Adoption of Marlene

In this case, we consider the effect of a parent’s consent to adoption on that parent’s duty to support his or her child. The child involved here, whom we shall call Marlene, was the subject of a care and protection petition, and after her attorney petitioned for child support on her behalf, her father voluntarily consented to her adoption under G. L. c. 210, § 2. A judge in the Juvenile Court granted the child’s motion for *495support, and the father appealed from that order, arguing that a § 2 consent to adoption terminates the entire parent-child relationship, including the parent’s obligation…