[Skybird]

Psychology knows the concept of "attachment", or bonding, a very profound theory going back to Bowlby and Ainsworth. It postulates the importance of the newborn's and very young child's relation to adult persons it interacts intensively with during it first 2-3 years, when it develops its attachment to one or two most important key persons, namely the mother.

In the first 6-8 weeks after birth, there is a preliminary phase, and the second phase last until the age of around half a year, when the child already learns to differ between persons. The most important phase is the following one and a half year, roughly to the age of two years, when the real attachement, hte bon ding, occurs between the child and - mostly - the mother, because it is the mother interacting the most with the child at that age, and most directly. A closing fourth phase is postulated, lasting for another year until the age of three.

The attachment theory is one of the most profound theory of development psychology and is mostly beyond criticism today, since it overcame initial resistance from psychoanalytical theories in the 50s, I think. The first three years are seen as a key to later psychohygienic conditions in the young human's psychic and personality development. This is one of the reasons why I am so unforgivingly attacking the deconstruction of the family institution and the denial of the imperative importance of healthy and solid and close relations between mothers, and children.

The baby/child does not attach to the biological mother, but to the person that interacts the most with it, and is "closest" to it. Mind you, we are talking about a phase in psychologic development when gender roles still are unimportant and mean nothing.

It seems the foreign family took the baby while it was young, and I assume the child has almost completed it's attachment process to these parents. Assuming that it was given into a good home with a solid family background, that is why I vote for option two: the child should stay where it is.

In principle the father was not and could not have been worried about his baby as long as he did not know it existed. If his background qualifies for a description of being "good" in the wider meaning of the word, he has my sympathy, and my regret. But I rate the child's wellbeing in this difficult-to-judge case as more important, and I base on well-established psychological research data. The attachment theory is not just like any wild guessing or assumption. It qualifies for the rank of a paradigm.

The cheating mother should be brought to court, of course.