Categories
Children Photography Social Travel

Give Away Children

The mother approached us and rapidly began talking to Jerry, gesturing toward her teen-age daughter. She smiled a lot, and although we could not understand her, we could discern that she was pleading for something.

We stood in the airport at Cebu City in the Philippines, waiting for a plane that would fly us to Manila. From there we would return to the United States. The mother continued to talk to Jerry, pointing to the young lady who stood shyly by, her head slightly tucked, an embarrassed look on her face, until finally we understood. The mother wanted us to take her child with us. She was trying to give her to Jerry. That nameless, caring mother loved her daughter so much, that understanding the dreadful life her child would live, decided to take her to the airport, find a likely looking person and give her away, in the hopes that she would live a better life somewhere else. Later we learned this to be quite common there. I’ll never forget the ghastly understanding that enveloped me that morning as I stared at the mother and her teen-aged daughter. They stood forlornly in the terminal at Cebu City as we walked away.

I certainly have no way of knowing if a similar story surrounds this little boy in the following BBC account, but my haunting experience in the Philippines came to mind as I read of his situation.
I cannot help but compare the “world’s children” with my own—cherished, prayed for, bragged about and adored. Life is not fair.

 

 

 


Aloysius Abacha

The circumstances of the boy’s arrival are still being clarified

A Bangladeshi court has handed over an 11-year-old Nigerian boy to a charity after he was apparently deserted at the country’s international airport. Efforts by the authorities to locate the boy’s guardians or parents have not so far been successful.

Read more here.

By Shirley Buxton

Still full of life and ready to be on the move, Shirley at 84 years old feels blessed to have lots of energy and to be full of optimism. She was married to Jerry for 63 years, and grieves yet at his death in August of 2019. They have 4 children, 13 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren...all beautiful and highly intelligent--of course. :)

19 replies on “Give Away Children”

64 years ago, I was a gift child. My mother gave me to a couple who could not have children and just walked away. She had two other children when she left me that day. She headed to Florida, where she had family. She didn’t tell the family about me for decades. When she did it was only that ” I gave a child away.” She eventually left the other two children with their separate families. They had different fathers. My mother was mentally ill, she realized that she could not provide the necessary nurture and care; so she did the most kind thing she could. I was never adopted. It’s been a difficult trek with no legal adoption. But my gifted parents loved me and gave me a good home. The kindest thing my mother did was to give me away…

Like

Good morning, Prescious.

These many months later, I feel the same as I did when I responded several times here. I cannot image how distressed I would be if through some strange circumstance I felt it would be in the best of my child’s interest to find them another home. I would be grieved to the bone. Having said that, though, I would respect a mother who just could not take care of her child, and truly in the child’s best interest, would ask someone ask to rear that person.

Very sad when such things happen.

May you always be blessed by God.

Thank you for visiting my site. Hope you are here often.

Shirley

Like

we are looking for surrogate mother in the philippines. can anyone tell me if there is anyway we can do that. i have a friend that is willing to carry pregnancy for 9 months with my husband sperm & her eggs. she is willing to give the baby to us to be our child. what agency or process can we do to get it legalized and bring the baby to america right away after the delivery? do i need to find an agency for surrogacy in the philippines? thanks again.

Like

we are looking for surrogate mother in the philippines. can anyone tell me if there is anyway we can do that. i have a friend that is willing to carry pregnancy for 9 months with my husband sperm & her sperm. she is willing to give the baby to us to be our child. what agency or process can we do to get it legalized and bring the baby to america right away after the delivery?. thanks.

Like

Wow. I can understand the feelings of the mother, having been to the Phillipines. The enviornment of the city we went to, Dumegete, seems inappropriate to raise a child in. Yet the children seem content there, bathing in the ocean and the rain puddles in the road. I have a friend there, Sarah, age 13, who had never ever had a store-bought outfit. I gave her many of my clothes, and I left her showing off her “american clothes” to her friends.

Like

Garry, it was several years ago that we were in the Philippines. It was a wonderful trip, and we fell in love with Philipino people and found them dear and precious. We spend our last night there in a Bible school compound in Manila, and arising very early, maybe 4:00 o’clock, as we did our final packing, we heard singing out in the dark. Opening the door, we saw a group of students singing to us: “Someone is praying for you…” It was touching, a never to be forgotten experience.

My eldest son, Steve, has done extensive missionary work in the Philippines on the island of Bohol (not sure of the spelling.) Actually, he is leaving in a couple of weeks for a campaign there.

Thanks for visiting here. Hope you come often.

Like

hi shirley!
i was randomly blog-hopping when i chanced upon your blog. Giving away children is quite “normal” here and up to now, no one has actually made a study on the rate it is going. Hopefully, in the future, someone or some group will come up with a study on this so the government can know its magnitude and come up with tangible solutions to end this problem.

right now, im involved in a catholic community wherein we take in deserving students from indigent communities as scholars. it’s nothing big but it’s a start.

so how did you find the philippines aside from the airport incident?

Like

Taorist, my heart bleeds for parents who must do this. I admire such dedication and love as that expresses, but when I honestly think of my own reaction were I faced with such a thing, I cannot know what I would do. It is not right that a mother be put in this position. It is just not right. I’m so sad to even think about it.

I pray that God would comfort mothers around the world who at this moment are considering such an option.

Like

Giving away a child that you have personally taken care of is one of the most heartbreaking things to do.

Giving away children for a better life is somewhat normal in the my country, the Philippines. They love their children so much that they would be willing to sacrifice their hearts and souls.

I do hope that one day, there will be no more of these things happening ANYWHERE.

Like

Oh, how I wish that *I* could take each one of the unwanted children in my arms and tell them I love them and will take care of them. Stories like these two rip my heart to pieces. I can’t understand. Yes, life is so unfair. I can only trust my God that He knows everything and everything is going to be okay in the end. I trust that, all the innocent children in the world, from the beginning of time until the end, *will* find themselves one day in Heaven looking at the face of Jesus who has redeemed them from their hellish life on earth. “Oh, God, help the children! And use me to help them as much as I can while on this earth!”

Thank you for this post.

Like

Clay, thank you for your remarks, although I am not at all sure I agree with them. I plead ignorance of extensive world banking policies.

I do know Jesus said, “The poor you have with you always,” and His teachings, in general, seemed to indicate that the poor would be more responsive to His message. Despite the sadness of such extreme cases as I wrote about today, I share the thoughts of many that our wealth here in America has caused many to disregard God. The greatest revivals in the world are among the poorest of people, so one could postulate that is some ways, poverty may have certain advantage. Still, I say, life is not fair, and I am grateful that I have never been in the position of thinking if I gave away my son or daughter, it would be better for them. I just can’t get my mind around such an abysmal situation.

Please come again.

Like

Why do so many people have nothing in a world that has so much? I get discusted with the human race when I hear stories like this about parents in third world countries giving their children away because things are so bad there. We will always be in the throws of corruption as long as the world banking cartels have their way. Poverty is not some unfortunate byproduct of society, it is orchrestrated by world banking cartels so that the elite can maintain the status quo. Read the Brief History in Banking section in this link> http://www.nick2211.yage.net/chips.htm#one .

Like

Leave a comment