Published 3/2003, And Baby Magazine
FOUNDLING FATHERS The next day to satisfy his curiosity or perhaps to instinctively honor the profound relationship that exists between the rescuer and the rescued, Danny made his way to the Pediatric Unit of St. Vincent’s Hospital where Baby Ace Doe was brought the night before. The Nurses on duty had named the infant Ace after the A,C,E subway line on which he was discovered . “I knew that he was going to be placed in Foster Care, I just wanted to know that he was going to be all-right”. Danny was told that “No one can come in but family” to which he replied that there was none. As a Social Worker himself Danny realized that there was little chance of getting around the rules. He gave up his hopes of seeing Ace and made his way to work. Strangely enough at work where many of Danny’s co-workers were experts in the field of Foster Care the prevailing sentiment seemed to be “Why don’t you just keep him?” Even Pete’s sister Linda, an attorney, knowing full well that the process of becoming a Foster Parent traditionally takes up to six months waxed in the same dreamy fashion “Wouldn’t it be so nice if you could just keep him?”. Earlier in their courtship Danny and Pete had discussed a future with children and they had previously agreed that becoming parents would mean years of planning and saving. And so while trying to ignore the enticing day dreams of friends and family and taking into consideration the long shot of ever seeing Baby Ace again the two men tried to move on with their lives. At the end of the week Danny and Peter made the trek uptown for the scheduled visit to the foster home that Baby Ace had been in since the second day after his discovery. Their decision to adopt had not yet been made and as they neared the neglected building in the Washington Heights neighborhood the two promised not to let the condition of the home sway their decision. Danny explains “ I had said that we can’t do this because we want to rescue him. That’s not a good enough reason. We have to do it because we want to”. In fact the condition of the home startled the couple. The foster parents who did not speak English seemed to be overwhelmed with three foster children as well as three of their own children. To Danny and Pete the home did not seem organized or even clean and more importantly Baby Ace seemed as though his needs had not been met. He was under weight with a severe diaper rash that reached from front to back and it seemed as though he hadn’t been held or nurtured. As photographs of that fateful meeting show Baby Ace stares ahead in a look of panic with eyes wide and unblinking as his arms are permanently locked into a defensive position over his chest. It seemed that after all these months Baby Ace was still quietly lying, waiting for someone to look down. Still conflicted about making an emotional commitment for fear that a birth parent might yet step forward or that their sexual orientation might be a deciding factor against them, the couple expressed their willingness to proceed in becoming foster parents “ There’s no harm in going through the steps to become foster parents” A process that can take up to four months. Peter explains “At least we’re certified parents for the future. We had no idea that the steps were going to be expedited within a day and a half.” The home study was well under way before the couple returned to court on December 19th. Judge Cohen, once again presiding ,asked the couple if they would like to have Baby Ace spend the upcoming holiday with them. Within two days and amidst the holiday hustle and bustle of New York , Peter and Danny carried Baby Ace home. They did not take the subway. Peter’s entire family who live in nearby New Jersey spent the morning in a flurry of activity making sure that the home was “baby-ized”, putting together cribs and strollers hauling armfuls of clothes and toys up the stairs. All this preparation would have been overdoing it had Baby Ace ever returned to foster care; but as the holiday quietly passed and Peter and Danny spent their days treating Baby Ace’s diaper rash and massaging his arms so that he could comfortably lay them at his side the couple both received their state clearance forms and were then classified as pre-certified foster parents. From the day they brought him to the apartment full of family for his first Christmas to this, Baby Kevin has never left home. It was at this time that Peter’s sister Linda came on board. Linda had been a tax attorney and was teaching Human Rights Law in a nearby New Jersey University when Peter and Danny approached her about representing them. After countless hours of research and studying the piles of books and information on adoption supplied to her by her brother and his partner, Linda began the task of representing both Danny and Peter in New York State’s second co-parent adoption in the legal history of the state. “ Traditionally with unmarried couples , one parent adopts and then the second parent follows.” The real legal work couldn’t begin until the birth parent’s rights were terminated. The city of New York spent weeks publishing “public notices in various papers informing the birth parents of the impending proceedings.” Once that date, July 2002, passed without either birth parent coming forward, Linda filed the petition for the co-parent adoption on behalf of Peter and Danny. A Foster Care Home Study was followed by and Adoption Home Study, followed by a mandatory ten week parenting course, followed by hearing after hearing and at the time of the writing of this article, November 2002, the adoption is expected to be finalized any day. Sidebar: Today there are thirty three states who have adopted laws based on the original Safe Place Program instituted in DD. The laws have come into affect to reduce if not eradicate infant mortality in the cases of abandonment. Generally the basic tenet in most of these laws is this; anyone who is unwilling or unable to care for a newborn may leave that child in a designated safe place. That safe place varies from state to state but usually includes hospitals, firehouses and police stations.
