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How to remove no-good father from child's life?

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pvanosta

Junior Member
CALIFORNIA
Our daughter made a poor choice in boyfriends a while back. She became pregnant and had a beautiful baby girl. The father is unemployed, has no credit, no driver's license and has led a hand-to-mouth existence which involved a lot of petty crime and a lot of drugs (Crystal Meth).
After we supported them for 14r months, hoping he would get his act together, my daughter could no longer stand it. She broke up with him and moved back in with us.
Through Crystal Meth use, this man's brain is severely scrambled. He has the attention span of a gnat and has held no job for more than two months at a time.
Yesterday, during a scheduled visit, so he could spend time with his daughter, he appeared in a loaned car (he has no license). He quickly became agitated and ended up abducting the baby forcibly, disappearing for 6 hours, leaving us all frantic and beside ourselves. He eventually called our house and my wife was able to coax him to bring the baby over, just as we were about to get the police involved.
I never want another night like this.
My wife and I are making an excellent living and have a beautiful, nurturing home environment for our daughter and granddaughter. We are willing to do whatever it takes and we have our daughter's approval. We are willing to sue for custody or file for adoption. Whatever it takes to cut this lunatic out of our lives. We need to know what our options are. Help???
 


stealth2

Under the Radar Member
For starters, what are the current (legal) custody arrangements?

It probably would have been better to get the police involved so that there would be documentation of the incident. That would make supervised visitation more likely. As would documentation of his drug use and mental state.

I would (personally) not encourage your daughter to give up custody or allow the two of you to adopt the child. I've seen those situations go south all too often. What she SHOULD do is consult with an attorney with all of the details.
 

pvanosta

Junior Member
Thanks - more info

There is no current legal custody arrangement.
Even if we adopted the grandchild, our daughter would retain full practical custody for all intents and purposes. This would only be done as a legal maneuver to excise this man from our lives (hopefully backed by a restraining order).
Neither our daughter, nor the child's father have any means of support.
He comes from a family of drug dealers and -users.
He cannot be trusted even with supervised bisitation, as we are worried he might show up with some unwelcome friends.
Our daughter (that is: my stepdaughter, from my wife's first marriage) is currently staying with her father and her ex-boyfriend does not know where that is.
I have had to remove this man from my doorstep at gunpoint once before.
For all of the above reasons, I want him legally cut out of our lives and I need to know our options.
Thanks for your ehlp.
 

stealth2

Under the Radar Member
She needs to speak with an attorney and go from there. I would still not recommend that she allow you to adopt the child. Sorry.
 

VeronicaGia

Senior Member
1. You and your wife have absolutely no rights to this child. This is your grandchild and the child has parents.

2. What is your daughter doing to take care of this child? You and your wife are taking care of her and hence, the child. But the fact is she decided to have a child with this guy and neither of them are taking care of this child.

3. You and your wife cannot simply terminate his or her rights. They both have the right to their day in court.

4. Your daughter has the child 99% of the time. He takes the child for six whole hours and everyone goes nuts. He is the childs father. Neither you nor she has the right to deny the child the right to both parents. Only a judge can do that.

5. You and your wife could be asking for trouble by not allowing dad to see his child. You don't have that right any more than I do.

I know all this sounds harsh, but the fact is you have no right to do anything. Your daughter needs to go to court and get a judge to rule on this before this child suffers irreparable harm from both of them.
 

pvanosta

Junior Member
To VeronicaGia

1. We know we don't have any rights tot he child at this point. My question is: what are our options to OBTAIN those rights? The father has been delinquent from day 1. He lives completely under the radar and did not even have a social security number until a couple of months ago (when we paid for the paperwork).
The child does not even bear his name.
He can't even pay for the paternity test to prove the child is his.

2. Our daughter was not working when she was with this man. She foolishly believed him when he promised to take care of her and their child. In reality, we sponsored their lifestyle for 14 months and he is yet to get a proper job.
He has not paid child support or provided for his child in any way.
When he brought the child over last night, he was obviously high on Meth.

3 and 4. Nobody was preventing him from seeing the child, but after yesterday's episode, where he drove off, screaming to our daughter 'You'll never see this baby again', we want to curtail these visits, for everybody's sanity. The only one who went nuts, was the father.

