Putting the Father on the Birth Certificate

Put him on the birth certificate - get a lawyer and set up a custody / visitation agreement that is legal. That way when she goes to visit him you are protected.

Does he pay you child support?

Dawn

I don't think it has anything to do with if he's on the birth certificate or not. He is her father and all he has to do is take this child then go to a judge there asking for temporary custody. They will give it to him because he asked and he has the child in his presence. All he would have to do to keep her is do paternity testing and there you go. He lives in another state and now you'll have to keep dropping everything and taking off for days at a time to go to court.

This happened to a friend of mine. She went from Oklahoma to Georgia to let her child's father have their child for a week. When she went back his parents had decided they were going to fund everything and all he had to do was see a judge to get the order.

She lost her child and it was well over 2 years before she got to visit her child for more than a few minutes in a state office overseen by a child welfare worker. She was a nurse and ended up finally having to move to Georgia just so she could afford to visit her child once every week for a couple of hours.

She did finally get to do a better schedule for visitation but did not get full custody of her child again.

So this is why I don't think it matters. Paternity testing will only reinforce that she is half his and give him the power to challenge you for custody.

It is way better to be up front about it and file the custody papers with one parent having the majority of custody.

The more specific the papers are the more power both of you have. He needs to have scheduled visitation from xxpm on Friday through xxpm on ?? day. The more defined it is the better your protection.

Once you have this paper filed and on the records if he does something silly then all you have to do it show up in the local court house where he lives and show them your papers and they will most likely honor them.

Why do you want to put his name on the birth certificate? I'm a believer in not fixing what is not broken. You are getting along well. He's paying child support. He's accepted paternity. Why do you need his name on the certificate?

In regards to feel safe that he won't keep her. What is most important in my opinion is that you continue to maintain a good relationship with him and his wife. Putting his name on the birth certificate will not prevent him from keeping her. In fact it gives his legal status as her father. I agree with you in believing that doing this could open up a "can of worms." Why go there?

Getting court orders, when you have a relationship that is working, seems counter productive. It could turn your co-operative relationship into adversarial one. You can always get a court order later if you need one. Even a court order does not guarantee that a non-custodial parent does not try to keep a child.

I'm glad you have a good relationship now... but you really need to be protected in your rights, also.

I would also be concerned, because since he IS married, he could easily try to get primary custody... more and more judges are awarding custody to the father, especially if he is in a secure situation, and could prove things against you.

Have you talked to a lawyer about child support or your rights?

It's not the birth certificate that really matters, determines custody or determines paternity. If he were on the birth certificate and in absence of a legal agreement on custody, visitation, child support, etc, he would have easy proof that he has every right to keep her as much as he wanted. What you need more than an adding him to the birth certificate is a consultation with an attorney and steps to legally defining matters of custody, visitation, and child support. Legally definining that does not have to be adversarial, if both of you agree that it is in your child's (and everyone else involved) best interest to have these matters defined and can agree on what those terms look like. If your ex does not agree that it should be legally defined, then it will be more adersarial but still necessary.

I agree that the birth certificate is secondary - you have already let him and his family have extensive visitation, so you have essentially made it clear that he is the father.

You should consult an attorney right now about what is advisable in your state. That could include the birth certificate question but should focus on custody and visitation. It's great that you are getting along well now, and you want to encourage that because it is SO good for your daughter. Still, you should have child support, spelled-out custody (both physical and legal) and a visitation agreement. Even if you choose to be flexible on the visitation, at least you will have something in place. Look at it as guaranteeing him the right to see her rather than restricting him from seeing her.

Those agreements often include things about both parents being included in significant life events (birthdays, recitals, graduations, etc.) and holidays. It might be NICE for him to know that he's being considered in that way, and (if this is decided) having him added to the birth certificate. But get some legal advice so you are protected.

My daughter's father was on the birth certificate since day one, even though we weren't married. We broke up after eight years together and although he tried, he didn't ever get custody of her.

A birth certificate doesn't establish custody. They are two separate issues.

