I do not believe, in any sense, that my son would have been better off had my parental rights been terminated. Nor do I believe my son would necessarily have been better off had I removed him from his non-biological parents. It would have served no practical purpose for one party to go away bitter, disappointed, and economically devastated while the child went away without the benefits of having a legal relationship with that other side. My son now has two legal dads. He also has double the number of paternal grandparents, relatives, inheritance possibilities, college funds, and emotional support opportunities that most other children have. The adoptive parents and I have had some rocky moments. But my son does not seem to be significantly embarrassed about anything. To the still stubborn, I ask: “Is the pain and confusion children like my son experience initially in childhood greater or less than the pain and confusion adult adoptees often feel upon knowing they were taken from a biological parent who did not consent to their adoption?”
I do not argue that such open situations be the optimum choice in contested adoptions generally. I only argue that a non-biological couple’s predictable insecurity, and the child’s predictable uncertainty, confusion, or embarrassment, are not, in themselves, valid reasons for rejecting the option of an agreed legal custody arrangement. I suspect those rationales reflect more society’s wish to avoid its own uncertainty, confusion, and embarrassment.
