Father does not ask to see child but fighting for visitations.

1. Stop fighting the father of your daughter about visitation or custody. A father has the right to see his daughter. Think of it this way, your daughter has every right to have a good relationship with both her father and her mother. You are hurting your daughter when you fight about visitation or custody.

It is up to both you and the father to be reasonable in raising your daughter together. Cooperate as best you can, and if you must go before a judge, you should still be civil and accept the judge's decision. Having to go before a judge for custody issues is a sign of bad parenting.

2. The issue of child support is completely separate. In my state (and I believe most civilized states) the law is written this way. Again, if you and he are even the slightest bit reasonable, you apply this formula to come up with an amount... and then you and he stick with it.

If you already have a court ordered child support he isn't paying, it is pretty easy for you to win (it goes state by state, but almost all states are pretty good about enforcing child support). If he is saying you will have to pay for his lawyer fees... he is full of crap. Judges don't do that. Go talk to your own lawyer... you can pay a lawyer $100 for an hour consultation and it completely worth it to have the information about what you can do. Don't be intimidated.

3. My advice is to be reasonable with custody and visitation. This is the father of your daughter. The better their relationship and the more responsibility the father takes, the better her life will be. The less you fight this, and the more you cooperate to raise your daughter, the better.

My advice is to hold the line on child support. If you have court ordered child support that he isn't paying, there are ways for you to get the money owed. Judges don't like people who don't follow their orders... you can almost certainly win the amount owed, and maybe more in penalties.

Many States will take child support directly from the paycheck of people who don't pay. Talk to a lawyer.

Your right I don't want to fight him. I told him to take me to court so that there would be a standing order that we did not have to fight about. However when we went in the court room the judge did not even attempt to hear any information on our standing or put in an order for visitation. We live in Indiana and the court we are in had a separate way to go about this and that draw a fine line and only worry about addressing support. I did not take him back to court to fight for the money the prosecutors do that on their own. However, he does not even try to see her at all. When he did see her after she was born it was at his convenience. He would ask me to bring her to him within a half hour of him texting me and if I couldn't then he couldn't make time to have her. I'm too if that he has not attempted to help me with anything from clothing to diapers. I have had to depend on child support from my older daughters father to get any thing I need for her. I did go back to work for a while but my vehicle was totaled and I have no one to rely on to get to and from so I was forced to quit. I don't want to make him sound like a bad person but at the same time he has done very little to try to help her. And yet I am worrried he will try to take her from me completely, and I feel bad because she does not even know who he is. And that is not completely my fault. He does not attempt to make any contact with her.

I am not sure I understand... if he doesn't want visitation (which as a divorced father I think is a tragedy), I don't understand why custody is an issue.

If he has a lawyer, then you should talk to a lawyer to. When I was in custody hearings (my ex and I ended up working things out amicably) I spent $100 for an hour of a lawyers time. He explained everything to me, and even drafted a letter. Having the information about what my rights were allowed me to negotiate fairly with my ex.

It helps my ex and I to have a written agreement. It is written down when my daughter is with me, who pays for what, some agreements about parenting (e.g a no corporal punishment clause), an assurance that neither of us will move out of state without an agreement... and a few other things. It is funny that now we never need to use the agreement... often we are changing days... but knowing it is there helps keep us both honest.

I think it would be reasonable for you to say... I need this much notice before you visit. This should be written down. And whatever else.

If he really doesn't have interest in being in your daughter's life, then there isn't much you can do.

Did you catch this part, Max? It sounds to me like he's using custody/visitation rights as revenge, with no interest in the child at all.

Having a written parenting agreement that spells fairly out the responsibilities of each parent would fix this problem. Right?

Once there is a clear agreement, if he has "interest in the child" he will follow the agreement. If he doesn't, then she can just follow the agreement and it will be clear that she is acting in good faith. In a good agreement there are provisions for child transport, and how much notice is reasonable. I have no way of judging what actually happened. She certainly doesn't sound like she is in a position to objectively judge his "interest in the child". Obviously these things can get emotionally messy.

Make a written parenting agreement with him... a lawyer can help make a good one that is legally enforceable (they do this a lot, there is a right way to do them). Then you can take the emotions out of the equation and just follow the agreement.

I do think that a lawyer is a very good idea.

Thank you all for your input. I believe that everyone is right I will seek a lawyer to help me better understand what I am looking at for the future. I hope we both can come to a reasonable agreement and hopefully he can start to have an interest in her life after all.