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Parents Vs GrandParents what rights do we have ?

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daveaton

Junior Member
What is the name of your state? : Arkansas


Here is the deal we are faced with, Me and my wife are the parents of a new born baby girl as the time of this writing she is 4 days old. :cool:

My wife's real dad is wanting the right to take our baby anytime to his house to show the baby off, and when the baby get's older take her shopping ect.. (unrestricted access) as he calls it.

The problem is that my wife's real dad was never really a dad, my wife was raised by her grandmother who had custody. Now all of the sudden my wife's real dad is wanting unrestricted access to the grand child, my wife and her dad never has gotten along and probally never will, my wife has alot of unresolved issues with her real dad.

My wife does not want our baby to have any kind of contact with her real dad, let's call him Gary.

Gary does not know where we live yet and he has our phone number from a relative, He called our house asking if he can have the directions to our house so he can see the grand child but he wanted me to email him the directions instead of giving the very easy to get to directions over the phone. I told him I would not have a problem with it and he could see the child, but right after I said that, he demanded that he put it in writing giving him full access or (unrestricted access) and if he could not get it, he would take us to court to get it.

I was very offended by this, and told him that the baby was to young to just take and we wanted the baby to stay with us but, he was welcome to come over.

That night me and my wife talked about what was said and now she is hard set not letting he even to see the child in fear that he might run off with the baby. We talked to my wifes (Grandmother / Guardian) aka "Mom" and she said that Gary has really out stepped his bounds on this one and she would talk to him.

Today Gary called again asking for the directions and my wife answered the phone and he asked for me, (David) and she said I was asleep, which I was from a very long night feeding and rocking... ;) and he hung up the phone, he called again 30 seconds later asking for me and she got me up, he demanded that I give him directions to my house and I told Gary that My wife has decided not to allow the baby to see him and He told us that We will see him in court..



Now some details about us..

Me - David age 30
My wife's real dad - Gary age mid 40's
My wife Naomi age 23


What right does Gary have to our baby ? Right now he is tring to make our home a living hell. Now Gary's Mom (my wife's grand mother) is caught in the middle, because she raised Naomi but Gary is her son.

Gary has another son from his current wife and another daughter from another fling that he does not claim, She has a baby and has desperately tried to get him to take a DNA test and have something to do with her new baby. Gary has taken a Blood test almot 20 years ago and it was 99.95% sure but refuses to take a DNA test, Gary has paid 18 years of child support but still refuses to have anything to do with his other daughter.

Why is he taking so much interest in our new baby..? :confused:

Does Gary have any rights to even see the newborn since he gave up custody to his mother ? :rolleyes:

Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks
 


Neal1421

Senior Member
daveaton said:
What is the name of your state? : Arkansas


Here is the deal we are faced with, Me and my wife are the parents of a new born baby girl as the time of this writing she is 4 days old. :cool:

My wife's real dad is wanting the right to take our baby anytime to his house to show the baby off, and when the baby get's older take her shopping ect.. (unrestricted access) as he calls it.

The problem is that my wife's real dad was never really a dad, my wife was raised by her grandmother who had custody. Now all of the sudden my wife's real dad is wanting unrestricted access to the grand child, my wife and her dad never has gotten along and probally never will, my wife has alot of unresolved issues with her real dad.

My wife does not want our baby to have any kind of contact with her real dad, let's call him Gary.

Gary does not know where we live yet and he has our phone number from a relative, He called our house asking if he can have the directions to our house so he can see the grand child but he wanted me to email him the directions instead of giving the very easy to get to directions over the phone. I told him I would not have a problem with it and he could see the child, but right after I said that, he demanded that he put it in writing giving him full access or (unrestricted access) and if he could not get it, he would take us to court to get it.

I was very offended by this, and told him that the baby was to young to just take and we wanted the baby to stay with us but, he was welcome to come over.

That night me and my wife talked about what was said and now she is hard set not letting he even to see the child in fear that he might run off with the baby. We talked to my wifes (Grandmother / Guardian) aka "Mom" and she said that Gary has really out stepped his bounds on this one and she would talk to him.

