”How much is that doggy little girl in the window…”

Lots of tabloid reporting of the sad case of the grandparents deemed ‘too old’ to look after their granddaughter following her mother’s mental problems.

The full text of the judgement was released and immediately seized upon by social services apologists as ‘proving’ that age wasn’t a consideration, oh dear me no, it was the grandparent’s own poor childrearing that made mummy mad, and so of course the most logical thing to do was give the girl to total strangers. Your mileage might vary.

But this sentence stood out:

The Children’s Guardian said to me that if matters were put off she would be able to observe contact between C and the grandparents but at the present time C had had a final contact visit with her mother, that was on 5th June, and that C was now reconciled and prepared to moving on to a permanent placement. She had been told that she would not see her mother again and that communication would now be by writing letters. Miss Rosenthal said it would be very difficult for C to start unpicking this and looking at any further contact. She had reached a sense of closure and was being prepared and indeed looking forward to meeting a forever family.

A ‘forever family’? I wondered why that phrase jarred so much.

And then I realised why:

You may think, of course, that there's nothing wrong with treating children like unwanted puppies or kittens. But I'd respectfully disagree.