Grandparental Rights? Or interference?

nuts!

I'm totally perplex by this.


And even more, since:
"Because the legislature has awarded grandparents some power in these situations, ... " (quotation from the paper)

Could someone please give me some legal info about that?


Article 6 of the Basic Law of Germany

IMO, no, the parent can/should be able to do whatever they choose to do until such time as they might be ruled an unfit parent.

This is freakin' insane. Why should the mother of this child answer to anyone? Seems to me the move to NC is actually a good idea. Fresh start, new job, stability. Haven't the grandparents heard of an airplane. 5-6 hours and they can see their grandson.

What I find amazing is the court telling the mother she can't leave. Have we all done insane???

As you all may have noticed, Grandma is the one accusing her daughter-in-law of stirring up trouble. I wonder that Grandma doesn't have an inkling that she may be stirring up bad feelings.

I can't quote chapter and verse of the PA legal code, but since I live in Pennsylvania, I'm aware that the "Grandparental Rights" movement has been gaining ground.

The fact that the grandparents have been seeing the boy several days a week and keeping him overnight does give them some legal basis for partial custody. They have been a part of the child's world and seeing them is presumably in the best interest of the child.

In PA there are two broad categories of Granparental Rights suits: First, the parents of a dead son or daughter want to remain in close touch with the grandchild/grandchildren. This position seems to have particular force when the deceased parent was an only child.

The second sort of Granparental Legal Action could be substituted "How Dare You Defy Me and Forbid Me to See Your Kid". The grandparents are forbidden access to the grandchildren because the parents have decided that they present a physical or emotional danger to the children. This sort of suit is much less likely to result in court mandated visitation.

Freaky stuff. I can't believe it got to the point of an actual restraining order.

I agree with fishin' . . . . . until there is some kind of unfit ruling its interference.

There may be other laws out there but the only one I could find earlier when I searched the PA Code said that they had to have provided full care of the child for 12 continous months to have standing to file for permanent partial custody status. It looks like they are trying to move the yardsticks here.

I cannot imagine the mother's life being tied up until the boy reaches his majority. I understand where the grandparents are coming from, but there needs to be some sort of a compromise- holidays, vacation time etc. Forcing a woman to live somewhere because of her child's grandparents is NUTS!

Actually, I can't understand , why the grandparents have a right at all.

Does this apply to great-grandparents as well?

Unfortunately, in America, if the ghost of a great-great-grandparent could sign the papers, they could probably find a lawyer who would represent their great-great grandparental rights.

There have been several interesting cases where ex-companions of gay and lesbian partners have sued for visitation rights with children to whom they are no biologically related....but that is another thread.

I think in this case Grandma feels that Her Grief and Her Loss entitle her to What Ever She Wants--she's not intruding, she's just protecting her Right to Love.

Well, Noddy, that's a point, I understand.

(Wondering, what the wife says, if I tell her about my Right to Love .... :wink: )

Walter--

Love is charity--and charity begins at home (at least The Best People). My love to your wife.

Update:

Yesterday the judge lifted the court order after mediating between the mother and grandmother, leaving the mother and son free to move to North Carolina.

The grandparents will have visitation rights 33 days a year, including Christmas Eve. The mother is pleased. The grandmother is tearful and disappointed. She had hoped that her daughter-in-law would reconsider the move.

I think that the judge was very wise. The grandparents will have contact with the child, and the mother won't have to twist her life around because of the grandparents. I am very pleased with the outcome! it was a win-win situation!

The judges decision was interesting but if it was challenged in a higher court it wouldn't stand. (I've done a bit of research on grandparents rights.)

The Supreme Court, in Troxel v. Grenville decided just exactly what fishin' said - unless the parent is incompetent or otherwise "unfit", nobody can interfere with the parents decisions.

Hmmm, I wonder would the grandmother have made such a move if her son had still been alive and decided to move to NC with his wife and child? I think not! She may have been upset and angry and all those things but she certainly would not have brought him to court!

It does make me wonder though about how many children are practically raised by their grandparents instead of their parents because both mother and father (if both are around) go out to work and depend on their parents to take care of the children during the day.

What if an aunt of the child had been providing daycare and balked at the mother wanting to move away with the child? Where does it stop?

I don't remember details--or even the outcome of the case--but several years ago a day care provider who had cared for the child from the age of one month to the age of three years sued for visitation rights.

There was no blood connection between the child and the caretaker.

Personally, I feel that grandma got more than she deserved. Someone is going to have to transport the child from NC to PA for that month of visitation days. This is not a convenient day's drive and air fare is expensive.

I am going to retract what I said before. I think that it was the emotional "mommy" in me that wrote that post. At first I was happy that both the mother and the grandparents got what they wanted. The more I thought about it, the more that I realized that there is a larger issue at stake here.

The government should not have the right to tell a parent how to live their lives, and how to raise their children, so long as the child is not being abused. The best situation would have been for the mother and grandparents to have worked something out together, without the courts stepping in. If they could not, then it is the parent who should have the ultimate say.

There was a similar situation in my family, decades ago. My mom's cousin died, and left a couple of kids. The husband subsequently remarried, and told his dead wife's parents, in no uncertain terms, that they did not want them in the children's life at all. Naturally, the grandparents were heartbroken.

Sometimes parents make wrong, unkind decisions, but that is the parent's right. When I really thought it through I realized that the government, over these last years, in quietly (and not so quietly) creeping into personal areas of citizen's lives where they don't belong.