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Grandparents are people too, but are they entitled to custodial

© Annelies Mouring

Divorce can be very hard on a family and many times the extended family also is greatly affected by a divorce. Thus what was common place during the marriage may not be so commonplace after the divorce. Simply put- do grandparents have rights when a couple divorces? Maybe yes, maybe no.

Jurisdictional differences Many states have statutes that address this issue. Many are divided. Many have exceptions to the rule. A state by state guide is available for sale to help you sort out the details. . Grandparent visitation is a rather new legislation and make interpretation even more difficult Legislation in many jurisdictions and at the federal level is also pending. See http://www.divorcesource.com/promotions/... for the book and www.divorcesource.com or http://www.grandparents.org.for a brief state overview.

This topic is a very ugly, heavily debated topic. There are many persons on both sides of the argument, too. To make matters worse, the court itself is fairly divided. The single parent that has had little participation with the extended family does not want the help that has been suddenly thrust upon that parent. To make matters worse, the parent would have the court to thrust upon that parent less time with their child. Time that might already been split between the other parent. On the other parent, a child has been shared with the parents, the grandparents. In some cases the parents and child have lived with the grandparents, shared parenting responsibilities and maybe even was the primary custodian while the parents were absent. This is a no end-type situation for the court.

If the court does give grandparent visitation, many problems follow. First, there is no real set guidelines for what is "reasonable" visitation. Courts have little or no guidance in the decision making either. If the visitation between the custodial parent is set for 2 weekends a month by giving the grandparent one of those weekends, that would be unreasonable to the custodial parent. Many courts have given a visitation schedule to a grandparent more on the so many visits "per-year" because then it allows the parents to have a little more flexibility. Its not the answer but more an attempt to make a awful situation a little better.

Many chat groups are on the Internet that debate the unfairness to both sides of the issue. http://www.divorcesource.com/cgi-bin/wbb... http://www.parentsrights.org/; http://www.grandparenting.org

There are many organizations and web-sties out there that have the most up-to-date information on this subject. There are many bills pending before state legislatures that are making this area better and better. As always, talk to a lawyer or legal professional before initiating any legal proceeding.

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