Court Opinion

ID: 9747871
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:40:13.08829+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:28.046957
License: Public Domain

HARRELL, Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent. Unlike Melissa F. in In re Rashawn H. and Tyrese H., 402 Md. 477, 937 A.2d 177 (2007), there is no evidence (or allegation) that Mr. D. suffers from a low IQ or the other burdens that hindered Melissa F. in her attempts to become an acceptable mother to her children. Unlike Mr. McDermott in McDermott v. Dougherty, 385 Md. 320, 869 A.2d 751 (2005), there is no evidence (or allegations) that Mr. D.’s absence as an acceptable father to his children was due to the necessity of plying a livelihood as a merchant seaman (or any occupation carrying remotely analogous constraints). Rather, Mr. D.’s relative absence as a parent from the lives of his children and his virtual material non-support of them was due largely to inaction on his part. He created the predicament that he now confronts, i.e., the extensive time the children have been in Ms. B’s care and the resultant routing of their affections in the only logical direction offered by the circumstances. Thus, it is indeed exceptional (and perhaps astonishing) that a professedly loving biological parent, with the apparent means to supply proper support, housing, and, had he accessed the parental skills training opportunities offered, the late-acquired, but unfulfilled, desire to be a parent in reality, could let matters moulder to the point that they have in this case. The Department and Ms. B. stepped-up and Mr. D. stepped-back. He cannot simply “park” his children with the State and a third-party custodian and not expect circumstances to work against him, while paying essentially only lip service to parenthood.
A child is entitled to whatever stability in a loving and supportive familial environment that society can muster when parents are unwilling to provide it. Mr. D.’s creation of the opportunity for such an environment to unfold as it has, *470allowing the vacuum to continue for eight years, but desiring to unsettle what has been established or leave its continuation in doubt, cannot be tolerated or allowed. That prospect necessarily must be detrimental to the health and well-being of children of the ages of those in this case. I, like the trial judge and the Court of Special Appeals’s panel majority, do not require an expert to tell me that.
I would affirm the judgment of the majority opinion of the Court of Special Appeals and that of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City.