Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Please consider signing the petition to let Ann stay with her dad

The courts have watered down a child's right to their bio mother and father too much already.

This is what the insanity of sperm donors and homosexual "parents" gets you.

I personally think Texas has it about right. I practice in Texas and a few other states. In one state, if you’re not the parent, you’re pretty much screwed no matter what. I’ve seen some pretty terrible situations of parents more or less abandoning their kids for months, even years, to show back up take the kid with the non parent who has been footing the bill and providing the parenting all that time not having much recourse. Texas on the other hand, allows anyone who has possessed the child and provided care and support for at least six months to have a say. And basically, the rational behind it is that if you let your kid live with someone else for that long, you’ve kind of waived your right to object to them getting involved.

Now, in the present case, I can see that being a little problematic because mom went and lived with boyfriend and he is getting his standing based on the fact that she and the kid lived with him for more than six months. That is a little different than you letting your child go live with someone else for that long. But then it just becomes a question of facts. That is to say, that just because the boyfriend has standing to bring a case and be heard, doesn’t mean that he has a good case.

Another thing is that for the uninitiated Texas jargon is a little confusing. Custody is called “conservatorship”. Sole custody is called “sole managing conservatorship”. A parent or person with just visitation rights is called a “possessory conservator”. The default position for parents is Joint Managing Conservatorship which is joint legal custody. But joint legal custody is not 50/50 split time. It just means that the parents have the same rights. One parent will still usually be granted the right to “choose the geographic location of the child” while the other JMC will get standard visitation.

In this instance, the boyfriend is a nonparent possessory conservator which means he gets visitation. That’s pretty much it. It is also TEMPORARY it is entirely possible that after a final hearing, he gets nothing.

Thanks for that info, JB.