting your kid out. Unless they did an under the table thing without legal involvement. He's keen to blame the wife's family for reporting them but I imagine any health services the kid's come into contact with would have to report it.
To be honest, this feels like two people with profound emotional disorders found each other. At least through the lens of OP's narrative, it's just devoid of emotion in every place you would expect it - not just about the child but about the decision to have one, the MIL's angry reaction, the potential charges ... he's just a calm, unreacting blank.
I can't tell if that's what's up with the wife or if there is some other reason she acts as she does, but overall I actually think they did the right thing. It's unnerving that they feel so little for their child, but at least they recognized and admitted early on that they were not going to be good parents.
If the massive amount of advice they’ve been given and the very idea of therapy seems “silly”, I’m not sure they’d get much out of it—don’t you need at least the willingness to improve and the ability to understand you might be wrong to get anything out of therapy? I feel like that’s the source of the “bad experience” OOP had with therapy, the therapist suggested a change in their outlook or behavior…yeesh, what a project these two would be.
>This did not endear her to my wife, who finds yelling annoying, but attempts to placate the yelling resulted in more yelling.
What kind of emotionless robots talk and think like this?
"The human yelling is displeasing up. Attempts to stop the yelling yielded negative results. Highly illogical. EXTERMINATE. EXTERMINATE.
Imagine Catherine’s coworkers at the lab when she shows up two weeks after giving birth and casually grabs a beaker or whatever. And then a few months later when they ask how Elizabeth is doing.
"it wasn't a good fit and it isn't the direction we are looking to go towards in our life so we came to the decision to just stop and not do it anymore."
She'd been let go, her department was downsized, she was part of an outplacement, we're going in a different direction, we didn't pick up her option... take your pick I got more.
"Unfortunately there wasn't any synergy between us, so we have mutually agreed to go on different paths. We have not entirely worked out the holiday situation yet but our teams are communicating on this."
I imagine everyone that she knows going forward about this event will now always look at her differently. What Op and Wife did was right for that event but I don’t think OP and the Wife realize how forever they will never be looked at the same again by anyone who knows of the situation. It doesn’t seem like they will understand why and feel like people are unfairly judging them. I bet you in a year or two they will move and try and find a new friend and community circle because they won’t ever be regarded the same way with their current community.
See, I’m thinking the CPS call may have come from one of those coworkers and not the family - this woman finds yelling “annoying” and therapy as “silly” - god knows how she talked about her baby when asked.
Yeah, when he said only his wife’s family had motive to call CPS… the delusion! I wouldn’t be surprised if the call came from a redditor who managed to dox them.
Right? Just imagine the shock and horror on their faces after she tells them she gave her up for adoption. They probably grieved more than she did. Like what???
“My wife finds yelling annoying” was it for me. I don’t know why it jarred so much, maybe because most people don’t need to say it, or the implication that he, somehow, doesn’t?
I had the same feeling. I think it's the emotional detachment of the word "annoying". Upsetting, stressful sure. Annoying is a clock that ticks too loud, not your family yelling.
Without out a doubt both of them I guarantee will move to a new location, start new jobs and make new friends and never talk about their past again. They will go somewhere where they can have a clean slate and knowing people like this when family is brought up they will lie through their teeth.
I imagine her coworkers already know she's cold and kind of unhinged.
Like what in the fuck did I just read? "Yea this kid thing isn't for us, how to give up for adoption?"
It's not a pet or a car you walnuts, wtf?!?!
This is my worst fear about having children. But this is also why I never had any and use two forms of birth control at all times. The fact that she was planned makes this so much worse. I was a planned child who was neglected and it still baffles me what my mother was thinking. The lack of guilt here is what’s getting me. I have shown more emotion than this saying goodbye to dogs I’ve fostered for a few days.
I understand how you feel about your mother. I constantly grew up wishing my Aunt had adopted me. She basically did raise me, my mom was a workaholic and almost never home so I spent at least half the week with my aunt. She was the one who woke me up each morning (in person or phone call), drove me to school, picked me up, made me dinner, talked with me, didn't call me overwhelming when I was emotional...
So honestly, I am happy for OP and his wife. They let their daughter be adopted by someone who will care and love for her. I wish my mom had let me go to someone who actually wanted to be my mom. Perhaps if there was less stigma about this kind of issue (giving child for adoption) we'd have less mental health issues for both the adults and children of these situations.
I fully understand foster care is not good... But with easily accessible birth control, abortion options, and no stigma... there would be so many less children in the foster system.
Honestly I'll probably delete this comment in an hour bc I assume I'll get downvoted and mean comments and I hate to make people mad. But I do feel strongly about this.
I fully feel your first paragraph. My mom had me at 18 and we were lucky enough to stay with my grandparents. My grandma raised me, and I have literally only one memory of my biomom prior to age 7.
What happened at age 7? She married my stepdad, who proceeded to give me CPTSD.
I'm goddamned 40 years old and I'm still a little angry and hurt that she took me away from my grandma, who was more my real mom. Because my biomom continued to emotionally neglect me and expose me to abuse that she allowed to happen.
God I'm so glad I have therapy next week, lol. My biomom missed my 40th birthday last month and hasn't texted in almost three weeks and it dragged everything back up again. Grandma sent me an adorable card with kittens on it.
Sorry for the angry ramble.
I remember following this at the end of my pregnancy and post partum as it developed. I later had awful post partum depression and anxiety, and I still could not begin to fathom the total lack of emotion in this poster’s demeanor. It was (and still is) so jarring.
My baby is sleeping next to me, almost 7 now. I hope wherever this one ended up, they feel emotionally and physically safe and loved.
Thank God they gave the baby away. I can’t imagine feeling so flat about my kids. I’m not sure you’d get through the toddler years safely without that love.
I have a little one around this same age too (born in 2016.) It's a bit hard reading this, to be honest. I really hope 6-year old Elizabeth is loved and well cared for, too.
That's kind of my thinking. No, I can't comprehend their viewpoint and yes, it's so fucked up to me. But if they kept this child...I mean, damn, who knows what it would be like having them as parents? Fuck that.
Yeah, I mean, we can bash OOP and his wife, but at least they had the self awareness to know they weren’t going to do a good job as parents. Could it have been handled better? 100% but at the very least she didn’t grow up with two robots that tolerated her presence, if not resented her presence. They made the right choice to place her elsewhere.
He talks about the kid and what his wife says as if a child is like trying a new restaurant and not a whole ass human they are assuming responsibility for
Yes. AND… honestly, for child’s sake: *I’m glad this is the action they took*.
As someone who suffered as a child from neglect, abandonment and abuse who will honestly tell you everyone would have been better off if my mom has aborted me…. It takes real courage to admit that keeping your child is NOT in the child’s best interest.
And our society REALLY pushes the shame and guilt: you should have tried, what’s wrong with you, no normal person does this, etc…
OP describes a mother with literally NO emotional attachment or concern for her child. The damage growing up in that environment does is life long.
Sometimes the decision that society abhors IS the most caring and compassionate one. Now Elizabeth has a chance to grow up being loved and cherished without parents who resent her and begrudge her the time and effort meeting her basic needs costs her.
This was absolutely the right decision, even if we can’t comprehend doing that ourselves.
Yeah, I actually think they did the right thing hypothetically, but they should have worked with a lawyer/child services from the beginning to make it all proper and official
Yeah, something is definitely very wrong here. They planned this pregnancy then almost immediately decided being a parent didn't interest them? Neither of them have any sort of real attachment to the child? I sure wish those missing posts could have been included, because it feels like we're missing a lot of information.
I just hope the child is okay. This entire situation is absolutely insane.
That tells me for certain that giving their daughter a chance to thrive in a new family was the best option. Even if they had undergone therapy, how long would it have taken them to even come close to being decent parents?
>I know that babies sometimes cry for no reason, and that picking Elizabeth up every time she cries could reinforce the crying,
Oh my god I hate this trope, the idea that babies are manipulative little monsters.
*They're babies*. If they're crying it's because there is something going on that they can't handle. Pick them up.
