absent fathers rights

[mubette]

My son was born out of wedlock. He is now 14 months old. His father has always denied he was his. He has had no contact with him whatsoever. He has never met my son. Due to my receiving stated aid the district attorney's office pursued him. He disputed that he was the father. We had to take a paternity test and now have a hearing next week to establish paternity and support. What will happen in court? I am afraid that he will request visitation in order to pay less. What kind of visitation will they give to a parent that has never even meet their child? Will it be very difficult and costly for him to get visitation? California.....

 

[ndea25]

Custody and child support are separate issues in the eyes of the court. The amount of support he will have to pay will be determined by his income not how much visitation he has. Hope that helps.

 

[LadyBlu]

My son was born out of wedlock. He is now 14 months old. His father has always denied he was his. He has had no contact with him whatsoever. He has never met my son. Due to my receiving stated aid the district attorney's office pursued him. He disputed that he was the father. We had to take a paternity test and now have a hearing next week to establish paternity and support. What will happen in court? I am afraid that he will request visitation in order to pay less. What kind of visitation will they give to a parent that has never even meet their child? Will it be very difficult and costly for him to get visitation? California.....

When you go to court next week he will be ordered to pay support to you in an amount that is determined by the courts according to the calculations that are a standard in CA.

As for the visitation, that is seperate, I am not even sure if they will hear visitation issues at this time... He may have to petition the court seperately for that. Here in TX the judge grants visitation and custody at the same time as the support as long as it is not a contested issue.

I would suggest that if the matter of visitation is brought up that you let the Atty representing the child in the case know that you are willing to allow visitation but would like to have it supervised until the child reached the age of 3-4 yrs old. That is what would happen normally.

Good Luck to you.

 

[JessicaArlyn]

Mubette, to expand on Ldy's post, they will make him pay the state back for the paternity test, and he will have to pay retroactive support from the date the paperwork was filed. The amount of arrears will be tacked on to his current support amount, but will be very low, my dh's is $10/wk, in addition to regular support amounts. Since it is CA, they may make him pay for a partial amount of the birth expense, provided you were on aid for that. They will only lower his support ONCE custody has been established if he spends a GREAT deal of time with your child. Be strong, I was once in your situation several years ago, I never took it to court, and as a result, my dh was able to adopt my son w/out his biofather's interference.
Jessica/CA

 

[mubette]

Thank you for your information and advice. I think my main concern is the visitation. He hasn't shown that he cares for my son, so I feel the only reason he would want visitation is to not pay so much. I'm curious as to how much time, effort, and money he would have to sacrifice to get visitation. I feel that may show me how genuine he really is to know his son. Thanks again

 

[LadyBlu]

Thank you for your information and advice. I think my main concern is the visitation. He hasn't shown that he cares for my son, so I feel the only reason he would want visitation is to not pay so much. I'm curious as to how much time, effort, and money he would have to sacrifice to get visitation. I feel that may show me how genuine he really is to know his son. Thanks again

Ok, to expand a little here...
Child support is a obligation, Visitation is a right.
Neither have anything to do with the other in the courts eyes. So whether or not he pays support, he still has the right of visitations with the child. It is up to you and him to work these things out for the BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILD.

Now, as I explained in my previous post if you are in doubt about his parenting skills and feel that it could be putting your child at risk by him taking the child for overnights since he has never been around the child, You need to speak up as a parent and voice this concern to the atty and the judge. But you cannot deny the father visitation because you do not feel that he has shown you he deserves it in a $$ amount. If you feel the father is not capable of taking care of the child alone you need to ask for Supervised Visits, but you have to be prepared for him to at some point have overnight visits.