When "grandparents' rights" go way too far

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

I know…I love these kinds of conversations with you, too!

Agree with you, here.

I think you have covered everything here…I’m going to throw my 2 cents in for each one.

Agreed. Any adult who is abusive has no rights where the child is concerned, IMO.

This is sticky, and it’s an area where I think it’s relevant to expand the idea of “grandparent’s” rights to “any adult with a loving interest & relationship with the child” rights. True, that grandparent produced parent (unless it’s the GP on the other side, I guess. I think that these kinds of custody decisions have to be made prudently and with great consideration of what is going to be best for the child. Anecdote alert: As a young person, I dated a guy for many years who had a sister who was a little, shall we say, messed up. She had a baby at 16 and promptly dropped the kid off at mom & dad’s (the fact that SHE was not living at mom and dad’s is illustrative of some of the issues), pretty much for the duration (hard for me to believe she is…let’s see, doing the math…going to be 25 this year! :eek: Anyway…in this particular case, my BF turned out pretty well by all accounts, and his sister, well, she was a mess. Despite the fact that the grandparents did indeed raise her, it seemed to all of us that her daughter was better off with grandma & grandpa, and we all kind of lived in fear that she would come back, assert parental rights, and take her daughter away. God knows what would have happened to the child after that. My BF and I were fully ready to help make a big stink if that were to happen.

So, of course this is just one case, but it’s an example of one where I think the child’s best interests would be served NOT to be primarily with the parent, unless, as you say, parenting classes were taken and some proof of cleaning up and stability were shown. These are the kinds of things that I really think ought to be considered in these kinds of cases.

I agree with you here. I believe that this is what happened in the case I was speaking of. At the beginning, the mother was in & out, but as the years progressed, she was more and more absent until the grandparents assumed full custody (officially or unofficially, I’m not sure).

Absolutely agreed.

Also agreed here, 100%. I never considered this possibility until you mentioned it in your earlier post. I guess I never thought about not wanting to see a grandparent, nor being indulged in not wanting to see a grandparent by a parent! Dang, are kids THAT spoiled these days?

22

That’s always the pitfall when it comes to the courts, isn’t it? Let me be clear, though, that I wouldn’t call for a “pure” best interest standard, just that consideration of what is best for the child should be primary. In many of these cases, it’s probably not even relevant, as WhyNot’s list points out.

23

Can you explain this a bit more WhyNot? Specifically, do you mean that if the good Parent wishes that the Kid would like to spend time with good Grandparent, but won’t force the Kid to do so, the Grandparent should be able to go to court over it? Or just that Parent should force the Kid to do so? Because as far as I’m concerned, if the parent is a good parent, their decisions should be the only thing that matters, and if they choose to indulge their kids over this, the grandparents and courts have no right to interfere.

24

Yes, I think that absent abuse (that’s always going to be my caveat), if a grandparent wants to visit with their grandchild and the parent doesn’t enforce that, then the grandparent should be allowed to take it up with a judge. The judge, of course, should take into account the child’s wishes along with other things like how involved the grandparent has previously been. I’m don’t feel this terribly strongly, however. In general, I agree that parents ought to be left alone to manage their own kids, but I’m getting sort of sick of the idea we’re fomenting in this nation that only children have “best interests” or that only their interests are important. It’s just my grumpy issue of the week, that’s all. Prob’ly because I’ve been babysitting a new spectacularly spoiled child. :wink:

25

Ha ha…that’ll certainly color your attitude! I want to clarify that in no way do I consider the child’s “best interests” to be “give the kid whatever s/he wants.” As we parents all learn (usually the hard way), sometimes it’s exactly the opposite. I’m talking about “best interests” in the broader sense of, who is going to give the child a good home…stability, decent food and clothing, be involved with their education, etc. Not who is going to let them watch whatever they want on TV, you know?

26

I think it absolutely depends upon the grandparent (Whynot’s last scenario re good parent and “good grandparent”).

My MIL is an alcoholic. When the older kids were born and little, she was actively drinking and hit bottom. She is what is termed a dry drunk now–she no longer drinks, but all the behaviors are there. She’s emotionally manipulative, devious, narcissistic and demanding. She does have good qualities, but these overshadow those.

