Court Opinion

ID: 9667583
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:49:59.010353+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:39.134589
License: Public Domain

Krivosha, C.J.,
dissenting.
As I have on several previous occasions, I believe we have once again overreacted to a situation in affirming the trial court’s action in terminating parental rights in this case. See, dissent of Krivosha, *200C.J., In re Interest of Cook, 208 Neb. 549, 304 N.W.2d 390 (1981). It appears to me, in the instant case, we have once again appropriately declared that an order of the juvenile court terminating parental rights under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 43-209(6) (Reissue 1978) must be supported by clear and convincing evidence and then proceeded to terminate parental rights absent the necessary clear and convincing evidence.
There is no question but that the mother in the instant case experienced difficulties in raising her children. Before she was 19 she was the mother of three children and divorced from her husband.
But, as the majority notes, she apparently recognized her need to obtain some training so that she could provide for her children financially and emotionally. It is for that reason that she joined the military service and went on active duty, leaving her children with the State until she obtained the necessary training so she could return and provide a home for her children.
In the instant case there was no evidence of any physical abuse by the mother toward the children. It appears from the record that just at the time that the mother was ordered to give up her children she had made substantial strides in providing for her children. The record reflects that at the time of the termination hearing she had obtained housing for herself and her three children, obtained adequate furnishings for herself and her three children, cooperated fully with court personnel, and had obtained a marketable skill. It may very well be that we would wish for all families to be so constituted that all children enjoy all of the benefits that are often provided by well-trained, middle-class families. Such, however, is not the reality of life, and we should not be so quick to terminate parental rights because of a mother’s inability to provide her children with as much as a potential adoptive parent might provide. I would have reversed and remanded.
Clinton, J., joins in this dissent.