What's the Right Answer When it Comes to Veronica Rose and other Custody Cases?

I have been asked several times to comment on custody cases that (usually) involve fathers whose children were surrendered to adoption by their mother and who want to regain their right to parent their child.  People have asked what I think should happen in cases such as the Veronica Rose and Emma Wyatt.  There are so many of these custody cases out there, they are hard for me to follow and I honestly do not have enough information to make an opinion case by case.  I have gone "on the record," so to speak, by voicing support for parents, such as Carla Moquin, in the past.  However, with limited time and resources to do any digging (and already being spread so thin with the activities I am already involved in), it is hard to decipher what is going on in these cases when all I see is what is in the media.
The typical media response has been to create an emotional frenzy pitting the stereotype of the unfit-abandoning-biological-deadbeat-father who may be at further disadvantage due to biases about class and race, against well-to-do adoptive parents who are often portrayed as "taking a child in" when no one else "wanted it."  I do not make the mistake of falling for these stereotypes.  So, I will try to give my opinion on these cases generally-speaking.

Additional problems
The issue in many of these cases is that a child often grows older and older with all of these appeals, meaning they develop more of an attachment to and memories with the parents who are raising them.  As these trials progress not only does the validity of the adoption and the petitioning parent's rights come into question but so does the age of the child and whether or not the child would be harmed by a change of custody.  We should not allow this to happen with these lengthy appeal processes where parents professing to want what is best for the child stall and stall.  Instead of simply sticking to the issues at hand, we waste time considering things like whether or not the father is a super nice guy and if we like him or not.  What I want to know is: did he assert his right to parent in the appropriate time frame?  Did he revoke his consent to the termination of his rights in the appropriate time frame?  If not, was it fraud, state-skipping (more legalized-fraud), lack of information, or duress that lead to this happening?  Prove these things, hammer them out, and if his rights were wrongfully terminated, let him parent.  If he was fully informed, did not want to parent and had adequate time to make that decision, and changed his mind three years down the road, I don't think a child should be uprooted.  You know that I support the concept of multiple parenting rights for multiple parents instead of just one "father" and one "mother" as well as not erasing an adopted child's connection and relatedness to their original family.  It would benefit children whose parents need help raising them to not be severed from their family ties but have several parenting figures working together to meet their needs.  But unfortunately, that's not how our system works and my opinion has to be based on what is already in place.

I don't care if a father has five bedroom single-family home with two car garage or if he lives in a small apartment.  I don't care if he was fired from his last job.  I don't care if he smoked for twelve years and is trying to quit.  I don't care what anyone has to say about his ethnicity or his participation and identification within a particular diverse group (e.g. the people who say "ICWA shouldn't count because the father doesn't "act Indian" enough.  Um, excuse me?).  Either a parent is fit and has rights within the law or they don't.  Period.  These appeals, feet dragging and vilifying of a father's race, culture, and sociodemographics leaving the children involved in these cases growing older and older when custody changes is unacceptable.

*note the examples of fathers I gave here do not pertain to any specific case.

What about the child?
I do believe that it is stressful for a baby to be separated from the only nurturer he or she has ever known, including a newborn who spent nine months being nurtured by the mother who carried him or her (people who disagree are entitled to disagree and I'm not going to argue about it).  This does not mean that being in a home where you are not wanted is a superior option to being separated from a parent that does not want to raise you.  This means that when a mother wants to parent and can be helped to do so, she should be.  Biological fathers too.  This should become the primary focus rather than the misleading rhetoric of "selflessness" in adoption, so that she and her baby do not have to experience this separation unnecessarily.

However, because I believe this, I cannot then say that a child who has developed an attachment and memories with a nurturing parent over the course of years won't experience any stress or pain simply because they are being returned to their biological family.  Leaving a caregiver is stressful; period.  In these cases where a child grows older and older and is returned to their biological family, we absolutely cannot lose sensitivity to that child and all they have lost and have been through.  In these cases where the child has grown older and older because of appeals and feet dragging (especially when the original father or other petitioning original family member is perfectly fit and well within their rights) the courts must take into account the welfare of a child who would be raised in a home that dragged its feet to prevent the ability of an original family to stay in-tact and to prevent a child losing that family.

This is not to say that this is the case with every single custody battle like this.  I know of a biological extended family who is battling the original father for custody because they truly believe he is not fit to parent and have very valid reasons for believing so.  I cannot paint every case involving these issues with the same brush.

Perhaps in some cases, what is best is joint custody or at least visitation, for the parents who raised a child for the first several years of his or her life--only if it is in that child's best interest.  Not because it would benefit them but because of benefits it may have to the child.  This might not be a popular idea but I, at the age of 26 years old, still remember being two and three and I definitely remember being five and older.  Very vividly in many cases.  I know that I loved my parents who were raising me at those ages.  I really did, I loved them to bits.  If a child wants to maintain a connection with familiar faces and it would benefit them to do so, let them.

Are tribes abusing ICWA?
I have to say, I find the very accusation that tribes are abusing ICWA infuriating.  What is perhaps more so infuriating is that, from what it appears on the various Facebook pages contesting the return of Veronica to her biological father, it's a bunch of mostly White people sitting around moaning about how our government should overturn a policy meant to protect people of color from genocide!  Have people so quickly forgotten why we have ICWA in the first place?  Our nation has a long history of the abuse and genocide of the first nations of this continent.  Treaty after broken treaty.  Forced assimilation in boarding schools where children were not only stripped of their culture but emotionally, psychologically, physically, and sexually abused and tormented--severely so if they dared to utter their native tongue or original names.  The Indian Adoption Projects removed children from their homes and tribes and placed them in White homes for no reason other than the color of their skin and their family's government-induced state of poverty.  They lost their culture, their families, their roots, their land, their parents: and the tribes were impacted by the loss of their next generation.  In modern day, we have a disproportionate number of First Nations children in the foster care system, in White foster homes, in culturally incompetent environments, despite ICWA.

