[quote=svelte]Are we talking about the Steve Jobs who got his high school girlfriend pregnant and then denied this beautiful child was his, claiming in court documents that he was sterile? And not taking responsibility until testing had advanced and the court ordered him tested?
Is this the man that is being lionized?[/quote]
svelte, we don’t know the backstory surrounding Brennan’s pregnancy and her daughter’s birth: i.e. what Brennan told her daughter about her father, who Brennan told her friends and relatives the father was; whether or not Jobs and Brennan had an open relationship (and Jobs suspected the father might be someone else); whether Brennan and Jobs were still “together” during her pregnancy, whether Brennan told Jobs he was the father during her pregnancy, whether Brennan allowed Jobs to see his daughter after she was born, whether Brennan moved away from Jobs and initially kept the birth a secret (until she learned Jobs “made it big” and she wanted some of the action?) which, ironically, was just about the same time as the advent of “DNA testing.”
In Jobs’ day, mothers had all the cards and they played them close to the vest, often to take advantage of available public assistance without having to name a father.
In CA, mothers applying for public assistance of any kind were not required to name the father(s) of their children to receive benefits until the passage of the (1996) Welfare Reform Act. They could simply tell their caseworker that they “didn’t know.”
In CA, unwed fathers in Jobs’ era had no rights to any decisions about an unborn child unless the mother allowed them to pay for their maternity care and develop a relationship with the infant by “bringing it into their homes” and family fold and very few unwed mothers consented to that, especially during the child’s infancy. The mothers of that era could even get married and their *new* husbands’ would have more rights to their child than the “natural” father because they were the “presumed” father by law (even if not married to the mother at the time of the child’s birth). Hence, these husbands-after-the-fact could adopt the child without the consent of the “natural” father.
Adoption of Alexander M. (2001) 94 Cal.App.4th 430, 436
…Family Code section 7631 is best understood in the context of its statutory framework. In 1975, the Legislature enacted the Uniform Parentage Act (UPA) as former Civil Code sections 7000-7021 (now Fam. Code, §§ 7600-7730). Although the UPA was intended to “provide a comprehensive scheme for judicial determination of paternity” (Michael M. v. Giovanna F. (1992) 5 Cal.App.4th 1272, 1278 [7 Cal.Rptr.2d 460]), the Legislature perceived a loophole in the law, which it remedied in 1979 by enacting Senate Bill No. 540. This bill added subdivision (d) of former Civil Code section 7006 (now Fam. Code, § 7631) and amended former Civil Code section 7017 (now Fam. Code, §§ 7660-7666). (Stats. 1979, ch. 752, §§ 1-2, pp. 2607-2610.)
[2a] The UPA “creates three classes of parents: mothers, fathers who are presumed fathers, and fathers who are not presumed fathers.” (Adoption of Michael H. (1995) 10 Cal.4th 1043 at p. 1051.) A man is rebuttably presumed to be the natural father of a child if (1) the child is born during his actual or attempted marriage to the mother or within 300 days after its termination; (2) he marries the mother after the child’s birth and is either named on the birth certificate or agrees to support the child; or (3) “[h]e receives the child into his home and openly holds out the child as his natural child.” (Fam. Code, § 7611, subd. (d); former Civ. Code, § 7004, subd. (a).) A biological father may or may not qualify as a presumed father. “[T]o become a presumed father, a man who has neither married nor attempted to marry his child’s biological mother must not only openly and publicly admit paternity, but must also physically bring the child into his home.” (Adoption of Michael H., supra, 10 Cal.4th at p. 1051.)
In 1979, before Senate Bill No. 540 was enacted, only presumed fathers could block an adoption. If a child had a presumed father, his consent was required. (Former Civ. Code, § 7017, subd. (a).) If a child did not have a presumed father, all possible fathers were entitled to notice of pending adoption proceedings, but only those who could qualify as presumed fathers after a court hearing were entitled to block the adoption. (Former Civ. Code, § 7017, subdivision (d).) fn. 4 Although the statute provided that an alleged natural father of a child without a presumed father could bring an action “to determine the existence of the father and child relationship” (former Civ. Code, § 7006, subd. (c)), fn. 5 this had no effect on a pending adoption unless he could also qualify as a presumed father.
The case of Adoption of Marie R. (1978) 79 Cal.App.3d 624 [145 Cal.Rptr. 122] provided the impetus for Senate Bill No. 540. There, the baby was conceived while the mother was engaged to be married to Charles K. The mother broke off the engagement, and although Charles wanted to keep the baby, she decided to place the child for adoption. Charles offered to pay for the mother’s prenatal support and expenses of birth, but she refused. She also refused to allow him to receive the baby into his home. Three days before the baby’s birth, the mother married Scott R.; when the baby was two days old, the mother placed her with prospective adoptive parents…
[quote=bearishgurl]…Divorced and unwed dads never got custody of their children, even if the mom was a flake, drug addict, prostitute or all three. There was nothing preventing one parent from withholding child visitation from the other parent, which deprived countless children of the other parent. In CA, many dads never even realized they HAD children and (unknowingly) lost them thru adoption, because the law didn’t require the mom to name them as the father and notify them! When they found out about the adoption (thru friends/relatives and tried to take custody of them during or directly after the process, they were denied and told by the court that they “failed to offer to pay for prenatal care, failed to bond with the child, failed to support it and bring it into their homes,” etc. How could they do any of these things when they never knew the mom was pregnant or she refused to talk to them during her pregnancy? In a nutshell, the above was nearly the exact language of a whole host of statutes in CA that have since been repealed. Yes, the lives of children have been greatly improved since the early/mid seventies.[/quote]
CA Family Code section 7600 et. seq. (pertinent sections 7630-7633) was enacted January 1, 1994, (repealing former CA Civil Code section 230 et. seq.) in the wake of Kelsey and other notable cases did away with the “doctrine” of “illegitimacy.”
The outcome of Kelsey was the precursor to Family Code sections 7630-7633, which, among other provisions requires the mother to notify the natural father of her born or unborn child (enabling him to establish paternity if he wishes) at the signing of a contract for adoption and before the adoption proceedings go to court.
We can’t judge Jobs or any “natural father” of that era who was likely legally between a “rock and a hard space” or kept completely ignorant of the birth of his child by the mother.
