Why Aren’t You Guaranteed Custody of Your Children?
Custody of the children has always been a sensitive and emotional area when facing a divorce. Ultimately, the courts want to provide the best environment possible for the child, but it’s not always an easy task to determine what that environment should be. In the past, our legal system had a tendency to favor the mother and award minimum visitation to the dads, believing that mothers had a natural ability to create a more loving and stable environment. But those days are changing.
Today, courts prefer to keep both parents active in the child’s life and will lean toward a joint custody arrangement as often as possible. Even in cases where the mother is deemed to be the primary caregiver, the father can still receive liberal visitation rights and also continue to participate in the decision making process through joint legal custody.
Because the courts no longer rely on the old gender stereotype, a number of more appropriate factors are taken into consideration when awarding custody.
First and foremost, the court looks at who’s asking for custody and if the parent’s have already worked out an agreeable and feasible arrangement. For more information on making these arrangements, check out this book on builiding a parenting agreement that works.
The judge will then consider the financial stability of both parents, as well as their mental and physical ability to care for the child. Work schedules, lifestyles and place of residence also come into play as does the amount of disruption a particular arrangement might cause the child.
If the parents live far away for example, it may not be feasible to award a joint custody arrangement where the child moves between houses on a monthly basis. Likewise, a parent who works seven days a week and is rarely home may not be able to provide the best living situation for long periods of time.
Likewise, a parent who travels frequently, works long hours or demonstrates little patience and/or a short temper will be less appealing to the courts than the parent with a flexible schedule that allows plenty of time to devote to the kids.
All of these factors will play a part in the court’s decision-making process and in the end, the custody arrangement awarded will be designed to provide a stable and secure environment for the child with as little disruption as possible.
Look into this book about your right to child custody and search for a child custody expert in our Yellow Pages for additional information.
9 Comments
I let my boys go with their father 5 days ago and now he wont return them. I have a paper that states he is the non custodial parent and he is court ordered to pay me child support. I have called the police and they say there is nothing they can do. What can I do?
You should file a motion in family court on an emergency basis right away. Unless father is following a court ordered visitation schedule, you should be able to obtain an order that he return the children to you. Once you have this order, the police will be able to enforce it.
So today my parents went to court and the court decided that I live with my mother. I was thinking that since my mother has a history of beating and slapping me personally in the face why would they do that. My father has never hit me before and still they don’t put me with him
Does she still hit or slap you ? If she does then you have to call the police on her. If she doesn’t, then maybe she has changed and you may should try to learn to live with her since the court ordered it. When you are 14 you may get to choose who you live with. Or you could tell the court who and why you want to live with.
I have a 2yr old daughter and I dont mind her being with her father I just want to make sure it stays at weekends only & I am the sole custodian. How can I make sure this happens? Ive had a restraining order against my ex before. Would that help at all?
so my step dad just left us three days ago, after pushing my mother on the ground and after hitting her sense 8 years now, and abusing our whole family. he is threatening my mom that he’s going to take my little sister that’s 6. knowing he left my mom when she doesn’t have a job, and a house and 4 kids to support..who would get my little sister thats 6 which is her real dad.
Both my brother and his ex have been arrested but they lived together for about two years. The girlfriend already had a child from her previous relationship but had a child with my brother. At the time of the arrests parents were separated and my brother was living with me and the ex with her aunt. Every other week my brother would get the baby but that week the baby was with the ex at her aunts. The aunt won’t allow my mother to see the kids. We want custody but are unsure if we can get it and we do not want to split up the children. Before this though no one on the ex girlfriends side of the family did anything for her. They weren’t even there when the baby was born and she actually told doctors my mother was her mother. Her aunt even spells the children’s names wrong and had never seen them until the couple split which was about a month ago. The aunt gave the children to a sister of hers that has never even seen the children either. This lady argued with my mother and kept telling her that they wouldn’t stop crying. My mother on the other hand has been there every moment of their lives. The girls first child even calls her grandma even though she isn’t her blood grandma but he loves her and he sees me as his aunt and we love him, as for my brother he called him daddy. The fact that hes not my brothers son doesn’t matter because we care about him. The baby even learned to walk in my home and rarely ever cried. The mother of my nephews had previously written a note stating my mother had custody but it was never notarized. I would also like to mention that whenever they struggled the first and only person they would call was my mother even after the couple split. Basically I would like to know if my mother could get custody of both children even though the eldest isn’t blood related but he’s still a part of family. We love both dearly and are upset by the fact that we can not see either.
My husband and I have seperated and haven’t gone to court yet. We have to small children who live with me and my parents. Since I was a stay home mom for 3 years is hard for me to get a job right now. The visitation I have set for us is he can have them 3pm-6pm every Sunday. He called me up saying that he is coming to get tomorrow and there is nothing I can do about it or if I don’t let him have them he won’t give me child support. Do I have to let him have them for the weekend when that’s not what I’ve planned? He wouldn’t let me know when or how long he could have them so I made that plan by when he had the time to come. That way the kids have some consistancy
My parents have been discussing the issue of divorce lately and as long as i can remember my father has been mentally and verbally abusive to me, my mother, and three brothers. we have recordings of him and his screaming tantrams…would a judge give him full custody even if my mom doesn’t work and has always been the primary caretaker and after he/she has heard what horrible things he has said to everyone?