Adoption of Willow

This appeal arises from petitions of the Department of Social Services (department) to dispense with the need for a mother’s and a father’s consent to the adoption of their three children. G. L. c. 210, § 3. The mother, a resident of Massachusetts, is divorced from the children’s father, who resides in Oklahoma with his current wife. A judge in the Juvenile Court allowed the department’s petition with respect to the mother only. He found that the father was currently unfit to assume his parental responsibility and likely to remain so indefinitely, but denied the petition as to the father…