they are probably not fluent bilinguals in English. I presume Adam is limited in his command of Arabic as he has been raised exclusively by his mother who is a native English speaker (even though he has been taking Arabic classes).
It's a difficult situation to thrust a child into.
Clearly Adam is surviving (and to my knowledge, no one has accused the Qatari family of abusing or mistreating Adam -- unless you see denying him access to his mother as abuse and mistreatment, which many people do). But again, given that a social worker was only recently given a brief visit to assess that fact, we don't know that he isn't crying out for his mother or asking about her regularly.
Personally I would hazard a guess that he IS asking about her. My own child often calls me at work on days I work late. Adam hasn't seen his mother for almost TWO MONTHS. I think it's safe to say he is wondering where the hell she is.
We do know (from the social worker's report of her visit)that he hasn't been told the truth about the situation, about how he will never again live with his family as long as his Qatari relatives have custody of him. Perhaps if they explained that to Adam, we would hear him crying out for his mother.
Then again, because the uncle has chosen to not talk about the situation at all, we don't know squat about Adam's mental/emotional state right now. The court here hasn't even required regular visits from the social worker, so there's no chance for authorities and his mother to hear updates about how he is adjusting to this new placement.
Their failure to do this reflects, to me, a genuine lack of concern for how poorly or how well Adam handles this situation -- which also demonstrates that they view this boy as an "object" to be possessed rather than as a young child whose life has just been turned upside down.
"If you're looking for sympathy, you'll find it between sh*t and syphilis in the dictionary."
- David Sedaris
they are probably not fluent bilinguals in English. I presume Adam is limited in his command of Arabic as he has been raised exclusively by his mother who is a native English speaker (even though he has been taking Arabic classes).
It's a difficult situation to thrust a child into.
Clearly Adam is surviving (and to my knowledge, no one has accused the Qatari family of abusing or mistreating Adam -- unless you see denying him access to his mother as abuse and mistreatment, which many people do). But again, given that a social worker was only recently given a brief visit to assess that fact, we don't know that he isn't crying out for his mother or asking about her regularly.
Personally I would hazard a guess that he IS asking about her. My own child often calls me at work on days I work late. Adam hasn't seen his mother for almost TWO MONTHS. I think it's safe to say he is wondering where the hell she is.
We do know (from the social worker's report of her visit)that he hasn't been told the truth about the situation, about how he will never again live with his family as long as his Qatari relatives have custody of him. Perhaps if they explained that to Adam, we would hear him crying out for his mother.
Then again, because the uncle has chosen to not talk about the situation at all, we don't know squat about Adam's mental/emotional state right now. The court here hasn't even required regular visits from the social worker, so there's no chance for authorities and his mother to hear updates about how he is adjusting to this new placement.
Their failure to do this reflects, to me, a genuine lack of concern for how poorly or how well Adam handles this situation -- which also demonstrates that they view this boy as an "object" to be possessed rather than as a young child whose life has just been turned upside down.
"If you're looking for sympathy, you'll find it between sh*t and syphilis in the dictionary."
- David Sedaris