I am a thirty year old male who met a wonderful woman at the end of a divorce from an abusive alcoholic husband. She has two girls, ages twenty-six months and nine months. I love them dearly, all three of them. It started when I met this woman through a friend. About two weeks prior to meeting this woman, I said a prayer asking God, if he saw fit; to put a woman in my life that I could start a family with. I've led a wild life up until about two years ago, was in a six year long relationship with my ex and we just couldn't work things out, besides... she didn't want kids and I did. Two weeks later, M (we'll call her that for anonymity sake) and I met.

I went to her house to watch movies, we had just hopped out of the shower and was in pajamas. No make up, no "getting prettied up" because I told her I was just looking for friends now as I had just gotten out of a lengthy relationship. We talked and by the end of the night, well... the rest is history.

After we hung out about three to five more times and I had a long deep heart to heart with myself about what I wanted, I met L (the twenty-six month old) and W (the 9 month old). I instantly fell in love with them both and I moved in to help them as their mother had lost her job a couple months prior to us meeting so I subleased my apartment to a friend to help them with bills.

So, I ask her about her ex-husband. She tells me (in short) that he drank heavily for years, took way too much prescription medication (went to multiple doctors per month to feed his Lorcet/Xanax habbit) and the reason she left him is because when she was seven months pregnant with W, he got drunk one night, grabbed a loaded 9mm pistol and waved it around (with L upstairs sleeping) threatening to kill himself. He then put the gun in his mouth and told her to pull the trigger so "she would go to jail and he would be dead". She said that was the last straw after putting up with mental, emotional and physical abuse for years.

So where we are now, the biological father is supposed to have the girls the 1st 3rd and 5th weekends of the month and hasn't seen them since late October. We're fairly sure he's still drinking heavily and doing drugs and his mother with whom he lives takes psychotropic medication that "zonks" her out at night too. So M and I are both worried if the children needed care when they were with them, then neither G (the birth father) or his mother would wake.

G won't pay the $400.00 child support ordered by the court on time, we're not doing bad but that $400 would go toward childcare as M and I are both working now. He rarely takes the girls when it is his weekend and when he does take them, its on his terms at his time. Basically, he's supposed to pick them up from our house at 6pm Friday and return them 6pm Sunday but IF he picks them up, its when he wants to and he sometimes drops them off twenty-four hours early, sometimes two hours early.

L and W are both calling me Daddy now, I try to correct L by saying "No baby, I'm not your Daddy... I'm your Michael) but she insists on calling me Daddy.

They're supposed to be going to his house (his mothers house) which is very dirty from multiple dogs and dust. Every time the girls go, they come back with mucus in their chests and runny noses. Their sleep schedule is disrupted and they're both either constipated or have diarrhea from the food they feed them.

What can we do to ensure his (his mothers) home is a healthy environment for the children to be in and make him stick to the times on the divorce decree. Is it fair he can pick them up on the last weekend of December then not pick them up again until mid February?

Any help is appreciated!

Michael

The first and most important thing to realize from a legal standpoint is that there is no "we". No matter how much you love them or what mommy wants them to call you, you are a legal STRANGER to these children, and the courts will not hesitate to tell or show you so in no uncertain terms.

Second, the mother is not only setting the children up for emotional turmoil by having them call you daddy when they HAVE a daddy, but she is opening the door for the father to claim parental alienation and ask for custody of the children himself. If she doesn't "get it" that you're NOT their daddy, again, she's just begging the court to help make that point clear for her (and more importantly, for the children). She's playing a dangerous game there.

As for the living conditions, the mother can ASK child protective services to evaluate the living conditions, but typically if there's food in the house, running water, heat in the winter, and there's not trash, insect infestation, rodents, droppings, or other MAJOR issue, dad is in the clear. However poor his housekeeping skills, unless there is filth to a great degree, dog hair and dust isn't remotely of concern for CPS. Same with the food issue - parents can make poor decisions or be lazy or ignorant in what they feed their kids, but that isn't going to be anywhere NEAR rising to a level considered "abuse" where authorities would step in.

