Parenting
Single Dad Adopts Teen, 13, Who Was Abandoned At Hospital
This story is a beautiful one.
On January 16, 2018, Peter Mutabazi got a phone call from foster care asking if he was interested in taking in Tony Mutabazi for the weekend. He was more than delighted to help out, and just as he learned the boy’s story, which in numerous ways paralleled his own, he knew he had to do something as soon as possible.
Notably, Peter – raised in Uganda, ran away at age ten from an abusive home, but luckily he found someone to take care of him.
The family had helped him become his sponsor, his family, and despite growing up in the poor of the poorest people on the planet, where he was told not to dream as there was no future for him, Peter eventually had a good life, becoming a citizen of the United States. Currently, he works for World Vision, a nonprofit organization that helps children in vulnerable areas. Peter had also fostered roughly a dozen children, offering them support when needed.
However, when he met with Tony, he knew he wanted to be more than just a foster dad. The then-11-Year-Old had been abandoned by his adoptive parents at a hospital and never returned. Shortly after, he entered the foster care system in North Carolina, unsure where he would end up. Tony, who was first placed in foster care at two, was adopted when he was four, but seven years later, he was abandoned.
It remains unknown why his first adoptive parents never returned, and now – two years later, Tony has been lucky enough to meet Peter, who has chosen to love him unconditionally and give him a home.
“I had the room, the resources, so I had no reason to let him go. For what someone did for me, I wanted to do something for someone else,” Peter reportedly said. He equally told Good Morning America: “He’s the nicest, smartest kid I’ve ever had. From day one, he’s always called me ‘dad.’ He truly meant it, and he looks up to me.” The pair now live in North Carolina, and Peter is helping Tony work through his childhood trauma.
More interestingly, the father-son, who enjoys watching movies, playing board games, reading books, and cycling, now has another foster child that has joined the family.
When Tony was adopted in the Charlotte courthouse, Peter was accompanied by family and friends, including his foster care worker, Jessica Ward. “[Tony] had some issues that he was dealing with from foster care and trauma when he was abandoned, so Peter [knew] once he took him in, that was it. Peter’s story all around is beautiful and amazing. Because of the age, Peter was when all of the things happened in his world, I feel like that’s been such a connection for him and Tony,” Jessica said in an interview.
However, Peter and Tony’s story is beautiful, but sadly, thousands of children in the American foster care system still haven’t been lucky.
It’s alleged there are roughly 443,000 children in foster care in the United States and that children spend an average of two years in the system, while many are bounced around for five years or more. Accordingly, children entering foster care are not that young: The average age for kids entering the system for the first time is eight years old, and many of these children live in family settings, group homes, or institutions.
