Foster Care Procedures for Abandoned Child from Age 5 to 16

[cxinw]

Hey, guys. Long-time reader, first-time asker here!

Prior Research Topics/Sources: foster care, foster homes, orphans, foundlings, abandoned children, non-citizen children abandoned in states, adoption, sixteen-year-old orphans, foundling citizenship, accents in developing children, memory in five-year-olds, when children learn parents' names,

Comments

[thelilyqueen]

First thing, 5 is plenty old enough for him to know his *own* name and probably birthday and talk about where he's been (even if that might be taken with a grain of salt). Unless he's been mislead by his parents on that point, that should be plenty for law enforcement to start looking for records to properly identify him and his citizenship, first in the US and then internationally if that doesn't pan out or he says he was born in _____.

[cxinw]

Thanks very much!

I agree that he would definitely know his own name, but if his parents had neglected essentially everything else (birthdays, for example), would it be feasible for him not to know those details about himself? Someone else mentioned the fact they may have fingerprints on file, so I think it might be too much of a stretch for a five year old to not be identified which could make this a moot point. I'll definitely need to rethink his not being identified at all. Thank you again for your input!

[twilight2000]

fingerprints on file is a new thing - footprints from birth, sure - but think of when this kid was born and see if fingerprinting was big in the bay area then - a family that didn't want to be ID'd certainly wouldn't do it unless they had to :>

[cxinw]

Thanks so much for bringing this up! I wasn't aware having fingerprints on file is such a new thing and I did a quick search and found an article stating that fingerprinting on UK passport applications wasn't mandatory until 2005/2006, which means for the purposes of this timeline, there might not be fingerprints on file? I'll want to do a bit more research and find some more sources to make sure this is accurate, but this was a great lead to launch that new line of research. Thanks again!

[beesandbrews]

As a four year old kindergartener I was taught my name, my parents names, my address and phone number. This was eons ago, granted, when small children were still allowed to roam in the wild, but I can't imagine, in this paranoid day and age, that most parents wouldn't drill this information into their kids

[cxinw]

Thank you so much!

I intend for his parents to be, well, not the greatest and have neglected to educate him on a lot of these personal details such as his address, phone number, etc. I may bump his age down a year or two, though, if his not knowing these things at five is too much of a stretch.

You make a great point about fingerprints. I'll definitely need to do research into this and see if there's any way for this backstory to play out with his fingerprints on file somewhere out there in the world. Thank you again for the help!

[twilight2000]

also check on "kids" for passports - the rules are different for different countries, but "kid" rules are even more different (as to what info is taken, recorded)

[marfisa]

If he was born here and has really negligent parents, they might not have bothered to get him a passport. Even if they brought him here as a baby and he had his own passport when he arrived (I think years ago kids under a certain age were just included on the parent's passport, although that probably isn't true any more, especially in the U.S.), it could be pretty hard to conclusively identify a child based on a photo taken at age two or under, even if the local British consulate* had access to some sort of master database of photographs taken from British citizens' passports. Especially if the kid had some not particularly distinctive last name like Smith or Johnson that provided little help in narrowing it down without hypothetical accompanying fingerprints

[moriwen1]

I don't know anything about foster care, but on the childhood memory questions

[cxinw]

Thank you so much!

I do mean for the parents to have nicknames that they call each other and that the other adults in their life call them, so I was thinking those would be the names this child character would know them by. This helps a lot to confirm that that scenario's possible. Thank you again!

[twilight2000]

Quick note: The only confusion I have above is that they don't usually let foster kids out of the system till 18 - "living on his own at 16" seems odd. If you've found a loophole, you'll want to make that clear in the work so the reader isn't thrown out of your story by that.

As a rule, most people lose their accent who come before teenager years - there are exceptions, but in part it's often because they grow up in community with others who have the same accent (this is anecdotal, I have no citation for this).

The other oddity is that you have BOTH:
a. "keep accent as way to remember parents" and
b. "doesn't remember parents at all"
Those don't work together - and I suspect a quick survey would tell you we (at least think) we remember our parents from earlier. I have memories of mom and dad at 4 - but I wouldn't have known their real names - tho I would have known my own, including my last name, even that early, because they taught it to me.

I'll leave the rest to those who know the system (and memory/accents) better :>.

[cxinw]

Based on the articles I did manage to find on the subject, I've seen some people mention cases of sixteen-year-olds living on their own, but thank you so much for bringing this up. I'll definitely have to confirm again if that's possible.

Regarding the oddity, I do hope to make it obvious that the dissonance is intentional. He grows up with some understandable resentment of his parents and willfully forgets them, but (for a minor plot point) tries hard to keep the accent as a way to keep at least something of his past. However, I'm definitely going to rethink that since there are probably issues with him just willing himself to keep an accent when he's so immersed in a community with a different accent. I may be able to get to the same plot point with some other thing fro his past rather than the accent. Thank you so much!

[twilight2000]

He might have an "odd" affinity for all things British (or violent neg reaction, if you want to go that way) without knowing exactly why. Also, the bay area has such an amazing polyglot of accents, who he was fostered by might be used to impact that accent thing ;>

[goose_entity]

First issue is - "British" accent. Saying this is as accurate as saying "American" accent - there is such a huge diversity of accents that saying "British" is unhelpful.

Also, to which country would the child be deported? Without ID, name, parents, there would be lawsuits that you would hear detonating from Osaka, with every single step being appealed.

[cxinw]

Thank you very much

[goose_entity]

"Osaka" was a place holder for "lawsuits so noisy you could hear them from a very, very long way away" - no more significance than that ;). Even if the child was pinned down to a specific town/city in the UK, if they had no living relatives it would get even more messy. Without specifics of family citizenship (because, for example, the child could have been raised in small down Wales but their parents could be Polish and Serbian), any deportation would be horribly complicated and very, very messy. (Messy in the "lawyer's wet dream" way of messy!)

British accent - most of the major accents (London working class, London upper class, RP, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, etc) would be readily identifiable by pretty much any educated Briton. The more obscure, small-town accents could be a bit more difficult to trace.

So you could totally do something evil like have the kid having a rural Welsh accent, with a Polish father and Serbian mother :D

[cxinw]

Ahh, clever! Never heard that term before. Learning new things every day!

This has certainly given me a lot more to think about in terms of the accent, so I'm glad I hadn't committed to anything specific yet. I may want something relatively recognizable if the child can remain unidentified, but if having a more obscure accent would make it more reasonable for his parents not to be tracked down, I'll look into that as well. Thank you!