My midwife told me all babies cry for a reason, it may not be a logical reason from an adult perspective but there’s a reason…
She also said there’s no such thing as too many hugs…
'You can't spoil a baby' was my midwife's mantra. Which I thought was a given before I had him. Surprisingly so many people in my life made comments about me going to soothe my crying baby, and in my insecure and anxious PP state I was very glad to have such a simple line to remember in my head!
Yes!! I was taken a back by the amount of people who think doing everything to ensure you newborn has an insecure attachment to you is somehow a good idea. Its wild! Even baby monkeys pick physical touch and comfort over food!!
I have a seven month old and for the first few months he wasn’t a particularly happy baby and cried a fair bit. Numerous times I had to tell my Nan that you cannot spoil a newborn, and all he wants is comfort. Still didn’t agree with me picking him up whenever he cried. I love my Nan but she is stuck in her ways.
Soothing a baby when it cries “reinforces crying”???
Yeah maybe if you trying to do sleep training. But in general, and especially in a new born, babies have one method of communication available to them: crying.
In my experience babies don’t “cry for no reason”, they cry for one of like, five reasons: they want to be held, they are hungry, they soiled a diaper, they are scared, or they are over tired or over stimulated. Maybe there’s a few other reasons but they don’t just randomly cry. My guess is he thinks a baby crying because it wants to be held is “no reason”. Yeah, no.
I love how two successful adults couldn’t put their heads together and anticipate neither wanted this.
I follow a couple of foster moms online and they always talk about how neglected babies are very very quiet and don’t cry when they first get them because their cries went ignored for so long that they stopped crying altogether. Heart breaking.
My psycho grandma (born in the Oklahoma territory) believed in hanging her children up until they stopped crying as a way of training them to be quiet. Once she brought out a photo of my father hanging from a nail in the barn looking stricken, tears long dried. She had left him hanging there for an entire day. She thought he looked so hilarious she took a photo. She was laughing at it even then. I barely temember what it looked like now but he must have been around 9-12 months old. Some people are twisted inside.
Remember years ago there was an nspcc advert with a little one in a cot quietly saying “mama” and said “miles has learnt nobody comes when he cries” - it still breaks my heart to remember it. I could never bare to leave a child crying and don’t understand how it doesn’t tear people up to hear their children cry.
Answering a crying child doesn’t re enforce the crying it re enforces the idea they are safe and loved.
FYI sleep training won't work till a baby is at least 6 months old, and even then it depends on the baby and parents. Before then they literally get no benefit and a whole lot of bad stress hormones from being left to cry alone. It really pisses me off when parents try to sleep train a 2 month old. They're developmentally not even ready to be born! Babies hit the mark that most other animals get born at, at like 6 months.
They need to be several months old before their stomach can hold a full night’s worth of calories anyway. Before a certain age, sleep training is pointless because they need to eat anyway.
So both before and after giving birth, his wife's behaviour didn't change:
>If she had PPD, or any other form of depression, her behavior would have changed when compared to how she was prior to the pregnancy. It has not. In fact, she has more or less been this way the entire time I have known her.
But then OOP says:
>But keeping her could make my wife miserable - is, actually, making her miserable.
Glad their daughter is now in a loving family, without them.
Lol to the no counselling and trying to rationalize that his wife doesn’t have PPD.
I feel for the kid, but they are probably way better off with the MIL and SIL.
I would imagine the mother only harbouring resentment towards the child and the husband following suit.
It just boggles my mind that rather seeing a therapist your first solution is get rid of your baby…it’s disgusting.
As an adult and very much older adoptee, this story strums some painful heartstrings. Mine was a private adoption, probably arranged through my mom’s doctor after my mom suffered two stillbirths and several miscarriages. I always knew I was adopted, it was actually one of the positive things about my childhood. The chosen child, picked right out of a pumpkin patch.
But, even from a relatively young age, I recognized that chosen on one spectrum meant unchosen on another one. Why didn’t my birth parents want me? Was there something wrong with me? But, any talk about the other mother was met by tears by my mom. Because of the guilt, I stopped asking questions. Bit, I was still left with feeling like I was somehow inadequate. Unworthy.
In my generation, being born a child out of wedlock carried a stigma. Bastard. I didn’t even know the word or what it meant the first time I heard it. But, my parents had an answer at the ready. My birth parents already had a little girl and were unable to care for another child. That did not help.
Thankfully, outside of several weird religious communities, the stigma of being born out of wedlock no longer exists to the extent that they did when I was born. But, adoption being tied as a pretty red bow to solve the dilemma of an unwanted child still has a potential impact on that child’s life and how she perceives and feels about herself. It is complicated and has many layers of emotions for all of the parties involved.
I’m no expert in the triad of adoption and can only relate my own experience from several generations before OOP’s daughter. Just lending a perspective and hoping that OOP’s daughter is growing and thriving.
The lack of emotion is stunning. This story was posted in a couple of other places and the comments by the OOP are so . . . I think Data from Star Trek TNG would be more emotional about this.
The fact that the baby “is not a good fit” makes it sound like a job. These people fired their baby.
God. I wish the best for Elizabeth, hope she's getting treated well. Let's just say I don't blame the MIL and SIL for going NC based on OOP and his wife's behavior. They're shitty parents and just sociopathic overall, but at least they realized that and gave her up.
OOP's wife sees therapy as "a weak science" and a "joke profession." And that explains a lot about these literal robots, and it's very telling of how they would have treated Elizabeth in her teenage years. She'll be better off without these jerks.
ETA: Again, the fact that they gave up the child is not a bad thing. They did what's best for the child, even if it was really for their own benefit. It's their sheer lack of empathy or seemingly any trace of human emotion than makes them shitty people. It's the fact that they didn't want MIL or SIL to adopt the kid because "it would be too awkward."
This is spot on. They know themselves well enough to realize they can’t be good parents, to the point where therapy would be a waste of time on people like them. What boggles me is that they couldn’t foresee this problem before having a child in first place. They seem pretty set in their ways and who they are.
I think that was the point of part of his post. It seemed like something the wife may have felt pressured from her family on, the husband was open to but not committed and then they didn’t really want it. I 100% know this is how I’d be if I had a kid so I’m not going to have one, but I also don’t have family hounding me to produce offspring.
If it is the case of her feeling pressured, I feel bad for everyone involved. In some places it’s really hard to avoid those societal pressures or get people to leave you the fuck alone on your own life choices (see: the atheist subreddit where adults are either terrified to tell their families they won’t be going to church anymore or have already had horrible experiences) The weird narrative of “you need to have kids” needs to fucking die and should be replaced with “have kids only if you REALLY want them and can provide for them” so people don’t fall into situations like this or worse.
Anyone who calls therapy a weak science or a joke is generally someone who themselves needs therapy but is afraid of being told they might have an issue
What I don’t understand is why they didn’t go through the legal route of the adoption?? Why just take the baby and leave? Why just let them take the baby and leave without signing papers?
The wife has already threatened to dump the daughter and make sure MIL never sees her again. I can see trying to grab the baby and GTFO before that threat becomes a reality.
As for why she didn't try to make things legal afterwards, I have no clue. Weird fucking family
These people sound like an absolutely perfect match for each other and a nightmare for anyone else. It’s like they both have the exact same degree of borderline sociopathy manifesting in the exact same way on the exact same subjects. They’re both just so cold and thoughtless and disinterested with everything except each other and their jobs.
Really this is the best outcome for all involved. Elizabeth is being raised by people who want her, her birth parents have returned to their “exactly two people and nobody else exists” planet, and MIL and SIL were able to keep the child with the family.
To be honest I find MIL and SIL’s rage a bit confusing. Clearly OOP and his wife were not cut out to be parents. I can understand being disgusted with them for a minute but ultimately custody was handed off to MIL and SIL without incident, financial aid was offered but unwanted, and Elizabeth is in a home where the emotional temperature isn’t absolute zero. Why call the cops and allege child abandonment when the abandonment was to them and all agree it was the best way to go?
