Single dad adopts 13-year-old boy dumped by foster parents at hospital without looking back
On any given day, there are almost a half million kids languishing in foster care, waiting to be fostered or adopted. The system is supposed to help them, but for kids like Tony, whose adoptive parents dumped him at the hospital when he was 11, they seem to bounce from one traumatic experience to the next.
“He asked if his parents were coming to get him and they said no.”
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Tony had been in foster care since the age of 2, and although it finally looked like things were looking up when a couple from Oklahoma took him in when he was 4, that was just a cruel ruse.
They were some playing some sort of long con, where they pretended to want him for a FULL 7 YEARS…and then suddenly didn’t.
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So they dropped him off at the hospital as if they taking a used item to Walmart that was well past the return expiration date.
Who the heck does that to a kid?
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That’s what Peter Mutzabi wanted to know. He ran away from an abusive father in his home country of Uganda when he was 10, so he knows what it’s like to have a parental unit that sucks.
Thankfully, at the end of a bus that “went the furthest away,” Peter found hope and a much better future.
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He told Good Morning America, “They became my sponsor, my family. I grew up the poor of the poorest people on the planet.”
“I grew up where no one told me to dream, that there was no future for me.”
Now Peter returns the favor by fostering and guiding other disadvantaged children so that they can have a chance to do more than just dream.
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That’s how fate brought these two together. Peter had recently become attached to two brothers he was fostering, and was heartbroken when they were returned to their birth parents.
So when he agreed to take in the 11-year-old for just one weekend, at first, he didn’t care to know why Tony was in the system.
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But then he learned the real reason why Tony needed a place to crash.
“By that time, I was crying. I thought, ‘Who would do that?’ Once I knew the parents’ rights were signed off and he had nowhere to go, I [knew] I had to take him.”
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Peter had the room and resources to adopt Tony, and since he always wanted to be a father, the decision was a super easy one to make.
“From day one, he’s always called me ‘dad.’ He truly meant it and he looks up to me.”
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So Peter made being a dad official! With the blessing of the courts, the two were legally bound as Father and Son.
It was presided over by the same judge who did Tony’s first adoption, but hey, we all make mistakes, and this time she got it right.
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You can read more about Peter’s personal backstory story here.
For more updates, follow Tony and Peter’s foster family journey on Instagram and YouTube.
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Source: Good Morning America, Love What Matters, Children’s Rights, Peter Mutabazi