Monday, August 22, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
JANE ANN MORRISON: Judge decides grandmother has her hands full without sixth grandchild
Yesenia Sosa, starting at age 15, popped out six children like they were gum balls. A meth addict, she was arrested for prostitution two weeks before delivering her sixth child. She's the problem, but she's not today's issue. Nobody is arguing she is a fit mother who deserves custody of her children.
This is about whether the government can say it's OK for Sosa's mother to be the guardian for five of those children, but not the sixth.
Does the government have the right to decide a baby girl named Nathaly Sosa is better off in a middle-class foster family than with her own grandmother?
The grandmother at the center of all this is Maria Lopez, 49, who for six years has been a kitchen worker at the Stratosphere casino. Lopez wants to be the guardian of Nathaly, almost 2, who has been in foster care since she was a month old because she tested positive for methamphetamines.
The courts agreed in May 2004 that Lopez is fit to be the legal guardian for five grandchildren, now between the ages of 3 and 14. But Family Court Judge Gerald Hardcastle ruled in July 2004 she would be "overwhelmed" by a sixth and has decided the infant is better off with the foster family that wants to adopt her.
No one claims the baby might not be safe living with Lopez and the five other siblings, plus Lopez's 17-year-old son. No one is suggesting she doesn't care properly for the five grandchildren.
The government's stated concern is that Lopez would be emotionally and financially overwhelmed if Nathaly joined the household.
The foster parents are good people, middle class, responsible and the parents of two other children. In their home, the baby has her own room and goes to day care at UNLV Preschool. Foster Mom teaches parenting classes to at-risk families; Foster Dad is a subcontractor.
Lopez's schedule is grueling. She goes to work at 7 p.m. and gets off at 3 a.m. She's up at 7 to take her oldest granddaughter to school. She takes care of the children, napping when they do, until she goes to work.
Her 23-year-old daughter, who doesn't live at home, cares for the children when her mom goes to work.
Lopez is separated from her husband and has four children of her own, though only a teenage son lives at home.
She desperately wants to keep the six grandchildren together. A lesser woman wouldn't have stepped to the plate, and these kids would be wards of the court.
Clark County Legal Services attorney April Green represented Lopez in her efforts to obtain guardianship of the five children, which was approved in May 2004 without opposition. But after Green petitioned for guardianship of the baby in April 2004, the Division of Child and Family Services initially opposed adding a sixth child, saying the Lopez house was too small. So Lopez got a larger house.
A social worker testified during a hearing in July 2004 that the division's goal was to create a situation that would be best for the grandmother, the baby and the siblings. Based on their belief that Lopez was overwhelmed financially and emotionally, they thought it was best that the baby stay with the foster family.
Hardcastle agreed.
Legal Services appealed the judge's decision to the Nevada Supreme Court in September.
It isn't a high-profile case like Hardcastle's recent ruling denying the termination of Tamara Schmidt's parental rights of Brittney Bergeron, the child paralyzed in a knife attack after her mother left her and her late sister alone.
In his lengthy opinion on Brittney, Hardcastle said, "Government cannot take a child from his parents just because it can find a better home."
But in the Lopez case, is that what he's doing?
Hardcastle believes Lopez would be overwhelmed. At the foster family's request, Hardcastle even denied visitation rights to Lopez.
The Nevada Supreme Court will have to sort out the Lopez and Bergeron cases.
If Lopez were a white Mormon or white Catholic grandmother in the same economic circumstances, would anyone be saying six grandchildren is too many?
Six children are emotionally and financially overwhelming. But that's a choice some families make.
Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at jane@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0275.