Check with the vital statistics office in your county regarding the laws in your state. You, yourself, just can't add the father. In California, he would have to sign legal documents swearing paternity of the child and then you would have to apply for an amended birth certificate. You shouldn't need an attorney as far as the birth certificate is concerned. Your office of vital statistics can explain the necessary steps which could be complicated by the fact that he lives in a different state. He may have to have his legal paperwork notarized, etc.

Anyway, as I said, this won't be something you can just "do" yourself. You will need to discuss it with the child's father to see if it's something he wants and if he's willing to go through the steps to accomplish it.

It sounds as if there is no hurry in having this done. Your daughter is far too young to understand or ask questions about her birth certificate. Having done birth certificates in California, an amended birth certificate doesn't nullify the original. In essence, the child will always have two birth certificates.

If I were you, I would start with getting all the information you can from the county your daughter was born in and then determine if it's something you want to discuss with her father. Then, go from there.

You allow him to have visitation with her so I don't know if you've gone through the courts for that or if you've just worked it out for yourselves. I don't know if paternity has been legally established. If not, he would have to take that first step before he could just "take" her.

There's a lot that isn't clear about your situation. Contact those familiar with the laws in your state.

Best wishes.

You say he pays child support right? Is that court ordered and/or through your local child support office? or does he pay that directly to you? I am asking because typically if it is court ordered he has accepted paternity and/or it has been established and therefore on the bc or not, he is legally her father and has those rights. I don't know about in your state specifically though. Do you not already have some sort of custody agreement in place? If not, you need that now!

I would suggest you get a custody agreement in place soon regardless of what you do regarding the birth certificate.

Is he asking to be added to the bc? If so, I would let him know that you are willing to do that as long as you reach a custody agreement first and make it all official at the same time.

Sigh. Two years of verbal agreements?

a) You don't need a lawyer

b) Is the child support court-ordered?
Yes --> then this means that legally he has been judged to be her father. It doesn't matter what the birth certificate does or doesn't say, it just means that it wasn't amended to reflect the paternity judgment. Court can't establish child support without first establishing who the legal father is. If this is the case and you want his name on the birth certificate, you can go to your local family court and ask about the process for getting the birth certificate amended to have his name on it. If paternity has already been established, whether or not his name is on the birth certificate has NO BEARING on his parental rights. NOTHING CHANGES if he gets listed on there - paternity, custody, visitation and child support are court ordered.

No --> If he is just voluntarily giving you money, and you are voluntarily letting him take your child, you should both go to court to get your arrangement in writing. This doesn't need to be a fight and will protect both of you (it would protect him from you denying that he provides support and you from any claims to custody). Some states let both parents file a joint petition. This petition would include what he's paying you for support and how often as well as your agreement about custody (joint legal, you have primary physical, he has visitation on X days from Y time to Z time). These proceedings would also include a voluntary acknowledgment of paternity from him and you could ask that the birth certificate be amended. The key words here are that you want to "document the status quo," which means that you both agree to how things are working, you just want to make it legal. If your state doesn't allow joint motions, then you would file as the "plaintiff" and he would be listed as the "defendant" and would have to be served with papers, but if you let him know ahead of time then that should take the confrontational nature out of it.

If you need to go to court, the best thing to do is contact your state's child support agency and have them do it. Their lawyers will get all of the paperwork, have him served, schedule the court date, etc. all at no charge to either of you. If for some reason you don't want to use child support enforcement (I can't imagine why) then you can do this yourself without an attorney but the process can be a pain. There is a lot of paperwork and you have to do things in a certain order. If you do this on your own, your state will have forms and a lot of information on-line. Familiarize yourself with that info and then go to the clerk's office of your local family court and ask them for the forms (you can print them at home but some of them need to be on certain colors of paper). They'll tell you what you need to fill out first, what needs to be mailed to him (or delivered by a process server), then when you get proof of service, you file that and some other papers and they schedule your court date, then you both show up with financial statements and written copies of what you are agreeing to, the judge makes sure everything is in order and then issues an order that makes your arrangements legal. It's not rocket science - my husband and I have successfully won custody of both my oldest son and his daughter without attorneys. If you agree to the way things already are, there is no need to let lack of money for a lawyer stand in the way of the legal arrangements that will protect both of you.