My apologies in advance - this is SO long and I hope I’ve written it so that you can understand what is going on.
I’ve been wanting to post questions about this for … I dunno, two years or so. Most of the message boards I’ve found dealing with custody and whatnot are… difficult to read at best and full of what seems to be conflicting information.
The story is this:
A girl told my brother he’d gotten her pregnant a few years ago - they were both in high school and didn’t really date - she actually came to our home and asked my brother to have sex with her. He wasn’t sure he was the father, but knew it was possible. So he tried to call her throughout the pregnancy to see how she was doing and how doctor’s appointments were going and the like, and she was always grounded or not allowed to talk to him for whatever reason.
Her labor was induced, and she failed to let my brother know she’d had the baby. (Ryan was born in November 2002) He found out through a mutual friend three days later. When he called, he was told by her father that he would have no part of the baby’s life, as they didn’t date while she was pregnant. My brother wanted to know if the child was his, so that he could be part of this child’s life. A few days later, he rounded up the mother and her father (both she and my brother were minors) and went to the child support enforcement agency to get the paperwork started for a paternity test. The results were in around January 2003, when Ryan was two months old.
So on and so forth, they went to court to establish child support and visitation. My brother paid support, though he was still in high school and not obligated to at that time. The temporary visitation agreement had him (my brother) having visitation with Ryan every other weekend and Ryan’s mom as the custodial parent. (I think that is correct, though I’m not positive what terms are used.) The judge ordered them to begin working toward a visitation arrangement that would be shared parenting. Eventually, they (along with the parents) went from every other weekend to every other Wednesday through Sunday, and then every other week. So at first Ryan was with my brother one week and his mother the next.
My brother joined the Navy in July 2004. He talked with the mother and her father (she was still a minor, actually just turned 18 a few days ago.) And she and her father agreed with my brother when he asked that my parents be allowed to have his visitation while he’s away. So now my parents have Ryan one week, and Ryan’s mom has him the next, and so on. My brother still pays support and carries medical insurance on his child.
This whole… “journey” has been filled with stupid little petty shit. She’s denied him visitation, he filed a contempt charge against her, judge threw it out of court, said they should work it out themselves. . . that sort of thing. Since my brother has been in the military, it’s turned into her not being home when we try to take Ryan back to her, or her not being where she’d said she’d be or some other stupid combination of stupid things. I have all of it documented, but it’s too long to go in this post.
Last summer, her father (he’s pretty flaky) decided to move to Florida. Ryan’s mom didn’t want to go, so she and Ryan moved in with us. Her father ended up not moving, but didn’t inform anyone. She and Ryan lived with us for three months - up until my parents found out she was skipping school and she opted to move back in with her father (September/October 2004) instead of being basically grounded to the house for skipping school and lying about it. (Her father just actually moved to Florida last month.)
Ryan’s mom has moved around a lot since she left our home. . . She moved in with a friend for a while, and began dating the friend’s brother. She’s now pregnant by him, btw. She lived with the (now ex) boyfriend and his uncle for a bit, until she moved back in with her dad because they didn’t have any food. Her father has told us that she refused to use her child support check to buy Ryan’s diapers - her father’s mother (which Ryan and his mom were living with at the time) confirmed that.
While she was living with us, my parents tried to get hers to sign over custody, so she could be put on our insurance and the like. Her father agreed, but her mother was in prison. At the time, she said her mother was in prison for giving her brothers drugs (which is why, she said, her mother lost custody of all her children) (and those are all her words, not mine.)
Anyway, her mother has recently gotten out prison, Ryan and his mom have moved in with her. (I questioned this when I saw her last, as all I’ve ever heard about her mother was bad stuff, and she swore she’d never put Ryan anywhere near her. Her reply was that she thought the mother had given her brothers drugs, but she didn’t.) He cries (and I’m not talking about a little whining, he actually bawls and won’t let go of my mother and go to his own) when we take him over to their place. It’s a one bedroom trailer and Ryan and his mom sleep on the floor. They have no phone and no reliable vehicle. I’m not sure what they’d do in case of an emergency.
We met with the mother and her father a few weeks ago to let her know my brother was very interested in getting custody of his son. She took it badly (as would be expected) and swore that she was trying to get her act together. She claimed to be going to school (though the truancy officer has called us a number of times wanting to know if we knew where she was living,) and that the (now ex) boyfriend was taking care of them. Honestly, while I’m not confident in her parenting skills and judgement, I’d MUCH rather see her get her stuff together and take care of Ryan, but right now she’s not doing that. She’s young and her parents weren’t the best, so I know that’s part of it - but I’m not sure what Ryan should have to go through before she does get her shit together. She generally seems to ignore him, except when she HAS to pay attention to him.
All this comes about because we got a phone call from Ryan’s mom’s father’s ex-girlfriend. (Whew) That’s where the child support checks go. She wanted to know if we had an address for the mom, which we actually don’t. I can drive there, but I don’t know the address. (This is a pretty rural area.) My mother told her to return the check to the child support enforcement agency and let them know that she didn’t know the mother’s address. This woman told my mother that she felt Ryan’s mom had no business raising him, and that she was sure he wasn’t being taken care of. This is about the tenth person we’ve heard this from.
I apologize because I know this is probably pretty confusing. I’m wondering if anyone has any advice on what steps my brother needs to take. He’s living in Washington state, and all the rest of this is going on in Ohio. He met with a lawyer on base recently, who told him he’d just have to come home and file for custody, but I want him to be prepared.
Besides documenting everything, what else can we do? I’ve read that you should ask people who tell you things (like the father’s ex-girlfriend bit above, and the not-spending-the-support-check-on-the-child bit, as well) to sign written statements and take those to court with you. Is that true? I’m a little terrified for him, because it seems like fathers getting custody is so rare, and I’m afraid that because he’s in the military, that will be a mark against him. Any advice?
My PARENTS have already spoken to a lawyer, but he told them their chances of getting custody were nonexistent, that my brother would have to do it himself. Do they actually have any options?
I’d appreciate anything y’all can tell me related to this subject. Especially anything you know about Ohio laws and custody junk.