Mother Finds Kidnapped Children On Facebook

[Danpascooch]

inane status updates about bacon

That. Hurt. I demand an apology!

But yeah, I don't really know how good this is, I mean the kids were allowed Facebook and were obviously happy enough to not be searching for their mother, so now she just got rid of their main role model and took his place, with no choice for the kids to stay with the guy.

How the hell can anyone be siding with the dad on this?

Did they miss the word kidnapped!?

 

[swansman]

1. He may have also used a phone. And even so, most rational people would still appeal rather than kidnap. Morality tends towards legal routes for some reason.

2. The reason I think the kidnapping is a sign that he's more likely to have bad intentions is because 1) it's illegal, 2) it's highly cruel. He must have known how much it would hurt her AND the children. At that age it's really not good for them to lose a highly important part of their world so abruptly.

3. It is possible, yes, but I personally would give her the benefit of the doubt. Also, though I'm not sure, wouldn't it be very unlikely for her to get FULL custody without a good reason, such as him being abusive or insane? I mean, I have a friend whose mother's side tend to be suffer schizophrenia, her brother and sister both suffer it and live with their mother, and by law she still must visit them each summer. I'd say the only reason it's each summer and not every second week is because she's in Ireland and they're in America.

1) A phone is possible, but most uses of a phone would make it fairly easy to track him down. I do disagree that morality tends towards legal routes. The law is a system of rules that are made by flawed people and applied by those same flawed people. Any case where people make a mistake when applying the law makes it difficult to legally combat it. The justice system hates to admit it's made a mistake, because that's a reminder that the law isn't infallible.

2)I don't see illegality as a sign of wrongdoing, so I'm simply going to ignore that. As for it being cruel, at their age, they probably barely even realized what happened. The fact that it's cruel to her doesn't really matter to me in this case. Sure, it's regretful, but the welfare of the kids is the issue.

3) All the reason she'd need is that she's moving to another state for full custody. That wouldn't deny him visitation rights though. If the divorce were bad enough though, even if it's due to her actions, she might be able to deny him visitation rights solely because their fighting would be bad for the children. I've never heard of this being applied to older children though.

Even if he keeps visitation rights though, move far enough away and that means he'd rarely get to see them. Even if you can see them every now and then, not being able to be a significant part of your kids life just because someone hates you is rather harsh.

She had no guarantee he'd even let her in the door to see them, or that he wouldn't simply abscond with them again. Once bitten, twice shy. If someone you had trusted enough to marry took your children, would you give them a chance to do the same thing again?

Plus, what he did was still illegal. I'm not too up on American laws, but I'm fairly certain that you have to report crimes. She might have gotten into trouble elsewise.

You're supposed to report crimes, but in this case, if you don't, nothing is going to happen. I think I've also made it clear I don't particularly care for laws. I'd also hope that any loving parent would, even if they care about the law, care about their children's happiness more.

Doing that successfully with two kids in highschool isn't going to happen. Once they were found that time, that was it. Running away wouldn't have worked.

You don't see illegality as a sign of wrongdoing? Jeez you make it sound like everything that is illegal seem like its the right thing to do. As for visitation rights in the USA it is pretty much guaranteed. The courts would have to decide if the father was a bad parent not the mother, for visitation rights. Sure the mother can say this and that and whatever she wanted but she would have to back that up with evidence and witnesses. Even if the mother moved to a different state the father could still get the children on every other holiday and every summer vacation. I know that for a fact that if the mother doesn't want to see the father while exchanging the children they can do it at a police station. Even if the father was loving and caring and blah blah blah and somehow lost custody or visitation rights he can still APPEAL the decision.

On a side note, how can you not care for laws?

 

[Danpascooch]

They probably bonded with the father more by now, well, good job destroying that relation Mrs.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Fifteen years, probably don't even remember having a mother. She just wrecked a family. Well, except for the eighteen year old, who's legally allowed to do whatever the fuck, but the other one, she just wrecked a family...

Dear lord this thread is appalling.

Just try to imagine you are the mother. Your children, your own flesh and blood, were taken from you at such a young age that you never even got to spend much time with them. You searched a long time for them, but nothing ever came from it. Then you suddenly find one of them. Would you not be overjoyed? Would you not want to see the children that were stolen from you 15 years ago? I would.