I have consciously limited my kids’ exposure to her and would do so again, if I could do it over. If I could do it over, I’d set even firmer limits. She lives fairly close so there has been regular contact over the years. I would call the relationship between us civil to superficially cordial.

I never let my kids “get out” of visiting her(unless she’d been drinking), and once she was sober, if she wanted to take them downtown or whatever, I made them do it. But I did not encourage such things. My FIL was usually with her when she did these excursions, but since he enabled the whole mess of my husband’s childhood, I’m not too impressed with his abilities to cope with her more extreme displays. She’s volatile and for young kids, that’s not ideal. I did not allow my kids to be rude to her, but I did allow them to set limits with her (as in, “Grandma, please don’t pink my cheeks so hard.”)

I also watched very closely the relationship between my eldest sister and my kids. She is single, very career driven (I add that only to show that she is not around kids much–she’s in advertising), with a very snide, caustic manner and a marked impatience to those less able or quick (she treats wait staff like shit). I would let the teens loose with her–they can hold their own. But when they were little? No way–she never babysat, has no knowledge of kids and I didn’t need to be shoring the kids up after spending an afternoon being mocked and belittled by “Auntie” . Luckily, her job takes her worldwide and she lives in LA. When we do see her, though, the kids later ask me all manner of questions: why did she say my shirt was funny? Why does she care if I don’t like mushrooms? Is my nose too big? That sort of thing…

Any way, I digressed a bit from grandparents. I only added an aunt in the mix to show that as a parent, if you are faced with toxic or dangerous situations or toxic people, you need to be careful, IMO. I don’t believe in bubble wrapped kids, but I also don’t see the use for exposure needless dysfunctionality. Whether that should become a court matter is different. I doubt so in the cases I related.

Not allowing the parents legal recourse is horrible–I don’t understand how that can happen! What county (state)? That has to be overruled or thrown out by a higher court, no? (which would mean it has to happen and someone has to have the money and time to take it through the courts). What about the ACLU? Don’t they do stuff like this?

27

Wow - I’m surprised to hear you say this, since normally I think you’re amazingly insightful when it comes to this whole parenting thing. To me, the parent’s decision should be absolutely paramount. If an otherwise good parent believes that their child shouldn’t be forced to see a grandparent they don’t want to, I don’t see where it’s in any way the courts’ place to step in.

I’m not trying to pick on you WhyNot - I’m just really surprised to see you say something like this.

28

Oh, I understand. I don’t feel like you’re picking on me, and I do see why it comes off as inconsistent with things I’ve said before. As I said, I’m probably unduly influenced right now by this parent who I’d like to strangle who is trying to get me on “her side” in an argument against her own mother, who pointed out that the boy is a hellion. Frankly, I agree with the grandmother 100%, and think the mother is giving this 3 year old way too much power for his own good, at the grandmother’s expense. (The reason I’m now babysitting him is that Grandma, who was doing it, now refuses to do it again until some fairly reasonable demands are met, like Mom won’t tell the kid to “nevermind what Grandma said, she didn’t mean it” or ignore the fact that her kid is hitting Grandma when he’s pissed off.) If a judge was to force me to pick one, I’d give him to Grandma. His mother isn’t terrible, and she’s certainly not abusive, she’s just clueless and making what I think are poor decisions. But yeah, they’re her decisions to make, I guess. But she’s the kind of parent who will give the kid anything he wants in the short term because “he’s the special one”, the most important one, the precious one. Save me.

And, really, I guess that I’m the one who muddied the waters. “In the child’s best interest” doesn’t mean “what the kid wants”, you’re right, Sarahfeena.

29

In answer to a question above, the “State Bar” is a private organization which oversees the certification and regulation of attorneys…therefore, they can spend their (considerable) money however they want. But that’s a good question.

In answer to another question, this is in San Mateo County, in California.

The ACLU, The Pacific Justice Institute, and various other civil rights or even parents’ rights organizations are not interested in this topic. Apparently, grandparents represent a huge and powerful voting bloc.

