The Robin Hood of babies???

Yeah, I'm sure the couple would be suppose to report a baby being dropped on their doorstep (if for no other reason than the exact reason you gave; the baby could have be a kidnapped or stolen baby).

Would it work if this couple just wanted a baby so much that they rationalize keeping the baby, even if it was illegal?

You would have to do some additional research. These days, with a social security number being required of children, they would have to somehow overcome the legal complications.

Maryn said:

I'm putting myself in the shoes of the couple who wants a child desperately, when voila! A toddler appears on my doorstep.

My first instinct is to get this child inside, make sure he's not hurt, that he's warm, fed, etc., during which he will be adorable. Let's assume the neighbors did not see the baby dropped off, so I've done this without anybody being the wiser except the person who dropped the baby off.

Once I'm sure the kid is healthy and happy, I'd start talking with my husband. This must be somebody's baby. What's going on? I'd be following the news closely, watching for kidnappings, missing children, and such. The druggies have notified the police, right? So this is going to get publicity, and I will learn the parents are junkies and lousy parents. Nevertheless, the police will search ardently.

Which means my husband and I have a hard decision to make. Do we essentially steal this child or not? For the purposes of your story, we do. In that case, we don't want our neighbors, colleagues, friends, and such to see we suddenly have bypassed that seven-year adoption waiting list and have no papers.

What we do instead is liquidate our assets, pack up our stuff, and take off, without letting anybody see the baby. We buy baby supplies as needed at some large, anonymous store, among many other purchases.

We'd be smart to take the baby across international borders illegally until we have him in a place where nobody's paying any attention to whether the Americans with the baby have papers for him. .

Click to expand...

I'm with you up to this point, but crossing international borders can get you into serious trouble. All they really need to do is move to any big city and rent an apartment. Go to the cemetery and find a child who died soon after birth and forge a copy of the birth ceritficate. Then you can get a legal SS#. If you forge the SS certificate it will be flagged when the parents file a return, or at least when the child starts to work.

Don't know about the legalities, or moralities of keeping the kid, but on the other end, maybe the birthparents don't want the kid, (they may still wonder what the heck happened to ShortStuff and berate each other for irresponsibility) but what if people in their neighbourhood know they have a kid? The parents may just shrug and move on, but what if the neighbours are worried about the missing kid, even suspect foul play? Or, at least, fatal accident?
"Those two druggies have that sweet child, where is the poor little fellow now? I always knew it would end badly!"
They might keep on at the police, CPS, etc. If the parents are being investigated, they may be a lot more interested in the fate of their offspring.
This might be useful if you need additional complication.

It would be easier to get away with keeping the baby without moving if the new parents are recluses who don't interact with anyone in the neighborhood, and their neighbors don't care about... they can have friends/relatives in the area, as long as only the parents go to visit them and never the other way around. Maybe order the baby stuff online just in case? It would also help the social security issue if they have a low enough income not to have to file taxes, or make most to all of their money off the books. Just putting that out there...

Or if the new parents didn't have the baby dropped on them, all unprepared. If they had time to make up a story. "When we realised it would be a 7 year wait for a baby here, we started inquiries overseas, and, guess what! Our baby arrived from Russia yesterday! We didn't want to say anything earlier and jinx it!"
Presto! A baby that they don't have to hide. Most people don't really care about the actual details of how the baby came, or whether Russia is still a source of adoptable babies or not, it seems vaguely plausible, and that's good enough for anyone but some kind of nut.
They'd still have to get fake papers, but any missing documents could be blamed on that darn orphanage, and anyway, if they're not moving around, they won't need much ID before the baby starts school.

And what happens when the child needs medical attention? Blood type may not match either parent, and DNA definitely won't. Family medical history won't match, either, which means the baby could die because the couple doesn't know, and won't admit the baby isn't theirs. Nor can you just forge a social security number. First you need a birth certificate, one that's actually on record, and then the SS number is on record. The coupel would need a birth certificate regularly, and this does not mean a piece of paper that looks like a birth certificate. It means one actually on file. Computers have made the old way of faking an identity impossible.

You can't even get a baby from Russia or China or anywhere else in a Presto! manner. Babies still have to come through customs, etc. Say your baby is adopted from somewhere else, and you must be able to prove it. The only way you can fake an adoption this way is to have a very high-placed lawyer who can not only fake the papers, but who can actually file all the right things in all the right places. It ain't easy, and it ain't cheap.

And what happens when the baby is school age?

If the MC feels bad for the baby, you're blowing logic when he doesn't just call social services. The couple may keep a baby hid for many years, but they can never, ever treat that baby as anything other than a kidnapped child, which is what it is.

Where? When?

In the contemporary US, it's feasible but illegal. Social services will first try to find the parents or other relatives, then adopt it out if they're not findable or if they relinquish -- but not necessarily to the people who found it.

However, depending on the situation, the parents of the child *can* voluntarily relinquish the baby to specific parents. (Assuming US here, the rules are different in the UK and Australia -- there the parent-choice is not up to the birthparents.) You could have the MCs bribe or otherwise persuade the parents to do so. Rules on how to do it differ from state to state, but if both parents are in agreement and potential adoptive parents have been located, it's pretty straightforward.

If the objective is to get the baby away from the abusive parents, then the best bet would be to drop him off at a Safe Haven. (This varies from State to State both in terms of what is considered a SH and the age limit on the kid.)

If the objective is to have the childless couple raise the kid without being legally entitled, then either they are off the map (kid is home-schooled) or they'll have to create paperwork. Having no paperwork will mess the kid up later. He won't even be able to prove he's a US citizen, or his actual age.

Depending on which state they're in, they may be able to file for a "delayed birth certificate." Here's a link for how to do it for Oregon.

http://www.mothering.com/community/forum/thread/770140/getting-the-birth-certificate

Then they're all set. File for an SSN, and so on.

If you want complications later -- the kid's blood group doesn't match the parents, and it's spotted when he has an accident or something.

In most cases, when something like that happens, they assume the baby was inadvertently switched with another one in the hospital. But in this case, they're filing for an unattended home birth...

If nothing goes wrong, the kid could grow up never knowing he's been raised by parents who weren't his bio-parents.

Most feasible, is that if the couple has been on a waiting list to adopt. They have probably already had a home study and could in theory have been approved as foster parents. If that were the case, yes they would have to notify child protective services, but if it was a relative (or if that was their story) they could apply for temporary custody until things were finalized.

I'm adopted and from what I've gotten from the whole thing, in regards to this scenario, is that it would be possible (given a few conditions)

1) The authorities are unable to find out what happened to the birth parents of the kid
2) The non-druggy parents did in fact alert the authorities. One would be surprised how often not having any biological connection to their parents would come up.
3) The baby was officially declared an orphan by the authorities, thereby making the child eligible to be adopted. My (adoptive) parents had to do a lot to get me and with all of today's focus on child-rearing there is simply NO way to get around the government for non-biological parents. For example, the kid will need a birth certificate. It is possible to verify a child is yours in undocumented births but the government does not simply "take the alleged parents' word for it"

That said, having this baby adopted by the non-druggy parents is far from impossible. There are so many possibilities to how this could be accomplished you may even have a nice little addition to your plot. Maybe the parents learn a little somthin' from the process? Maybe the kid grows up (if the story covers that many years) and has a little somethin' special to build his character to make him more dimensional? Idk just sayin

BTW I am by no means someone who studies law. This is all just what I have learned first hand from being adopted. If someone has something else to say that does study law I highly suggest you take their advice over mine lol