I have a few questions about child custody case and what are the terms and conditions on how or when to go about child abandonment rights?

So here it is my son is going to be 5 in March. His father has not seen him or made very many attempts to contact me to even talk to his son. His father left when March 18th 2005. He moved out of state when I was leaving in SC and he moved to FL. I now live in NY and I had open a child support case back in February of 2007. I the final court order was sent out of April 2008. Now in this time my sons father has only called on our sons 3rd birthday and had talked to him maybe twice in the past 4 years. Now that I have filled for child support, He contacts me through email May 6th 2008. I am still not getting no child support they can not garnish his wages they can not find out where works. i have spoken to my case worker and a lawyer and they had advised me not to let him see him until I start getting child support or until I do something about custody. At that i still have never told him he could see his son he never asked if he could or did he never ask for my address so he could send me child support. Now he wants to be able to see his son and not only that he wants to fill for partial custody as well. He wants to be able for our son to visit him in Fl during summers and Holidays. Now our son does not even know him I do not think it is asking for to much for him to at least go by my terms for a few years until our son gets to know him since he has not been in his life for 4 years now. I am just wondering on how this case would play out would he really have any say in how I raise him or how the visitations would go?

My other question is since he has not been in our sons life for 4 years now and has made no real attempts to see his son or any real contact with him, could that be abandonment and if so if could he get his parental rights terminated? If they do now could he try to get back into his life say 3 to 5 years from now and cause problems for us, meaning when I get married could my soon to be husband adopt him and not have no problems in the future?

thank you,
Emma D

I have a few questions about child custody case and what are the terms and conditions on how or when to go about child abandonment rights?

So here it is my son is going to be 5 in March. His father has not seen him or made very many attempts to contact me to even talk to his son. His father left when March 18th 2005. He moved out of state when I was leaving in SC and he moved to FL. I now live in NY and I had open a child support case back in February of 2007. I the final court order was sent out of April 2008. Now in this time my sons father has only called on our sons 3rd birthday and had talked to him maybe twice in the past 4 years. Now that I have filled for child support, He contacts me through email May 6th 2008. I am still not getting no child support they can not garnish his wages they can not find out where works. i have spoken to my case worker and a lawyer and they had advised me not to let him see him until I start getting child support or until I do something about custody. At that i still have never told him he could see his son he never asked if he could or did he never ask for my address so he could send me child support. Now he wants to be able to see his son and not only that he wants to fill for partial custody as well. He wants to be able for our son to visit him in Fl during summers and Holidays. Now our son does not even know him I do not think it is asking for to much for him to at least go by my terms for a few years until our son gets to know him since he has not been in his life for 4 years now. I am just wondering on how this case would play out would he really have any say in how I raise him or how the visitations would go?

My other question is since he has not been in our sons life for 4 years now and has made no real attempts to see his son or any real contact with him, could that be abandonment and if so if could he get his parental rights terminated? If they do now could he try to get back into his life say 3 to 5 years from now and cause problems for us, meaning when I get married could my soon to be husband adopt him and not have no problems in the future?

thank you,
Emma D


Has he filed a motion for visitaion, or has he contacted you regarding it?

Either way, the time to file for abandonment has come and gone. As he is showing interest in the child, you will likey be unsuccessful at this time terminating his rights based on abandonement.

As far as visitation, a court will likely not just start up out-of-state visits. It will begin with supervised visits, graduating to unsupervised, then to overnights, then to lengthier periods.