"This is a bad analogy, but it’s sort of like selling a used car," Gary Barnes says of why he and his wife weren’t told more. "If you tell someone it breaks down every day, nobody’s going to buy it."
The Barneses, who breed miniature horses for a living, found Anna to be defiant. Counseling proved too expensive and inconvenient. A home for troubled kids told them she wasn’t a good fit for its program. If they turned Anna over to the state of Texas, the Barneses say they were told, they would be considered unfit parents and have to pay child support until she turned 18.
"We spent the first year trying to help the child and fix the problem," Gary says. "Then a light comes on and you realize you can’t fix the problem, that you need to get away from the problem."
She’s not a fucking car, she’s a person. You don’t just get to say, “I want to be a parent,” and then abdicate all personal responsibility for the child you claimed to be yours once it gets difficult. It’s not a car. You can’t just sell it and be done with it. It’s a human being.
The more I read, the more I’m convinced these people are just absolute monsters. All of them. The ones who abuse unwanted children…the ones who hand them off to just about anyone so long as they can pretend it never happened…MONSTERS.