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Heartbreaking Custody Battle

How can a judge remove a 9 year child who has been with one family since she was 2 years old and give her back to her biological father who was just released from prison?  I don’t know, but it happened in Tennessee and if this story doesn’t break your heart -you don’t have one.

Sonya is the 9 year old and she had been in the care of Dave and Kim Hodgin since before she was 2 years old. They adopted her in 2008. Sonya’s birth father was in prison and under Tennessee law his parental rights were terminated because no one incarcerated for more than 10 years is allowed rights to a child less than 8 years old.

However, Sonya’s birth father was able to get his sentence reduced to under 8 years  (7 and a half) before the adoption was finalized. Because his time in prison was now going to be less than 8 years he was able to get a lawyer to reverse the adoption.

Sonya had never met her father and yet just over a year after she’d been adopted the courts reversed the adoption. She stayed with the Hodgins while the lawyers battled for custody of the little girl.

Now, almost 5 years later, a judge has ruled in favor of Sonya’s biological father and the child has been returned to him. A mere 3 hours after the ruling Sonya was taken out of the only home she’s ever known and sent to live with a man she didn’t know. Sonya her biological father now live in Omaha, N.E.

The Hodgins have spoken to Sonya only once since she was taken. The phone call was recorded and in it Sonya begs and pleads to come home. Listening to it is pure torture and I can’t even imagine how the Hodgins felt when they spoke with her.

My Questions

If laws are really meant to protect children then how can something this horrendous happen?

How does the judge who took this child away from her family sleep at night knowing his decision broke so many hearts and possibly put this child in danger?

I know the child is only 9 but shouldn’t her voice have been heard?

My mother always called “common sense” by the phrase “horse sense”. Obviously the judge in this case doesn’t have any. How can something that flies in the face of “best interests of the child” happen in an American court room?

That’s my opinion. Am I wrong? What are your thoughts?

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5 Comments

  1. I feel the same way you do. This child was loved by people from the age of 2 and lived there, never knew her biological father….that word doesn’t mean much to me, especially if that father has no contact with children and has been imprisoned….for what? Hopefully he’s getting parenting classes. Granted you should give a prison a second chance but a child is so vulnerable and needs protection. I’ve heard of cases where there’s a divorce and the mother leaves her children with her parents while the dad, who wants them, doesn’t get the children? Not good. It’s not always a cut and dried case that mom is the best. Look at the situation, please, judge. Sometimes there’s just not a good outcome. Let these innocent children be loved by their adoptive families.

  2. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. I think the only voice that should be heard in battles like this is the child’s. Theirs are the only feelings to be considered. What is the best for her! Things like this just make me ill. Sharing…

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