98
Kennedy, J., dissenting
best interests of their children," Parham v. J. R., 442 U. S. 584, 602 (1979); and "[s]imply because the decision of a parent is not agreeable to a child or because it involves risks does not automatically transfer the power to make that decision from the parents to some agency or officer of the state," id., at 603. The State Supreme Court's conclusion that the Constitution forbids the application of the best interests of the child standard in any visitation proceeding, however, appears to rest upon assumptions the Constitution does not require.
My principal concern is that the holding seems to proceed from the assumption that the parent or parents who resist visitation have always been the child's primary caregivers and that the third parties who seek visitation have no legitimate and established relationship with the child. That idea, in turn, appears influenced by the concept that the conventional nuclear family ought to establish the visitation standard for every domestic relations case. As we all know, this is simply not the structure or prevailing condition in many households. See, e. g., Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U. S. 494 (1977). For many boys and girls a traditional family with two or even one permanent and caring parent is simply not the reality of their childhood. This may be so whether their childhood has been marked by tragedy or filled with considerable happiness and fulfillment.
Cases are sure to arise—perhaps a substantial number of cases—in which a third party, by acting in a caregiving role over a significant period of time, has developed a relationship with a child which is not necessarily subject to absolute parental veto. See Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U. S. 110 (1989) (putative natural father not entitled to rebut state-law presumption that child born in a marriage is a child of the marriage); Quilloin v. Walcott, 434 U. S. 246 (1978) (best interests standard sufficient in adoption proceeding to protect interests of natural father who had not legitimated the child); see also Lehr v. Robertson, 463 U. S. 248, 261 (1983) (" '[T]he importance of the familial relationship, to the individuals in-
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