Yes, it will be hard for the two children to build a relationship with their mother and adapt to a new home. Maybe in the end it would have been better to leave them with the father. Maybe the father was justified in trying to run away with the kids, and the mother is the irresponsible parent. But none of that has been revealed yet. You don't know why the father left with the children. So I don't understand why people are calling this women a selfish ***** when all she wanted to do was get her children back, which is a perfectly normal thing for a mother to want.

THANK YOU! She just wanted her kids back from her kidnapper and apparently she's the villain according to mostly everyone. Riiiight.

I see the logic, it's very clear, but the fact of the matter is that the sane thing to do is to sit down with the father and discuss something. Or sit down with the child and discuss something. You don't just uproot your children because of a maternal need. If you actually love them you'd find a way to work it out, while the blackmailing the father with uprooting them because of a maternal need.

Here's how that would go:

Mom *to dad*: "We need to talk"

Dad: Skips town with kids AGAIN.

The dad wrecked the family when he KIDNAPPED THE FUCKING KIDS not the mom!

 

[Danpascooch]

Dear lord this thread is appalling.

Just try to imagine you are the mother. Your children, your own flesh and blood, were taken from you at such a young age that you never even got to spend much time with them. You searched a long time for them, but nothing ever came from it. Then you suddenly find one of them. Would you not be overjoyed? Would you not want to see the children that were stolen from you 15 years ago? I would.

Yes, it will be hard for the two children to build a relationship with their mother and adapt to a new home. Maybe in the end it would have been better to leave them with the father. Maybe the father was justified in trying to run away with the kids, and the mother is the irresponsible parent. But none of that has been revealed yet. You don't know why the father left with the children. So I don't understand why people are calling this women a selfish ***** when all she wanted to do was get her children back, which is a perfectly normal thing for a mother to want.

In my experience, anyone who kidnaps 3 year old children is not a great person to leave the parenting of the kids to.

Of course the mom was justified, these people are idiots.

 

[Danpascooch]

1. He may have also used a phone. And even so, most rational people would still appeal rather than kidnap. Morality tends towards legal routes for some reason.

2. The reason I think the kidnapping is a sign that he's more likely to have bad intentions is because 1) it's illegal, 2) it's highly cruel. He must have known how much it would hurt her AND the children. At that age it's really not good for them to lose a highly important part of their world so abruptly.

3. It is possible, yes, but I personally would give her the benefit of the doubt. Also, though I'm not sure, wouldn't it be very unlikely for her to get FULL custody without a good reason, such as him being abusive or insane? I mean, I have a friend whose mother's side tend to be suffer schizophrenia, her brother and sister both suffer it and live with their mother, and by law she still must visit them each summer. I'd say the only reason it's each summer and not every second week is because she's in Ireland and they're in America.

1) A phone is possible, but most uses of a phone would make it fairly easy to track him down. I do disagree that morality tends towards legal routes. The law is a system of rules that are made by flawed people and applied by those same flawed people. Any case where people make a mistake when applying the law makes it difficult to legally combat it. The justice system hates to admit it's made a mistake, because that's a reminder that the law isn't infallible.

2)I don't see illegality as a sign of wrongdoing, so I'm simply going to ignore that. As for it being cruel, at their age, they probably barely even realized what happened. The fact that it's cruel to her doesn't really matter to me in this case. Sure, it's regretful, but the welfare of the kids is the issue.

3) All the reason she'd need is that she's moving to another state for full custody. That wouldn't deny him visitation rights though. If the divorce were bad enough though, even if it's due to her actions, she might be able to deny him visitation rights solely because their fighting would be bad for the children. I've never heard of this being applied to older children though.

Even if he keeps visitation rights though, move far enough away and that means he'd rarely get to see them. Even if you can see them every now and then, not being able to be a significant part of your kids life just because someone hates you is rather harsh.

She had no guarantee he'd even let her in the door to see them, or that he wouldn't simply abscond with them again. Once bitten, twice shy. If someone you had trusted enough to marry took your children, would you give them a chance to do the same thing again?

Plus, what he did was still illegal. I'm not too up on American laws, but I'm fairly certain that you have to report crimes. She might have gotten into trouble elsewise.

You're supposed to report crimes, but in this case, if you don't, nothing is going to happen. I think I've also made it clear I don't particularly care for laws. I'd also hope that any loving parent would, even if they care about the law, care about their children's happiness more.

Doing that successfully with two kids in highschool isn't going to happen. Once they were found that time, that was it. Running away wouldn't have worked.