It's a shame people have come to bad mouth ICWA.  We cannot, as a country, become so silly in love with the idea of adoption that we stop protecting vulnerable populations.

But the mother chose adoption and chose the parents!
People want to know why the court should be able to overturn an adoption that a mother wanted because of the father's wishes, or in this case, the father's wishes and ICWA.  There are four really important things here I think people should keep in mind (1) this is adoption, not health care or abortion, (2) fathers are equal to mothers as parents, (3) it is the basic human right of every child to be with biological family if and whenever possible, (4) it is also the basic human right of every child to have a loving and nurturing home.

This is adoption, not abortion or health care.  A woman should have the unquestionable right to make decisions for herself and her body while pregnant.  Too often we carry this over in adoption and treat her child like a piece of property speaking as though laws and children's rights provisions do not have to be followed if a mother "chooses" not to follow them.  In adoption, it is a good thing for mothers and fathers who do not want to parent or cannot parent to choose the adopting parents (I say this despite the fact that I loathe pre-birth matching).  Adoption involves a lifelong connection between two families and it is important for original parents to choose people they feel serve their child's best interest and who they can maintain a connection with because a child has a right to have that connection.  However, I don't think it's OK to circumvent the law or children's rights in this process.  It should not be anyone's right to choose to cut out a perfectly fit father from a child's life.  It is likewise not OK for one parent to get to decide-away the parent's parenting rights.  It's not OK to choose to circumvent a law meant to preserve a child's culture, heritage, and family.  It should not be a choice to take away a child's legal relatedness from their father, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters, and cousins (unfortunately, this is what happens in adoption even if a mother doesn't want it to or the adoption does truly need to take place).

I cannot be convinced that in the case of ICWA being circumvented that not one couple or parent or extended family member could be found that has tribal connections or roots, to foster or adopt First Nations children who absolutely cannot be parented by their original families or who were voluntarily relinquished.  My own adoptive mother is 1/4 Iroquois for goodness sake and I'm not even of First Nations decent.  We need to reform the system and start making choices in the best interest of children, not what's politically or financially most convenient or lucrative.

The stereotypes that mothers are solely responsible for their babies and fathers have no responsibility was well ingrained in the 40's through 70's when women "got themselves pregnant," were penalized and humiliated and father's were legally and socially encouraged to run for the hills taking no responsibility (not that all fathers did that, of course).  We've come to view and treat mothers as if they are a child's only family member which is a disservice to mothers, children, fathers and extended family members.

Only when the big adoption taboo is involved do we vilify fathers who want to stand up and take responsibility for the children they've helped create.

People have said "mothers need to have the right to be the sole decision-maker for a child because if a father is involved and she doesn't want him to be, she would just have an abortion."  That's probably one of the most ridiculous things I have ever read, first of all (well, maybe not so ridiculous because people were responding to Oregon's HB 2904 last year said something similar.  They said it was a mother's right to choose to waive protections set in place to ensure children did not experience adoption loss needlessly because of their parents' duress).  I honestly am so sorry that people view pregnant women so poorly that so many truly believe that the only way for a woman to make health care decisions is to fail to protect children once they are born and preserve the rights of fathers (and also grandparents and extended families) to nurture their own children.

Reforms are needed
Like I said, wrongful termination of rights, lengthy court battles, and appeal after appeal so that families are held in limbo and a child's future is unknown should simply not be happening.  This is an enormous indicator that adoption should be federally regulated.  Whether arguing "small government, family law, or contract law, naysayers of the federal regulation of adoption say this needs to be a private matter between families.  Well it isn't.  Adoption is big business.  A failure to address these issues on a federal level is a failure of our government to set ethical guidelines and standards and acknowledge the universal human rights of adopted children.  Either a father has a right to raise his child or he doesn't.  Either a child has a right to family preservation as first consideration or they don't.  Being a father or child that lives in Utah instead of California, New Jersey, or any other state, does not change your humanity or your entitlement to human rights and ethical treatment.  It is unacceptable that father's rights and consent to adoption laws differ from state to state, or that the differences in law are used to circumvent and confuse men who want to parent the children they've helped create.  It is unacceptable that mandatory disclosure laws on adoption policies and procedures do not exist in all states.  It is unacceptable that some states do not allow adoptees to access original documentation about themselves.  It is unacceptable that someones human rights are upheld differently from one state to the next.

We need a de-profitized, regulated, de-privatized (or heavily regulated), well thought-out, well researched, heavily overseen adoption system that follows the same basic guidelines, principles, and protections in every single state.  There needs to be a clear federal understanding what parenting rights are, how parenting rights are voluntarily or involuntarily terminated, what constitutes fraud and an overturn of termination, and directions for a speedy appeal process.  Who has rights to parent in place of the mother or father if both have terminated their rights, such as tribal members, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins needs to be determined.  Whether or not the father of a child that is about to be adopted was properly notified or informed, whether or not he acted appropriately, and whether or not his rights were upheld should not be guess work.  If a mother relinquished under a false understanding, it is fraud.  If a parent wrongfully loses their right to parent their child, it is fraud.  What is the guess work here?  We've failed our families as a country to leave this to guess work or a conflict in law between states!  And, if we de-profitized adoption we'd remove any motivation there is for adoption facilitators to push forward with adoption and lobbyists to push for adoption laws that put adoption before families.

"Every child has the right to know and be cared for by his or her own parents, whenever possible. UNICEF believes that families needing support to care for their children should receive it." --UNICEF

Photo credit:  Salvatore Vuono