Daley Ponderings

I don't know the whole story (this article is the first I have heard of it), but if you can believe the media, I guess "they" will be coming to get Jonathan too, since he has picked up something off of the floor and put it in his mouth. Horrors.

Woman whose child was taken at birth fights to be a mother

By Kirstan Conley -- Associated Press Writer
June 16, 2004, 12:41 PM EDT
POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. -- A year and a half after Dorothy Locke gave birth, the swaddling blankets she folded and stacked neatly in a corner of her closet are untouched. The crib in the corner of her bedroom stores the toys of a child who has never spent a single night in her mother's home.
Dutchess County social workers didn't think the 25-year-old was capable of caring for a baby so before she was even born, a judge ordered the hospital not to let Locke take the baby home and temporarily gave custody to a foster family. Family Court Judge Peter Forman is expected to rule shortly on whether to keep the baby in foster care or give Locke a chance.
"I want to raise her. I want to love her. I want to be a good parent to her," Locke said. "It's very unfair. They never gave me a chance."
Parent and child advocates say court actions against mothers are becoming more common as judges try to balance parents' rights against the need to make sure children are raised in a safe environment.
Brian Barney, who chairs the family law committee of the New York State Bar Association, said he's not surprised the county took action before Locke gave birth. Courts can't afford to be wrong when it comes to protecting children from parents who may be unfit, he said.
Lynn Paltrow, executive director of Advocates for Pregnant Women in New York City, says she is alarmed by increasing court actions against mothers. She is not intimately familiar with Locke's case but says it's becoming more common for pregnant women and mothers to lose parental rights because someone says they are unstable.
And once a mother is entangled in the family court system, it is difficult to get out, Paltrow said. Locke has spent 18 months trying to get her only child out of foster care.
When Locke was 2, her mother gave her up. At 4, her grandparents put her in a home for troubled children. Counselors and doctors there reported that she displayed inappropriate sexual behavior and appeared to have been "sexually stimulated" by the age of 7. Locke claimed a male acquaintance and a relative had molested her.
In court documents, a psychiatrist said Locke projected anger, frustration and a "poor, if not mutilated perception of herself," after she saw blood, mangled animals and monsters in ink stains during a Rorschach Test when she was a teenager. She overdosed on Midol and tried to slit her wrists with a nail file, Forman said. That got her into other group homes, where she fought with residents.
She moved back to her mother's trailer and took vocational classes in high school. Eventually, Locke found work at IBM, where she met the man who got her pregnant then threatened to poison her to induce abortion. She went to a homeless shelter and started trying to get things together.
Locke sought prenatal care, found an apartment in a program for people with disabilities, enrolled in a parenting class and a took child abuse prevention program.
A team of counselors, social workers and a psychiatrist split on whether Locke could handle motherhood. Some, including the psychiatrist, said she seemed prepared while others said they were worried because she threatened to jump off a bridge, talked about killing animals and threatened to cut her baby out with a pair of scissors.
"I tried to express to them that I was afraid if I picked her up I'd scratch her, or if I did the diaper too tight," she said. "To me, those are normal fears. They totally freaked out about it."
Locke and her lawyer, Daniel Schneider, point out that Locke has never been charged with a crime. They say counselors dug into her past then fabricated and exaggerated accounts of her troubles. Schneider maintains a mother is supposed to have a clear and current diagnosis of mental illness and refuse treatment for the court to take custody.
Officials with the county Department of Social Services didn't return calls for comment. Their lawyer refused to speak with reporters.
In the ongoing court battle, social workers have scrutinized Locke's life and reviewed more than a year's worth of weekly supervised visits, claiming there are still warning signs.
Social workers said she put the baby's shoe on forcefully once. Another time, she left the room. On a third visit, she gave her a toothbrush and allowed her to walk around with it. The baby dropped the toothbrush and put it back into her mouth.
Paltrow wasn't alarmed by the incidents but Barney (ed. obviously not a parent himself) said parents spending a few hours a week with a child, trying to prove they can care for it, shouldn't make those mistakes.
Forman is expected to issue a written decision next week.
In the meantime, Schneider is preparing for an appeal, and the baby has begun to talk. She calls her foster mother "Mommy."