When "grandparents' rights" go way too far

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Dear respected fellow Dopers:

I am aware that there are a large number of bad parents out there; parents who have addiction or other issues, and who have been fortunate enough to have loving, unselfish parents themselves, who have stepped up to the plate and taken in their grandkids in a gesture both appropriate and commendable. These grandparents are the ones who get all the press. With all due respect, you guys can go back to what you were doing. I’m interested here in the other guys.

Sadly, there are also a large number of fit parents whose own parents are the kind of people we all deal with with gritted teeth, or avoid altogether: arrogant, narcissistic, manipulative, passive-aggressive, power-trippers, control-freaks, religious fanatics, etc. People who have no problem lying, breaking the law, bullying, and anything else which they think might get them their way. “Their way” seems to mostly be whatever will make someone else unhappy.

Now, this may be the first you’ve ever heard of such things; and you may be incredulous or even hostile to this idea. But I assure you, people like this do exist, and they often have more money/better lawyers than their grown children do, and choose to make their attack where it hurts the most: the grandchildren. It is surprisingly easy to engage in what they call “legal bullying”, especially against those who are perceived to have less social standing.

So, I’d like to hear from anyone who has fallen victim to this kind of abuse. According to my research, this is a rapidly-growing problem in America that is virtually unaddressed.

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It has been addressed. Patri/matricide. Not the best solution, I’m sure, but a solution non-the-less.

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Can one ask what research? (Or, in other words, cite?).

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All I know about this is that in IL, there are grandparental rights laws. I am not sure just what they cover, but they exist.

Can you move? I say that only partly facetiously. I now wish we had moved, miles and miles away–it may have helped our marriage which is now moribund.

Grandparents can be absolute hell. You have my sympathy.

5

Do you have some kind of cite for this? I can’t say that I have heard anything about this being an issue. What are grandparent’s rights? What rights do they have under the law now?

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I had thought there was a case before the Supreme Court a few years back that dealt with grandparents rights but my Google-fu is weak and I can’t find the actual case. One or both of the parties was named “Troxler” and the case was out of Washington state IIRC. I seem to recall that it was being followed fairly closely by the LGBT legal community because of its implication on the relationships between children and non-parental adults.

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Close: Troxel v. Granville, which struck down the Washington state law that allowed any party to petition the court for visitation rights.

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I also remember hearing about cases where grandparents go to court to get visitation rights. Google grandparent visitaion rights and there are lots of hits, most seem to be pro-grandparents’ rights.

Grandparent Visitatino Rights- This article advocates having grandparent visitations laid out in the divorce settlement, and talks about the need for uniform state law.

This sitereferences several court cases, including one in California from 2004

I always get a “what the hell” feeling about this. Why should any non-parental person have visitation rights?

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I think it depends, honestly. Illinois’ guidelines take a lot of things into account, including what the kid wants and if the kid spent a significant amount of time with the grandparent in the prior 12 months. I can absolutely see why it would be in a child’s best interest to keep seeing Grandma regularly if she’d been living with her for a year and suddenly heretofor absent Mom swoops in to take the kid away from the stable environment she’d been living in. Unfortunately, I’ve observed that sort of flightly part-time parent behavior all the time, and I do think that in such a case, the kid is better off with visitation from her best known, most reliable caregiver.

My son and I lived with my mother until he was 5. She had almost as much of an impact and hand in raising him as I did. Luckily, we’ve got a good relationship, so there was never any thought of taking me to court, but she takes him on weekends when she can and a couple of weeks during the summer, just like I went to see my non-custodial Dad when I was a kid. It’s good for both of them. I joke about those visits being “visitation”, but that’s actually a pretty accurate way to look at it. My mom is not his legal parent, but she has as much time, energy and even money invested in him as I do, and it’s in a directly parental way, not the occasional visitor way of some grandmothers.

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But Whynot--you are essentially describing a healthy extended family. We are not all so lucky. I doubt grandparental rights would come up in your scenario. I completely agree re the stable environment and someone who wants to play mom or dad for a few days.
I am somewhat leery of these rights. But there are too many horrid parents out there to not have some system in place. :frowning:

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I don’t like the laws you’re talking about but some of those bars for visitation for non-parental types get pretty twisted. Simply put, AFAIK if one has been primary caregiver for a child, but never a spouse of a genetic parent, nor a genetic parent, the default seems to be that there’s no need for visitation.