Finally, if there is a standing court order that is being violated, there is one and only one way and place to address it: in court. The mother can file a petition if the decree is being violated, however, she should know that courts will typically act to ensure that parents who WANT to spend their time with their kids get to do so, but courts typically DON'T force parents who have been allocated time to USE it. The court WILL care that dad is reasonably returning the children on time and not overstaying his time, but no court is going to force the dad to keep the children for every possible minute allocated in the order - they just won't. The bottom line is that some people make crappy parents (and crappy housekeepers), but too often people STILL choose them to become parents anyway. Once that decision is made, those parents are allowed under the law to parent their children in a crappy manner, so long as that crappy manner doesn't rise to the level of abuse or neglect, which nothing you've indicated does. If mom plans to take dad to court over any of the issues, she can REQUEST that dad be required to take parenting classes (the basics on getting kids to bed on time, what to feed them, etc.) - a request that the court may or may not entertain.

I know a lot of that seems harsh, but mom chose this guy to be a parent - not once but TWICE. The court is going to honor HER choice and HER endorsement of him as a parent until and unless there is some MAJOR reason not to - and sniffles and dog hair just isn't enough to cause change or override that at some level she felt he was good enough to father and parent her children. The absolute WORST thing that YOU can do is act as if you have a vested interest here, because LEGALLY you don't (again, no matter HOW emotionally invested you are) and the more "we" mentality you get momentum going on, the harder it will be for you to do really helpful things like NOT attend the court hearings, etc.

If mom wants to try to turn the situation into a "we" composed of you and herself, instead of her, the father, and you as a third wheel, she can get married, run a successful marriage for a while, and depending on dad's willingness to fight or not, can look into you legally adopting the childred and becoming their legal father. If dad resists the idea, it'll be an expensive fight that won't be won unless there is extensive documenttion of serious issues with dad's parenting. If dad is willing to go along with it (which he might if he get it that his child support payments would stop), it'll be an easier task.

__________________
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 understand what you're saying and I thought the same. I know I don't have much legal pull. I'll list HER concerns about HIS parenting, maybe it will help clear things up. Also, I mistyped or you misread about L calling me daddy. M at NO TIME has asked or coerced L into calling me "Daddy". She just started calling me daddy one day at which time I corrected her by saying "No sweetie, I'm not your daddy... I'm your Michael. But, your daddy does love you very much.

A) Both girls have allergies, every time they come back from the grandmother/fathers house they're sick. M (the girls mother) has asthma and we believe both girls do to because every time they get around dogs they sneeze and wheeze. Every time they come back into our care we have to take them to the doctor where they're treated for allergies and infection. Both the mother and I don't think this is fair to the children.

B) Garth, the father drinks heavily. M (the mother) had it put into the divorce decree that he wasn't allowed to consume alcohol twnety-four hours prior to visitation and since he knew I moved in with them he put in the decree she couldn't have anyone living with her. He agreed to remove her not being able to live with anyone if she agreed to remove the no alcohol clause. That in itself worries her.

M and I are talking about getting married, L is of age where Garth is going to start probing her for infromation and filling her head with manipulative lies. He being an opiate and benzodiazepine addict he seems to me to be paranoid and he thinks we talk badly about him to the children. We don't even talk to the children about him because we don't know if and when he's going to take them when he's supposed to. Thanks for your help!

Mike

Courts only care about the medical opinions of medical professionals. You'll have a hard time convincing a court that dog hair allergy causes infection. Believing that the girls have asthma is irrelevent, unless you've got a DOCTOR who says that they have asthma. Telling a court that the children keep having a problem with what you think are allergies and asthma and not immediately backing that statement up with "and here's the allergy report, a diagnosis of asthma, and a list of medications or treatments" casts mom in the role of "complains without acting". Allergies and asthma are common, and are manageable, whether the dogs are at dad's house or a friend's house, etc. If you want to use any part of that arguement, it'll need to be backed up by documentation that medical professionals have diagnosed and helped provide management for the problem (and if the problem is managed, then there's no problem).

That's a trade off she made. Probably a poor one, but that's her right. It's not going to do much to shed favorable light in the future if other issues should come before the court. She KNOWS he drinks heavily, yet agreed to waive it so she could move in someone to whom she's not married? NOT a good thing for mom's credibility, or for her making any arguement that her children come first. That issue in and of itself would concern most judges MUCH more than the allergy/dog hair issue.

__________________
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. 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. 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.