This week we see a new case from a trial court on Long Island, which held that folks who adopt an open marriage that produces children might find the custody courtroom doors open when parts of the relationship have closed.
Follow along carefully. It is a bit more “complicated” than you might expect. Dawn and Michael Marano are married in 1994. In 2001, they form an intimate relationship with a neighbor Audria Garcia. The Michael/Audria relationship (yes, the extramarital one) yields a child in 2007. It appears that back in 2007 there was a common agreement among the three partners that they would raise the child together.
You can predict what happens next. Dawn files for divorce and seeks custodial rights to the child. Michael responds she has no rights because she is not a biological parent. Meanwhile, Michael and Audria are not getting along either. The Trial Court, looking at a growing body of precedent coming from the gay community where it is fairly common for one “parent” to lack a biological nexus to the child, decided that natural mother would have primary custody. Father would have weekends and Father’s wife would have weekly dinners and some summer vacation. The Court found that the child did have a relationship with all three adult parties.
The press coverage of this decision has been extensive. New York Magazine, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Slate. The women are content with the ruling. Father professes that he will appeal. One can only imagine the trauma to a ten-year-old child innocently caught in this maelstrom of parental conflict and swirling publicity. On the adult side there appears to have been a “contract” whether written or not to raise the child communally. But suppose Michael and Audria expelled Dawn from the compact and admitted another man or woman as a substitute? If that subsequent relationship disintegrated, does the most recent exile from the “pact” have standing to request custody time as well? Is there a limit to how many contestants a custody dispute can have? And so long as I am asking questions; is there a time when the confusion associated with this litigation can be deemed to outweigh the merits of fostering and then judicially monitoring multiple relationships surrounding the same child? This may be the rantings of a curmudgeon. But thirty years ago, the mere existence of one extramarital relationship could cost a parent dearly in terms of custodial rights. And while the current crop of rulings on who can seek an award of physical time with a child seem to portend greater expansion of parental rights, I wonder whether children will ultimately pay the price emotionally because the greater the number of constituent parents, the greater the opportunity for conflict that undermines stability in a child’s life.
Some might argue: “We can just ask the child…” That is true but 10 year olds are not very adept at evaluating conflict. Moreover, they do not like to say no to anyone offering love and affection. One of the principles deemed most important in determining whether to award joint custody is the ability to cooperate. This author suggests that there should be a heavy presumption that two parents are enough and that if there is a strong sense that a third parent can and will cooperate to promote stability only then should a door be opened to admit a third party. Dawn might well be the best parent of the three but Michael and Audria enter the custody ring with constitutional rights. Those rights were judicially recognized long before Dawn stood back while her husband and another woman conceived and gave birth to a child. Yes, there are cultures including Native American ones where children were considered the property of the village and not the parents. But American culture is not wired that way and childhood is confusing enough without having three or more contestants battling out your best interests while you sit in the back of the courtroom wondering what a person dressed in a robe will decide is best for you.
Dawn M. v. Michael M., 00109/2011, N.Y. Supreme (Suffolk County)