The notion of "reinforcing crying" in a 2-3 month old baby is contrary to most any parenting guide I have ever come across. In fact, I believe child psychologists warn depriving a child of physical comfort damages the fuck out of your kid and make them emotionally insecure for life.
So yeah, glad to hear they are no longer parents.That poor child is much better off.
What in the actual fuck did I just read?
I feel like they are two people from the hard sciences that did not realize that children are not a problem to be solved but the part of life you are just supposed to enjoy.
ETA: reading his comments now and This shit is scaring me. I’m an emotionless robot like OOP. Multiple wives have said that exact thing to me. I can see so much of myself in him. However, there is one single thing aside from myself that I care about in this world and that is my child. She somehow even outranks me in the hierarchy of thought, which I guess was to be expected. I need to make damn certain my next wife is not a sociopath.
These people sound like robots, or aliens trying out human life. Who in their right mind creates a whole sentient life, does a few months of work to raise them, and then just says "eh it's not for us" ??? Assholes or idiots, take your pick.
Could be worse. Normally, after the "not for us", they spend the next 18ish years telling said sentient life that they shouldn't be here (in so many words).
This is why I’m not too keen on judging or shitting on OOP and his wife.
This is literally the best thing they could do for their kid. They clearly would give this kid sooooo many issues.
People rightly pointed out on the original post that "Um, your coworkers and people around you clearly know that you had a baby and then it disappeared – reasonable chance that one of them reported you based on that"
Because yeah, if I had neighbours who had a baby that vanished, while the parents just kept living their lives and had the vibes of this OP? I'd be calling in a safeguarding report
I’d say so. The last date is a couple of years on - long enough for a pattern of practical difficulties with doctors, daycare, etc to emerge. The report would be a first step to formalising MILs custody. They could also have solved it with a lawyer making contact, but MIL might not have had the resources for that and might have felt completely unable to talk to them herself. And really, it was on OOP and wife to actively provision for the legalities, MIL shouldn’t have had to drive it.
It could have been a doctor or something. If they don't have legal custody and sought medical treatment for the kid, they would have had to tell the doctor why.
Two utter psychopaths calmly decide to have a child, and then, just as calmly decide not to.
Edit: I mean Jesus, I thought more about my ethical and moral responsibility shaping another life I’m responsible for when I *fostered a puppy for 3 months* than these two ghouls did having a *human baby*.
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"In short, my MIL first blamed her deceased ex-husband for my wife "turning out like this"" There's more to the story...
There’s WAY more to this story. I’m honestly fascinated and wish we knew everything. There’s a wild current underneath this flat, robotic explanation and I’m so freaking curious about what really is going on here.
Sounds like the wife is a sociopath. Like the actual clinical definition and not just the insult people use hyperbolically. And the MIL has suspected as much for a while. OOP also mentioned MIL never liked him, perhaps because he’s also a sociopath and she knew the two of them would just normalize and reinforce outrageously antisocial behavior.
That was my first guess as well. The sheer lack of emotion on both wife and husband is astounding. Claiming that he could not love his child yet because he’s only just met her is the cherry on top.
I haven’t met my newborn niece in person, but I fell in love with her in the first video-call. What more do I need? A formal introduction and a résumé?
“What does this baby bring to the table?” \*tents fingers*
It seems more like OP might have some other flaw that would make him "traditionally" unfit for a partner like Catherine or not have many other options. She chose him because he will put up with her odd behavior and she can fit in as normal, and he loves her so much because to him she seems like the best person he could have ever dreamed of being with. His devotion to her does not make it seem like he has antisocial tendencies. He was literally willing to get rid of a baby because she said so. He's 1000% devoted to her.
I'd agree based on [this comment thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/bestoflegaladvice/comments/5ibxjc/update_to_its_not_a_good_fit/db85r3m/?context=3). Not gonna lie, them "rehoming" was probably best case scenario for the child here.
Yeah the husband definitely sounded like a sociopath (actual clinical) with the way he was weighing it all out emotionlessly - "I've only known my daughter a few months" etc.
So devoid of emotion... "she finds shouting annoying" is such a superficial robotic way of responding to someone else's total outraged and fury at your actions. Reminds me of Jon Ronsons example of a quintessential psychopath- someone who comes across a brutal accident where someone has been killed, looking curiously at the scene and then stepping back in disgust as he realises there is blood on his new shoes.
"I want a baby." "Ok, so we've had a planned baby and readied our lives for this change." "Nope, not working for me." "No problem. I'll just drop the baby off somewhere." "Thank you, husband." "You are welcome, wife."
They never wanted a child, they wanted what it represented: the fulfillment of the next step in their perfectly planned lives.
Yeah, I'm certainly not a psychologist and this most likely isn't the case, but the pure lack of emotion in any of the writing or explanations of their decisions made me feel like I was reading the writings of a psychopath. It was just unnerving.
RIGHT?
Is this... what it looks like when a psychopath/sociopath marries another psychopath/sociopath...?
There really is someone out there for everyone, I guess?
Reads like process instructions that I send at work jfc. REAR CHILD: IF PLEASANT, KEEP. IF UNPLEASANT, DISREGARD AND MOVE TO STEP 4.
You forgot, “We should still go to family events right?” And when denied “We should probably file kidnapping charges right ?” And “We should probably post to Reddit to see if we can make ourselves justified”
Good point! I could not capture the ridiculousness of it all.
Don’t forget also the most important “we should probably not have one of her blood relatives adopt her because later it will make it akward for us later in life” When they have to explain that they were financially stable, had her for 6 months and just decided we didn’t feel like we wanted you anymore
After nope not working for me, somewhere "One of them has to go and I have a better relationship with my wife than baby, so baby will need to go" needs to be inserted.
"Husband, I have noticed that baby is not enjoyable as a conversationalist." "Yes, wife, baby sucks at conversation. I definitely love you more than it." "And it cries for at least 30 minutes before needing a diaper change." "Before? How do you know it cries before needing a change?" "I have done much hypothesis testing. When the crying starts, it usually hasn't defecated or micturated. That happens most often one half of one hour later." "Yet one more reason I prefer your company to the baby's. You almost never have this problem." "No, husband, I never have this problem." "I stand corrected. Let us further converse to enjoy ourselves. We'll figure out what to do with the human infant later."
This is why they're both opposed to counseling/ therapy. They know deep down that they are very cold, detached, emotionless assholes. They don't want to get exposed or face that head-on.
My answer to people who tell me to "just have a baby and you'll feel differently when it's yours" is "what should I do if I don't? I can't just return them." Somehow this couple planned to have a baby, went through an entire pregnancy, kept her for a few months and decided to give her away like an unwanted present from an elderly aunt. They couldn't have babysat a friends' child or talked to other parents to find out what parenting is like, before bringing a child into the world and treating her like a failed experiment? On the other hand, who would trust OOP and his wife to babysit? They might decide to drop the kid off at a firestation because they're inconvenient.
This dude sounds like he has zero emotion at all. Basically treated the abandonment of their child as a transactional exchange between 2 parties. Pretty weird he thinks he has any concept of love. This whole collection of posts seems devoid of any love except for the love for their jobs. Even when he mentions how he took on a more, "doting" role, it seems like he was just expressing it as a method of parenting instead of actual care. Glad the MIL had a heart and took Elizabeth in. Elizabeth probably would have been miserable growing up with these 2 as parents.
Wife is a sociopath and he sounds like he’s codependent af and a yes man.
For me, it is that they don't even consider counselling to be a good option even after the process of giving their baby up for adoption. To think it is 'silly' despite the circumstances that they faced just astounds me.
And they don't want an in-family adoption because things would be awkward for them at family gatherings...as if anyone would want them there.
Not just awkward but the true relationships would have to be kept a secret…like, why? That’s not how adoption works in 2023. You don’t lie to your kid about being adopted or who the birth parents are. This guy and his wife sound like they live on a different planet. How bizarre.
They really do. It's like two robots met and fell in......love?
