Hello my name is Jaycob I am 18 and have a 2yr old son, this is the situation. My sons mother moved in with us from colorado(we live in texas) in oct. things are not working out for us so she is threatening to go back to colorado. Which I do understand that she has no one here but in the meantime she will be taking away my baby. I dont want her to leave and take him without me having some kind of rights. she withheld everything from me in the past when she has gotten mad at me. I am very stable (well i still live at home) but we have a very positive environment in our home. The baby and mom came from a home where there is drinking and drugs. I am glad that i talked her into coming out here and I had all the best intentions of working things out but it just hasnt happened that way and now i feel stuck. I work full time and bring home between 1500 to 2000 a month, I have my own car and have no habits such as drinking/partying. My mother stays at home, we have a 6 bedroom house and as i said very stable. There is no way she will agree to giving me any rights to him without a fight. I just need some help please. We have developed a strong relationship with my son, my mother keeps him when we are working and my siblings are very close to him. In our home he is surrounded by love, there he is not! Im just so afraid to lose him again!!!!!

Thanks for any help
Jaycob

Until and unless you are LEGALLY recognized as the child's father, you are a legal stranger to the child with absolutely ZERO recourse - mom can do whatever she pleases with the child and you have as much legal say in it as I do.

You need to file a paternity suit, establish yourself as the legal father of the child, and ask the court to determine visitation/custody. Without a court's order in place, you have no legal rights TO enforce. This will almost certainly go hand in hand with an order for child support for whichever one of you ends up as the non-custodial parent (if the court makes her the custodial parent, you'll pay child support; if the court makes you the custodial parent, she will pay child support).

The paternity suit needs to be filed in the state where the child is living - so if you want to do this locally, you'll want to file before she leaves. Doing so may cause the court to order her NOT to remove the child from the state until your paternity/custody case is addressed by the courts and some determinations are made and ordered.

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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

When my son was born she had no idea who his father was so a few of us had to take paternity tests and I am his father and am on his birth certificate. So we do have a DNA test results. When we were living in colorado I was ordered to pay child support but when she moved to Texas with us the case was closed. I have no problem paying child support and am in no way trying to take him from her I just want to have some kind of court ordered visitation/joint custody. I just kno that if she leaves my son will be used as a pawn for her to get what she wants, the way she wants it. I dont think this is fair to him or me.

Ok - so you've got the legwork on paternity done already, so you're leaps ahead - that'll make things easier. Since the case was dropped on both of you moving to a new state, the next step is asking the new state's court to address visitation/custody.

__________________
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. If she is planning on leaving you need to have custody established through the courts in Texas. I would suggest that you speak with an attorney regarding this before she takes off and leaves for Colorado. 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. Search the "Free Legal Resources" tab, or browse the Consumer Resources. Good luck.

See also: http://resources.lawinfo.com/Search.html?&q=child custody&fq=stateName:Texas