"Tell Everyone He Died..." Why Successful Parents Give Up Their Children

Lida Moniava, director of the House with a Lighthouse children's charity fund, published another post on a very important and delicate topic:

“I don’t know if I can write correctly on a complex topic. But since I am now very worried about this and occupies about all my thoughts, I will write as best I can. About orphans from boarding schools and their blood families. How do disabled children end up in a boarding school? How do their blood parents live after that?

I have already told how I found Kolya's blood family. Now we can say we are friends, every few days I send Kolya's mom his photo, every 2 weeks mom comes to spend time with him, I can give Kolya to her for half a day and be calm, they go for a walk together, to the pool, etc. Kolya's mother is the person with whom we most share experiences at the time of Kolya's deterioration. And with whom we celebrate Colin's birthday together.

Colin’s mother told me several times in front of me that if she hadn’t been pressured at the hospital, that such children live only in the boarding school, and she had to write a refusal, now everything would be different. But now everything is as it is - brothers and sisters do not know about Kolya's existence. Friends and colleagues of the parents think that the child died 13 years ago in the hospital.

Neither I, nor Kolya's mother herself, excuse what they did - to abandon the child and send him to a boarding school, it's awful. But not necessarily bad, antisocial people do this. Normal people make mistakes like that. Who then suffer very much all their lives because of what they have done. And I don't even know whose life is worse - a child who became an orphan, or parents who gave up the child, and then who gnaw themselves from the inside all their lives.

Now the nanny from the House with a Lighthouse has arranged custody of another palliative child from the orphanage. We wondered - who are his parents, are they alive, what do they look like? One night on social networks, and I found everyone - mom, dad, brothers, sisters, even the secret illegitimate children of dad, relatives, friends. Their photographs, their interests, their friends and many relatives.

God, how does this child look like his dad! And on mom! I found out that my parents are already dead. Although they sent the child to a boarding school much earlier, even at birth. Parents are creative, interesting people, famous in their field, with a good career and a lot of fans. Here are the brothers and sisters of this child, their relatives, friends of the parents on social networks. I wrote to everyone except the children (although I also found them on social networks) a message that we took such and such a child from the orphanage and would like to establish contact with his relatives, brothers and sisters, please help.

To say that all these people were in shock is to say nothing. It turned out that they did not know that this child existed at all, or that he was alive, and did not die in the hospital (this version, apparently, are massively advised by doctors to parents who send their children to a boarding school - "and you tell everyone that he died" ).

I realized that my parents kept their secret for many years and died with this secret. As one of the family friends said - it is likely that my mother got cancer at a young age - just because of this secret, which was destroying her from the inside. People from the closest circle of my family answered me: "IT JUST CANNOT BE". And yet I was able to restore the history of mom and dad, and even grandfather, and we found brothers and sisters, and now we will discuss with a psychologist when and how to start discussing with the children the topic that they have a seriously ill brother, about whom no one is. I didn’t know who had lived all his life in a boarding school, but with whom they could now meet and start communicating if they wanted to.

Unwittingly, I destroyed a secret that had been kept for many years. Destroyed after the death of the people who created and kept this secret. I understand that all this is very difficult and painful. And yet I think it was inevitable.

It is impossible to easily give birth to a child and refuse him, send him to a boarding school. This is an act that will never be easy for parents (guilt will then destroy from the inside for many years). It is impossible to hide it, even if you make a lot of efforts and hide your whole life, then it happens by chance that there will be people who, even after your death, will begin to unravel the story, and all your lies will come true.

The situations in families are very different. I will never condemn a specific person who abandoned a child, because I understand how hard it was for him, from what hopelessness he made this decision. And I also understand how hard it can be then for life. Such parents want to hug and regret.

And yet, why, with living, good and successful parents, Kolya lived all his life in a boarding school? Why does a famous musician all over the country have a disabled child in a boarding school? Why does a Moscow State University teacher have a child in a boarding school? Why does a polite and modest woman, with whom we are now talking on the phone, have a son for 20 years living in a boarding school?

I am sure that abandoning a child is a catastrophe not only for specific people, but for the whole society. In our society, everything is arranged this way - first, injuries due to the unprofessionalism of doctors during childbirth, then the incorrect behavior of doctors in the maternity hospital, the system separating the mother and the child in intensive care, the lack of social and psychological assistance, and the lack of early palliative care. These things, which depend on you and me, lead to the fact that some are not the worst! - people place their children in a boarding school, tell all their friends and relatives that the child has died. And then they themselves, at a young age, die of cancer, because it is impossible to live with it, and still hoping that they are taking their secret with them to the grave. But keeping such things secret is impossible.

In order to somehow fix this, I would like to have a professional system of obstetrics and stop the huge flow of children who were injured during childbirth to hospice and boarding schools. Early - at the stage of pregnancy and childbirth and resuscitation - the inclusion of palliative care. I would like to see early assistance for families where a child with a disability was born. Babysitters and state assistants who will allow parents not to stay at home all their lives, but to continue working. To create an accessible environment that will not divide society into walkers and not so many. For people with disabilities to begin to accept full-time education in schools and universities, so that accompanied accommodation, jobs for severely disabled people and day centers appear.

If we - society - do all this, there will be fewer children in boarding schools and the crippled fate of orphans and their unfortunate blood parents..."