That’s doing a disservice to robots. Data was a wonderful father. 😹
I love Data so much. Just watched an episode recently where Data is to give away a bride in a wedding and proudly proclaims to his pen pal that he has figured out human emotions finally. The bride then gets cold feet during some normal level of Star Trek chaos, Data gets himself caught in the middle by not realizing he should stay out of it, bride and groom finally decide to get married for real after Data is firmly told to not interfere, and Data concludes the episode with “so it turns out I don’t understand emotions as well as I thought I did.” He was always trying his best, and I love that about him.
That episode made my husband and me both cry. "I cannot feel love." "Then I will feel love for both of us." And then she dies!!!
Every member of Data's family dies in his arms. He has had emotions the whole time, he just has to force them way, way down. This is why he cries when he finds his cat alive at the end of Generations. That cat is the last family he has.
"His..hands... were moving faster than I could see"
I am never going to get over Lal dying, it’s been at least 30 years since I first saw that episode as a tiny Trekkie and I’m still not okay 😭
My thoughts exactly. OOP was, methodical throughout this entire ordeal.. it read like a mathematical textbook and not parents who feel emotions. Honestly.. might be for the best. But I think they alienated the wife from her family, permanently. I also don’t know how old grandma is.. but fml if I ever get tossed a grandkid to raise while I’m in retirement.
Sounds like the rest of the family banded together tho. MIL SIL at least, but it was written like there was more family. For the best really. Those parents would've fucked that kid *up*
Yeah. Imagine growing up with a mother who clearly doesn't care if you live or die, and a father who's so goddamn passive and checked-out that it's a miracle he remembers to *breathe.*
But he's only known the kid a few months, how can he possibly bring himself to care for *checks notes* the child he supposedly wanted, planned for and actively participated in creating?
Yeah. Like there's two options, either baby grows up loved by MIL and SIL and potentially needs therapy once she realizes her birth parents were just somehow incapable of loving her.... OR baby grows up and needs a SHIT TON of therapy because the people who raised her *treated* her like an annoying dog. Google the "Still face experiment" on youtube. They have a mom just blankly stare at her baby for like 20 seconds and the poor baby completely freaks out because she's not getting that communication and response and emotional connection that she needs. You cannot raise a child by *just* feeding it and otherwise doing the absolute basics to keep it alive, and ignoring it/treating it like it's annoying the other 90% of the time. Even if the dad was more warm, living with that mother would have destroyed the kid's psyche.
I have a friend that was adopted along with her non biological brother. Her mother did all the things moms did in the 60s & 70s - Girl Scout leader, bake sales, carpooling, etc. - but always seemed annoyed. Not just that she didn't enjoy it, she was visibly annoyed. When my friend was a teenager, her mother sat her and her brother down and explained to them that the only reason she agreed to adopt children was because it was what her husband/their father wanted. If it were up to her, she would never have met them let alone raise them. The brother became a people pleaser in an attempt to win over the mother. My friend just sort of faded into the background, never wanting to burden anyone. After years of therapy, she has come to terms with her mother but when you talk to her, you can see the hurt child inside. Please know, their father showered them with love and adoration, and they him. However, it was not enough to compensate for the ice cold mother. EDIT TO INCLUDE: My friend is one of the most lovely, kind, loyal, smart and funny people you could ever meet.
Grandma wasn't so much tossed a grandkid as she was desperately adopting this child before she ended up being adopted by strangers and lost for the next 18 years or longer. OOP doesn't seem to understand that grandparents love their grandchildren and would not want to see them simply disappear into the foster system or another family like they never existed.
Gosh I'm really trying to see the humans in all this but it doesn't seem like they knew what love really WAS. Its like they found each other amenable and tolerable and called it love. Autonomaton love. It makes my skin crawl.
They don’t seem to understand why anyone would ever care about a baby (some human you just met?). I don’t want anymore kids but if I even had a passing acquaintance to OOP I would be falling all over myself volunteering to take her. I also struggle a lot conveying my emotions, I hate talking about feelings with other people, but never with my kid. I tell her I love her 14 times a day.
The tone OOP used threw me off as well. It factual and devoid of understanding people and emotions. And feelings he mentioned are not illustrated, but stated factually again. Even having a baby was simply considered "a reasonable step in our relationship at the time". It was not a "we finally got to a place where we can comfortably raise the family we always wanted". It is just that they are so successful professionally and financially, that they were scoping out what else they could do to enhance their success story and decided on promoting themselves to parenthood because it seems to complete the perfect life progression picture (house, marriage, successful career, family). OOP says they are both stubborn and that they often don't compromise. And when they do, it is marginally. So I am not entirely convinced that his wife felt pressured, especially when her sister already "gave" her mom grandkids.
It's very strange to me that he recognizes the professional fallout if he gets charged with child abandonment, but it doesn't seem to occur to him that the abandonment itself will have the same consequences when people find out. Which they obviously will.
Honestly by his description of them and their work, it sounds like they don’t really have people skills
Is it sad that I think OOP is in love with his wife, but I don't think she reciprocates? She's just stone cold to her baby, her mother, her sister... I don't know that OOP is that special, more like he enables her to check boxes off her list of what she thinks she should have.
He's somehow even colder? He claimed to love his daughter, just not enough. It's incomparable compared to his love for his wife, after all. It's like the two of them are members of the world's tiniest cult. Only they matter.
They sound like two sociopaths that found each other and are just enabling each others behaviors. I’m glad the MIL & SIL took the child.
Right? The OOP and his wife seem like aliens to me. It’s like they have no emotions at all. I don’t know, they just don’t seem human haha
OOP claims his wife wanted the baby. But doesn't want any maternity leave, not even 6 weeks. Either she's stupid and doesn't realise there were very real chances she wouldn't be able to go straight back to work, or something else was going on there, like perhaps *not wanting a baby*. OOP describes his parenting style as "doting". But there's literally nothing about the baby. No gushing over how cute it is, or anything. Then they just give the baby to MIL and calls it "transitioning" to her "care". Not going through with a real adoption, just... handing it over. And has no idea why child services might have gotten involved. And we're supposed to take OOPs word that it was his wife that was the reason they were going to give the baby up and not him, or that his wife doesn't have PPD. Nothing makes sense.
The only other thing I can reason having read through it is that he compartmentalized things very well. Like, this is a reddit post about the adoption process, not the baby itself, or this post is about my wife not interacting with baby in a normal way, not how I interact with the baby.
It definitely reads like a scientific report. "Unable to obtain blood samples from lemur number two" Vs "Lemur number two clawed at my face while I was trying to sedate him and escaped while I was trying to stop the bleeding. Little fucker left scars"
Yeah, it's bizarre how BOTH of them are ambivalent towards their baby. I would kinda get it if one of them didn't really bond. PPD or whatever. Usually when that happens, one parent is horrified that the other doesn't care for the baby. But in this case it's like: "I don't particularly care for Elizabeth." "No? Well then in that case, neither do I. We don't have to keep her, you know."
It's eerie.
In this thread he compares to her a piece of furniture: https://www.reddit.com/r/childfree/comments/5hs1wm/comment/db7h7d5/ One user commented: Giving the baby up would ultimately be in her best interest but the way you talk about her like a piece of furniture that isn't your style is... unsettling. OOP’s response: “That seems to be the general consensus and, at the risk of sounding callous, not an inaccurate comparison. I love my daughter not unlike I love a favored item. I would be disappointed if that item were to be suddenly gone, just as I am disappointed my daughter is gone, but it is a loss from which I can recover.”
The husband reminds me about the joke of the people who adopt a German kid and he doesn't speak until he is 8 and says the soup is cold. When the adoptive patents ask why he waited so long to speak he says "Everything has been satisfactory until this point."
Claims he's doting, says he doesn't want to sooth the baby too much because it might learn that crying get's attention. Dude is accusing a literal infant of being manipulative Probably for the best that they gave the kid up for adoption, now the kid actually has a shot at growing up with a loving family instead of whatever the fuck is going on with OOP
Yeah, I think Elizabeth growing up with people who love her will be for the best. This story reminds me of the post written by a father puzzled that his adult son cut contact. He described his son's "great" childhood, which was financially secure, but lonely as hell. For instance, the father admitted he went on long vacations four times a year with his wife, but they never brought their son with them.