Alas, that leaves a lot of legitimate people out in the cold. Consider various foster parents who may have hosted a child for years while a parent or both parents were in jail, or treatment or otherwise unable to care for their own children. No visitation, even after being quite possibly the most important adults in that child’s life for years.

From there I can offer other situations I’ve seen, or the one I was in with The Monster, where I was told flat out by The Monster’s law guardian that I’d never have any legally recognized relationship to her, with a strong implication that I should just shove off and stop babysitting for my housemate. (To say that I did not get warm fuzzies from that law guardian would be putting things mildly. Of course, it didn’t help that The Monster’s father libelled me up, down and sideways through the family court system.)

I’m not trying to imply that I should have had some legal protections or the right to force myself into the child’s life after her mother and I were no longer housemates. But, I’m not convinced that the child’s welfare is being used as any kind of meter stick, either, for determining how custody or visitation issues get worked out.

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Right. I was using my own situation as an example of when I think a grandparent *ought *to have visitation rights. Tastes of Chocolate said s/he didn’t think that a non-parent ought to have such rights. I think sometimes they should. My mother and I are are both functional enough to arrange our own “visitation schedule” in the best interests of my son. If I was a total biotch and told her she couldn’t see him anymore, I think she’d be well within her legal and ethical rights to force the issue in court, and I do think it would be in the best interest of my son for her to do so.

Y’know, I was doing that Doper thing of taking exception to an absolutist position.

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I actually think that “grandparent’s rights” (and for that matter, parental rights) are beside the point. I don’t think that ANYONE necessarily has a right to have a relationship with a child…the child’s needs and best interests are paramount, and the rights of the adults should be considered secondary.

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While I think the child’s needs are indeed important, grown ups have needs, too. And so as long as the relationship isn’t detrimental, then I think the kid can suck it up and spend some time with Gram if that would make Gram happy. I don’t like teaching my kids that they’re the most important people in the family. They’re important, sure. But so are the rest of us. Sure, they might be bored. Grandma might pinch their cheeks and smell funny. But dangnabbit, the old lady has her own need for human connection, and if all it is is boredom and funny smells, then the kid can “suffer” through a visit for Grandma’s sake.

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Oh, wow…you were looking at it from a completely different perspective than I was. I definitely don’t think that kids should be able to randomly cut themselves off from the adults in their lives. I was thinking more of serious custody battles between people who, like you and your mother, both put in serious time raising the kid. That is, the needs of the kid should be considered before any fight between the adults.

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of course you were. I swear I need a brain transplant. Or maybe just some time away… No worries. I do think that those who would invoke the law are the least likely to deserve its protection, if you follow me. :slight_smile:

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Haven’t had this actual problem, but it’s been threatened.
The paternal grandfather told his son not to acknowledge my child without DNA testing, which son then refused to undertake until court ordered.
Grandfather then hassled my lawyer wanting my address - lawyer refused but passed on the message for me to call GFather. Lawyer told me to ‘be very careful’ and not to give my home contact details.
I offered to bring my kid to meet Gfather - any place, any time. GFather refused saying he’d be too busy for however long that offer was open. I gave him a holding address at his request - not mine, but a place where I’d get any letters within 48 hours.
I got threats, insults, lies and a list of conditions that my daughter (when she turned 18) would have to meet before she could be accepted into his family.
He reckoned that if I didn’t agree to this, he’d go to court using his ‘cultural rights’ (he’s part Maori) to have my daughter removed from my care and given to him to raise with his other son.

Funny, I didn’t even bother showing that to my lawyer. I just ignored it and carried on with the feeding clothing and raising of my girl. He traced the phone number of the address I’d given him and the owners there had a month of 5am wake-up calls. They eventually asked if he’d rather stop by himself or deal with the police. He stopped. While visiting there, I intercepted a call from a friend of his, pleading on his behalf - once she’d heard my very quiet calm recitation of the facts, she warned me that I should never let him see my kid as he would kidnap her ( the friend had been trying to set this up, but changed her mind while I was talking to her).

Over then last 9 years, the threats and insults have slowly been replaced with what could be mistaken for courtesy - if you didn’t know him better. I’ve kept all the letters and when my kid is older, she can use them to fill in the gaps of the rather tame, drama-free version she’s heard so far.

He didn’t want to see her when I offered visitation, he wanted to bully and threaten me into compliance. Oh, and her father? No contact, no request for visitation, nothing. Which is apparently the best he could do for her.

