Q&A with Kaine Fisher, Chairman of Rose Law Group Family Law Department
“My son’s father moved away and I haven’t heard from him in over six years. I recently got married and my husband desperately wants to adopt my son. My husband has been a prominent figure in my son’s life ever since my son’s biological father left the picture. What steps should I take to make this happen?”
Congratulations on your marriage, and more importantly, be thankful you found such a great father figure to fill the void for your son. This will certainly serve your son well in the future from an emotional standpoint. Having your new husband adopt your son will definitely strengthen the bond between them and will afford your son a sense of stability he has likely been missing.
Step-parent adoptions are the most common; however, it is also common for grand-parents to adopt a child when the child’s biological parents are sick, are unfit or unwilling to raise their child, or when a young couple is not ready to handle the responsibility of raising a child.
Keep in mind though, that you cannot even begin to think about a step-parent adoption without first addressing the issue of severing the other biological parent’s parental rights. Moreover, it is important not to confuse litigating issues of parenting time with terminating parental rights. They are very different processes with very different legal standards. In fact, severance and adoption actions do not take place in Family Court as one might expect, but rather, in Juvenile Court.
The process of severing a parent’s rights can be relatively quick and easy if the biological parent is willing to consent to the severance and adoption. Assuming you know how to contact the biological parent, I always recommend that my client first attempt to get the biological parent on board (with my assistance) before filing a severance petition. You would be surprised to know how willing some parents are to consent to a severance of their rights. It certainly doesn’t hurt to try as absent parents are often are attracted to the idea that their support obligations pertaining to the child will be terminated. Continue reading
To discuss family law, Kaine Fisher can be reached at kfisher@roselawgroup.com
