Step Parent adoption, bio-mom charged with Felony assault

[Silverplum]

Silver - you know that the dislike is against over-stepping steps. Gender is irrelevant.

I believe that is how you feel, Zig.

 

[anearthw]

I can understand over stepping steps...and I stayed off to the side and quiet for a long time, 5 years to be exact. But this was my name on the adoption motion, not my husbands.

Is there ever a time, in your opinion, when the step mom (or dad) becomes more of a parent to the child than the bio mom (or dad), or are we over stepping any time we challenge a biological parent?

I'm sure most people here understand that in some instances, a step-parent acts as much more of a parent than the biological one. There are clearly some crappy parents in this world, and someone whose kids have been seized by the state probably qualifies, right? However, that doesn't negate that the parent is still the parent if their rights have not been terminated. A terrible mother is still a mother (and vice-versa with dads) until her rights are terminated.

 

[ecmst12]

Is there ever a time, in your opinion, when the step mom (or dad) becomes more of a parent to the child than the bio mom (or dad), or are we over stepping any time we challenge a biological parent?

That is a really tough question. Around here we recognize that legal parents have constitutional rights to parent their child, even if they are crappy parents. Right now, mom is not biomom, she's just mom/legal mom, until her rights are actually terminated...biomom is reserved for a biological parent who has actually already had her rights terminated (volutary or involuntary). In most cases, we are going to be in favor of NOT messing with the legal parentage and letting the child figure out for themself what kind of person the absent/sporadically involved parent really is. In most cases, a stepparent can love the stepchild to death, love and support the parent they are married to, provide care for the child to the extent that the actual parent approves of on that parent's parenting time, etc, but when they start trying to replace the other legal parent or force them out of the picture, hackles are going to be raised.

In most cases, stepparent adoption is not a necessary thing, remaining related to the actual parent is not going to harm the child any more than leaving things as they are and it's a lot of time and money being spent for very little benefit.

There are, of course, always exceptions. But that is the general belief around here.

 

[CaCO3Girl]

Thank you for explaining ecmst, the reaction I received makes more sense now. I also have to admit that we felt the same way for many years, I can't tell you how many times I have had to talk my husband down by saying "Yeah, well too bad, because SHE is his mother, and she has just as much say as you have!"...I really did tote the party line of step parents and tried to be in the background, it got to a point 3 years ago where the mom/legal mom would only talk to me. My husband basically put his foot down about her...well the only word I can think of is shenanigans. He told her we were following the court order PERIOD, no variation, and I was the one who would coax him into allowing a different day if she didn't make the visitation, or other accommodations to try and ease the shared parenting relationship. To put it bluntly, they didn't want to talk to each other, but both were fine talking to me....so trust me when I say I didn't try to force her out, actually the opposite happened, I tried to keep her in as long as possible because I thought that was what was best for the child. Up until last month, with the adoption hanging out there she still called my phone to talk to the child, and not the father’s.
It just got to a point where I realized, as my husband already had, that she was just hurting the child, not helping. The words he used to describe it were “She is like poison to him, she leaves for months and ignores him then comes back and is all mother of the year for what a week, then he has to sit there and wonder what he did wrong, why she went away again and he starts to heal and then just when I think he is back on his feet here she comes again, mother of the year acting like she has any idea what his life is like now, then she poisons him and leaves him in agony again, and I have had enough.”

Combine that with the fact that if anything were to ever happen to my husband, who does work construction so not exactly a safe profession, this woman would automatically get custody of the child, and well, it was enough to terrify us into filing to adopt and TPR.

 

[CaCO3Girl]

It's over

There are cases where the bio mom is just too damaging to the child on an emotional level. My wonderful and loving step son is almost 10 and he has been made to feel like he is a piece of crap and unworthy of his mother's love, which should have been automatic. The court found her to be totally unsupportive on every level a parent can be unsuportive by barely seeing him in 2 years and not providing financially for him at all during that time without justifiable cause, coupled with her felony assault arrest....the only question the Judge asked me was if the mother knew where we lived, my response was that we have lived in the same house for 6 years! The Judge said this was an excellent example of why some parents should have their rights terminated and that this truly was in the best interest of the child. The court is going to change the birth certificate to show I am his mother.

The Judge signed the termination papers on Monday, and signed my adoption papers.