Quadriplegic Mom Fights Discrimination to Keep Son
She can’t feel anything from the chest down or move her fingers independently, and yet quadriplegic Kaney O’Neill is the mother of a five-month-old bouncing baby boy.
It’s a child she may lose as her ex-boyfriend prepares for a custody battle that could make a major precedent for disabled parents everywhere.
O’Neill’s miracle pregnancy was chronicled by the Chicago Tribune earlier this year, and now the paper is sharing the story of her fight to keep her son, Aidan.
The story? O’Neill was knocked from a balcony during 1999′s Hurricane Floyd, leaving her a quadriplegic. But she contends her disability benefits and a company she owns will help provide financially for her child while her full-time caregivers – including members of her immediate family and a service dog – help her provide for Aiden in a physical sense (and a Tribune photo shows she does have some abilities for basic tasks – she’s seen feeding the baby boy with a spoon).
On the other side is her ex, David Trais, who says simply that O’Neill can’t do everything necessary to raise a child in her limited state. He’s got some back up from experts who agree that the rights of a child supersede the protected rights of the disabled not to be discriminated against.
The whole story plays out in the Tribune story – you can read it here – but most interesting is the reference to the 1979 case Carney v. Carney, a California Supreme Court decision that granted a paralyzed father custody of his two sons despite a lower court’s assertion that a disabled father couldn’t play baseball, go fishing, etc. with his sons.
Said the Supreme Court decision: “The essence of parenting is not to be found in the harried rounds of daily carpooling endemic to modern suburban life or even in the doggedly dutiful acts of togetherness committed every weekend by well-meaning fathers and mothers across America. Rather, its essence lies in the ethical, emotional and intellectual guidance the parent gives the child throughout his formative years, and often beyond.”
That’s the type of precedent O’Neill’s lawyers will have to use in their fight, and its solid grounding goes beyond the disabled parent. Think what it says for a working parent, for example – that they don’t have to be there for carpool duties or scraped knees at noon, but for the more nebulous portions of parenting.
While O’Neill may have to hire someone at all times to come in and do the heavy lifting with her son (quite literally), a set of working parent does the same – simply in a shorter time period each day. Provided we have the financial means, that’s not grounds for us to lose our kids.
Trais’ arguments may well hold water – it will be up to a judge to decide. If nothing else, it’s healthy for a child to have two parents, even if they aren’t together in an emotional sense.
But is it the ability to pick a child up when they fall down what makes a parent, or is it what we say when they’re lying, crying in our arms, that determines who is Mommy vs. who is a mother?
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Wow.I am just glad not to be the judge on this case.I hope it all works out for the best.
Aside from the merits of the case, I smell a rat here. So the “ex” wants the kid? Presumably he was the one who knocked her up. Was that on purpose, thinking he would be able to get sole custody after the baby was born? If so … what a rat!!!
Why shouldn’t the father have equal rights to custody of the child? This isn’t about her getting custody taken away from her as him being granted the majority of the custody because he’s more able to care for the child. Just because she’s a woman doesn’t make her a better caregiver.
Read the article, Sara – he is not going for equal access, he is going for sole custody, based on her being “not a fit and proper person” because of her disability. He is not more able to care for the child. If you read around the other articles on the case, she is caring for the child perfectly well right now, and is very well supported and financially able to continue doing so.
To me, alleging in court that a person is not a fit and proper parent purely because of her disability pretty much demonstrates that he is not a fit and proper parent. What suitable parent has such poor values that he will badmouth the mother like this in public, and in front of the child (who can’t understand now, but will one day) based purely on her membership of a marginalised group? It’s just a shame the court will likely not take his undisguised bigotry into account.
Ok now I am going to have to seperate you two.Let us all just hope for an excellent judge and that the best thing possible for the child happens.Joint custody might make perfect sense here.
No brainer. She can’t care for the child. She has extremely limited movement. She can’t feed him a bottle without help. Heck, SHE needs a full time care giver. How is that individual going to keep up with a toddler and care for her too? She would have to hire a full time PARENT for the child or face a child who is confused with inconsistent rules. What’s worse is that because there is such a high turnover in people doing those kinds of jobs, this child would be handed from one caregiver to another without any secure attachments.
Father gets custody with regularly scheduled supervised visitation for Mom (supervision can be in form of any adult of her choice).
O’Neill said she sees a therapist once a week and has been treated for anxiety, depression and sleep apnea. She denied Trais’ claim she smokes or drinks — though both are legal practices.
“Who is lighting my cigarettes and pouring my drinks?” she quipped.
****
If she can’t do that for herself, she can’t care for a child. PERIOD.
How can one caregiver help someone with a disability and deal with a toddler, Lisa? Gee, I dunno? How does one parent assist a nonwalking child and a toddler? As long as she can afford to get help with the things she cannot do herself, she is perfectly able to care for her child. Or do you, Lisa, Sara, never have any help with anything? Homeschool the kids, watch them 24/7, no breaks, round the clock duty, give them medical care yourself? You get help, too. You just need help with different things than she does.
Leaving aside the matter of the intense, natural, bond between a Mother and her child, children need physical care and emotional care.
Regarding physical care, where is the law that says all practical care must be given by the parents alone? If that were the case, then nannies etc would be banned by law. Parents who use nannies actually chose (perhaps for good reasons) not to provide for all, or even most, of their children’s physical and emotional needs themselves. In this case all the baby’s practical needs that the Mother cannot (rather than chooses not to) provide, will be provided by the baby’s extended family thanks to the efforts of his Mother. So physical provision is not lacking here.
Regarding emotional care, his Mother has gone to extraordinary efforts and physical pain (having been impregnated by someone who judges her unfit to be a mother!) to ensure that she can bring her baby safely into the world and care for him once delivered. She has shown immense love towards her child, a level of love and dedication many children can only dream of (and no-one is threatening to take them away from their Mothers). So emotional care is most certainly not lacking.
As for the Father, if he truly judges the Mother’s physical condition as making her unfit to be a Mother then he is hugely irresponsible in impregnating her, showing little regard for the child he was creating. In addition, the cruelty of his behaviour towards the Mother in suing her, branding her unfit to be a Mother, and trying to take away from her the only thing she has, her baby, the baby she will clearly do anything for, knowing that when she was disabled her first question was whether she would still be able to have children, suggests to me that he himself may be unfit to provide adequate emotional care for the child.
So it seems to me that in the absence any physical or emotional reasons why the child would suffer living with his Mother any more than any other child out there being raised in less than perfect circumstances, the only factor in question here is disability – and whether our courts can discriminate against the disabled – in the case in the cruellest possible way – taking away a deeply loved, desperately wanted, and well cared for child, from his Mother.
Perhaps some form of joint custody would be an option, or at least visitation rights for the Father, but the Mother should have the prime role here for all the reasons above.
anxiety and depression is just an evil disease, i think it is just as worst as cancer.,
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