by James McLaughlin
Foundlings abound throughout history and literature. From Moses to Superman. In our fiction foundlings always seemed to be imbued with some special gift. Cosider even Bam Bam Rubble. All foundlings undoubtedly change the lives of the families who raise them while some have gone on to change the world. The foundling however is beginning to fade from our collective cultural conscience. With the changing attitude towards unwed parents, the legalizing of abortion and the institutionalizing of charitable and social services fewer children are being abandoned.
Abandonment is a word of unrelenting austerity. By no means does the word encourage us to take into account the desperate and broken place from which the decision is made. When using that word there is no monitor encouraging us to remember that the majority of parents who abandon their infants are either children themselves or are suffering from mental illness. Abandon is however the accepted term. Throughout our human history abandonment or "exposing" a child was a rather common occurrence. Infants and even older children were routinely left outside the city limits or surrendered on the steps of temples and houses of worship. Some children were offered as indentured servants for payment of a debt. Undesirable gender, birth defect, poverty, mental illness, war, famine, uncertain parentage and birth out of wedlock were also deciding factors in the abandonment of countless children. Many were fostered within monasteries and convents and their lives were dedicated to the observance of the order in which they were raised. Even more were collected and raised for the bustling and lucrative slave trade. From ancient Roman documents we are introduced to a man who made a business of collecting foundlings , disfiguring them and then sending them off into the streets to beg for alms. But by no means are the children of the 21st Century immune from such brutal treatment. Today, in not very remote regions of Asia daughters are still surrendered to the sex market and sons are hired out for years at a time to be chained to looms in squalid factories. In both Asia and Africa it is not unheard of for families to commit infanticide or expose their children due to their disability or gender. As a result of China’s policy of promoting the single child family, orphanages across that country are bursting at the seams with unhoped-for female offspring as parents try again for a much revered and anticipated son.
In August of 2000 a foundling appeared within the NYC Subway system. At the 14th Street station as the doors to the "A" train closed behind him with a familiar ring, Danny Stewart stepped onto the platform and into the world of fatherhood. "It could have been very easy to overlook him. Unless you’re looking down at the ground or unless you’re looking in that direction it would have been very easy to pass him by, which I guess a number of people had” Swaddled in a dark sweatshirt with his legs uncovered and diaper-less the hours old infant had been laying on the floor of the sparesly used 15th Street exit of the ACE line long enough to develop hypothermia. Unable to attract the attention of riders at the other end of the station Danny left the infant’s side long enough to climb the stairs to street level and place a 911 call. Once back at the baby’s side Danny was still reluctant to handle him “I didn’t want to disturb the scene for any evidence and I guess I was afraid to pick him up. If there was anything wrong with him I didn’t want to injure him anymore”. After waiting what seemed an eternity Danny decided to make a second 911 call, “They probably thought that it was just a crank call, so I called Pete. Thinking if Pete calls maybe they’ll send someone over.” It was while on the phone with his partner Pete that the police arrived in response to the first 911 call. Within minutes and amidst the glare of local television camera lights Danny began what would eventually be a two hour police interview. After questioning from the responding officers, their supervisors, NYPD detectives, MTA detectives, as well as the Daily News and a host of local television reporters Danny and Pete who had raced down to the scene in time to catch a glimpse of the infant being trundled off to St. Vincent’s Hospital, were free to leave. “As soon as we got home we turned on the TV and sure enough they were covering the story”.