It sounds like you think kidnapping is fine just because of some immature urge to "fight the system"

Kidnapping is wrong

And if you think that making kidnapping illegal is a failure of the legal system, frankly I question your intelligence.

 

[infinity_turtles]

Please define kidnapping. If the courts wanted to hand a child over to a child rapist(Knowingly or not. Your choice), and the parent "kidnapped" the child, would that be wrong? Because at those children's age, "kidnapping" means taken away from whoever the courts say the kids belong to. This obviously isn't a case as severe as that, and it's possible the kids would have been better off with the mother. None of us know that for sure though, because all we know of the situation is the dad took the kids without permission. That's it.

So, my "immature urge to fight the system", is actually me wanting people not just take the fact that the system is right for granted and mindlessly cheer it on. To define which side is right in this case, I NEED MORE INFORMATION!(Sorry for the caps lock) This is the point I've been trying to get across.

The devil is very much in the details, and a hard set system of laws has a great deal of trouble dealing with the details. And this is what I mean every time I say I don't care too much for laws or I don't factor in the illegality of an action when considering it's morality.

 

[infinity_turtles]

Here's how that would go:

Mom *to dad*: "We need to talk"

Dad: Skips town with kids AGAIN.

The dad wrecked the family when he KIDNAPPED THE FUCKING KIDS not the mom!

At which point she calls the police and they track them down because getting two teenagers to uproot their lives quickly without keeping in touch with their friends is impossible.

You don't see illegality as a sign of wrongdoing? Jeez you make it sound like everything that is illegal seem like its the right thing to do.
...
On a side note, how can you not care for laws?

That's not what I mean. What I mean is that laws are hard set on general principles, while life is very much a collection of small details. The general principle will be right most often, but the exceptions happen with enough frequency that I find it necessary to look at the details in every case.

As for visitation rights in the USA it is pretty much guaranteed. The courts would have to decide if the father was a bad parent not the mother, for visitation rights. Sure the mother can say this and that and whatever she wanted but she would have to back that up with evidence and witnesses.

That's how it's supposed to work. I've seen a "good" divorce lawyer get around that before though. I said something about a friend of mine in middleschool before in this thread. Her family ran a mixed martial arts school, and she was very into that. Because she was a girl and that wasn't something teenage girls do though, and she'd surely try and keep up with it during visits, her father lost visitation rights. Again, we have an imperfect system that is very easily abused.

Even if the mother moved to a different state the father could still get the children on every other holiday and every summer vacation. I know that for a fact that if the mother doesn't want to see the father while exchanging the children they can do it at a police station.

That is how it's supposed to work. If it always did, I wouldn't be making the arguement that we need more details

Even if the father was loving and caring and blah blah blah and somehow lost custody or visitation rights he can still APPEAL the decision.

Appeals take time, and children can be very quickly manipulated by their parents. If I were in that situation, I'd be very afraid that my former wife would try and make my children hate me.

 

[fletch_talon]

I think too many people in this thread have "Mummy issues".
Honestly you want to make the point that maybe she was a bad mother, fine, that's a fair point. Too many of you however are making these claims as though its the most likely scenario.

 

[snowman6251]

I think this probably boils down to good for the mom, bad for the kids.

 

[demoman_chaos]

When they say "kidnapped" do they mean that the father knew he had no chance of winning a court custody case and knew the only chance he had was to take them away with him, so he did? Practically all custody cases are in favor of the woman for no reason other than the fact she is female (judges seem to think dad's can't raise kids well without a woman around).
If he would have went to court to fight for custody, he would have lost, been stripped of every cent he makes for "child support "(which more often than not spent almost entirely on stuff the mother wants for herself), and most likely only ever see the kids 2 times a month at most.

His only crime was loving his kids and letting them go on facebook.

 

[Blueruler182]

They probably bonded with the father more by now, well, good job destroying that relation Mrs.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Fifteen years, probably don't even remember having a mother. She just wrecked a family. Well, except for the eighteen year old, who's legally allowed to do whatever the fuck, but the other one, she just wrecked a family...

Dear lord this thread is appalling.

Just try to imagine you are the mother. Your children, your own flesh and blood, were taken from you at such a young age that you never even got to spend much time with them. You searched a long time for them, but nothing ever came from it. Then you suddenly find one of them. Would you not be overjoyed? Would you not want to see the children that were stolen from you 15 years ago? I would.

