Now that the dust will settle on the Sean Goldman case, I’ve felt compelled to write about how difficult it should be for the Courts on reaching a conclusion.
On one side you have a loving father, who lost his only son that was taken to another country without his permission and with the Haia Convention on his side. On the other you have the mother’s family who’s executing the last wish of the deceased mother, raising this boy with all love and care. There are other complicating factors on the story, one of them being the fact that the Brazilian family can provide a better financial support than the American father.
Amidst all this confusion there’s a boy whose mother has died while giving birth to his only sister, now 18 months old.
The families aren’t making the life of this boy easier. His stepfather and grandmother mounted a media circus to deliver the boy at the US Consulate in Rio. The father, in his turn, sold his soul through many NBC exclusive interviews for a private jet and some money to pay for the lawyers.
At the end of the day the impression I have is that the families are fighting only for their own pride. Nobody is really caring about Sean. That’s the feeling I have after all this very public discussions.
But back at the reason of me writing about this, I can only imagine how hard it should be to judge a case like that. How could you choose which way to go once you have positive and negative factors alike on both sides? Well, the last speculation around here is that after 5 years of judicial bruhaha, the US showed it’s big stick threatening to cancel US$ 1 billion in tax relief for Brazilian products and in a matter of days the case was concluded, favoring the American father.
Nothing like an “economic stimulus” to get things solved. Better than any moral compass.
I just hope that this boy gets along well with his US family and that both families look for a truce, trying to create a sane environment where they live and be happy together.
