Child living with paternal grandparents (split)

[Kawika & Michelle 108]

How does the situation change if neither parent was married but one of the children chose to stay with the father's family & the mother did not fight it. Would she be able to take custody of her son if she wanted to or would the father now hold some rights as her son has now been under their care for roughly 2 years?

[top_secret 2,402]

 

58 minutes ago, Kawika said:

How does the situation change if neither parent was married but one of the children chose to stay with the father's family & the mother did not fight it. Would she be able to take custody of her son if she wanted to or would the father now hold some rights as her son has now been under their care for roughly 2 years?

 

How old is the child now?  If under 7 years old and the parents were never married it takes a court order finding the mother is unfit as a parent take custody from the mother.  Unwed mothers pretty much have absolute custody over there young child.   If the child is over 7 years old the court might hear the child's input but even then for the mother not to have custody it would still take a court order saying it was in the child's interest  taking custody away from the mother.  The father's family basically has no rights at all without a court order which they would have a hard time getting.

Edited March 29, 2023 by top_secret

[Ontarkie 14,215]

~~Hijack post and reply split off to their own thread. Please do not post questions about your own case in other member's threads.~~

[Boiler 45,443]

Maybe asking about the morality aspect 

[SalishSea 17,801]

1 hour ago, Kawika said:

How does the situation change if neither parent was married but one of the children chose to stay with the father's family & the mother did not fight it. Would she be able to take custody of her son if she wanted to or would the father now hold some rights as her son has now been under their care for roughly 2 years?

Sounds like a question for a  local lawyer in the Philippines.

[Kawika & Michelle 108]

51 minutes ago, top_secret said:

 

 

How old is the child now?  If under 7 years old and the parents were never married it takes a court order finding the mother is unfit as a parent take custody from the mother.  Unwed mothers pretty much have absolute custody over there young child.   If the child is over 7 years old the court might hear the child's input but even then for the mother not to have custody it would still take a court order saying it was in the child's interest taking custody away from the mother.  The father's family basically has no rights at all without a court order which they would have a hard time getting.

When the children were split up (2021), the eldest was 9 years old & the youngest was 2 years old. At the time, the mother & father were already separated. Both children were living solely with their mom & her sister. The father did not provide any assistance but did visit his eldest son on a regular basis (primarily taking the eldest or both sons over the weekends). Basically the father & his family spoiled the eldest son while the parents were separated. At some point, the mother was physically & emotionally abused and basically thrown out of her apartment/room (she was renting it from either a relative or friend of her ex's family). Her sister had also recently moved back to Cebu a month or two prior to the incident...so at that point she decided to move back to Cebu (where the rest of her family was from) from the Manila area. I don't know the specifics of how it happened but I was basically told that the eldest son told her that he wanted to stay with his dad & his family. She knew that he would be well taken care of, so she reluctantly let him have his wish & left with her younger son.

 

During the course of our relationship she has already spoken with her ex about her plans to relocate to the US with me as well as taking her youngest son with her. They were both in agreement with it & she also agreed to allow her eldest son to remain with his dad. None of this is in writing of course. I'm no lawyer but based on any information I can find on the subject...it appears that she is well within her rights to take her eldest son if she wanted to. She still provides financial support to her son (through me) occasionally, but otherwise her eldest son appears to be taken care of & happy there. We don't have any plans to try to remove him forcibly from the situation as he has not requested us to & as stated before, he appears to be doing well. He has, however, indicated to his mom that he hopes to rejoin her at some point in the future...I assume he means that he would like to eventually join us in the US as well. I'm not sure how his father or their family would react to that request, but I always figured that we would cross that bridge when we got to it.

 

So there's nothing imminent here, I was simply just thinking out loud theoretically as to what would happen if her eldest son asked him mom to bring him to the US in the next few years & what hurdles we would need to overcome if her ex & his family tried to prevent it. I'm not sure if she would lose any rights to her eldest son if she moved to the US without him & any amount of time passed (i.e., would a Philippine court view that as abandonment). 

[top_secret 2,402]

It sounds like mom still retains absolute legal custody.  Unless and until the father's family got some kind of court order saying it was in the child's best interest to take custody away from the mother (pretty unlikely), mom still has sole legal custody.  She can take her children anywhere she wants to and needs no consent from anyone to do so.

Edited March 29, 2023 by top_secret

[RO_AH 1,659]

She has the right, but is it the right thing to do at this point in the child's life?