Yes, it will be hard for the two children to build a relationship with their mother and adapt to a new home. Maybe in the end it would have been better to leave them with the father. Maybe the father was justified in trying to run away with the kids, and the mother is the irresponsible parent. But none of that has been revealed yet. You don't know why the father left with the children. So I don't understand why people are calling this women a selfish ***** when all she wanted to do was get her children back, which is a perfectly normal thing for a mother to want.

THANK YOU! She just wanted her kids back from her kidnapper and apparently she's the villain according to mostly everyone. Riiiight.

I see the logic, it's very clear, but the fact of the matter is that the sane thing to do is to sit down with the father and discuss something. Or sit down with the child and discuss something. You don't just uproot your children because of a maternal need. If you actually love them you'd find a way to work it out, while the blackmailing the father with uprooting them because of a maternal need.

Here's how that would go:

Mom *to dad*: "We need to talk"

Dad: Skips town with kids AGAIN.

The dad wrecked the family when he KIDNAPPED THE FUCKING KIDS not the mom!

Lets step back for a second and look at this. One of the kids is 18. They're legally allowed and psychologically very likely to tell their father to go fuck himself if he tries to uproot them. The kids are at a point where they can fight back and, if the mother played this smart, they would have been able to see her and talk to her. Wanna know how she could have played it smart? She could have started talking to the kid about this before going to talk to the father, or even convinced the child to talk to the father about it. After all that time, if he chloroformed the child, they could have fought back after regaining consciousness and the other child would have done something.

Now, taking another step back. The dad wrecked her life the kidnapping. The kids were still too young to take any solid memories of it, though bordering that time in their life. It didn't wreck a family, it wrecked her life. I'm not saying it was justified and I'm not saying he's a good person, I honestly think he's a despicable piece of shit, but don't exaggerate what happened. The kids have moved on and probably have a life of their own at this point. I'm not claiming to know whether or not they have a good home life, but good or not, people tend to be defensive about their parents. And, push a teenager in any direction, they'll push right back. Guide them, like I mentioned above, and it can work for you, and if he tries and run, he'll be trying to push that wall.

Anyway, they've moved on. They have a life. Not just family, school. Friends. Now they're moving back in with her? It's not just losing their father they have to deal with, it's losing their lives. To them, the only thing this woman is is the person who took away everything from them. In the long run, it's going to hurt her, and in the short it's going to hurt them.

Now, I agree that a reconnection would have been a good idea, but what she did was stupid. I can see why she'd be emotional, and I'm not calling her a willing participant in the events that are no doubt to follow, and I can see where she's coming from. Doesn't mean she didn't fuck up any less.

And all of this is idol speculation besides. As was mentioned above, no details have been released beyond this facebook part. Without knowing anything except the fact that the girls lived 15 years in this life and she suddenly disrupted it. If you look beyond the emotional details of the mother there, what she did was very selfish.

 

[Internet Kraken]

I see the logic, it's very clear, but the fact of the matter is that the sane thing to do is to sit down with the father and discuss something. Or sit down with the child and discuss something. You don't just uproot your children because of a maternal need. If you actually love them you'd find a way to work it out, while the blackmailing the father with uprooting them because of a maternal need.

According to the original article the mother did have several conversations with her lost daughter over facebook, so it's not like she just randomly came in and took the children away without them knowing what the hell was going on. Again, we don't know the whole story, but I imagine there isn't really another way to work this out, since the father was willing to kidnap the kids and hide them from their mother for 15 years.

 

[Danpascooch]

They probably bonded with the father more by now, well, good job destroying that relation Mrs.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Fifteen years, probably don't even remember having a mother. She just wrecked a family. Well, except for the eighteen year old, who's legally allowed to do whatever the fuck, but the other one, she just wrecked a family...

Dear lord this thread is appalling.

Just try to imagine you are the mother. Your children, your own flesh and blood, were taken from you at such a young age that you never even got to spend much time with them. You searched a long time for them, but nothing ever came from it. Then you suddenly find one of them. Would you not be overjoyed? Would you not want to see the children that were stolen from you 15 years ago? I would.

Yes, it will be hard for the two children to build a relationship with their mother and adapt to a new home. Maybe in the end it would have been better to leave them with the father. Maybe the father was justified in trying to run away with the kids, and the mother is the irresponsible parent. But none of that has been revealed yet. You don't know why the father left with the children. So I don't understand why people are calling this women a selfish ***** when all she wanted to do was get her children back, which is a perfectly normal thing for a mother to want.