We will go to any lengths within the law to close the door on this man. That grandchild deserves better and we can do (much) better. Our daughter supports us in this.

I want to find out what my options are in court, before I find him, along with his brothers, breaking into my home and I find myself forced to resort to violence in self-defence.

I'm sure our case is not unique, so I'm trying to gather advice on the possibilities within the law.

The father has no means to care for the child, no family, no job, no place to live.
The mother, through us, has all of the above. I always believed that courts favor the mother in such conflicts. That's why I came here for advice and possible feedback from people who had gone through the same thing.
 

LdiJ

Senior Member
pvanosta said:
1. We know we don't have any rights tot he child at this point. My question is: what are our options to OBTAIN those rights? The father has been delinquent from day 1. He lives completely under the radar and did not even have a social security number until a couple of months ago (when we paid for the paperwork).
The child does not even bear his name.
He can't even pay for the paternity test to prove the child is his.

2. Our daughter was not working when she was with this man. She foolishly believed him when he promised to take care of her and their child. In reality, we sponsored their lifestyle for 14 months and he is yet to get a proper job.
He has not paid child support or provided for his child in any way.
When he brought the child over last night, he was obviously high on Meth.

3 and 4. Nobody was preventing him from seeing the child, but after yesterday's episode, where he drove off, screaming to our daughter 'You'll never see this baby again', we want to curtail these visits, for everybody's sanity. The only one who went nuts, was the father.

We will go to any lengths within the law to close the door on this man. That grandchild deserves better and we can do (much) better. Our daughter supports us in this.

I want to find out what my options are in court, before I find him, along with his brothers, breaking into my home and I find myself forced to resort to violence in self-defence.

I'm sure our case is not unique, so I'm trying to gather advice on the possibilities within the law.

The father has no means to care for the child, no family, no job, no place to live.
The mother, through us, has all of the above. I always believed that courts favor the mother in such conflicts. That's why I came here for advice and possible feedback from people who had gone through the same thing.
Is he listed as the father on the birth certificate? If not, then he is not legally the father and has no rights at all until such time as he files to establish paternity. Any action taken now would perforce include establishing his paternity. Therefore if he is not legally the father its possibly best NOT to take any action.

You adopting the child is NOT an option because you can't do that without his permission. Nor is it the right thing for your stepdaughter and the child. That would take away her own parental rights, PERMANENTLY.

You can't get rid of dad unless dad either wants to be gotten rid of....or never establishes paternity...or unless you can prove him so unfit that the state would involuntarily terminate his parental rights. The state won't do that willingly, because it also takes him off the hook for child support.
 

stealth2

Under the Radar Member
Mom needs to speak with an attorney. All that you claim about Dad - she will have to prove. Just saying she knows it is not going to cut it. She needs cold, hard proof.

In addition, I'd suggest all of you give serious thought to some counseling. Mom for her poor life choices, and you and grandma for your enabling behavior. Because that is exactly what you're doing - enabling this young woman to take no responsibility for herself, her child or her life. And that's rather dysfunctional.
 

pvanosta

Junior Member
And to clarify

When I say he has no family, I mean no family that can take him in, shelter him, support him. His brothers are all like him, living like cockroaches, crashing with this 'friend' or the other until they get kicked out and move on to the next victim.
His parents are dead. His uncles and aunts won't speak to him or his brothers.
 

pvanosta

Junior Member
stealth2's advice

Stealth2,
That's quite a judgemental call to make from such a distance.
We had no intention of 'enabling' anybody. We are both educated and we know dysfunctional behavior when we see it.

We had no control over our daughter's life choices until recently.
And it's one thing to not enable her behavior. It's another to stand by and watch your grandchild being taken away by social services because the father resorts to petty crime and the mother is home, taking care of the newborn.

We had no choice but to reach out and support them. It was not a decision taken lightly and only on behalf of the grandchild.
 

