Fatherhood That Goes Beyond a Blood Bond

Today won’t be much of a Father’s Day for the man known in court papers as Thomas G. The little boy who calls him dad will be off on a visit with his mother.

But it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. His Father’s Day gift came 10 days ago, when the California Supreme Court declared him the father of a 6-year-old, to whom he is related not by marriage or blood, but only by history and love.

The ruling decrees that a man who takes on the role of a father can be considered a legal dad, even if he is not the biological father and is not married to the child’s mother, and even if Mom doesn’t want him around.

What that means for Thomas and Nicholas--the boy he considers his son--is that life will go on pretty much as it has. There’ll be baseball practices, summer camp, evenings working in the yard. Thomas will try to plan a vacation. Nick will try to make good on his Father’s Day’s gift--promises to “grow plants, clean my room, water the yard.”

What the case means for the rest of us is just as simple: Common sense won this time.

The facts in the case are straightforward, the participants fairly ordinary. Here is what their court file says:

Kimberly was already pregnant with Nicholas when she and Thomas met and moved in together. The biological father was not around. Thomas was there when the baby was born and was listed on his birth certificate as the father. When the couple split up a few years later, Thomas moved to Northern California but continued to pay bills and visit.

Then, in December 1999, the two fought over plans for a Christmas Day visit. Kimberly bit Thomas, he called police and she was taken to jail. Thomas took Nicholas, then 4, back to Alameda County to live with him. A court there granted him custody, but a month later Kimberly showed up and complained that Thomas was not the real dad and thus had no right to raise her son.

The case flopped back and forth in court for years, while Nicholas remained with Thomas. He had regular visits with his mom, but she was not allowed to keep him because of her “drug use, transiency, lack of gainful employment and violence toward others.”

Social workers wanted him to stay with Thomas, the only father he’d ever known, and lawyers for the boy concurred. But the Alameda County Social Services Agency objected, concerned that granting paternal rights to Thomas would unleash a flood of claims from meddling would-be dads.

That seems like a ludicrous concern. Considering the effort we make to corral deadbeat dads and the money we spend on foster care for the thousands of kids of drug-addict moms, we ought to have a welcome mat out for a man like Thomas, who’s willing to take on the job of volunteer dad.

Thomas’ lawyer Franklin Free handles custody cases from all over the state, “and I can’t say I’ve noticed a lot of guys lurking around the courthouse, looking for an opportunity to take responsibility for children,” he said.

In fact, any man so inclined might be deterred by Thomas’ story. He spent three years, and close to $50,000 on legal fees and expenses, in his fight for parental status. He lost his telemarketing business, and his truck was repossessed. He went to work selling cars and had to move back home with his mom in Lakewood. “I went from making six figures and driving a car worth $50,000,” he said, “to having a $3,000 car and renting a house.

“There were times when I had to sit down with my mom and my dad and talk to them about it. They encouraged me to do what I felt was right. So if for the next 10 years I was broke, that’s a sacrifice I was willing to make. I could always make more money. But I could never get back what I might miss, if I lost my son.”

It might have been easier to drop the fight. It wasn’t his kid, after all, and staying involved with Nicholas ensured that Kimberly would remain a thorn in his side. Walking away would have taken him off the hook and dovetailed neatly with what we believe about unmarried fathers--men who tend to cut and run and leave the county to raise the kids.

But Thomas may reflect the changing face of fatherhood. A recent national study of low-income families found that young fathers, married or not, are more involved with their young children than conventional wisdom suggests.

“We tend to focus on the men who are not involved in their children’s lives, not paying child support ... and that leads to a lot of stereotypes,” said New York University professor Katherine Tamif-LeMonda, who helped conduct the research as part of an evaluation of the federal program known as Early Head Start.

“What we find when we go into these families is that ... 90% [of kids younger than 3] have a father figure in their lives,” Tamif-LeMonda said. “There’s the stereotype of the deadbeat dad ... but there’s an incredible investment and commitment by many of these men. They’re bathing them, they’re reading to them, they’re changing diapers....They’re doing the things that we tend to relate to mothers.”

Today, with almost one-third of all children born to unmarried women, we all have a stake in encouraging fathers, boyfriends, even ex-boyfriends to step up to the plate. And, judging from a flurry of recent court rulings helping to reshape the definition of fatherhood, legal standing for them may be on the way.

It didn’t take the court’s decree to convince Thomas G. that fatherhood does not rest on paternity. He has known that since he was a child, thanks to the man that he calls dad.

“My stepfather wasn’t concerned with biology,” he said. “He loved my mom and was willing to take on the responsibility of the two kids she brought into the relationship.”

His father is the man who took him camping, bought his dirt bikes, taught him how to water ski and encouraged him to keep fighting for his son when the struggle seemed discouraging.

Now as Thomas tucks Nick into bed, takes him to his Cub Scout meetings, cheers him on at baseball games, he is teaching his son that same lesson ... that love transcends biology.

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Sandy Banks’ column is published Sundays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is sandy.banks@latimes. com.