THANK YOU! She just wanted her kids back from her kidnapper and apparently she's the villain according to mostly everyone. Riiiight.

I see the logic, it's very clear, but the fact of the matter is that the sane thing to do is to sit down with the father and discuss something. Or sit down with the child and discuss something. You don't just uproot your children because of a maternal need. If you actually love them you'd find a way to work it out, while the blackmailing the father with uprooting them because of a maternal need.

Here's how that would go:

Mom *to dad*: "We need to talk"

Dad: Skips town with kids AGAIN.

The dad wrecked the family when he KIDNAPPED THE FUCKING KIDS not the mom!

Lets step back for a second and look at this. One of the kids is 18. They're legally allowed and psychologically very likely to tell their father to go fuck himself if he tries to uproot them. The kids are at a point where they can fight back and, if the mother played this smart, they would have been able to see her and talk to her. Wanna know how she could have played it smart? She could have started talking to the kid about this before going to talk to the father, or even convinced the child to talk to the father about it. After all that time, if he chloroformed the child, they could have fought back after regaining consciousness and the other child would have done something.

Now, taking another step back. The dad wrecked her life the kidnapping. The kids were still too young to take any solid memories of it, though bordering that time in their life. It didn't wreck a family, it wrecked her life. I'm not saying it was justified and I'm not saying he's a good person, I honestly think he's a despicable piece of shit, but don't exaggerate what happened. The kids have moved on and probably have a life of their own at this point. I'm not claiming to know whether or not they have a good home life, but good or not, people tend to be defensive about their parents. And, push a teenager in any direction, they'll push right back. Guide them, like I mentioned above, and it can work for you, and if he tries and run, he'll be trying to push that wall.

Anyway, they've moved on. They have a life. Not just family, school. Friends. Now they're moving back in with her? It's not just losing their father they have to deal with, it's losing their lives. To them, the only thing this woman is is the person who took away everything from them. In the long run, it's going to hurt her, and in the short it's going to hurt them.

Now, I agree that a reconnection would have been a good idea, but what she did was stupid. I can see why she'd be emotional, and I'm not calling her a willing participant in the events that are no doubt to follow, and I can see where she's coming from. Doesn't mean she didn't fuck up any less.

And all of this is idol speculation besides. As was mentioned above, no details have been released beyond this facebook part. Without knowing anything except the fact that the girls lived 15 years in this life and she suddenly disrupted it. If you look beyond the emotional details of the mother there, what she did was very selfish.

While reading this, all I could hear was: "HE FUCKING KIDNAPPED THESE KIDS"

It's not exactly selfish to go to the police when someone steals your fucking kids. You're a little past the "reconcile" point when your kids have been stolen for 15 years, there's no guarantee he wouldn't have done something stupid/dangerous if she tried to approach him without the police.

 

[geldonyetich]

Custody battles are always a sad thing. That as fellow should go to jail because he couldn't bring himself to relinquish his kids and fled, 15 years after the crime occurred, is a second wrong.

But it really depends on the specifics. If the father or mother are unfit parents, emotionally or financially, it introduces important factors. Unfortunately the article does not specify, it's simply concerned about the unusual happenstance of Facebook being used this way.

Given that we lack the necessary information, we are unsuited to judge.

 

[Danpascooch]

Here's how that would go:

Mom *to dad*: "We need to talk"

Dad: Skips town with kids AGAIN.

The dad wrecked the family when he KIDNAPPED THE FUCKING KIDS not the mom!

At which point she calls the police and they track them down because getting two teenagers to uproot their lives quickly without keeping in touch with their friends is impossible.

You don't see illegality as a sign of wrongdoing? Jeez you make it sound like everything that is illegal seem like its the right thing to do.
...
On a side note, how can you not care for laws?

That's not what I mean. What I mean is that laws are hard set on general principles, while life is very much a collection of small details. The general principle will be right most often, but the exceptions happen with enough frequency that I find it necessary to look at the details in every case.

As for visitation rights in the USA it is pretty much guaranteed. The courts would have to decide if the father was a bad parent not the mother, for visitation rights. Sure the mother can say this and that and whatever she wanted but she would have to back that up with evidence and witnesses.

That's how it's supposed to work. I've seen a "good" divorce lawyer get around that before though. I said something about a friend of mine in middleschool before in this thread. Her family ran a mixed martial arts school, and she was very into that. Because she was a girl and that wasn't something teenage girls do though, and she'd surely try and keep up with it during visits, her father lost visitation rights. Again, we have an imperfect system that is very easily abused.

