Ups and Downs #12
Aug 21, 2025
Fun fact: The twins arent' adopted! Their grandmother is still their legal guardian. Like many kids in Japan, they never had a real chance of being adopted, since their grandmother didn't want them to lose their "connection" to the"family", even if it's only on paper.
Many of you assumed the twins were adopted and questioned how this would have been possible with the absent O'Donnell parents. It isn’t, since the twins were never adopted. They still have their grandmother as their legal guardian.
So why were they raised in an institution in that case? Why were they never adopted?
The answer lies in the Japanese child institution system.
While our story is based on some fictional logic and not everything reflects reality 1:1, the reality for children in institutions in Japan can be quite bleak.
Foster care is still not widespread, and in 2021 there were only around 700 adoptions out of approximately 42,000 children living in those institutions.
For most of them, their birth parents or family still hold full legal custody.
Reasons why children with still living relatives end up in those instutitions are: abuse, illnesses, criminal activities, economic difficulties, etc.
Parents often strongly oppose foster care because they fear becoming estranged from their children. Since the wishes of the parents are highly valued (even if they are at fault), children are often denied the chance to grow up in a familiar home.
Adoption is also uncommon because children in institutions are often seen as "damaged" or feared to carry emotional baggage. There is a mentality of "not making their problems yours."
Still, overall, Japan has one of the highest adoption rates in the world. Over 80,000 adoptions were recorded in 2012. However, 99% of those adoptions were of adults aged 20 – 30 for company inheritance purposes...
Another case is same sex partners! This was a solution they found so they can have the same family name, hospital visitation rights and so on.
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