Looking for lessons in the wrenching case of Baby Veronica

It will take years to know if the right decision was reached in the case of Baby Veronica, the 4-year-old returned to her adoptive parents this week, over the objections of the biological father she lived with since she was a toddler.

A court ruling in Oklahoma ended a long battle that rested on legal issues of Native American sovereignty. But the feud raises questions that reach far beyond that, to the heart of what makes a family and what’s best for a child.

Veronica’s parents were not married. Her father, Dusten Brown, is a member of the Cherokee nation, but he’d relinquished parental rights to her mother, who is not. When Brown found out that the mother, Christy Maldonado, had arranged for their infant’s adoption, he challenged it on the grounds that his tribe had not been notified, which the federal Indian Child Welfare Act requires.

I understand the legal basis for rejecting his claim and sending the girl back to the adoptive parents she’d lived with for her first two years: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the federal law does not apply because Brown didn’t have legal or physical custody when the adoption proceedings began.

And I understand the emotional investment of adoptive parents Matt and Melanie Capobianco, fighting for custody of the child they’ve considered theirs from the moment she was born.

What I don’t understand is how the love and commitment of a little girl’s father can be brushed aside by people who claim to want the best for her.

Or how a child can be treated like property, her ownership duked out in courts, her young life already framed by an ugly tug-of-war.

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Adoption, by its very nature, can be a wrenching process.

“Adoption doesn’t happen because things are going well,” said Santa Monica psychologist Marlou Russell, who was adopted as an infant in the 1950s and met her birth parents as an adult. She now counsels families involved in adoptions.

“It’s hard for a lot of people,” she said. “Especially when everyone is coming to adoption in crisis. Generally, things are desperate on both sides.”

That was clear as this multi-family drama unfolded, with a mother who signed her baby away without notifying the father; a father who didn’t want to pay child support and wasn’t there at the birth of his daughter; and a childless couple whose dream of family is embodied in this brown-skinned, curly-haired little girl.

Their actions and rhetoric until now suggest a sort of hostility that doesn’t bode well for the fought-over child.

Birth mother Maldonado has blasted Brown, her former fiance, online for “trying to derail the family I had worked hard to give to my daughter.” She picked the Capobiancos from dozens of prospects when she decided to put the baby, her third child, up for adoption.

When Brown got custody two years ago, he refused to allow little Veronica to see or speak with the Capobiancos, as if he could erase the years she had spent as their daughter in South Carolina.

The Capobiancos responded by trashing Brown on their website. And when Veronica was returned to the couple this week, their spokeswoman announced, “She’s safely in her parents’ arms,” as if the child had been unsafe with her father in Oklahoma.

I have deep respect for adoptive parents who give their children a chance to know the families that gave them up.

That seems brave, even scary, from my parenting perspective. It’s hard, I imagine, not to feel threatened by an extra set of relatives looking over your shoulder or vying for your child’s affection.

But the approach has proven over time to be the healthiest option for children and parents.

Birth mothers report less grief and more comfort with their choice. Adoptive parents are less fearful of something going wrong. And adopted children have a stronger sense of identity and security when they’ve had access to birth families.

The Capobiancos must recognize that. Like two-thirds of adoptive parents today, they agreed to allow the birth mother and her older children to stay in touch with their daughter. Yet they seemed determined to keep Brown away.

That’s not unusual, Russell said. “In the world of adoption, birth fathers are not respected; they’re not part of the conversation. Adoption attorneys call them ‘sperm donors.’ All they want from birth fathers is a signing away of parental rights.”

That might ease the path to adoption, but it also dishonors the child.

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News reports since the handoff this week suggest that the Brown and Capobianco families may be willing to work out a visitation arrangement.

That would be a win for the child, and a testimony of love from the grown-ups in her life.

It’s hard to see the big picture sometimes when you’re new to parenting.

I needed the wise counsel of a grandmotherly neighbor when my three daughters were small and I was raising them alone because their father had died. I was scared, determined not to mess up and resistant to interference.

My neighbor gently suggested that I be less concerned with control and more open to help from outsiders. You never know who’ll be important to them as the girls grow older, she said. Children can’t have too many people in their lives who love them.

My daughters’ affection for her certainly proved her point. And it’s no less true when those outsiders share your children’s genes, their heritage, their roots.

There’s no point in pretending there’s no connection between children and birth families. Acknowledging the tie doesn’t inflate it; ignoring it doesn’t extinguish the link.

Ultimately Matt and Melanie Capobianco will learn what parents everywhere learn as their children grow into adults: The important thing isn’t how many toys they had or whether their soccer team won, but the quality of relationships they’ve built over time.

And that means loving your children with the sort of generosity that makes room for them to connect with other people who can’t help but love them, too.

sandy.banks@latimes.com