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I know on Teen Mom, several of the parents worked with lawyers and the courts to help them with custody issues and they were not married. This may vary regionally though.
I think (and I could be mistaken), as long as paternity has been established, the father does have legal rights.
Fathers' legal rights are quite limited in the case of unmarried relationships. I know of several fathers who literally never even get to see their children. I know of one whose baby's mother suddenly left and fled to California (he lived in Pennsylvania) with their son, and he has not seen him for more than 10 years and probably never will again.
Unmarried fathers have the same legal rights as a married father, they just have to ask for them to be enforced.
That is fantasy. Who is going to enforce them? In an above post I just relayed a couple of cases known to me. There are many other similar stories I don't know about personally.
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Men, married or unmarried, don't ask and/or don't fight for custody the way women do. It's just a fact in the US.
If that is the case it is only because the men feel they have no real chance, no matter what the law says, the judges don't always enforce it.
How so? They still get the same visitation and have to pay the same child support. How is it limited?
In many cases if the mother cares to leave the area with the child, the father cannot do anything to stop her. It's also much harder for an unmarried father to get even joint custody. He has to pay child support and gets "visitation," but no actual custody rights.
That is fantasy. Who is going to enforce them? In an above post I just relayed a couple of cases known to me. There are many other similar stories I don't know about personally.
If that is the case it is only because the men feel they have no real chance, no matter what the law says, the judges don't always enforce it.
What you described is not lack of equal rights tho its the messed up legal system and enforcement. This has nothing to do with previous martial status. My ex-DIL pulled that crap and fled out of state with the kids like a thief in the night. Months and $$$ dealing with attorneys, judges and the court system and squat. I tracked her down myself but if she hadn't returned on her own, I doubt they would ever have gotten her back here and she still never served time for contempt much less abduction. And my son has shared custody.
I was definitely better off being raised by my grandparents (actually mostly my grandmother because my grandfather died when I was 6). But there is a feeling of rejection and abandonment when your own parents have no interest in your upbringing and welfare and frankly seem relieved that they don't have to deal with you. I have spent many years in therapy over this.
My parents cared. They bit off more than they could chew and rather than be neglectful or abusive, they got help from the people they trusted most. I felt abandoned sometimes. But I had Grandparents and Great-Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles and Cousins who were thrilled to have us. Of course, I acted out in my teens. But I can't keep up a grudge forever and realized it was time to forgive them for my own good.
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