Just last week I was saying to an MM commenter who was bemoaning my lack of strong opinion on another post that I’m not nearly as opinionated as I used to be. Then the weekend came along and the Sun Herald published a front page story that got me fuming before 7am yesterday morning.

This is baby Sophia who was abandoned by her mother shortly after she was born in Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. I had a baby there once. I know it well. So anyway, this is the story:

Lisa Carty writes...

THERE is one person who knows why this baby girl was abandoned just hours after she was born – her mum.

After giving birth at Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital on May 23, the woman told staff she was dealing with ”difficult personal issues”. Then she vanished. The information she provided to the hospital during her stay has been insufficient to track her down and today the State Government is making a desperate plea to the parents of baby Sophia, as she is known, to claim her before she is put up for adoption.

Sophia has been with foster carers since she left hospital, perfectly healthy, after her birth. She is loved and well cared for. Yesterday NSW Community Services Minister Linda Burney urged Sophia’s parents to contact authorities, promising they would receive sympathetic treatment.

”Community Services staff understand that Sophia’s parents may be worried about coming forward,” she said. ”I want to reassure them that they will have the opportunity to speak with caseworkers who will be respectful and sensitive of their situation. On the day Sophia was born, her mother told hospital staff she was going through difficult personal issues and was not in a position to care for her newborn daughter. But she left before formal discussions could take place.

”We want to make sure Sophia’s mum has the opportunity to be involved in planning for her daughter’s future and to know her baby is doing well in foster care.” Ms Burney said her department had tried to locate the parents but so far, all inquiries had proved unsuccessful.

Sophia’s foster mum said she was ”a very happy and settled baby”. ”Sophia rarely cries and is a very good sleeper,” she said. ”She is very social and loves the company of other children. She enjoys going for walks. Sophia is meeting all of her developmental milestones and has just started on solids. She is rolling over and can recognise us.”

Ms Burney said it was very important for a child’s development and emotional well-being that decisions about long-term living arrangements were made early in life. “Community Services has many families who are ready to adopt,” she said. ”If Sophia’s mum wants her daughter to be adopted, or feels unable to come forward, Sophia will be placed with one of these families.”

Ms Burney urged Sophia’s parents to phone staff at Community Services’s adoption and permanent care program on (02) 9716 3003.

What made my blood boil faster than the kettle on Sunday was the thought that any attempt would be made to ‘reunite’ this mother with her baby. I don’t judge her for walking away. Well, I do and I don’t.

Thank God she was aware enough to realise that she wasn’t in the position to provide the love and care a baby needs. She left her somewhere where she knew she would be safe and looked after. But she didn’t look back. That’s not to say she hasn’t grieved her baby or the mother she wasn’t able to be. Maybe she has. Maybe she hasn’t. But clearly, she wasn’t interested in or capable of being a mother.

Clearly, she wasn’t worried enough to make any kind of contact FOR SIX MONTHS.

So. I don’t want to DOCS bash. Really, I don’t. I have defended DOCS several times in posts on this site. I think the case workers are over-worked, under paid and extraordinarily brave for dealing with the distress and horrors they encounter each day.

What infuriates me, is the philosophy on which much of DOCS work seems to be based, this idea that the best thing for a child is to be with its biological parents. It’s not always. PLAINLY it’s not. Being genetically linked to a child does not prevent you from neglecting it or harming it or abusing it.

Being genetically linked to a child does not make you somehow a superior parent to all those people who are DESPERATE to be parents. People who have love and time and care to give. People who are aching to give a child all the love and opportunities they will never get with a parent who is addicted to drugs or alcohol or who is in a violent relationship or is violent themselves.

Biology has little bearing on your ability to be a good parent. So why has this baby been allowed to remain with a foster family FOR SIX MONTHS? Six months is an incredibly long time to be in permanent care.

While a newborn may not really know one set of loving arms from another, a six month old is accutely aware of who their primary carer is. A six month old is hugely bonded to that carer and will be traumatised when she is taken away and placed with new adoptive parents who have no doubt been sitting and waiting FOR YEARS for the opportunity to provide a permanent home to an unwanted child.

And let’s not dress this up. Baby Sophia was unwanted by her mother. For whatever reason. In my opinion, when you do something like abandon your baby or harm your baby or allow your baby to be harmed, you forfeit your rights as a parent.

In my opinion there should be less emphasis on the rights and best interests of the parents and more on the rights and best interests of the CHILDREN.

Sophia’s mother isn’t going to come forward. She’s had every chance. Meanwhile, that little baby becomes more attached to her foster carer every day. And every day, as DOCS sits around patiently waiting for Sophia’s biological mother to

give enough of a shit

care enough about her baby to even enquire about her welfare via an anonymous phonecall, the level of trauma that little girl is going to go through when she’s taken from the only mother she has ever known and placed with her new parents, increases.

How ironic that this week marks national adoption week. I know there is a lot of emphasis on international adoption (there’s a guest post coming on that later in the week) but how about we look at this ridiculous emphasis on reuniting children with biological parents who are not interested in or capable of being fit parents.