Today Gary called again asking for the directions and my wife answered the phone and he asked for me, (David) and she said I was asleep, which I was from a very long night feeding and rocking... ;) and he hung up the phone, he called again 30 seconds later asking for me and she got me up, he demanded that I give him directions to my house and I told Gary that My wife has decided not to allow the baby to see him and He told us that We will see him in court..



Now some details about us..

Me - David age 30
My wife's real dad - Gary age mid 40's
My wife Naomi age 23


What right does Gary have to our baby ? Right now he is tring to make our home a living hell. Now Gary's Mom (my wife's grand mother) is caught in the middle, because she raised Naomi but Gary is her son.

Gary has another son from his current wife and another daughter from another fling that he does not claim, She has a baby and has desperately tried to get him to take a DNA test and have something to do with her new baby. Gary has taken a Blood test almot 20 years ago and it was 99.95% sure but refuses to take a DNA test, Gary has paid 18 years of child support but still refuses to have anything to do with his other daughter.

Why is he taking so much interest in our new baby..? :confused:

Does Gary have any rights to even see the newborn since he gave up custody to his mother ? :rolleyes:

Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks
He has no rights to the child. He cannot take the baby without your permission.
 
Last edited:

LdiJ

Senior Member
It may or may not be Kelly....however, on the off chance that it isn't, I am going to reiterate and clarify what some of the other posters have said.


This grandfather is full of CRAP. He has no hope of even getting standing to sue for visitation with the child, let alone unrestricted access. He has absolutely no rights. Grandparents have no automatic rights, they only have the right to sue to attempt to gain rights in certain limited circumstances. Those circumstances generally require some disruption to the nuclear family and a pre-existing relationship between the grandparent and the child. Since you and your wife are living in an intact family, and since your child is only 4 days old....clearly grandpa has NO STANDING.

Change your phone number and don't give it to the duffus who gave it to him.

This grandfather is the kind of grandparent who just makes things difficult for all grandparents. Even if the OP was Kelly...these kinds of grandparents REALLY DO exist.

I once sat in a courtroon and listened to a grandmother testify that she had given up her parental rights to her own children but that she never gave up her rights to her grandchildren. (who came from the same children she gave up) A pre-Troxel judge actually AGREED with her....ARG. Thank goodness THAT can't happen anymore.
 

daveaton

Junior Member
Thanks everyone

This makes me feel better.. I was doing some research and here is what I found.. for Arkansas


1. Child must have lived with grandparent for a total of 6 months in a 2 year span
2. One or both parents must be decesed.
3. Parents must be divorced
4. One or both parents must be proven unfit or live in unfit conditions.

Since we fit none of those, grandfather has no rights.. and after all the comments other people have given I have called grandfather's bluff and now he is backing down and tring to appoligize. We are still not certain if we should file a restraining order or not..:rolleyes: Or get a lawyer ourself for harasment.

Here is a couple of pics of our baby.. http://www.phprocket.com/newborn/

I don't get the joke of "This is Kelly folks." can someone fill me in ?
 
Last edited:

tigger22472

Senior Member
LdiJ said:
I once sat in a courtroon and listened to a grandmother testify that she had given up her parental rights to her own children but that she never gave up her rights to her grandchildren. (who came from the same children she gave up) A pre-Troxel judge actually AGREED with her....ARG. Thank goodness THAT can't happen anymore.
Not meaning to hijack.. however, I have to ask how even pre-Troxel how this judge had the ability to do this. If the mother gave up her parental rights how did she even have standing to sue in the first place? Was the child she gave rights up to not adopted or anything? If the child was adopted the parent would not even qualify under teh definition of grandparent (especially if we are talking Indiana).
 
N

nicenyguy

Guest
arent babies wonderful?

congratualtions on your daughter, i have a son who will be 2 weeks old tues. :D
 

LdiJ

Senior Member
tigger22472 said:
Not meaning to hijack.. however, I have to ask how even pre-Troxel how this judge had the ability to do this. If the mother gave up her parental rights how did she even have standing to sue in the first place? Was the child she gave rights up to not adopted or anything? If the child was adopted the parent would not even qualify under teh definition of grandparent (especially if we are talking Indiana).
I know that it seems amazingly impossible, but judges ruled in favor of gpv in all kinds of circumstances, pre-Troxel, that you wouldn't imagine could be possible.