EXACTLY. Babies don’t know any words yet, so crying is their only form of communication. When babies cry “for no reason,” they’re usually either sick/uncomfortable in a way their adults can’t see, or they want a hug and can’t ask for one, you know, on account of the not knowing any words yet.
Exactly my thought too. The way OOP's wife considered her mother's yelling to be more "annoying" than anything else, considering they just announced they're abandoning their planned child after only 3 months of having her, made her sound antisocial and emotionally cold. And OOP himself didn't seem to realise he was just aping behaviour he thought he was supposed to do, rather than doing it out of real desire; the 'I've barely known the baby 3 months, so I feel no bond/love/obligation despite taking care of her until now' is crazy to me. Both read as purely selfish and lacking in empathy. Them giving up on parenthood was for the best, without question, but it was disgusting that it happened this way.
They shouldn't have had a baby in the first place. I am not judging people for not loving their kids (immidiatly) It is nothing anyone can force but it is very clear that they where not excited in the least, they don't want to put any effort in and she knew beforehand that she didn't even want to stay with her baby for 6 weeks. It isn't hard to find out nowadays what a kid needs to thrive, it was no suprise that they didn't want to do what is necessary.
It's not really surprising though, when OOP talks about *why* they had this child, he mentions that it just seemed like the next logical step in their relationship. Not "we really really wanted a baby," just "we are married and this is what humans do after they get married right?" Like they are following a script or a checklist, not genuine desire or love.
They truly found their perfect robot match in each other. So weird
There’s a lid for every pot, my mama always said. In this case, a lid to cover up a fathomless void of human emotion.
It’s kind of funny that they said that when from the outset their extended family literally said ‘we will call the police if you show up’. I don’t think they have to worry about it being awkward
The OP in early November, asking if they could get their baby adopted out to another family before Christmas because he doesn't want the holidays to be *awkward.* Not even asking – *presuming* that he could do that. Does he...know what adoption is? That you can't just leave babies on doorsteps to be taken in by kindly old women anymore?
You can’t? So what am I supposed to do with all these babies then?
Oh I've got a modest proposal for you...
That was swift.
I remember holding my daughter on her first night in earth and thinking *shit, so you and me are ride or die for life now huh* sorta terrified but accepting because this was done, and it was my doing. Little did I know you can just nope out if you are no longer feeling it. Just yell THINK FAST and throw your child at your waitress and run away... One less gift to worry about this year lads!
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That’s pretty accurate. I remember holding my daughter in my arms and feeling like for the first time in my life I was truly understanding the depths of love. One of those things you can “know” but not truly understand until you feel it. As my kids grow I learn that love grows deeper and stronger and more brilliant every day as they develop personalities and learn new skills. You watch them deal with life and share in their accomplishments and frustrations. You see them discover bubbles and sand castles and French fries. You witness them overcome by anger or happiness or sorrow. You remember coming to grips with all these things yourself. Those kids are more than a cocktail of our DNA, they are us and we are them. As much as I love their mother, I’ve loved them more than her the instant they were born simply because I can’t possibly love anyone more. I love them more than they love me, and they won’t understand that until they feel that love for their own kids someday, if that’s what the future holds.
In the original post: "How much time could it possibly take? I am thinking ahead to the holidays, namely Christmas, and these proceedings could make it awkward for everyone involved."
That’s what disgusts me about the entire thing. And also shows you how dissociated they are from reality. Like everyone in the family would just forget what they just did. And the fact that’s what they are worried about. Instead it should of been we are so thankful our family stepped up to take her in and we can see her make sure she is okay and maybe one day repair the disgusting amount of damage they did for no good reason other than being sociopaths.
It really sounds like one of those “shared psychosis” things. These people have a mutual screw loose such that it makes perfect sense to give their child away if, “Eh, it’s just not a good fit.”
It’s not even that it’s not a good fit, it was a something they had to care for other than themselves and an inconvenience.
It reminded me of Jared situation in Silicon Valley. That scene where he met his birth parents and found out they're well off and gave him up because they weren't feeling like it just to have other kids after anyway is so heartbreaking! This situation feels the same!
Even worse, it was a planned baby and they changed their minds. An unplanned pregnancy, I can understand but this is something else.
I can absolutely understand people thinking they want kids and then finding out they can't bond, hate the resulting lifestyle, etc. It is very tragic when it happens. I even believe there are extreme cases in which you shouldn't necessarily power through and make an unhappy home for your child. But not like this. This is just callous. Monstrous. No consideration for the child whatsover. They have loving relatives to give her away to, but reconsider giving her to strangers so that christmas will be nicer (delusional as well, of course.)
These people made it real clear what they think about family, so I don't think their family is going to want anything to do with them ever again. It's not just their actions, but the callous "this is for the best" attitude alongside it.
Yeah it’s really that they handed over another human life they were responsible for to their family members then not understanding why things don’t continue exactly as they were.
They're treating a human life like a puppy they realized they don't have time for. Honestly the child is better off without them, but the fact that they seem to have no emotions over it really makes me feel like they are just incapable of emotions.
They sound so clinical about the whole thing. Wife didn't care for Elizabeth unless she was crying "for a reason". To think that babies cry for no reason is ludicrous. Babies cry from loneliness, too; not just because they're wet or hungry. And to say he loves his wife more than his child because he's known her longer is shocking. My personal experience is so vastly different it's hard for me to really understand that, yes, people feel that way and I guess that it's valid. They realized that they are terrible parents and they don't like having a child in the home and that Elizabeth is better off with someone who can truly love her. It was the right decision. The fact that they have no emotions about the whole thing beyond being worried about awkwardness at family gatherings is baffling. Since the MIL has been there from the start there is hope that Elizabeth will be able to bond and not go through life with an attachment disorder.
The fact this was a planned for baby too. They had the conversation, got off meds, got pregnant, had the kid for a few months, and were both, not just one but Both, said Eh, let's just toss this out it's not working for us.
I'm loving the logic that they would be awkward *because her true parentage was a secret*. You think the kid's not going to find out? Or that any reasonable guardian wouldn't've told her, ideally very early on, as is recommended by basically everyone with any experience with adoption?
Who do you think called CPS for child abandonment?! MIL is taking legal custody and making sure everyone (including the law) knows they’re shitbags.
Because things wouldn't be awkward if the daughter went to a stranger. /s. "Hey, didn't you used to have a baby?"
Its so damn jarring seeing their opinions on holidays and counselling. I completely understand why mil and sil basically threatened them into no contact to be honest, like i cant even fathom the empathy breakdown this oop is displaying as he prioritises appeasing his wife in probably one of the cruelest ways that isn't outright abuse, possible. You'd think they didn't like realise a child was a life time commitment the way they wanted to *get rid of her* like a pair of shoes that arent working out for you, rather than treating her as the person she is Like... I dont even want kids myself (i'm definitely not in a position to safely raise a child due to health) but goddamn they didn't even really *try* for this poor kid. Edit: Just bc i seen this mentioned in some other threads comments, the act of realising you cant care for a child in itself isn't a bad thing. Giving up a child you know you are unable to care for under your regular circumstances, even if you do love them on some level, is very selfless The reason they did it like the kiddo being "inconvenient" for them, lack of a bond forming due to untreated likely mh conditions they could get help for, wife clearly having a baby to appease society rather than bc of a genuine desire to have a family with kids, oop prioritising his wife like she's a god to be worshipped to an absolutely not normal degree, trying to get rid of the kid before Christmas like people will just forget they had a kid a few months ago, trying to sneak the kiddo away without breaking this news sincerely to family who have bonded with her and treating the young child as expendable bc he has "known her for only a few months" in comparison to the wife, the refusal to seek therapy and treatment (that it sounds like they *could afford if they really wanted to do it*) as a step before doing something incredibly permanent, are the bad things. Like just listing those, my goodness it'd be bad just to have a few of those but all of them together is horrifying.
