Barry,

I'm glad there's no ill feeling there, I was afraid I'd touched a nerve and felt you had something important to offer.

You said:

"My friends are not well to do by anyone's standards unless you're comparing them to 3rd world living conditions."

I had said:

"The fact that your friends were well to do by comparison with most vietnamese would have been a bonus"

Apart from that, you have answered my initial question more or less as I expected:

"There is no history on the child, she was put on the doorstep of an adoption agency"

That tells me that, for whatever reason, she had already had her relationship with her biological family severed.

If the guardian article that Kat linked us to is correct, then the young lad Madonna adopted did have a relationship with his father, who cycled 25 miles to spend time with him every weekend, being unable to give more due to his lack of income.

Presumably with a bit of support, the contact between them could have been increased if not made permanent.

Let us try to put his shoes on our feet for a minute (assuming he has any).

Single parents in the UK can leave their kids at a nursery or a childminder while they work, and it will be paid for by public funding.

On the way home from work they pick their child up, tell them they love them, give them a kiss and cuddle and take them home (!) where they feed them and put them to bed.

In countries like Malawi there are neither Nurseries nor is there such public funding.

Where does a single dad put his beby son while he works?

This guy has made hard choice after hard choice for his son.

And yet he has never given up maintaining contact with his son.

Imagine that life for a second, and then imagine that a very rich woman comes along and offers your child financial security and all that he could ever want materially.

But imagine that the price is that your child has to go away. Your precious weekends aren't going to happen any more.

Imagine the confusion and bewilderment for the child. He doesn't have much, but his dad, with whom he has a deep magical bond that no one alive can match, and whom no one alive can come close to in terms of love and reassurance given.

Suddenly that contact stops, and his world turns upside down.

The most valuable thing a child can have is the love and reassurance of its parents.

If that has gone, then the best alternative must of course be gratefully and speedily offered as appears to have been the case with your friends and more power to them for it.

But if there is something there worth saving, then it should be saved. It should not be severed unnecessarily. The damage is too great.

I am a single dad who lives in a country where there are nurseries, where there is public funding, and where if, as a single parent, I can't get work, the state will support me for as long as necessary to ensure my child can have a basic secure stable home.

My daughter is asleep upstairs as I write this. I've just been up to check on her because she yelled out in her sleep. She was fine.

Being able to do that is something that I am grateful for beyond words.

I wouldn't have the arrogance to claim that I have the remotest idea how hard life is for The childs father.

As tough as he must be to carry on, he must also grieve in his heart every time he leaves to cycle the 25 miles home again.

Sorry, but what a fucking hero.

He and his son deserve help. Of course they do. As long as the person helping actually is helping. The way to be sure is to ask "how can I help". Not to decide what type of help they think is right and just dive in with both wallets blazing.

Money can't buy you love or happiness, we all know that.