my mother has costody of my 4 year old son.

[Guest]

Ok so here's my issue. When my son was about 8 months old I needed some help due to post partum depression. So I agreed to sign over temporary guardianship of him to my mother. She then continued to kick me out of her house multiple times, pulling me in and out of his life on a regular basis that was not my choice at all. Once I had gotten fed up with things I tried to take her to court when he was two in order to get the guardianship reversed. The judge then set a later date to determine custody and would not let me defend myself when my mother lied and told the court that I had moved away on my own accord and on purpose to hurt my son. who by then was in the process of going through treatments to help him catch up developmentally with other toddlers his age. I do agree that at that time I was not in a fit situation to have my son with me. But now that time has passed. He is almost 5 now. She has not made any progress on visitation. It is always in her house and she has complete say so on when or if I can see my son per the custody and child support hearings. I have had a steady job for over a year now. I have lived in a house that has had an extra room only for him for about 7 months. before that I still had a safe living situation for him to be in. but still no visitation with me. I have offered multiple times to help out with transportation, health insurance, giving her a break, offering to take him while she had surgery, and many other things but she always finds someone else to do it instead or turns my offer down. I guess im just at a dead end, and not knowing much about what my rights are as a non custodial parent in this situation I don't know what I can demand from her legally. I also am unaware of the next steps I would need to take to obtain custody of my son again. if you could please give me some insight or information on this I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you so much.

H

 

[Michael Wechsler]

From my thought, I think you should be incredibly grateful that your mother is caring for and raising your son. Considering your past, I think you absolutely need to show that you are stable and capable of caring for your son - not just for the short term but for the long term. The real question is why your mother doesn't trust you with having him stay with you. Perhaps it's a matter of being better safe than sorry, no offense. Do you want to petition the court for partial custody? Nothing is stopping you but I have a strong sense that you probably won't be successful. You will need to show that what you want is in the best interests of the child - that's the standard used in Family Court. It's not what you think you're capable of handling. The child's welfare comes first before your desire for custody.

You may want to keep it together, continue to build on your stability and visit often. Perhaps in time your mother will soften up and you'll be able to have more of her support and get what you seek.