The Pennsylvania Superior Court last week upheld a decision by a Blair County judge who refused a mother’s request to terminate the parental rights of the birth father of two of her children.

The mother and father of the two children were never married and their relationship became “toxic” more than 10 years ago, primarily due to the substance abuse issues and mental health issues of the father.

The couple separated, with the mother becoming the primary caregiver; however, the father contended he always desired to have a relationship with his two children.

An opinion written by Blair County Judge David B. Consiglio stated that “several dark factors (personal issues) were affecting the father” at the time of the couple’s breakup.

The father came to the conclusion that the mother “would not allow him to see the children on his terms.”

She placed restrictions that deterred him from seeing the children, the father charged.

The father noted she was “calling the shots,” and he stopped visitations with the children.

Both father and mother each eventually married and had children with new partners.

The father did not see his two children with the mother for more than five years.

In 2022, he was permitted to see them while at two local parks, but the mother “sought to pump the brakes” on further visits because the children did not realize the man they met at the parks was their biological father.

Efforts by the father to give Christmas gifts to the children also were rejected, and finally the mother petitioned to have the father’s parental rights terminated.

According to the Superior Court opinion issued last week, the Blair County judge heard testimony from the mother, the father, the stepmother and stepfather and from a court-appointed counsel who represented the children, and who recommended termination of the father’s parental rights.

Pennsylvania law places great weight on whether the father failed to maintain a relationship with the children over a six-month period, but according to the Superior Court opinion, the six-month time period is not written in stone.

As to the father, the Blair County judge concluded that “We do not foreclose the opportunity for him to be a father to the children on this record.”

The father contacted the mother repeatedly in an attempt to see his children, to no avail, it was brought out.

The father told the judge with respect to agreeing to the adoption of the children by the stepfather, “I feel this is my last chance to show (the children) I care. I am not here to take (the children) away. I just want to see them. I just want to be part of their life. I know if I sign my rights away, I am giving all that up. I am not willing to do that.”

The Superior Court panel that included Judges Jack A. Panella, Maria McLaughlin and John T. Bender ruled, “the record supports (the Blair Court’s) determination that the father had not evidenced a settled purpose of relinquishing claim to the children, and under the particular circumstances of this case, mother’s actions created a barrier which mitigated father’s failure to maintain a parent-child relationship.”

The appeals court clarified the Blair judge “did not abuse his discretion to prove grounds for termination.”

The opinion by the Superior Court panel did not use the names of the litigants and children but referred to the parties only by their initials.