Six weeks passed and the incident had taken a back seat to the routine of everyday life. “I’ve been looking for you.” is how the attorney appointed by the City of New York to represent Baby Ace Doe’s welfare greeted Danny over the phone. To begin the process of legally terminating the birth parent’s rights to the as yet unclaimed infant the City of New York needed Danny to testify to the state in which he found Baby Ace Doe. Danny agreed and had prepared his testimony when the hearing was adjourned for another six weeks due to a clerical error on the behalf of ACS. Another month and a half slipped by like any other and the early December hearing found all parties more than prepared. Enter Her Honor Rhoda Cohen. Judge Cohen has a reputation for being “tough” and “no-nonsense”. Danny remarks with no small amount of admiration that “she reminds me of Judge Judy”. Danny testified in Judge Cohen’s presence and was about to be excused when she asked if he would like to stay for the remainder of the hearing, “Well…um, yes if it doesn’t take too long, but I have to get back to work though.” The Responding Officer from that fated night and then Baby Ace’s Foster Care case worker were the next to testify. In less than ten minutes all the remaining testimony had been delivered and Judge Cohen turned her attention to Danny and addressed him. She explained that the point of the hearing was to begin terminating the parental rights and move the infant out of Foster Care and into a pre-adoptive Foster Care home. She then explained that the process usually took between 12 and 18 months and in the next breath and from out of the blue she asked Danny if he was interested in adopting. “I hesitated for a second and I realized what she’s asking me and I said yes, but, uh, it’s not that easy. And she said “Well it can be.” Danny remembers that within moments she began “barking” off orders, setting up a visit for Danny and Baby Ace, expediting a Home Study to approve Danny as a pre-adoptive Foster Care father. “I wasn’t sure what happened…I thought “ohmigosh did I just commit to something”. The wheels of justice and Danny’s head began spinning at the same time , one right on track the other almost out of control.
Peter ,sitting in his cubicle at work, naively answered what was to be the most important phone call of his life. It was Danny on the other end “ He said the judge asked him if he wanted to adopt but that the train was coming and he’d have to call back”. Understandably stunned by this news, half delivered, Peter had to wait until Danny could call from his office to finish relating the story. What followed was a week of discussion, deliberation, introspection and for Peter a new kind of arithmetic; adding a baby into every mundane daily task he could imagine “Everything I would do for the next week, going to work, food shopping, I would think how is having a child going to affect every single aspect.”
There is an underlying tendency in America today to regard men as sexual predators. Couple that popular sentiment with our cultural stereotype of identifying gay men by their sexual behavior and it’s no wonder that the issue of gay adoption can elicit some very strong responses. From state to state the laws regarding gay adoption vary widely. When juxtaposed against the current struggle in Florida this case illustrates how wide that gap can be. Generally the court system in New York City is amenable to homosexuals as both foster parents and as adoptive parents. Linda explains “The original Foster Care agency was actively recruiting Gay and Lesbians parents” she continues “The community does itself a disservice by closing off the opportunities to gay parenting. Of course I’m impartial but Peter and Danny are better parents than many heterosexual couples I know, because of who they are and because of the experiences they’ve had growing up. Understanding what it’s like to be the other. All those things create a more well rounded individual and therefore a better parent”. Unconvinced that everyone shared his sister’s sentiment, Peter had prepared himself to meet with some anti-gay sentiment “Someone is going to have a problem with us being gay. So they’re going to find something in the Home Study that is going to prevent us from getting this child” To his surprise he found “ That it was never like that. Everyone involved was like a cheerleader for us”. In fact during an initial interview while answering a question regarding his family the case worker stopped Peter mid sentence and smilingly said “ I think I know your parents.” His parents had indeed met her on a number of occasions at PFLAG meetings in their hometown in New Jersey. The most surprising fact of the case is that the couple’s gay partnership had never been addressed. “ Except for the home study to establish our relationship, it was never addressed.” Peter adds “I think that they’re pretty well aware. They had all the police reports and when we were interviewed they kept asking who I was. So it’s in every police report that we were partners. If the judge read the reports and I’m sure she did then she would know.” As for Judge Cohen, the by-the-book taskmaster, and her conduct toward the couple “When we would walk into court she changed her whole attitude. She smiled. She was accommodating. And everyone asked , “ what’s with you guys, how do you get her to be so nice to you””. From the very start of their legal journey both Danny and Peter had been prepared for the other shoe to drop. “It was just all too easy” The speed and ease with which Kevin’s placement and the ensuing adoption transpired can be regarded as a legal miracle.
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