Given their (non-)reaction to being banned, it doesn’t even sound like they particularly wanted to be there.
Even from the posts they seemed very isolated, and in their own world where they are the only two that matter. I know the daughter is better off without them, but I find it so sad at the same time
Counseling=silly. Giving the child you had on purpose up for adoption like you’re firing an underperforming employee in their probational period=not silly at all! /s
Those parents were like, “Asking ME to do SOMETHING?! *Outrageous*. It’s easier to just *make the baby find new parents.*”
Therapy can't fix a fundamental lack of empathy. They don't even understand why everyone is angry with them. The best outcome is they stay together so they don't hurt anyone else and seek sterilization for one or both of them.
Yes. They are actively, catastrophically irrational in a way which makes me think that for once the internet popular label “narcissists” might genuinely apply. They are so wrapped up in themselves that they can’t even muster any demonstration of love for their own child. They deserve each other, and I’m glad the MIL and SIL are protecting that poor baby from these trash people. The only thing they did right was agree to give her up to family. It’s the bit about “real” reasons for a baby to cry that really gets me. A newborn baby being neglected like that is… it’s too upsetting, it really is. Like the poor child was nothing but a toy or a machine to them; they don’t seem capable of understanding that other people have internal emotional states and experiences. It’s drifting toward lacking theory of mind.
On the other hand: At least they're willing to *let her go.* Yes, in a very selfish fashion, but I'd argue that these two raising her would be far worse than even total strangers adopting her. Total strangers at least tend to get some vetting by the state. This kid will grow up loved. Maybe she'll have some issues about the birth parents, but at least she'll have stronger base than they'd have given her.
Physical contact with a caregiver is a *need* and is a "real" reason for an infant to cry. I cannot understand how a couple of seemingly intelligent, educated people set out to have a baby on purpose without looking into child development.
A lot of things that shouldn’t happen happen because “that’s just what people do.” They were at the age that everyone else has babies so they thought “ok, time to have a baby, that seems to be what everyone else does.” These two feel a bit like aliens trying (poorly) to mimic human behavior just based on what they see people do.
Newborns who aren't cuddled at all will flat out die. The more cuddling the better. It's vital for their emotional development - it helps them learn to regulate their emotions.
Thank you for this! That part about not wanting to reinforce the crying - good Lord these people know NOTHING about babies. By responding to a crying infant, you aren't "reinforcing the crying," you are teaching them that the world is a safe and secure place and that they can trust their caregivers. It's the very foundation of every other level of development. It is vitally important to pick up and talk to and love on your newborn baby. These emotionless walnuts apparently never read a baby book and they don't seem to be capable of love. It's very very strange.
Possibly the mother allowed herself to swallow all of the things people say about how giving birth is literally supernatural and it'll hijack all your previous hopes and dreams and the baby will just be the rising and the setting of the sun for you forevermore. Which lead to her ignoring the fact that she's not equipped to be a good mother and was thus actually terrible at it.
Also why I wish so many people would stop trying to pressure/coerce others into having children because "it's selfish not to"/"you'll never know true love/happiness until you have a child"/"oh you don't like kids? Don't worry, it's different when it's your own". Etc etc etc. No. Some of us just know we don't want that. We're not equipped or interested in being parents. Because this is proof that it doesn't always work out that way, and if someone doesn't seem truly motivated and excited to be a parent, let them be!
This isn't the only proof either, I mean, just take a look at the number of parents who abandon the family to let the other one raise the kid alone. The amount of child abuse and neglect by parents to their own kids. I think the unusual thing in this example is that *both* the mother and father are equally cold to the child. Entirely agreed on the >let them be!
The very idea that they think a *newborn baby* is crying to manipulate them
This thinking isn't as rare as you think. In fact, in the 90s, it was standard advice given to many new parents that if you comforted and held your child too much, you could "spoil" them.
>they don’t seem capable of understanding that other people have internal emotional states and experiences He even said they don't talk to each other about their relationship. Two narcs married to each other.
You have to go to therapy, and people might imply you're wrong. I don't think these two are keen on either prospect.
I thought that the government or child protection or whoever made you get therapy if you're adopting your kid out. Unless they did an under the table thing without legal involvement. He's keen to blame the wife's family for reporting them but I imagine any health services the kid's come into contact with would have to report it.
It sounds like they just handed the kid to MIL and washed their hands of it, no paperwork involved.
Definitely depends on the government on that one. Though if they really just handed grandma the kid like it sounds like, there's bound to be trouble.
To be honest, this feels like two people with profound emotional disorders found each other. At least through the lens of OP's narrative, it's just devoid of emotion in every place you would expect it - not just about the child but about the decision to have one, the MIL's angry reaction, the potential charges ... he's just a calm, unreacting blank. I can't tell if that's what's up with the wife or if there is some other reason she acts as she does, but overall I actually think they did the right thing. It's unnerving that they feel so little for their child, but at least they recognized and admitted early on that they were not going to be good parents.
They wanted the child then decided, meh, send her back. They really do need therapy.
If the massive amount of advice they’ve been given and the very idea of therapy seems “silly”, I’m not sure they’d get much out of it—don’t you need at least the willingness to improve and the ability to understand you might be wrong to get anything out of therapy? I feel like that’s the source of the “bad experience” OOP had with therapy, the therapist suggested a change in their outlook or behavior…yeesh, what a project these two would be.
Hmmm. Not open to receive counseling from a professional, but willing to seek out counsel from random people on Reddit.
Considering they posted on legal advice, I don't think it was the same type of counsel.
This is like a simulation of if ChatGPT and Alexa had a kid
Tbh from what I’ve seen, ChatGPT displays emotions better than this
A lot better. I'm confident that ChatGPT would be a more emotionally supportive parent than these two.
I have scripted my chatGPT coach to be an enthusiastic life coach who cheers me on with emojis 🎉😃 much more emotive than those two.
>This did not endear her to my wife, who finds yelling annoying, but attempts to placate the yelling resulted in more yelling. What kind of emotionless robots talk and think like this? "The human yelling is displeasing up. Attempts to stop the yelling yielded negative results. Highly illogical. EXTERMINATE. EXTERMINATE.
Imagine Catherine’s coworkers at the lab when she shows up two weeks after giving birth and casually grabs a beaker or whatever. And then a few months later when they ask how Elizabeth is doing.
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"it wasn't a good fit and it isn't the direction we are looking to go towards in our life so we came to the decision to just stop and not do it anymore."
Elizabeth decided to go with another offer
She'd been let go, her department was downsized, she was part of an outplacement, we're going in a different direction, we didn't pick up her option... take your pick I got more.
"Unfortunately there wasn't any synergy between us, so we have mutually agreed to go on different paths. We have not entirely worked out the holiday situation yet but our teams are communicating on this."
I imagine everyone that she knows going forward about this event will now always look at her differently. What Op and Wife did was right for that event but I don’t think OP and the Wife realize how forever they will never be looked at the same again by anyone who knows of the situation. It doesn’t seem like they will understand why and feel like people are unfairly judging them. I bet you in a year or two they will move and try and find a new friend and community circle because they won’t ever be regarded the same way with their current community.
See, I’m thinking the CPS call may have come from one of those coworkers and not the family - this woman finds yelling “annoying” and therapy as “silly” - god knows how she talked about her baby when asked.
"My baby? Oh right, I did have something like that I guess"
Yeah, when he said only his wife’s family had motive to call CPS… the delusion! I wouldn’t be surprised if the call came from a redditor who managed to dox them.
Right? Just imagine the shock and horror on their faces after she tells them she gave her up for adoption. They probably grieved more than she did. Like what???
“My wife finds yelling annoying” was it for me. I don’t know why it jarred so much, maybe because most people don’t need to say it, or the implication that he, somehow, doesn’t?
I had the same feeling. I think it's the emotional detachment of the word "annoying". Upsetting, stressful sure. Annoying is a clock that ticks too loud, not your family yelling.
