Grandparents Rights

[IrishLady47]

Your granddaughter should have someone looking out for her best interests. She has already been in limbo for 2 1/2 years. You've been taking care of her as "parents", but she still has legal parents. If they have not taken care of this child for so long; why weren't their parental rights terminated? Then this little girl could have been adopted by you or another loving couple and had stability for the rest of her childhood. For some reason, adoption is not thought of often enough in this country which is why couples have to adopt children from other countries. It is certainly better for children than being pulled back & forth between family members. It's too bad children do not have as many rights as the biological parents seem to. Creating a child doesn't make you fit to raise a child. Although I must agree being taken care of by loving grandparents is better than foster care, there must be a time limit. Were you hoping your daughter would change & be a real mom again? How long would this go on? Is that why you took no legal action? Are you young enough & financially stable enough to raise a child for the next 15+ years? Do you love this child enough to let her be adopted if that was the best solution? Can you step back a little, help your daughter & granddaughter re-establish their own bond & just help on the sidelines? But, if your daughter is truly unfit as a mom, do something legal now! But do not go by the fact that a four year old wants to stay where she has always stayed. It is great to know you are so concerned, do something now!! Help both move on w/guidance or give the child a permanent solution. In addition to good legal advice, I hope you will get more family counseling if you keep custody of this child.

 

[annsgrandma]

This forum makes giving all the information difficult. The reason my husband and I have not gone further with this until now has been the hope that the parents would step in and do the right thing.
After she was molested we felt like it was no longer safe to do that. The Bio-dad has his family telling him that he should never sign anything that gives us rights. His father lost his children after his ex-wife killed herself the grandmother said she had been taking care of them and felt it would be best if they stayed with her for awhile so he signed what he thought was a temporary agreement. Needless to say it was not. They have a lot more money then we do to figth a battle.
We are now at a point that we don't care. The other grandpartents believe that if you have a child you should be able to do what every you want and raise the child however you want. The bio-dad with the help of his twin have learned that in the case of a child they can be placed in harm that could be avoided so they want whats best for this child and they think that listening to her and what she is asking for is what should happen.
I have talked with an attorny and we are doing and order to show cause why the agreement that all parties signed should not remain in force and then have the court decide what is best.
I am going to talk with my daughter and ask her to let her come back and make this a stable environment for her and make it legal. We are getting together on mothers day and hope to talk through this so that papers can eb drawn up and signed ASAP but if she say's no we are ready to do what we need to for our granddaughter.

 

[djohnson]

Your granddaughter should have someone looking out for her best interests. She has already been in limbo for 2 1/2 years. You've been taking care of her as "parents", but she still has legal parents. If they have not taken care of this child for so long; why weren't their parental rights terminated? Then this little girl could have been adopted by you or another loving couple and had stability for the rest of her childhood. For some reason, adoption is not thought of often enough in this country which is why couples have to adopt children from other countries. It is certainly better for children than being pulled back & forth between family members. It's too bad children do not have as many rights as the biological parents seem to. Creating a child doesn't make you fit to raise a child. Although I must agree being taken care of by loving grandparents is better than foster care, there must be a time limit. Were you hoping your daughter would change & be a real mom again? How long would this go on? Is that why you took no legal action? Are you young enough & financially stable enough to raise a child for the next 15+ years? Do you love this child enough to let her be adopted if that was the best solution? Can you step back a little, help your daughter & granddaughter re-establish their own bond & just help on the sidelines? But, if your daughter is truly unfit as a mom, do something legal now! But do not go by the fact that a four year old wants to stay where she has always stayed. It is great to know you are so concerned, do something now!! Help both move on w/guidance or give the child a permanent solution. In addition to good legal advice, I hope you will get more family counseling if you keep custody of this child.

You really shouldn't judge based on your own history. What you were expecting this OP to do would be ideal, but this isn't Wonderland. I know a biomom that left child and her mothers and never came back. Grandmother raised him, tried to file for legal custody(she could afford and very much wanted the child) the bio mom came back and said no, you can have him my way or not at all, since she still had custody, she could take that child with the police's help at any time. See the bio mom just wanted to keep getting the child support check, tax break, and government assistance. He is of age now and still has nothing to do biomom, his grandmother is mom. It wasn't legal, but it was what was best for the child.

 

[IrishLady47]

to djohnson

Since I'm not a grandmother, this is not based on my history, but what I've seen several friends and relatives go through. As I said in my email, bio-parents have more rights than the child & this is wrong. And, in this case, the bio-mom has removed the child already. So the grandparents must take legal action unless the mom voluntarily returns the granddaughter. I'm glad the informal situation you stated worked out for the child. But, in many states now, you cannot even enroll a child in school unless you have some sort of legal guardianship or custody.

to annsgrandma - I wish you the best of luck!! You've given your daughter & bio-dad more than enough time (4 yrs) to be good parents--do all you can now for your granddaughter, don't let your daughter make you feel guilty!

