though mother had ceased to be the psychological parent of her children and had not yet demonstrated a readiness to fully provide for the children’s extraordinary needs, there was no showing of stagnation where mother had established a stable marital situation, had continued a regular medical treatment program, had become employed in a job that involved supervision of children, had visited the children as often as allowed, and had prepared additional accommodations in her home to allow more extended visits with the children
How later courts described this case
- though mother had ceased to be the psychological parent of her children and had not yet demonstrated a readiness to fully provide for the children’s extraordinary needs, there was no showing of stagnation where mother had established a stable marital situation, had continued a regular medical treatment program, had become employed in a job that involved supervision of children, had visited the children as often as allowed, and had prepared additional accommodations in her home to allow more extended visits with the children
- petition for modification and termination of parental rights must be based on deterioration or "stagnation coupled with a prospective inability for improvement"
- termination must be based on more than simply the “loss of the psychological parent relationship between natural parent and child”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Larrow, J.
(Concurring). I fully concur with the views expressed by Mr. Justice Billings in the principal opinion. But I would again emphasize the statement of Mr. Justice Daley in In re J. M., 131 Vt. 604, 609 , 313 A.2d 30 (1973) that separation of child from parent is required by statute to be “only when necessary for his welfare or in the interests of public safety”. 33 V.S.A. § 631(a)(3) (emphasis supplied). The power to terminate forever all parental rights, including as here the right to consent to an adoption, is indeed an “awesome power”. I do not read the statute as conferring it on the basis of an opinion formed by reading a treatise. Nor do I read it as legislating a general power to make whatever disposition of a child may be thought desirable to improve his state in life. I read the statute as providing temporary care for the abandoned, abused, deprived or uncontrollable child while the need for temporary care continues, and as envisioning total removal from a natural parent only in the light of the hopeless *486 situation which the opinion describes as “stagnation”. The facts found here do not indicate such hopelessness, but rather a marked degree of improvement. The passage of time, standing alone, does not justify the order below, even though it may weaken the “psychological parent relationship”. Such specious logic would even serve to destroy the parental rights of a father in overseas military service. The “best interest of the child” is a useful maxim, but it comes into play only when there is legal justification for the permanent severing of parental rights.
The underlying philosophy of the trial court seems to have been that even though the natural mother was making valiant and fruitful efforts to regain her capacity to care for her children, their overall good would be promoted by adoption. I do not view the statute as trying to create the best possible world. I do not think it intends to set up a mechanism for transferring parental rights from those in temporary difficulty to those more affluent and adjudged by the social worker as more capable of educating and rearing the progeny, if not of procreating them. The result below does not accord with our social policy of bolstering the family unit, preserving it, where necessary, by financial and other support. There may well be a point where hope that the “biological parent” may resume her place with her family disappears, and severance of the last remaining ties is required. But it does not appear to be reached on the facts here found.