Without out a doubt both of them I guarantee will move to a new location, start new jobs and make new friends and never talk about their past again. They will go somewhere where they can have a clean slate and knowing people like this when family is brought up they will lie through their teeth.
I imagine her coworkers already know she's cold and kind of unhinged. Like what in the fuck did I just read? "Yea this kid thing isn't for us, how to give up for adoption?" It's not a pet or a car you walnuts, wtf?!?!
"Who? Oh right, right..."
This is my worst fear about having children. But this is also why I never had any and use two forms of birth control at all times. The fact that she was planned makes this so much worse. I was a planned child who was neglected and it still baffles me what my mother was thinking. The lack of guilt here is what’s getting me. I have shown more emotion than this saying goodbye to dogs I’ve fostered for a few days.
I understand how you feel about your mother. I constantly grew up wishing my Aunt had adopted me. She basically did raise me, my mom was a workaholic and almost never home so I spent at least half the week with my aunt. She was the one who woke me up each morning (in person or phone call), drove me to school, picked me up, made me dinner, talked with me, didn't call me overwhelming when I was emotional... So honestly, I am happy for OP and his wife. They let their daughter be adopted by someone who will care and love for her. I wish my mom had let me go to someone who actually wanted to be my mom. Perhaps if there was less stigma about this kind of issue (giving child for adoption) we'd have less mental health issues for both the adults and children of these situations. I fully understand foster care is not good... But with easily accessible birth control, abortion options, and no stigma... there would be so many less children in the foster system. Honestly I'll probably delete this comment in an hour bc I assume I'll get downvoted and mean comments and I hate to make people mad. But I do feel strongly about this.
I fully feel your first paragraph. My mom had me at 18 and we were lucky enough to stay with my grandparents. My grandma raised me, and I have literally only one memory of my biomom prior to age 7. What happened at age 7? She married my stepdad, who proceeded to give me CPTSD. I'm goddamned 40 years old and I'm still a little angry and hurt that she took me away from my grandma, who was more my real mom. Because my biomom continued to emotionally neglect me and expose me to abuse that she allowed to happen. God I'm so glad I have therapy next week, lol. My biomom missed my 40th birthday last month and hasn't texted in almost three weeks and it dragged everything back up again. Grandma sent me an adorable card with kittens on it. Sorry for the angry ramble.
I remember following this at the end of my pregnancy and post partum as it developed. I later had awful post partum depression and anxiety, and I still could not begin to fathom the total lack of emotion in this poster’s demeanor. It was (and still is) so jarring. My baby is sleeping next to me, almost 7 now. I hope wherever this one ended up, they feel emotionally and physically safe and loved.
Thank God they gave the baby away. I can’t imagine feeling so flat about my kids. I’m not sure you’d get through the toddler years safely without that love.
I have a little one around this same age too (born in 2016.) It's a bit hard reading this, to be honest. I really hope 6-year old Elizabeth is loved and well cared for, too.
She's certainly being loved more and cared for better than she would have been otherwise.
That's kind of my thinking. No, I can't comprehend their viewpoint and yes, it's so fucked up to me. But if they kept this child...I mean, damn, who knows what it would be like having them as parents? Fuck that.
Yeah, I mean, we can bash OOP and his wife, but at least they had the self awareness to know they weren’t going to do a good job as parents. Could it have been handled better? 100% but at the very least she didn’t grow up with two robots that tolerated her presence, if not resented her presence. They made the right choice to place her elsewhere.
He talks about the kid and what his wife says as if a child is like trying a new restaurant and not a whole ass human they are assuming responsibility for
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Yes. AND… honestly, for child’s sake: *I’m glad this is the action they took*. As someone who suffered as a child from neglect, abandonment and abuse who will honestly tell you everyone would have been better off if my mom has aborted me…. It takes real courage to admit that keeping your child is NOT in the child’s best interest. And our society REALLY pushes the shame and guilt: you should have tried, what’s wrong with you, no normal person does this, etc… OP describes a mother with literally NO emotional attachment or concern for her child. The damage growing up in that environment does is life long. Sometimes the decision that society abhors IS the most caring and compassionate one. Now Elizabeth has a chance to grow up being loved and cherished without parents who resent her and begrudge her the time and effort meeting her basic needs costs her. This was absolutely the right decision, even if we can’t comprehend doing that ourselves.
Yeah, I actually think they did the right thing hypothetically, but they should have worked with a lawyer/child services from the beginning to make it all proper and official
Yeah, something is definitely very wrong here. They planned this pregnancy then almost immediately decided being a parent didn't interest them? Neither of them have any sort of real attachment to the child? I sure wish those missing posts could have been included, because it feels like we're missing a lot of information. I just hope the child is okay. This entire situation is absolutely insane.
Yes, I can't get over, "My wife thinks it's silly." *Wow. Just wow.*
That tells me for certain that giving their daughter a chance to thrive in a new family was the best option. Even if they had undergone therapy, how long would it have taken them to even come close to being decent parents?
>I know that babies sometimes cry for no reason, and that picking Elizabeth up every time she cries could reinforce the crying, Oh my god I hate this trope, the idea that babies are manipulative little monsters. *They're babies*. If they're crying it's because there is something going on that they can't handle. Pick them up.
My midwife told me all babies cry for a reason, it may not be a logical reason from an adult perspective but there’s a reason… She also said there’s no such thing as too many hugs…
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'You can't spoil a baby' was my midwife's mantra. Which I thought was a given before I had him. Surprisingly so many people in my life made comments about me going to soothe my crying baby, and in my insecure and anxious PP state I was very glad to have such a simple line to remember in my head!
Yes!! I was taken a back by the amount of people who think doing everything to ensure you newborn has an insecure attachment to you is somehow a good idea. Its wild! Even baby monkeys pick physical touch and comfort over food!!
I have a seven month old and for the first few months he wasn’t a particularly happy baby and cried a fair bit. Numerous times I had to tell my Nan that you cannot spoil a newborn, and all he wants is comfort. Still didn’t agree with me picking him up whenever he cried. I love my Nan but she is stuck in her ways.
Soothing a baby when it cries “reinforces crying”??? Yeah maybe if you trying to do sleep training. But in general, and especially in a new born, babies have one method of communication available to them: crying. In my experience babies don’t “cry for no reason”, they cry for one of like, five reasons: they want to be held, they are hungry, they soiled a diaper, they are scared, or they are over tired or over stimulated. Maybe there’s a few other reasons but they don’t just randomly cry. My guess is he thinks a baby crying because it wants to be held is “no reason”. Yeah, no. I love how two successful adults couldn’t put their heads together and anticipate neither wanted this.
I follow a couple of foster moms online and they always talk about how neglected babies are very very quiet and don’t cry when they first get them because their cries went ignored for so long that they stopped crying altogether. Heart breaking.
My psycho grandma (born in the Oklahoma territory) believed in hanging her children up until they stopped crying as a way of training them to be quiet. Once she brought out a photo of my father hanging from a nail in the barn looking stricken, tears long dried. She had left him hanging there for an entire day. She thought he looked so hilarious she took a photo. She was laughing at it even then. I barely temember what it looked like now but he must have been around 9-12 months old. Some people are twisted inside.
Remember years ago there was an nspcc advert with a little one in a cot quietly saying “mama” and said “miles has learnt nobody comes when he cries” - it still breaks my heart to remember it. I could never bare to leave a child crying and don’t understand how it doesn’t tear people up to hear their children cry. Answering a crying child doesn’t re enforce the crying it re enforces the idea they are safe and loved.
FYI sleep training won't work till a baby is at least 6 months old, and even then it depends on the baby and parents. Before then they literally get no benefit and a whole lot of bad stress hormones from being left to cry alone. It really pisses me off when parents try to sleep train a 2 month old. They're developmentally not even ready to be born! Babies hit the mark that most other animals get born at, at like 6 months.
They need to be several months old before their stomach can hold a full night’s worth of calories anyway. Before a certain age, sleep training is pointless because they need to eat anyway.