 

[djohnson]

I agree, but you were questioning why she hasn't done it before now. A big reason why people don't is the threat of losing the child all together.

 

[IrishLady47]

Understood, but no action means the threat can become a reality at anytime. And, this was not the only reason in this case, as the poster herself stated they had not taken action earlier because they hoped the bio parents would get their act together. This is the unfortunate position grandparents are often in--to protect their grandchildren, they must take action against their children-report them for child abandonment, report them as unfit parents or even report them for fraud (getting govt benefits & tax breaks to which they are not entitled). They can't either out of guilt or fear for the grandchild. Which is exactly why the deadbeat parents get away with emotional blackmail. Wish this family the best in the fight they have now. But as indicated in other responses, the best chance the grandparents had for gaining legal custody was filing when the child had been left w/them alone, before the mother moved back in and before she took the child w/her. Others may benefit from their experiences and one less child will lose their "safe place".

 

[DGO1223]

I have no idea how these laws vary from state to state, but I can tell you in GA, the laws for cases of child abuse are very, very strict.

A divorced mother we know, who has custody of her 5 yr. old daughter went through a very trying situation with her. What happened in this case was: Daycare that child stayed in noticed the Mother had a black eye from being hit by her boyfriend, then called DFACS (department family children services). They immediately and took child away, to the horror of the mother. DFACS here is very, very strict. Also, they did not have to disclose who reported it.

In this case the child was in no danger, as the black eye was only in a heated argument, that was settled by them, and no abuse to anyone. But they felt that it MIGHT in the future cause mental distress to her.

Long story short, they kept the child 3 days and investigated this very, very closely. A social worker reported everything to court, and investigation with a fine tooth comb. Lawyers were hired on all sides. Grandmother was given temporary custody until case goes to trial.

Bottom line is this: mother had to leave boyfriend, and move in with her mother, and custody given to her, until proved that child was/is in no further danger. Mother was not even allowed to be alone with child. If that did happen and Social Worker even got a whiff of it, she would immediately taken away.

In your case, your granddaugher is in serious danger, as the behavior of both parents show. Here, if things like this are reported, she would immediately be taken away, investigated, and ultimately put in custody of closest fit realitive, with NO visits allowed with either parent without close supervision by social worker, if at all. Then the court finally deciding custody. And definitely legal advice needed by all concerned. Sounds like if this happened here, her parents would be a long time in even seeing the child, and having a lot of legal expenses doing it.

Although it would be a long arduous road, this would settle custody issue. At least in this state.

DGO1223

 

[krispenstpeter]

Poster, before you go any further I suggest you look up and study the following cases in Utah:

http://www.parentsrights.com/caselaw/ut_bb.htm

http://fl.bna.com/fl/19990817/981409.htm

http://nche.hslda.org/legislation/state/ut/2002/UTSB87/

 

[ili]

To annsgrandma

How are things going with you? I´ll be praying for you and
Ann. We are having a tough time and would do anything to
get our little one back in his¨safe place¨.

 

[annsgrandma]

Our State is Utah.

Just to update all of you. Ann came back to our home on Wednesday May 19. My daughter and I talked and Ann was able to tell her that she wanted to come back to our home. She agreed.
Both parents were willing to terminate their rights but the bio-father has since changed his mind. He believes that once we have Ann and they have no rights that we would keep Ann from him. That is not the case but you can't change how someone feels.
We are filing papers for gaurdianship today or tomorrow so that Ann will be in our care until they are in a place to offer a safe home. Ann is worried that one of her parents will take her and not let her come home so much so that she has not wanted to go and visit away from our home.
She wants to be able to live with us and now that she is in our home again we are going to move fast to make sure that she can stay until she is ready to go and one of them can offer her what she needs.
I don't know at what age a childs voice can be a factor in court but I know that Ann has made it very clear that she wants to be with us and just visit her parents and have "spend the nights" as she calls them with them but that she wants to live at home. She is very clear for a child of four years on what she wants.
Now it will be up to the courts if they decide they want to fight us we don't have a lot of money so I don't know how much of a fight we can put up but we will do our best.
I will keep you all posted.

 

[kidoday]

Congratulations. Thankfully they are doing what is best for the little girl. I hope the guardianship goes through without any hassle.

 

[sadgranny]

what help can anyone give me on the rights in texas

i am going through this as of this week with our daughterinlaw she took the kids and moved to her mothers over 100 miles away how can we protect the kids and help our selves too ?

 

[stealth2]

Sadgranny - you'd be best off starting your own thread, either here or on the Grandparents' Rights board, providing the pertinent information. You'll get more responses and better information that way, rather than hijacking a different thread.

And from the first page... as an FYI, it is Guardian Ad Litem, or GAL.