I have never heard of “Grandparents rights” until after I started using reddit. I thought that was something that only existed if the grandparents had custody of the kids. But some people on Reddit act like grandparents rights is something that exists regardless of who has custody.
I personally cut contact with my mom and I seriously doubt that she can try to claim grandparents rights. One of my family members took her side and told me “You can’t stop her from seeing her grandson” um … Yes I can. Especially if I have a good reason for it and I am the one who has full custody of him.
There is also siblings rights - recent cases found that following SS care cartel activities children often do not meet parents and grandparents due to financial premise in civil systems that outweigh “rights” and common sense.
Family law attorney here. But not your attorney. You should seek the advice of a family law attorney in your state to know your exact rights and obligations.
Grandparent’s rights are unique to each individual state and must be established by a state legislature. The number of states with grandparent visitation statutes is fairly limited, but you should check your state statutes to see if your state provides visitation to grandparents. With that said, pursuant to the Supreme Court case of Troxel v. Granville, in order to balance of parents’ right to parent, their children freely and without government intervention, state grandparent rights statutes must be narrowly construed and can provide grandparents rights to visitation in limited circumstances. For example, the death of a parent, divorce, or when the child has resided in the home of that grandparent for an extended period of time. In the case a grandparent has standing to bring a suit for visitation, the Supreme Court has also ruled that the visitation must be limited in nature and less than that which is afforded to a biological parent. Furthermore, the grandparent must show that this visitation would be in the best interest of the minor children. In my state, if a grandparent can establish standing and illustrate that visitation is in the best interest of the child, this usually equates to no more than a day or two a month of visitation.
Grandparent rights are typically (but not always) when a grandparent is pushed out of a child’s life by one parent (i.e. one parent dies and the other now doesn’t allow kids to see the deceased parent’s family, or one parent gets sole custody but the other parent’s family gets a few visitation days a year).
It’s not easily obtained, especially when an active parent removes their own family from contact with their kids, as the grandparents typically have to prove contact is in the child’s best interest. You choosing to remove toxic people from your life is in the best interest of the child. But let’s say you die and had loving parents who played a big role in the children’s lives; the judge could then deem their father has to provide time with the kids.
Most of the time this type of stuff won’t make it far, but just in case it gets a court date, you should be documenting situations as proof she is not a safe person to be alone with your child.
Usually in a case like yours, you would be correct. Grandparent rights are highly state-specific and usually are contingent upon the divorce, death, or possibly incarceration of your ex. In such a case, it would be the ex’s parents, not yours, with some rights. Often this would be where the ex’s parents were significant caretakers for the child, acted in loco parentis, and the continued relationship would be in the child’s best interest as viewed by the courts.
It varies by State, but GR are usually only invoked if one or both of the parents are deceased, or if they divorce, or if they are found unfit. If the parents do not have a good relationship with the grandparents, that is not typically a reason to invoke GR.
Blake said:
It depends on the state, but unfortunately, yes.
Disingenuous to not point out that they are not basic rights for grandparents but a means of escalation if something happens to the birth parents. They are not a means to solve issues like access and visitation.