30

I get it WhyNot, you didn’t say the parent is an idiot. That changes everything. :smiley:

31

While I’m sure sometimes these rights do get misused, sometimes they work as designed.

Last year, my Grandparents took my Aunt to court for guardianship of her son. My Aunt is a druggie and an alcoholic. She also has an abusive boyfriend. She can no longer hold down a job. Her son has a learning disability, hearing problems and some other things. As he has grown, her ability to make decisions and take care of him has bottomed-out. So, my grandparents took her to court. They didn’t like doing it. It was an incredibly hard decision for them to make, but in the end, they felt that they had to do what was best for my cousin which was to have decision making power over him. This way, my grandparents were able to put him on their insurance, so that he could get surgery on his ears. This way, he can play baseball and soccer. He has someone to go into the school and fight for what he needs in class. At 10, he isn’t getting contact high like before.

Sometimes it works.

32

Ah…yeah, that’s where it gets icky. Yes, of course they have the right to spend their money however they want. For the lawyers involved, it’s probably seen as a good “coupon” of sorts - offer free representation on this issue, and Gramps is more likely to call you when he needs his will updated or other legal work.

It’s unfortunate that no one has decided to offer similar work to the parents, but I don’t know that I want to fund that as a taxpayer, either. (Speaking hypothetically, of course; I’m not in your state so it wouldn’t be me paying anything.)

33

I’m sure they do, since the Baby Boom generation is getting to retirement age and further into grandparent territory.

34

Jeebus. Move? :confused: What else can you do? That seems to me a huge abuse of power. I don’t see this as serving the needs of families in the best way.

35

mmouse9799: I don’t want to snap at you, because you must be pretty young yourself. But did you read the first paragraph of my OP? I know that these laws are in place for a reason. But I think that in a society where rapists, child molesters, murderers and so forth are all entitled to an attorney provided by the court if they cannot afford one – that in such a society, parents too, even bad parents in fact, ought to have the same right.

After all, if someone stands in a courtroom with three free attorneys and calls someone else with no lawyer a bad parent, then hocus pocus! --they’re a bad parent, whether it’s true or not.

36

The scenario that always bothers me is similar to this one, but not quite the same. Parent is a good parent, grandparent (or other relative) is a good parent. Parent and child live with a relative, who functions almost as a co-parent, rather than as a grandparent or aunt and the child is very close to the relative. Parent and relative argue over something rather trivial , having nothing to do with lifestyle or religion, and parent decides to not only move out, but to cut the relative out of the kid’s life. While I agree that in most cases without neglect or abuse the relative is out of gas, I don’t think so in this case. Not so much because I think the relative has a right to visit the child, or because I think the child always has the right to visit the relative but more because I think the parent forfeited the right to deny the visitation when he or she allowed to relative to become such an important part of the child’s life.

37

I agree. There were times, of course, when my mother pissed me off. When I was young and stupid, I even said things (to other people, not to her) about how if she crossed the line, I’d take the baby and move out and never let her see him again and *then *how would she feel, ha ha?!

And that was incredibly selfish and immature of me. She accepted parental responsibility for him when his own father wouldn’t. I accepted her as another parent for him by living in her house with him for 5 years and taking her financial and caregiving help. And I agree with you that accepting that role when I needed her help means that I owe her the consideration of maintaining that relationship for the rest of his or her life, same as I would have done for his father if his father had stuck around. She deserves no less contact with him than a parent, because she has *been *a parent to him, not a semi-interested more distant relative.

38

If, in your hypothetical situation, what happened is that the relative somehow got custody of the child (maybe with three free lawyers), should the relative be able to deny visitation to the parent (absent abuse or neglect)? Is the parent considered to have been an important part of the child’s life?

39

I meant to compliment your perceptivity earlier on in this thread. Well said!

40

Can’t really answer that. You see, absent neglect abuse or parental consent, I don’t see any reason why the grandparents would get custody. Of course, the grandparents could lie about neglect or abuse, and convince the judge that it was true. But then the judge wouldn’t be looking at my hypothetical