CUSTODY & VISITATION
If
you fear losing time and contact with your children, if you're worried about the
other parent relocating with your children to a distant city or even another
country, if you're concerned about protecting your rights as a father or mother,
you need competent and experienced legal counsel from an attorney who has been
working in Family Law long enough to know the law, the courts, the legal system
and how best to protect your interests as a parent.
If
your child has been abducted or detained by the other parent and taken outside
the borders of the United States, we refer you to our "Parental
Abductions" page which discusses the application of The
Hague Convention in foreign parental abductions. This includes
children taken to foreign countries and parents who refuse to allow children to
return to their homeland. Don't trust such an important matter as getting
your children returned to their habitual place of residence to someone with no
experience in this highly complex area of international family law.
Dealing with the U.S. State Department and foreign Central Authorities is no
simple matter and you need someone like Bill Hoge with several years of
experience in this unique area of practice.
If
your children habitually reside herein Kentucky but have been abducted and are
believed to remain inside the U.S., you need to first contact the local
police. Then, call Bill Hoge for advice on what can be done through the
legal system in Greater Louisville (especially Jefferson County and Oldham
County) to protect the children and your rights as a parent.
If you
believe your parental rights as a FATHER have been given short-shrift by the
Court system, Bill Hoge can talk to you about your options as a parent.
Whether you believe that the mother was given preferential rights, that your
rights as a father have been ignored or marginalized or if you simply belief
that your rights have been trampled upon, we urge you to seek competent,
experienced legal counsel to protect your relationship with your children and
your own rights as a parent.
The judge does not know you or your children. If you want them to appreciate
your side of the case, you are going to have to provide details about you and
your family. You must be able to back up that information with as much
independent proof as possible. Your thoughts, feelings, beliefs and opinions are
all valid. However, the court must base its decision on genuine evidence.
You need an experienced Family Law attorney to represent you in this emotionally
charged arena.
DIFFERENT
KINDS OF CUSTODY
Even though your marriage or relationship is dissolving, your role as a
parent will continue for the rest of your life!
Your ability to sustain co-parenting after divorce and
to
have a positive impact on your children is highly dependent on your ability to
problem solve and communicate together on issues related to your children’s
welfare.
 The most common
custody arrangement selected by the court is
joint custody with the
non-residential parent (that is, the parent with whom the children do not reside
with the most) having visitation of at least every other weekend from 6 P.M.
Friday to 6 P.M. Sunday, with a rotation of traditionally celebrated holidays
(Christmas, Hanukkah, New Years, Thanksgiving, birthdays, etc.), all or a
portion of the children's spring breaks and a prolonged uninterrupted visitation
period in the summer.
The length of summer visitation depends mostly upon the age of the child. The
older the child is, the longer the summer visitation, generally two weeks to a
month. In addition, weekly Wednesday evening visitations are frequently awarded
to non-custodial parents.
Sole custody is granted
only very rarely and only in circumstances where the presence of the
non-custodial parent in a child's life places that child in clear and present
risk of truly serious injury (sexual or physical abuse of a child, etc.)
Time sharing or shared
parenting describes an arrangement through which both parents
share the children. Time sharing can be varied as the families that use it.
PARENTING
SCHEDULES
There is no "right" parenting schedule that
fits all families or all age groups.
An experienced Family Law attorney
should be able to help the parties create a unique schedule for maximizing each
parent's time with the children. Don't settle for a
"cookie-cutter" parenting schedule. Every situation is unique
and demands an individualized approach.
There are a number of very useful on-line calendaring tools that may
help you and your former spouse with scheduling and record keeping
concerning your parenting times with the children. We suggest you
investigate these free on-line shared family calendaring systems at:
"Birdnesting"
allows parents to flit back and forth to keep kids at home after divorce.
It's what Reality TV stars Jon and Kate Gosselin have been doing to permit their
eight children to continue to live in the large home built for them. Mom
and Dad travel back and forth to exchange their parenting times rather than the
kids moving from Mom's house to Dad's house.
2010 KENTUCKY SUPREME COURT
DECISION WITH RESPECT TO
RIGHTS OF UNMARRIED, SAME-GENDER PARENTS
The Kentucky Supreme Court made a
landmark decision on January 21, 2010 in the case of Mullins
v. Picklesimer. The case involves two women who were previously a
lesbian couple. One of them gave birth to a child through artificial
insemination. The women filed a joint custody agreement the following year
(2006) but split up two months later. Several months later, the birth
mother denied her former partner contact with the child, giving rise to several
years of legal action.
This 2010 decision reverses a
Kentucky Court of Appeals ruling saying that the non-birth mother "lacked
standing" to pursue joint custody of the boy, who will be 5 in May 2010,
because she was not technically a parent.
The high court of Kentucky's ruling
is significant to same-gender couples as well as to family members such as
grandparents and also non-related persons who have been significantly involved
in raising children as it may give them legal standing to seek custody even if
they are not a biological parent if doing so is in the best interest of the
child.
In Mullins
v. Picklesimer, the majority of the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that the
former couple made multiple decisions about the child before and after his
birth, with the non-biological person caring for the boy while the women were
together and for five months after they split up. "This would
distinguish the nonparent acting as a parent to the child from a grandparent, a
baby-sitter, or a boyfriend or girlfriend of the parent, who watched the child
for the parent, but who was never intended by the parent to be doing so in the
same capacity of another parent," wrote Justice Wil Schroeder in the
majority opinion.
The dissenting minority of the
Kentucky Supreme Court expressed concern that this decision opens the door for a
host of people to petition for joint custody, so long as they can show shared
participation in child rearing, and threatens to destabilize some families.
Kentucky has now joined at least 17
other states in recognizing "de facto" parents over the
objections of "fit" biological parents.
More on the subject of Custody & Visitation:
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