Do I have to respond to my child’s father’s requests for information? When your child’s father abandons you, there are hard feelings. I’ve heard some pretty horrific and heart rending stories throughout the course of my career, and, even though I’ve been doing this a pretty long time at this point, it still weighs on me. A woman I talked to the other day told me how, at two weeks postpartum, she went for a visit to her parents for two weeks. When she got to her parent’s house, her husband told … [Read more...]
Deadbeat Dad Now Wants Custody
Divorce and custody cases do all sorts of things to people. Things that, before the case were on the horizon, would have seemed unthinkable—in both good ways and bad. One of the most annoying things that happens is when a formerly deadbeat dad decides that he now wants custody, or at least wants more parenting time with the children than you might have originally expected given his general lack of interest and involvement up until this point. It’s frustrating, but it’s also incredibly common. … [Read more...]
My child’s father isn’t involved. Can he get custody?
It seems like we have a couple of cases like this lately. Dad wasn’t involved in the child’s life (and when I say wasn’t involved, I mean, like, he was completely and totally uninvolved) until, suddenly, he decided that he wanted to be. And not just that he wanted to see the child on occasion (which, under the circumstances, would have been a tremendously large change for the child), but that he wanted a legitimate custody and visitation arrangement that would allow him weeks at a time with the … [Read more...]
Custody and Visitation of Babies in Virginia
“I don’t want to send the baby to his father,” mothers often say to me. They can cite a bunch of reasons, from the fact that he hasn’t yet changed a single diaper (a single one!), that he isn’t vigilant about avoiding her allergens, he doesn’t stick to the schedule with respect to her medication, and that, really, he hasn’t spent hardly any time alone, one on one, with the child. Whether she’s currently breastfeeding or not, mom is always worried—and more than a little reluctant to hand the … [Read more...]
