My daughter is 3yrs old and her biological father has never seen her nor has he paid child support that he was ordered to pay. Now he has been in prison for the last 2yrs and will continue to be in there till 2012. How can I go about either having him sign his rights away or would my father be able to adopt her just in case something would happen to me my parents would be able to raise her.

1. Get a lawyer. Laws vary by where you are, and a local family lawyer would know.

2. In most states, you must either get a voluntary termination of parental rights, or you must show that he is a danger to the child.

3. In most states, you need to have someone willing to step in to adopt in order for termination to happen at all. In many cases, they want it to be a spouse to whom you have been married at least a year.

Why do you want to terminate his rights right now anyway? He's not exercising them, so what difference does it make?

He wrote me a letter for the first time in 3yrs asking about her. It scares me because now that the family he had is not supporting him there so he is kind of looking for that second family to be there. My thing is, is that he is three years too late. It will now be her turn when she wants to see him, not him just coming in the picture when he told me from day one he didn't want her. Well sorry buddy I do she is my pride. So anyway I just want him to be out of the picture until my daughter is at that point where she wants to know him.

She is three years old. And your pride and joy. I get it that he did her wrong, by not wanting to have anything to do with her. I have no idea what he went to prison for. But I do know this... A parent should support their child. If for whatever reason he did not the first year of her life, maybe drugs, maybe just stupid immaturity and not taking responsibility, whatever he was doing during this time eventually landed him in prison.

But... Maybe while he was in prison, he has had some kind of rehabilitation. Its possible that he could come out and be a good father to her, support her financially and support her other ways as a father should. Shouldn't he be given a chance to do so instead of being written off? If you are certain he can't do it, then it won't take long for him to prove he can't be a good father. Would it be better for him to disappoint her at three years old, and move on, so she can recover easier, or at 6 or 8 or 12?
Which brings me to the point: At what age will your daughter know IF she wants to meet her father and really get to know him and give him an open honest chance if she is not given it while she is young? The older she gets, the more biased she could be, no matter how neutral you try to be. Personally, I just feel that sometimes people deserve a second chance.

Not a professional, just my opinion!

He wrote me a letter for the first time in 3yrs asking about her. It scares me because now that the family he had is not supporting him there so he is kinda looking for that second family to be there. My thing is, is that he is three years too late. It will now be her turn when she wants to see him, not him just coming in the picture when he told me from day one he didn't want her. Well sorry buddy i do she is my pride. So anyways i just want him to be out of the picture until my daughter is at that point where she wants to know him.

This is not about YOU. Who cares about YOU?

This is about your DAUGHTER. This is about having a chance to know her daddy as she grows up.

If YOU--and if you do this, it WOULD be YOUR fault--deny her this opportunity, she is going to blame YOU when she gets older. And when she wants to know him? That's going to be when she doesn't like YOUR rules, so she goes to live with him because he loves her more when she's 13 and lets her stay out late and have a boyfriend---or whatever.

Are you really grown up enough to be a mommy? You seem to think that there is a timetable on when one can make a decision to do the best they can for another person. There's not. You seem to think that it's about you. It's not. Children with two parents that love them have better self-confidence and are more social than children who are denied access to one parent.

Think about what is best for your daughter. NOT about your pride, not about YOUR hurt, not about punishing him. It's not about EITHER of you. It's about your child.

When you grow up enough to realize that, THEN you will be a good parent

Am I really grown p to be a mommy, come on now. You don't have to get nasty about things I am living this hell not you all I wanted was some advice. But anyway yeah it will be her decision when she wants toand whenever that may be I will be here for her. I would never keep anything from her, my thing is that my daughter is his seventh child out of eight, his other 5 he treated like my daughter, wanted nothing to do with them and the other two well lets just say he kind of has to cause he is married to there mother, but then he is in prison for 8th offense 4th degree DUI and Domestic Violence 3 times against his wife. Him and I were never together as a couple my daughter came on an oops. And for him to reahbilitated noway he has been arrested 58 times in the last ten years, yeah what was I thinking , I didn't know any of this until I was pregnant and did research. I tried to have him meet my daughter for the first year of her life and he washed his hands of it, so why should I give him that chance now just because his wife is going to divorce him and he will have nowhere to go sorry will not happen

Okay--so those are details you did NOT provide at first.

You still need a lawyer.

You NEED to get a custody order in place, and a child support order, and you NEED to make sure that any visitation he MIGHT be awarded is supervised.

You need a lawyer, and you need one pronto.

There is a child support order that he has never paid, what I want to know is that with him being in jail until 2012 am I able to have his parental rights taken away, cause from what I hear you can't move out of state without that being done I might be wrong but just wanted some advise.

You can't take parental rights away, PERIOD, in most states unless:

1. the parent is a DANGER to the child
2. There is someone willing to step in and adopt the child.

You need a lawyer to tell you what YOUR rights are, here.

8th offence 4th degree DUI and arrested 58 times in 10 years and you had no idea? Very mature thinking process!

Still you have no idea if he is rehabilitated or not.

And denying her the father is not helping her in any way. Do you REALLY think you can be unbiased? I say this because I was denied mine until I was 16. I had been through 2 steps by then. The first sexually molested me. The second physically abused me constantly.

At 45, I still think I would have had a better chance with my real father, no matter how much my mother hated him. And I am a lot more mature now.

First of all I was young when it happened and who really does a background check on every person you meet. And if you tell me you do your full of it. I am sorry that happen to you in your life but no my daughter wouldn't be better off with her real father like I said from the first quote he wants nothing to do with her he is only writing and asking because he wants me to feel sorry for him and come see him cause his wife is now divorcing him and he has no one, I never once said I hated that man I have always just been disappointed that he couldn't step up to the plate.

Have you talked to a lawyer yet? It's going to be very hard to prove to a court that she's better off with NO father if you don't have a lawyer.

I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon

Am i really grown p to be a mommy, come on now. You don't have to get nasty about things i am living this hell not you all i wanted was some advice. But anyways yeah it will be her decision when she wants toand whenever that may be i will be here for her. i would never keep anything from her, my thing is that my daughter is his seventh child out of eight, his other 5 he treated like my daughter, wanted nothing to do with them and the other two well lets just say he kinda has to cause he is married to there mother, but then he is in prison for 8th offense 4th degree DUI and Domestic Violence 3 times against his wife. Him and I were never together as a couple my daughter came on an oops. And for him to reahbilitated noway he has been arrested 58 times in the last ten years, yeah what was i thinking , i didn't know any of this until i was pregnant and did research. I tried to have him meet my daughter for the first year of her life and he washed his hands of it, so why should i give him that chance now just because his wife is going to divorce him and he will have nowhere to go sorry will not happen

Honey, I wasn't suggesting do a background on everyone! It's just that with maturity comes a gift of discernment. What I meant is that if you are going out with someone long enough to have a relationship and a child with them, surely you know them well enough that they have a drinking problem? Or has been arrested an average of 6 times a year (every 2 months) for 10 years running?? I don't think anyone was being nasty, just realistic...
I think you are holding a pawn (your and his daughter)... I don't think you care to know if he has any regrets over what his drinking addiction has made him lose in his life.
I just think that your daughter has to pay the price. And her loss is that. A child should know their parent. No matter how crappy they are.
And that dad I met at 16? Pretty crappy guy too. Just don't think he would have molested me or beaten the hell out of me all the time. Just never has since then had a thing to do with me. But that hurts a heck of a lot less than what the others did!! Certainly wish he hadn't been kept from me all those years, because of my mom's opinion of him. She did it in "my own best interest" too.