Court Opinion

ID: 9571311
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:30:39.425444+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:30:17.409411
License: Public Domain

HARRIS, Justice
(dissenting).
A consideration of all matters outlined in the majority opinion convinces me the trial court was right in terminating the parent-child relationship as to both children. I dissent from the part of the opinion which restores Roxanne to her mother.
In no way do I disagree with the majority’s detailed description of the facts. I subscribe entirely to their recitation of the governing rules of law. Much as I sympathize with the tragic mother, I am, however, forced to conclude Roxanne needs and deserves to be rescued entirely from what seems to me to be a plainly intolerable family relationship.
The majority rightly points out this mother’s mental disability, standing alone, would not be a sufficient reason for termination of the relationship. On the other hand the same disabilities should not serve to continue the relationship. Her deficiencies should not work to justify or excuse her obvious unfitness to provide Roxanne with any real chance for a reasonably adequate home life. I am not deterred in this view by the argument Roxanne so far has escaped some of the deprivations and cruelties heretofore directed by her mother to Shawn. I accept, as apparently does the majority, the testimony of Connie Sarchet, the social worker assigned to the case:
“She (the mother) has repeatedly told me that our agency did the only thing we could by removing Shawn from her home and that he could have died if we had left him with her because she was too lazy to feed him.. * *
Such an admission characterizes Miss Wardle’s unfitness as a mother. It is little comfort to Roxanne that the admission was made only as to her brother. It still graphically describes what sort of mother she is. Miss Wardle may have betrayed an awareness of her own unfitness when she told the social worker she would like the children to remain in foster care at least a year or two. Even more revealing is the mother’s direct testimony that if the children are awarded to her she is going to have herself admitted to the Mental Health Institute.
With all deference to the majority for its desire to do justice to this pathetic mother, I believe the trial court was right. In all this unpleasant record I see no trace of advantage to Roxanne in continuing her relationship with her mother. I see no reasonable hope her mother’s endowments *566or fitness for motherhood can improve. The social workers toiled four years in an obviously futile attempt for such an improvement. Tragically it could not occur nor is it going to occur. Roxanne cannot wait to grow up. Termination of the relationship is long past due. The case should be affirmed.
REYNOLDSON and McCORMICK, JJ, join in this dissent.