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Thanks, everyone, for your responses. Nobody posted for awhile; I was afraid at first that I’d managed to make a unilateral faux pas – you’d be amazed at the kind of assumptions people make/have about this kind of topic.

Which leads me to the next thing. A cite!! How could I have forgotten that I would need a cite?! Unfortunately, the best, most heartbreaking cite I could give you is a message board which, I think, would prefer that I didn’t expose them to an untoward amount of attention, because they have problems with trolls/lurkers/hostile litigants. If anyone is going through a situation of this nature go ahead and PM me, and I’ll direct you. Otherwise, the best thing I can say is, google “grandparents’ rights”. Or “fighting grandparents’ rights”. Or any phrase or word combination you think is most likely to bring up some example of a website devoted to fighting against grandparents for custody of a grandchild. See what you can turn up.

Now, consider the following: in the next county to mine, 1 in 5 children live with their grandparents. Also in that county, the State Bar in association with Legal Aid is sponsoring a program which provides free attorneys who will do all the paperwork and make all court appearances for grandparents who wish to obtain custody of their grown children’s children. This means that parents who cannot afford an attorney have no recourse to Legal Aid, because they cannot represent both sides in a proceeding. That same county has no Public Defender’s Office. They have a “private defender”, who will not assist in this kind of case.

Further, if CPS initiates proceedings to terminate a parent’s parental rights, *each birth parent and the child(ren) * are entitled to separate attorneys, paid for by the State, if they cannot afford counsel on their own.

If the grandparents bring suit to terminate parental rights, a parent who cannot afford an attorney to fight the ones the grandparents get for free is SOL.

I just think that no one ought to be exposed to proceedings to take their child without the right to an attorney. It’s wrong.

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Well, of course! Story of our message board lives, sweetie! That’s why I love seeing you in threads - it’s never that I’m right or you’re right, it’s that we look at things from different angles. I love seeing your perspective! :stuck_out_tongue:

I wasn’t entirely clear on the OP’s position just from the OP, although the last post makes things a little more clear. brujaja, I agree, that’s totally f’ed up, I agree. I don’t think it’s right for the parents to go to court unrepresented while the grandparents are getting free lawyers. Is the State Bar a state run group like it’s name suggests, or is it a private group?

I guess there are several possibilities whenever “grandparent’s rights” are discussed:

[ul]Parent is a good parent, Grandparent is abusive: of course I think the parent should be able to prevent the kid seeing a grandparent in such a case. This is where the relationship is not only not in the best interest of the child, but actually to the child’s detriment.[/ul]

[ul]Parent is a rotten parent, Grandparent wants custody or increased visitation: hmm…sticky. We’d like to assume that Grandparent is a better parent, but, to be blunt, Grandparent produced Parent. If they’re so much better at this, then why did Parent turn out so poorly? Sometimes people are just broken, yes, but sometimes Grandparent isn’t really any fitter than Parent. If I was a judge in this sort of case, I’d order parenting classes for all involved, no matter where the kid ends up.[/ul]

[ul]Parent is an absent parent, Grandparent is willing to take custody. Okay, this is where I can definitely see giving the grandparent custodial rights. But it’s really not any different from any other generous capable person adopting a kid. I’m not sure we need a whole separate area of law or special interest groups to accommodate it.[/ul]

[ul]Parent is a good parent, Grandparent is a good parent, but the two disagree on fundamental things like religion or lifestyle. As far as I’m concerned, if there is no abuse, then the grandparent and the state both can sod off.[/ul]

[ul]Parent is a good parent, Grandparent is a good person, Kid doesn’t want to spend time with Grandparent. Here is where I think “best interests of the child” is sort of irrelevant. Or at least one has to separate “best interests” from “wants” and also weigh the best interests of Grandparent in the equation. Again, as long as no one’s being abusive, the kid can and should be made to suck it up and spend some time with Grandparent. Do I think it will be an especially warm and loving relationship if it’s forced by a parent or judge? No, not really. But this indicates to me a kid with bigger entitlement issues than can be dealt with all at once, and not getting his way in this seems as good a place to start as any.[/ul]

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This always seems like a good idea. But it turns out that “best interest of the child” is as fraught with pitfalls as is “natural rights” – these being the poles of legal standards in this area. A pure best interest standard results in kids being taken from their parents who are lower status and given to other people who are higher status irrespective of relationship.