I saw judges make visitation awards for a children that weren't even born yet, cases similar to the one above, and even several judges make orders for visitation of "all future children born of the marriage".

In one case I even heard a judge say that he was awarding visitation to a grandparent who had been convicted of abusing their own children. The judge's rationale was that "just because they abused their children doesn't mean that they will abuse their grandchildren.:eek:

In the case I mentioned, the parent, as a child, was adopted by their stepparent. Indiana law says that standing to sue for gpv survives a stepparent adoption, therefore the judge interpreted that as also surviving the parent having been adopted by their stepparent.
 

karilynn

Junior Member
I would get a restraining order against him. New Mexico
QUOTE=daveaton]What is the name of your state? : Arkansas


Here is the deal we are faced with, Me and my wife are the parents of a new born baby girl as the time of this writing she is 4 days old. :cool:

My wife's real dad is wanting the right to take our baby anytime to his house to show the baby off, and when the baby get's older take her shopping ect.. (unrestricted access) as he calls it.

The problem is that my wife's real dad was never really a dad, my wife was raised by her grandmother who had custody. Now all of the sudden my wife's real dad is wanting unrestricted access to the grand child, my wife and her dad never has gotten along and probally never will, my wife has alot of unresolved issues with her real dad.

My wife does not want our baby to have any kind of contact with her real dad, let's call him Gary.

Gary does not know where we live yet and he has our phone number from a relative, He called our house asking if he can have the directions to our house so he can see the grand child but he wanted me to email him the directions instead of giving the very easy to get to directions over the phone. I told him I would not have a problem with it and he could see the child, but right after I said that, he demanded that he put it in writing giving him full access or (unrestricted access) and if he could not get it, he would take us to court to get it.

I was very offended by this, and told him that the baby was to young to just take and we wanted the baby to stay with us but, he was welcome to come over.

That night me and my wife talked about what was said and now she is hard set not letting he even to see the child in fear that he might run off with the baby. We talked to my wifes (Grandmother / Guardian) aka "Mom" and she said that Gary has really out stepped his bounds on this one and she would talk to him.

Today Gary called again asking for the directions and my wife answered the phone and he asked for me, (David) and she said I was asleep, which I was from a very long night feeding and rocking... ;) and he hung up the phone, he called again 30 seconds later asking for me and she got me up, he demanded that I give him directions to my house and I told Gary that My wife has decided not to allow the baby to see him and He told us that We will see him in court..



Now some details about us..

Me - David age 30
My wife's real dad - Gary age mid 40's
My wife Naomi age 23


What right does Gary have to our baby ? Right now he is tring to make our home a living hell. Now Gary's Mom (my wife's grand mother) is caught in the middle, because she raised Naomi but Gary is her son.

Gary has another son from his current wife and another daughter from another fling that he does not claim, She has a baby and has desperately tried to get him to take a DNA test and have something to do with her new baby. Gary has taken a Blood test almot 20 years ago and it was 99.95% sure but refuses to take a DNA test, Gary has paid 18 years of child support but still refuses to have anything to do with his other daughter.

Why is he taking so much interest in our new baby..? :confused:

Does Gary have any rights to even see the newborn since he gave up custody to his mother ? :rolleyes:

Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks[/QUOTE]I would get a restraining order against him. New Mexido
 

BelizeBreeze

Senior Member
Tell "Gary" to kiss your grits.

He has no rights period.

EDIT for clarification: If he continues calling, file for a no-contact order.
 
karilynn said:
I would get a restraining order against him. New Mexido
I wouldn't dredge up 3 week old posts that have already gotten the correct legal advice. It is annoying and deters from answering posts of people who are actually having an issue now, and looking for answers. :)
 

GrowUp!

Senior Member
Ithildriel said:
I wouldn't dredge up 3 week old posts that have already gotten the correct legal advice. It is annoying and deters from answering posts of people who are actually having an issue now, and looking for answers. :)
And it's quite interesting how the person who obviously fished for this thread and resurrected it...well, that person only has ONE post to their name.
 

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