What is the name of your state? Missouri
My 12 yr old son saw his biological father for the first time, last week. We where never married and he has never had any thing to do with him and has paid little to no support.
Since we where never married there was never a custidy hearing or anything. Child support enforcement has him labeled as non-custodial parent and he is ordered to pay 50 dollars a month but will pay 2-3 months and then go a yr or more without paying anything. I am not worried about money, i am more worried about my son getting to know him, I'm just trying to tell you his patterns.
Untill about a month ago my son thought that my husband was his bio father. My husband and I got together when my son was about a month old, so since his bio never stepped up my husband has always claimed him as his own son. We finally decided we needed to tell my son the truth because we always worry that someone else might tell him and we wanted him to hear it from us. So we told him and left it up to him if he wanted to meet his bio, and he did. His bio claims to have relized he made a mistake in not stepping up before and now wants a relationship with him. Witch my husband and I (though hard) want to give my son that opprotunity.
I told The Bio from the beginning to make the decision if he wanted to come around or not and not to make promises he couldnt keep. I also told him that we needed to take things a step at a time and start off with suprivised visits worked into 1-2 hr visits and eventually every other weekend visits etc. He agreed. So he meets him last week, buys him a birthday present. Then he calls him twice since then.
Heres where my problem comes in: He calls me tonight and tells me that he lives in low income apartments (that fact I already knew) and that its a 2 bedroom and him his wife and 2 boys are very crowded, so he went to the housing authority and told them that he was going to start getting visits with his other son, so he needed a 3 bedroom apartment so they would have plenty of room. They told him they would have to have my sons social security number, and he asked me if I would give it to him. I told him I wasnt sure. To me this sounds very suspicious, but even if thats the real reason he wants the number, I think its wrong that he's already using my son to gain personal benifit.
Then my son tells him on the phone that he wishes he could see him this weekend and he tells my son that he can come spend the weekend if I say its okay and that they will go fishing and do this and that and so my sons all excited and I have to explain to him that I have'nt had anything to do with is bio for almost 12 years, so that we don't really know him and my son does'nt really know him and we have to all take the time to build trust and a relationship before I will feel comfortable letting him take him. So of course my son was very upset and crying and I had to try and make him understand that I had to protect him
etc. So the Bio is already over stepping the guidelines he agreed to.
So I am nervous and don't quite know what the bio may be up to. I want to make sure that my husband and I have our rights defined so I can protect my son and us in case he tried to pull something. Since the Bio and I where never married and my husband and I have rasied my son on our own and he's never come around, does the bio have any legal rights? What are my rights? And what do I have to do to make sure that if I died tomorrow, no one could take my son away from my husband?
I was really hopeing and still am, that everything would go smooth for my sons sake. I don't want to be fighting with his Bio, I just want to do whats best for my son.
What is the name of your state? Missouri
Now Ithidriel is gonna sing : Feelings nothing more than feelings**************