Friday, February 21, 2014

"Are You My Mom"?

A mother who had not seen her son since she gave him up for adoption over 50 years ago, finally met her son.  The full story can be found here.  The son's first words to his mother were "Are you my mom?" 

It is a miraculous story.  But more importantly, it is illustrative of a fundamental problem in the law that comes up quite frequently in cases in which an agency is seeking to terminate a person's parental rights.  Ever since the Adoption and Safe Families Act (A.S.F.A.) was enacted in 1997 by the federal government, and subsequently adopted by New York State, there has been a push to achieve permanency in children's lives at all possible speed.  This reaction was intended to prevent lingering stays in foster care that seemed to go on for years without any final resolution.  More can be read about the law here

However, a fundamental principle is often lost here.  The bond between parent and child can and often does transcend time.  This problem is most notable when a parent is incarcerated and the court seems willing to terminate parental rights almost on that fact alone because the parent has not been around.  Similarly, the abandonment cases give rise to the same issues.  What the law ignores is that in many situations, time can have a beneficial effect.  Parents who either could not or did not have the wherewithal to be parents can develop into wonderful parents, all the stronger for the hard lessons they have learned.  And a child's need to be with that parent can be profound. 

It is one thing to find that someone has permanently neglected or abandoned a child.  But in the dispositional phases of those cases, courts need to consider more carefully their willingness to sever that precious tie. 

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