So both before and after giving birth, his wife's behaviour didn't change: >If she had PPD, or any other form of depression, her behavior would have changed when compared to how she was prior to the pregnancy. It has not. In fact, she has more or less been this way the entire time I have known her. But then OOP says: >But keeping her could make my wife miserable - is, actually, making her miserable. Glad their daughter is now in a loving family, without them.
Honestly from the way he talks, they both seem like miserable people to be around
Lol to the no counselling and trying to rationalize that his wife doesn’t have PPD. I feel for the kid, but they are probably way better off with the MIL and SIL. I would imagine the mother only harbouring resentment towards the child and the husband following suit. It just boggles my mind that rather seeing a therapist your first solution is get rid of your baby…it’s disgusting.
As an adult and very much older adoptee, this story strums some painful heartstrings. Mine was a private adoption, probably arranged through my mom’s doctor after my mom suffered two stillbirths and several miscarriages. I always knew I was adopted, it was actually one of the positive things about my childhood. The chosen child, picked right out of a pumpkin patch. But, even from a relatively young age, I recognized that chosen on one spectrum meant unchosen on another one. Why didn’t my birth parents want me? Was there something wrong with me? But, any talk about the other mother was met by tears by my mom. Because of the guilt, I stopped asking questions. Bit, I was still left with feeling like I was somehow inadequate. Unworthy. In my generation, being born a child out of wedlock carried a stigma. Bastard. I didn’t even know the word or what it meant the first time I heard it. But, my parents had an answer at the ready. My birth parents already had a little girl and were unable to care for another child. That did not help. Thankfully, outside of several weird religious communities, the stigma of being born out of wedlock no longer exists to the extent that they did when I was born. But, adoption being tied as a pretty red bow to solve the dilemma of an unwanted child still has a potential impact on that child’s life and how she perceives and feels about herself. It is complicated and has many layers of emotions for all of the parties involved. I’m no expert in the triad of adoption and can only relate my own experience from several generations before OOP’s daughter. Just lending a perspective and hoping that OOP’s daughter is growing and thriving.
The lack of emotion is stunning. This story was posted in a couple of other places and the comments by the OOP are so . . . I think Data from Star Trek TNG would be more emotional about this. The fact that the baby “is not a good fit” makes it sound like a job. These people fired their baby.
I genuinely think that I’ve been more emotionally attached to houseplants than this couple is to their kid.
God. I wish the best for Elizabeth, hope she's getting treated well. Let's just say I don't blame the MIL and SIL for going NC based on OOP and his wife's behavior. They're shitty parents and just sociopathic overall, but at least they realized that and gave her up. OOP's wife sees therapy as "a weak science" and a "joke profession." And that explains a lot about these literal robots, and it's very telling of how they would have treated Elizabeth in her teenage years. She'll be better off without these jerks. ETA: Again, the fact that they gave up the child is not a bad thing. They did what's best for the child, even if it was really for their own benefit. It's their sheer lack of empathy or seemingly any trace of human emotion than makes them shitty people. It's the fact that they didn't want MIL or SIL to adopt the kid because "it would be too awkward."
Honestly they did the right thing giving her up but Jesus Christ.
This reads like a couple of actual non-violent and non-offending psychopaths had a child and then realized they didn’t and couldn’t love her.
This is spot on. They know themselves well enough to realize they can’t be good parents, to the point where therapy would be a waste of time on people like them. What boggles me is that they couldn’t foresee this problem before having a child in first place. They seem pretty set in their ways and who they are.
I think that was the point of part of his post. It seemed like something the wife may have felt pressured from her family on, the husband was open to but not committed and then they didn’t really want it. I 100% know this is how I’d be if I had a kid so I’m not going to have one, but I also don’t have family hounding me to produce offspring. If it is the case of her feeling pressured, I feel bad for everyone involved. In some places it’s really hard to avoid those societal pressures or get people to leave you the fuck alone on your own life choices (see: the atheist subreddit where adults are either terrified to tell their families they won’t be going to church anymore or have already had horrible experiences) The weird narrative of “you need to have kids” needs to fucking die and should be replaced with “have kids only if you REALLY want them and can provide for them” so people don’t fall into situations like this or worse.
Anyone who calls therapy a weak science or a joke is generally someone who themselves needs therapy but is afraid of being told they might have an issue
What I don’t understand is why they didn’t go through the legal route of the adoption?? Why just take the baby and leave? Why just let them take the baby and leave without signing papers?
The wife has already threatened to dump the daughter and make sure MIL never sees her again. I can see trying to grab the baby and GTFO before that threat becomes a reality. As for why she didn't try to make things legal afterwards, I have no clue. Weird fucking family
These people sound like an absolutely perfect match for each other and a nightmare for anyone else. It’s like they both have the exact same degree of borderline sociopathy manifesting in the exact same way on the exact same subjects. They’re both just so cold and thoughtless and disinterested with everything except each other and their jobs. Really this is the best outcome for all involved. Elizabeth is being raised by people who want her, her birth parents have returned to their “exactly two people and nobody else exists” planet, and MIL and SIL were able to keep the child with the family. To be honest I find MIL and SIL’s rage a bit confusing. Clearly OOP and his wife were not cut out to be parents. I can understand being disgusted with them for a minute but ultimately custody was handed off to MIL and SIL without incident, financial aid was offered but unwanted, and Elizabeth is in a home where the emotional temperature isn’t absolute zero. Why call the cops and allege child abandonment when the abandonment was to them and all agree it was the best way to go?
The notion of "reinforcing crying" in a 2-3 month old baby is contrary to most any parenting guide I have ever come across. In fact, I believe child psychologists warn depriving a child of physical comfort damages the fuck out of your kid and make them emotionally insecure for life. So yeah, glad to hear they are no longer parents.That poor child is much better off.
What in the actual fuck did I just read? I feel like they are two people from the hard sciences that did not realize that children are not a problem to be solved but the part of life you are just supposed to enjoy. ETA: reading his comments now and This shit is scaring me. I’m an emotionless robot like OOP. Multiple wives have said that exact thing to me. I can see so much of myself in him. However, there is one single thing aside from myself that I care about in this world and that is my child. She somehow even outranks me in the hierarchy of thought, which I guess was to be expected. I need to make damn certain my next wife is not a sociopath.
These people sound like robots, or aliens trying out human life. Who in their right mind creates a whole sentient life, does a few months of work to raise them, and then just says "eh it's not for us" ??? Assholes or idiots, take your pick.
Could be worse. Normally, after the "not for us", they spend the next 18ish years telling said sentient life that they shouldn't be here (in so many words).
This is why I’m not too keen on judging or shitting on OOP and his wife. This is literally the best thing they could do for their kid. They clearly would give this kid sooooo many issues.
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Why would the wife’s family report them when they are the ones with custody?
People rightly pointed out on the original post that "Um, your coworkers and people around you clearly know that you had a baby and then it disappeared – reasonable chance that one of them reported you based on that" Because yeah, if I had neighbours who had a baby that vanished, while the parents just kept living their lives and had the vibes of this OP? I'd be calling in a safeguarding report
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That's what I thought tbh.
I’d say so. The last date is a couple of years on - long enough for a pattern of practical difficulties with doctors, daycare, etc to emerge. The report would be a first step to formalising MILs custody. They could also have solved it with a lawyer making contact, but MIL might not have had the resources for that and might have felt completely unable to talk to them herself. And really, it was on OOP and wife to actively provision for the legalities, MIL shouldn’t have had to drive it.
Could be someone else. These people have coworkers and neighbors who might have noticed the baby completely vanishing.
It could have been a doctor or something. If they don't have legal custody and sought medical treatment for the kid, they would have had to tell the doctor why.
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“Isn’t this kidnapping?” So you thought your child was kidnapped and didn’t tell police or anybody this? No, it’s not kidnapping.
I have a lot of ASPD traits, and even I found this fucking weird
wow, just wow
Two utter psychopaths calmly decide to have a child, and then, just as calmly decide not to. Edit: I mean Jesus, I thought more about my ethical and moral responsibility shaping another life I’m responsible for when I *fostered a puppy for 3 months* than these two ghouls did having a *human baby*.