BelizeBreeze

Senior Member
pvanosta said:
When I say he has no family, I mean no family that can take him in, shelter him, support him. His brothers are all like him, living like cockroaches, crashing with this 'friend' or the other until they get kicked out and move on to the next victim.
His parents are dead. His uncles and aunts won't speak to him or his brothers.
I've been about to throw up reading this thread until I got to this part. It made me laugh out loud.

The funny thing is, these are the exact same types of things people were saying about Jesus just before he handed over the cross to the Centurians to put in the ground.

So, where is your cross? You know, the one you stepped down from to judge him without also judging the idiot of a daughter who spread her legs for him.
 

keyzblewz

Junior Member
The "father" has no legal right to the child until actual paternity has been established. Your daughter does not have to allow him any type visitation at all until he can prove he is the father and can show court ordered documents saying he has a right to visitation.

He may have fathered the child BUT until he does what any unwed man has to do in a situation like this and proves he is the father his rights don't amount to anything.

This is the problem with the situation you are in with your daughter...you love your daughter and granddaughter and want to protect them. You want to know what you can do legally to keep this person out of their lives. There isn't much you can do and if you do take legal action then you are opening the door to the presumed father being given legal rights to the child.

You can't file for custody cause you have no legal grounds. If your daughter voluntarily allowed you to adopt or become guardians then this would involve the father. Do you really think he would give his permission for such a thing? Once you get him involved then the court will order paternity testing. Once it is established that he is the father the courts will give him rights. I don't think that is something you want.

As things stand right now your daughter has full control over whether or not the guy sees the child. He doesn't sound like the type to ever come up with the money he would need to take it to court himself and force the issue. Your best bet is to leave things alone and hope that he never tries to use the court system to gain the rights he would have if he were proven to be the father. If you think you have concerns now what would you do when he was given the right to over night visits?

As for the adoption. My grandparents did this for their youngest daughter. Her and the child lived with them until the child was 7 and then my aunt wanted to marry and move on with her life. By that time my grandparents were too attached to the child to face life without her in it and they chose to excerise their rights as the child's legal parents and refused to stand up to the agreement they had made in the first place. It caused a HUGE rift between them and thier daughter and the child paid in the long run. You are asking for trouble when you take control over your daughter's child in that way.

Learn to live with what you have now cause getting the court system involved in any manner will not resolve the problems. Lock your doors, tell him to stay off your property and if he and his brothers break into your home to what you have to, to protect yourself.
 

pvanosta

Junior Member
Ldij: thank you

Thank you for giving me some of the feedback I was looking for.
We will contact the nastiest most aggressive lawyer we can find and tak eit from there.

Question: if we go to court about his visitation rights and we countersue for child support, what are the chances that the judge makes the visits contingent upon the payment of the support?

That would solve the problem immediately, as he has as much chanced of coming up with that, as I have of sprouting another head overnight.
 

MandyD

Member
First, YOU can't sue for child support. You have no standing. Secondly, child support and visitation are two separate issues.
 

keyzblewz

Junior Member
In addition, I'd suggest all of you give serious thought to some counseling. Mom for her poor life choices, and you and grandma for your enabling behavior. Because that is exactly what you're doing - enabling this young woman to take no responsibility for herself, her child or her life. And that's rather dysfunctional.

The most idiotic thing his daughter could do would be to speak to an attorney. The only time she should speak to an attorney is if the "father" forces her hand by using the court system to gain visitation. At this point she has all the control. To speak to an attorney would mean giving up some of that control.

Teenagers make poor life choices daily. There is a fine line between enabling a teenager in making poor life choices and helping your daughter who is having to suffer the consequences for those poor choices. What the hell is this man's choice? Does he throw his daughter and grandchild to the street just so she can pay for the choices she made?

It's not dysfunctional of any parent to want to help their child out of a bad situation. It's not dysfunctional for any grandparent to want to protect the safety of their grandchild. What would be dysfunctional and cruel is a parent who thinks that helping their child is enabling them.

You know nothing of this man's daughter or the payments she has already made for her poor choices. Your judgments of him and his family as being dysfunctional are assinine and off base but, after reading a lot of your posts, that seems to be the way you react to other people and their problems. You are constant short on legal advice but always there to hand out the judgments. If that is what floats your boat and helps you feel good about yourself have at it!
 

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