The Ties That Bind May Also Serve to Undo Child’s Life

By now, you’ve probably heard about 2 1/2-year-old Jessica DeBoer, soon to get a new name, a new home in another state and a new set of parents. Just what every 2 1/2-year-old wants.

Caught in the middle of a custody dispute, Jessica is scheduled Monday to leave the adoptive parents in Michigan who have raised her since birth. She will then be given to her natural mother and father in Iowa, who married after she was born and tried early on to reverse her adoption. Their lawyer argued that the natural mother originally gave a different man’s name as the girl’s father and that, therefore, the real father never gave up parental rights because he didn’t know the child was his.

I could argue the case for either set of parents. My guess is that most people side with the adoptive parents, for two reasons: First, they’re being forced to give up a child they’ve raised and, second, Jessica will be subjected to a potentially confusing and painful separation.

Under that presumption, I wanted to talk to Mary Kay Eberhart, the Orange County-Inland Empire coordinator of the national organization known as Concerned United Birthparents (CUB). The national organization was portrayed somewhat villainously in a New Yorker magazine article earlier this year as aggressively encouraging natural mothers to reclaim their adopted children. The local branch has about 50 members and meets monthly, Eberhart said.

Make the case, I asked Eberhart, for why removing Jessica from the only parents she’s known is the right thing to do.

“I think the media is dwelling on the pain of the adoptive parents,” she said. “Everybody seems to forget the pain of the birth parent. Something people don’t realize from the birth parent’s standpoint is that the mother, when she’s carrying that child, whether it’s born out of wedlock or the father deserted her or whatever the situation may be, that’s a very traumatic time in her life. . . . An adoptive agency comes in and grabs you at a very vulnerable point in your life that is going to change your life and your child’s life. They don’t give you counseling, they don’t give you anything to try and make the right decision for yourself and your child. Everyone’s concerned about the adoptive parent.”

Eberhart, a paralegal who lives in the city of Orange, said the DeBoers knew within weeks that their adoption was being challenged. If they were concerned about Jessica’s welfare, Eberhart said, they should have relinquished control. “To me, what the DeBoers have done is like kidnaping. . . . If the child is traumatized forever, I feel it is the DeBoers’ fault because they didn’t return her immediately. But I don’t think it has to be traumatic at all. It’s based on how the transition takes place and how it’s handled.”

Eberhart said she isn’t anti-adoption. Nor does she believe, for example, that a birth mother had a legal right at any point in her child’s life to reclaim the child from adoptive parents.

What CUB favors, she said, is “open adoption,” under which the natural mother is kept informed about the child’s whereabouts and welfare. In addition, she said, the child should be informed at some point about the circumstances of the adoption and that when he or she reaches 18, the child and the natural mother should have the legal option of contacting each other.

Perhaps most important, she said, the natural mother should be given counseling throughout her pregnancy as to the implications of putting up the child for adoption.

“I’m not saying adoptive parents should be like baby-sitters, I’m not saying that at all,” Eberhart said. “Birth parents are not a threat to adoptive parents. That child has two sets of parents, no matter how you look at it. If adoptive parents would realize that birth parents have acknowledged that adoptive parents have raised the child and are the parents, but that the birth parent is also a parent and because of giving them life, does have rights.”

What drives CUB, Eberhart said, is the pain experienced by women who, often at a vulnerable moment in their lives, have surrendered their children and then been shut off from them. “When a woman is pregnant and carrying that child, that child is moving within her and there is a bond that is being made before that child is ever born. When that bond is broken, the pain of it is traumatic. When you’re young (and you give up a child), people say: ‘You’ve got to get on with your life and forget about it,’ you don’t. It’s very prominently on your mind and the pain is there.”

I don’t know how many minds Eberhart will change. She’s probably right in saying that society generally favors adoptive parents, because it sees them as selfless and committed to parenting, while it “looks down on” the natural mother as someone who gave up her baby. And, it often is biased against the natural father because, as was the case here, he fathered the child out of wedlock and didn’t even realize he was the father until told later.

To Eberhart, this case is clear-cut.

Many people won’t see it that way. They’ll simply see a 2 1/2-year-old girl trying to understand why she has a new name and a new mommy and daddy.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.