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Adult adoption, child guardianship

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Proserpina

Senior Member
No, my attorney is not telling me what I want to hear. He is very experienced and realistic. Everything he has said has been correct so far. Will I get custody of my son? No one knows, but there is a good chance I will. When I was going to court this year to get visitation restored, he told me I had a 70% of winning. Fortunately, my parents settled.

I started off with a bad attorney which is why the process has taken so long. Filed for custody initially in April 2012 whith a courdate in June, that got moved to October. In rural Arkansas the judge travels to several court houses and it can take a long time to get a cour date. There is no separate family court. After I fired the attorney, and represented myself in court that September (in hindsight I should not have done this, I think even that lawyer would have been better than no lawyer), my visitation rights were restricted to supervised visits, with the exception that I could take him to any public place within the city limits by myself. In Janaury 2013, I hired my new lawyer, who said I needed to wait at least a year under supervised visitation without any issues before I file for unsupervised. So around September 2013, we filed to go to court for the visitation issue, and I was issued a court date in May 2014 so that a full day could be devoted to the trial. My parents settled right before the court date. I was of course pleased with this outcome, but for them to fight me for so long and then suddenly give me what I wanted, $10,000 later, was frustrating. There are a lot better things that money could have been spent on. That's neither here nor there. My attorney says I need about 9-12 months of unsupervised visitation before I go for custody. That's where I am now. When I began this process, my child had not been with my parents nearly as long. It's unforunate that it has taken this long, but getting my unsupervised visitation back so that I could develop a better, more normal relationship with my son was worth the hard fight and every penny I spent. If I never get custody, I can live with the current arrangement. I firmly believe that it is in the best interest of my son to be raised by me and my wife. I'm sorry, but his grandaprents shouldn't be raising him when there is a capable parent in the picture. They need to be grandparents, end of story. And it may surprise you that many people in my extended family, my friends, and my coworkers agree with me. So if you don't agree, I don't care. I know what I would like to say to you, but I will remain civil and avoid the use of profanity:) Thank you all for your input and your candid opinions.

Goodness gracious. All of that twaddle without actually saying something coherent? That's impressive!

And yet, you're STILL not understanding the simple, fundamental point.
 


I'mTheFather

Senior Member
This...

I am not going to continue defendng myself on some internet forum. I was in school when this happened and my parents offered to help. I was not living near my parents. I thought that the best thing forme to do at the time was finish my schooling so I could have a stable career and support my child. Not a single one of you have addressed the fact that my parents promised me they would give me my son after school and that they changed their mind. Non of you find this wrong or misleading? That is disturbing. They offered to d this for me and then decided that wanted to raise him.
...seems to contradict this...

All of you make huge assumptions without much real knowledge of the situation. There never was an absence. I was in his life the whole time, much of that time living with my parents while in school and I was (imagine this, gasp, shock) doing most of his parenting. He slept in my room. I rocked him to sleep. If he woke up at night and was crying, I tended to him.
And if you had been a constant fixture in his life, then there would have been no reason for your parents to have guardianship. That's an important factor in your situation and will most likely affect the outcome of your case.
 

LdiJ

Senior Member
This...



...seems to contradict this...



And if you had been a constant fixture in his life, then there would have been no reason for your parents to have guardianship. That's an important factor in your situation and will most likely affect the outcome of your case.
Do you have any idea how often gps convince their children to give them guardianship of grandchildren with spurious reasons?...and then make up more silly reasons not to give the child back because they have become attached? I could have easily become one of them myself. I had to work hard not to become one of them.
 

CJane

Senior Member
The point that I think ITF was making is that OP's story seems to be changing. Either he lived far away from his parents and "saw his son regularly" while he was in school, or he lived WITH his parents, and actually did all the parenting, but his parents provided child care while he was in school.

He believes that a child should be raised by their parents if that parent is "capable". The other side of that argument is, if his parents were raising his child for 2 years, HE ADMITS HE WAS NOT CAPABLE of caring for his child for that period of time.

OP is out over $10k, two years of his life, and all that's been accomplished is that he's back to a regular, unsupervised visitation schedule. That's nowhere near custody. Could he be successful? Yes. But it's probably going to take a lot more than the 9 months his attorney is telling him, and a trip to the appeals court.
 

Just Blue

Senior Member
Do you have any idea how often gps convince their children to give them guardianship of grandchildren with spurious reasons?...and then make up more silly reasons not to give the child back because they have become attached? I could have easily become one of them myself. I had to work hard not to become one of them.
Sometimes GP's SHOULD have care of the grandchild. ;)
 

Proserpina

Senior Member
do tell...

I seem to be on hall monitor duty, so here we go.

This is the part you're missing:

You are not, right now, equal to your grandparents. Two years of "fighting" should have made that screamingly obvious, but it didn't. As things stand, you're going to be jumping through some hoops and even then it's not guaranteed.

You seem to think that by doing an end run is going to be your key to the Palace gates. Well, it's not. Your parents have been raising that child and they have a compelling case - and if you think for one second they won't use "status quo" against you, you better change your mindset and change it quickly. The simple fact that this is STILL in court after 2 years is at least something of an indicator that the judge is not going to let you disrupt that child without having a damn good reason for doing so. You wanting custody is not one of those reasons.

Then again, it's not like the child's welfare is your top priority anyway.
 
No, I get the point you are making. I understand I may not get custody. Do I have a reasonable chance? I think I do. I am not delusional and I realize it might not go my way. It won't stop me from trying. I owe it to my son to try. His well being is the reason I an doing this.
 

Proserpina

Senior Member
No, I get the point you are making. I understand I may not get custody. Do I have a reasonable chance? I think I do. I am not delusional and I realize it might not go my way. It won't stop me from trying. I owe it to my son to try. His well being is the reason I an doing this.

You owe it to your son to decide what's best for him - and you have effectively given your parents the same task. Now is when "status quo" becomes huge. They have it, and you don't
 

I'mTheFather

Senior Member
Do you have any idea how often gps convince their children to give them guardianship of grandchildren with spurious reasons?...and then make up more silly reasons not to give the child back because they have become attached? I could have easily become one of them myself. I had to work hard not to become one of them.
Yes, I do. What does that have to do with this thread? He never said his parents convinced him. In fact, he has made it clear that they offered and he agreed. I spoke to the facts in the thread.




Thanks, CJane, for explaining. :)
 

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