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TexMex Horn
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TexMex Horn

TexMex Horn 68

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Daughter (Houston area) married a young man with full custody of his son, 4 yrs old at time of wedding. They want her to adopt him. The bio-mother is in Dallas, but rarely attempts contact. For example, she texted the dad once in the last 14 months. Other family members (her dad & sister) have each emailed once in the past year. This has been the norm for the last couple of years.

Question: What are the chances for my daughter to adopt her "son"? 

I'll gladly pay for free advise.

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dcbc

dcbc 14642

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Ideally, you'd get the bio-mom to sign a waiver of parental rights.  Otherwise, I think you need mom's parental rights terminated to do a stepparent adoption.  From there, I don't know the exact procedure off the top of my head.  But you'll probably hear the phrase "best interest of the child" a lot.

I'm not in private practice anymore.  All the fun info about adoption is in Texas Family Code, Chapter 162. 

Some generalized info here.  https://texaslawhelp.org/article/texas-adoption-law#toc-5

Good luck.

 

Edited by dcbc
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hornian

hornian 5281

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Unless bio-mom signs a voluntary relinquishment or has put the child in serious danger in the past, the odds of your daughter adopting her step child approach zero. 

Bio-mom's rights would have to be terminated (voluntarily or involuntarily) for an adoption to proceed, and after that there would have to be a home study done and finally a court would have to approve the adoption. There are some technical grounds for termination of bio-mom's rights if she doesn't support the child, but honestly it's unlikely to go forward unless one of the two things I mentioned before exist. 

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Child support not necessarily = ‘custody or parental rights.’ Get it in (legal) writing that she wishes to relinquish her rights.

This prevents someone developing a conscience 5 years from now, claiming they want to be mommy now.

 

Let us know how it turns out please.  I hope what’s best for young lady happens.

Edited by slorch
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TexMex Horn

TexMex Horn 68

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Thanks all. She is not up to date with child support, by a long shot. Paid maybe once or twice in 3 years.

Dad is a real good guy. Married that loser when he found out about the child. Moved in with his parents so that Grandmother could help. Bio-mom stole from Grandma. Bio-Mom's dad is a Family attorney & was responsible for getting her away from child & Dad. He believes she has "issues".

Have meeting with legal eagle soon. They know that bio-mom must sign off or be signed off. They worry about stirring the hornet's nest. She's been AWOL & now they worry that she will try & get back in.  Even tough she has no legal rights to visit without supervision.

I'll let y'all know how it goes.

Again, thanks for the feedback, If you weren't so helpful, I would've posted pic of bio-mom. She has ballooned up 😬 

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BearSchlong

BearSchlong 8231

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Unless bio-mom signs a voluntary relinquishment or has put the child in serious danger in the past, the odds of your daughter adopting her step child approach zero. 
Bio-mom's rights would have to be terminated (voluntarily or involuntarily) for an adoption to proceed, and after that there would have to be a home study done and finally a court would have to approve the adoption. There are some technical grounds for termination of bio-mom's rights if she doesn't support the child, but honestly it's unlikely to go forward unless one of the two things I mentioned before exist. 
This is actually a very good thing. Its just about the most drastic thing the court can visit upon a person and shouldn't be used lightly. So while I'm sympathetic to the OPs daughter my advice would be to leave it alone and just raise the kid as her own.

Zero reason to pursue adoption before the kid is 18, IMO. Pray for Biomom, she's obviously a sick person.
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Gil Bang

Gil Bang 26176

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7 hours ago, cabowabo said:

You could always hire someone to kill her.  I assume that would terminate any parental rights she might have.  Maybe cheaper than hiring lawyers and whatnot.

. well, guy that posted on the old site hired a certain lawyer to represent him in a divorce, and yada yada yada, his wife died suddenly

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12 hours ago, BearSchlong said:



Zero reason to pursue adoption before the kid is 18, IMO. Pray for Biomom, she's obviously a sick person.

Why would a person  adopt someone after they are 18?  Am i misreading this?

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immamac

immamac 44199

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Everytime this topic gets brought up I think of that stoner guy who wanted to adopt a special needs kid that wasn't his after he was going to break up with his GF and both parents were still alive and involved. 

Can't he just put her as the guardian in the will and be done with it? That's the only scenario where this matters.

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On one hand it's just a piece of paper difference.  I do not disagree there, at all.

On the other hand it can be a very profound act of meaning/ value for the child( and adoptive parent.) I get that too. 

If i read  Immamac's comment the right way, for the adoptive parent of a  minor child, guardianship/ legal matters are the only real difference the adoption makes beyond the relationship and nurturing that is already going to be taking place.  However, I'm not sure the dad can cede guardianship to his current wife in a way that would overrule the birth mother's rights, if bio mom never relinquished them.  That's a reason to work it out now and get the adoption completed, if possible.

It's a fascinating subject to me. 

Edited by slorch
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BearSchlong

BearSchlong 8231

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There's always the chance that Biomom could rally and do an incredible job.  Improbable, but I've seen it happen - a lot.  Maybe asking her to terminate rights would be the catalyst for this to happen.  She fucked around and now she needs to find out.

There was a 14 month period in 2009 and 2010 when I was circling the alcoholic drain, unemployed, and unable to pay my full child support amount. 10 year sober now, and a lot of that motivation was simply to not be a loser deadbeat dad. I rallied, and now my adult children prefer me to their mom.

Most of my friends are all long-term sober/clean alcoholics/addicts and many have done time in prison, but I can name at least 20 cases offhand where people have risen from the ashes and become incredibly good parents - but it's because they WANTED TO but were unable to do so for a certain interval due to a disease.

"Please give up your parental rights or we will ask the court to do so" can be a helluva motivation to get one's shit together.

Or not. Probably not. But I'm still very glad it's hard to terminate parental rights.  My current wife is career CPS/Foster Care and she agrees.

It's in my recovery DNA to pull for biomom, or biodad, in all situations like this.  A mentally ill parent can't simply be brushed aside.

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DallasHorn26

DallasHorn26 587

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My youngest daughter was adopted through private adoption. She biologically belonged to a relative and birth father whereabouts were unknown. At first, birth mother wanted to keep parental rights and my ex wife and I would just have guardianship. When we asked for child support, she voluntarily relinquished her rights allowing us to adopt. We also had to run an ad in the local paper seeking the birth father. The court automatically terminated his rights as he never came forward.  

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hornian

hornian 5281

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20 hours ago, Gil Bang said:

The gays used to do it before marriage was legal for them. 

First of all, fuck you for "the gays" comment. Neg rep.

Second of all, that was an entirely different situation, where people were trying to preserve inheritance rights.

Finally, there are a lot of reasons for an adult adoption, and the main one I see is that the child was raised by the step-parent, the bio-parent wouldn't sign off on relinquishing his/her rights when child was a minor, and the child wants to legitimize what they see as their real parent when the bio-parent is no longer able to veto the adoption. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
TexMex Horn

TexMex Horn 68

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First Update: Kids spoke with lawyer. Lawyer responded that it will take time & lots of it. Record any & all interactions with Biomom or her Reps. Expect welfare visits to their house. Biomom will get checked for worthiness. Heck, even we will get interviewed. Boy will also get interview. 

So, the ball is rolling

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