Opinion ID: 2585478
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: the majority trivializes family bonds

Text: The majority's reliance on a mutual waiver imports the principles of the marketplace into the realm of home and family, which was once thought to represent a haven in a heartless world of self-interested interactions. (Lasch, Haven in a Heartless World (1977).) The family is the area where people act not in accordance with specifically contracted agreements but the duties of the heart. Parents are not simply self-interested utility maximizers. Raising a child is, like hope, a task of the spirit. It is so much more than an aggregation of services. Parenthood instead is the opportunity and responsibility to join the web of human connectedness through which we touch the past, the present, and the future. The relationship of parent and child is the most fundamental bond humans share and the influence of family in determining what kind of people we become is profound. Society has a considerable stake in the health and stability of families, because it is upon the familieswhat Burke calls the little platoonthat we rely [on] not only to nurture the young but to provide the seed beds of civic virtue required for citizenship in a self-governing community. [The family teaches us to] care for others, [and] to moderate ... self-interest.... (Berns, The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy (1976) p. 222.) All tasks which will be hampered if the family is simply a collection of individuals united temporarily for their mutual convenience and armed with rights against each other. (Schneider, Moral Discourse and the Transformation of American Family Law (1985) 83 Mich. L.Rev. 1803, 1859.) The arduous, long-term educational process [of raising a child] requires not a spirit of contractualist autonomy, but a spirit of adult commitment and ... sacrifice. (Hafen, Individualism and Autonomy in Family Law: The Waning of Belonging (1991) 1991 BYU L.Rev. 1, 30.) The majority, irretrievably committed to its the-more-parents-the-merrier view of parenthood, declines to interpret section 8617 to effectively preclude a child from having more than two parents; and at oral argument Annette's counsel asserted no such limit should exist. Such a position is consistent with the stunted view of parenthood as purely ministerial and economic signing consent slips and providing health insurance. But this is the least part of being a parent, as anyone who has ever seen a newborn resting securely in her father's hand can understand; and anyone who has sat up late at night awaiting the safe return of a newly minted teenage driver knows. The all-encompassing nature of parenthood renders eminently reasonable any legislative provision requiring that adopting parents share a common residence with each other and the adopted child. (See Fam.Code, § 297, subd. (b)(1).) Parenthood requires more than a telephone and a checkbook. The United States Supreme Court has found parental authority constitutes a zero-sum game. ( Michael H. v. Gerald D. (1989) 491 U.S. 110, 118, 109 S.Ct. 2333, 105 L.Ed.2d 91.) Parental authority cannot not be divided because it goes beyond ministerial functions; the parent `directs] the child's activities; ... make[s] decisions regarding the control, education, and health of the child; ... [and exercises] the duty, to prepare the child for additional obligations, which includes the teaching of moral standards, religious beliefs, and elements of good citizenship.' ( Id. at p. 119, 109 S.Ct. 2333, quoting 4 Cal. Fam. Law (1987) § 60.-02[l][b], fns omitted.) Devolving these responsibilities on a multitude of parties would lead to a variety of conflicts and inconsistencies, as Justice Baxter correctly notes. (See cone. & dis. opn. of Baxter, J., ante, 2 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 706, 73 P.3d at p. 560.) The two-person limit is one point on which proponents of Proposition 22 and Assembly Bill No. 25 (2001-2002 Reg. Sess.) agree. The Legislature's insistence that the adopting parent have a legal relationship with the birth parent reflects the fact that the adoptive parent's relationship with the child does not exist in a vacuum but is related to the parents' relationship with each other. Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote for a unanimous Supreme Court in holding it was proper to distinguish between formerly married and never-married fathers in granting only the former the right to veto an adoption by the mother's new husband. ( Quilloin v. Walcott (1978) 434 U.S. 246, 256, 98 S.Ct. 549, 54 L.Ed.2d 511.) [T]he State was not foreclosed from recognizing this difference in the extent of [the] commitment to the welfare of the child. ( Ibid. ) This commitment enables the courts, as well as those most personally involved, to make certain assumptionseven knowing they will at times be disappointedabout what to expect. (Hafen, The Constitutional Status of Marriage, Kinship, and Sexual Privacy: Balancing the Individual and Social Interests (1983) 81 Mich. L.Rev. 463, 499.) The law permits single individuals to adopt a child on their own because one parent is better than none. It does not follow, however, that two unrelated parents are better than one. The majority cites the legislative policy that `adoption or guardianship is more suitable to a child's well-being than is foster care' (maj. opn., ante, 2 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 716, fn. 16, 73 P.3d at p. 569 quoting Welf. & Inst.Code, § 396), as adoption is a more permanent relationship than foster care. However, if the birth parent has a relationship with a second parent, and then a third, and then a fourth, the child may be worse off than if the birth parent had simply raised the child alone. The choice in second parent adoption cases is not between adoption and foster care. The birth parent in such circumstances is willing and able to continue expressing parental responsibility. If the two adults are uncertain whether the second parent will be a permanent resident of the household, the adoption ought to wait until they are ready for that commitment. There is a long-standing tension within the law as to whether legal standards should reflect ideal behavior or simply the mean. [3] The majority, however, refuse to impose even a standard of the mean. Couples who raise children together do predominantly have a formal legal relationship with each other. It is not a standard that individuals cannot reach absent heroism, and every Californian adult has access to such a relationship. Today's decision maximizes the self-interest and personal convenience of parents, but poorly serves the state's children who deserve as much stability and security as legal process can provide.