Even if the mother moved to a different state the father could still get the children on every other holiday and every summer vacation. I know that for a fact that if the mother doesn't want to see the father while exchanging the children they can do it at a police station.

That is how it's supposed to work. If it always did, I wouldn't be making the arguement that we need more details

Even if the father was loving and caring and blah blah blah and somehow lost custody or visitation rights he can still APPEAL the decision.

Appeals take time, and children can be very quickly manipulated by their parents. If I were in that situation, I'd be very afraid that my former wife would try and make my children hate me.

Your post in one easy sentence:

Kidnapping is fine, Mom is a jerk for ratting him out.


I couldn't disagree more, she shouldn't give him another chance to do something stupid/dangerous by not calling the cops, he kidnapped these kids, and you're worried about how SHE might manipulate them? In your head is a wondrous, magical contraption based on sending electrical pulses through nerves, use it.

 

[Danpascooch]

Custody battles are always a sad thing. That as fellow should go to jail because he couldn't bring himself to relinquish his kids and fled, 15 years after the crime occurred, is a second wrong.

But it really depends on the specifics. If the father or mother are unfit parents, emotionally or financially, it introduces important factors. Unfortunately the article does not specify, it's simply concerned about the unusual happenstance of Facebook being used this way.

Given that we lack the necessary information, we are unsuited to judge.

You think it's sad that someone can be held responsible for kidnapping?

Hell, I'd be freaked out living in a society where kidnappers didn't go to jail.

 

[Aenir]

They probably bonded with the father more by now, well, good job destroying that relation Mrs.

This.
"Think of the children!"
Granted, kidnapping is bad and illegal and all that, but they were 2 and 1 years old when they were kidnapped. It has been 15 years.

 

[geldonyetich]

You think it's sad that someone can be held responsible for kidnapping?

Hell, I'd be freaked out living in a society where kidnappers didn't go to jail.

He kidnapped his own children. It's a little different scenario than kidnapping in general.

 

[Blueruler182]

According to the original article the mother did have several conversations with her lost daughter over facebook, so it's not like she just randomly came in and took the children away without them knowing what the hell was going on. Again, we don't know the whole story, but I imagine there isn't really another way to work this out, since the father was willing to kidnap the kids and hide them from their mother for 15 years.

Yeah, I read that too, but, again, I still think getting the child to talk to her father about it would have made more sense. It's good that it wasn't sprung on them, but I still think some form of settlement would have been smarter.

While reading this, all I could hear was: "HE FUCKING KIDNAPPED THESE KIDS"

It's not exactly selfish to go to the police when someone steals your fucking kids. You're a little past the "reconcile" point when your kids have been stolen for 15 years, there's no guarantee he wouldn't have done something stupid/dangerous if she tried to approach him without the police.

I don't believe I said "reconcile" at any point, I just said talk. I'm a child of divorce, I know the difference. I also know if my father took me away from my home and friends and everything I know over night, I'd be pretty pissed. And if he didn't do anything within those fifteen years, and presumably formed an alias somehow, nor did he hurt the children in that time, it seems safe to assume he wouldn't do anything now.

And there's no need to be so emotional about it. I apologize if I hit a cord, but I'm just saying what I believe. Yes I agree that she should be with her kids. I just think she should have thought things through a little more.

 

[Internet Kraken]

According to the original article the mother did have several conversations with her lost daughter over facebook, so it's not like she just randomly came in and took the children away without them knowing what the hell was going on. Again, we don't know the whole story, but I imagine there isn't really another way to work this out, since the father was willing to kidnap the kids and hide them from their mother for 15 years.

Yeah, I read that too, but, again, I still think getting the child to talk to her father about it would have made more sense. It's good that it wasn't sprung on them, but I still think some form of settlement would have been smarter.

You know, the article doesn't say anything about them not trying that. The article doesn't say anything about them not trying to talk. I'm not saying she necessarily did do this, but you don't know that she didn't.

I don't get why so many of you look at this story and immediately try to find the worst case scenario. It's like people are so used to the news saying bad things that they assume there can never be a genuinely positive thing. All we know right now is that a mother has been reunited with her lost children. Is it really necessary to assume that this women is a just a selfish ***** ruining these kids live just to fulfill her own maternal needs?