Is their anyone who knows if i can give up my paternal rights here in Ga. My son's mother left Ga. 4 years ago and i've seen him twice since. Christmas and summer break 2 days out of 1460. I don't know where he lives or if he's okay... Thay contact me when the payments do not get paid. I want to give up my paternal rights. I have absolutely no say in how he's being brought up. I want to know if i can do this without her signing anything, she has remarried (we never were) and the thought of being a burden on him in the future haunts me... He deserves the best!

You can choose not to exercise parental rights. What you CAN'T do is sign away parental responsibilities related to the child. Only a court can make that happen.

Do you have a visitation order? If not, you'll need one - otherwise mom isn't obligated legally to allow you access to the child. If you want a say in how the child is being brought up, that too needs to be part of your custody/visitation order (parenting plan).

Generally speaking, if you haven't pursued visitation through the courts, lack of access to the child won't even begin to be grounds for dropping child support. The child still needs food, clothes, and a roof over its head, even if the child never sees you. Since mom is remarried, there may be the possiblity of mom's new husband adopting the child, creating a new legal stand-in for you, and severing ties (and child support) between you and the child. If the new hubby isn't willing to adopt, your chances of getting support dropped are about zero, because courts want children to have TWO parents legally responsible, and a step-parent is a legal stranger - so if, for example, mom died in a plane crash tomorrow, you'd be the remaining legal parent solely responsible for the child (again, until and unless a court says otherwise).

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While pointers can be helpful, ultimately the number one lesson in any legal action is: don't take legal advice from books, family, friends, co-workers, police officers, grocery clerks, web sites, or people on legal message boards. The only person who can give YOU legal advice is YOUR attorney.

http://www.aardvarc.org

I agree with aardvarc on this one. Have you browsed through the information in LawInfo's Free Legal Resource Center to learn more about your issue yet? See: http://www.lawinfo.com/consumer.html and http://resources.lawinfo.com/en/index.html. You can certainly try to speak to a lawyer to determine what legal options may be available. In the meantime, you may be able to learn more on your own. Search the "Free Legal Resources" tab, or browse the Consumer Resources. Good luck.

if you have rights try to keep them. I too am in the same situation but my rights were terminated by my childs mother after she moved on to another relationship as well. the law really doesn't protect fathers it only assist in helping the mothers gain custody and keep our natural children from us.

Mothers don't terminate parental rights. COURTS terminate parental rights.

__________________
While pointers can be helpful, ultimately the number one lesson in any legal action is: don't take legal advice from books, family, friends, co-workers, police officers, grocery clerks, web sites, or people on legal message boards. The only person who can give YOU legal advice is YOUR attorney.

http://www.aardvarc.org