Young Father Appeals for Son’s Custody

Maybe 21-year-old Larry Carson never had a shot at getting his baby. By any outsider’s assessment, it must have looked like a longshot.

He was an unwed father. He had impregnated a teen-age girl, who finally ended their two-year relationship when the baby was conceived in 1998. Within months, she designated a couple she had befriended to adopt the child. And that couple has raised the infant, now 15 months old, since its birth.

Yet, a nagging issue rolls around in my brain.

Why is Carson fighting so vociferously for the baby?

Were he to follow the stereotype of the young man who impregnates an underage girl, he would have turned tail by now. Instead of fighting for custody, he’d be avoiding court orders that he pay child support. His mother says the family has spent about $40,000 in legal fees.

Last week, an Orange County judge left Carson out in the cold.

Judge Julian Cimbaluk ruled that Carson has no legal rights to the child and that the child’s best interests are served by remaining with the adoptive couple, whose name has not been revealed.

“I’m convinced I can raise my son and I love him more than life,” Carson says. He has seen the boy only once--and that right after his birth--because he hasn’t been welcomed at the adoptive couple’s home. Carson says he considers himself “a father with no rights.”

The attorney for the adoptive couple scoffs at that.

Robert Walmsley, a veteran of child-custody cases, says Carson lost his parental rights because he didn’t pass muster on state law that lays out what unwed fathers must do before a baby’s birth.

In general, the law says that to maintain legal rights, an unwed father must demonstrate a commitment to the child in a variety of emotional, financial and personal ways.

To say the two sides hotly contest whether Carson met that standard is to put it mildly.

Walmsley says Carson’s “lack of commitment” doomed his effort to remain in the child’s life. Carson counters that he did all sorts of things, including making offers to buy a crib, playpen, stroller and baby clothes. He says he maintained contact with the mother as much as he could, but that she made concerted efforts to thwart his involvement.

A Mother on Each Side

Walmsley says many of Carson’s contacts erupted into angry diatribes and that the real motivating force behind Carson’s legal efforts is his mother, who understandably wants to protect her connection to the child. Carson has said he would raise the child in the home of his mother and stepfather in Rancho Cucamonga.

“He’s crazy,” Merle Fontenot, Carson’s mother, says of Walmsley’s suggestion of her role. “I want this child as a grandmother, not as a parent. You think I want to be a mother again? I’ve raised a 31-year-old, a 27-year-old and Larry is 21. My son is hurting for his son, and he has no other way for help but his mom.”

Fontenot is convinced the family unit embodied in the adoptive couple, in addition to the mother’s wish that they raise the boy, spelled the end for her son.

It’s only because that sounds so eminently logical to me that I’m even writing about this case at all.

I have no reason to doubt the adoptive couple are perfectly fine people and good choices as parents. Nor do I think that Carson’s biological connection translates into good fatherhood.

But biology should count for something. For a father to be disqualified, shouldn’t society be convinced he doesn’t really want the child and can’t do a good job of raising him?

Walmsley suggests I fret needlessly. He agrees that biology matters and that unwed status isn’t an automatic disqualifier, but says Carson didn’t meet the legal standards of a concerned prospective parent.

Fontenot says the boy’s mother and the adoptive couple essentially engaged in a conspiracy that squeezed Carson out of the picture.

I’m not going to call either side duplicitous. Someone is fudging the truth, but I don’t know who it is.

I just can’t shake the notion that an unconcerned ne’er-do-well father could have taken the easy way out.

He could have run.

Instead, Carson says he’ll appeal.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com