Hi, Im a single mother. My situation is as follows. My son is 4 years old now. His father walked out on us when he was about 6 months old. Has not seen him since. His father fell upon some trouble {drug addiction, homeless etc}. He has made about 2 or 3 payments of $100 the first few months, then no more. We are not married and he is not on my sons birth certificate. Years went by and we heard nothing from him. A few weeks prior to my sons 4th birthday, he shows up.. wanting to play the role of "Father". He wants to be a part of my sons life.. which I have no problem with... BUT I do NOT trust him with our son. I aked him to wait until I feel he is trustworthy. Instead, he went around and is taking me to court. I do not want my son to be with him alone, due to his fathers lifestyle, roomates, history etc. What can I do?

Okay he has roommates and a shaky lifestyle so the Judge MOST likely will not grant him the usual every other weekend type visitations. Tell the Judge why you feel uncomfortable with him having visitation and that he has roommates. That if he has to have visitations you would feel more comfortable if with him having supervised visitations.

Also he would have to be added to the birth certificate which would most likely involve him getting a paternity test.

Do you have a court ordered child support order??

No, I do not. Ive never taken him to court for anything nor ever asked him for money, etc... ANYTHING! To be honest, I was grateful to have him out of our life. He has def. been a self destructive negative influence to my son. Although he says he has changed a lot since then... I still see the same man in him. Im afraid that if he succeeds, I have no choice but to allow our son to be with him. Ive explained to him that I do not trust him. His response was "pretty soon, that will not matter" So does how I feel or what I say really not matter anymore? :(

The only way he can legally force you to see him is through the court.
And you can have your say as I said tell the Judge ALL your concerns.
He is bullying and intimidating you don't fall for it. Let him take you to court.

I've been told to not worry. That mothers have far more rights than fathers, especially a crappy one like my child's. But I can't bear the idea of my son spending time alone with him. I am afraid of what he will try to convince him of, what he will say about me, etc. I have spent years trying to protect my son from people like him. Id hate for my son to get excited at the idea of having a "daddy" again {which I'm sure he will... as with any child who's been deprived of a father}... but what if he walks out on my son... again? :(

I don't want any money or child support from him. We've been doing just fine without him

Like I said you have to ask the Judge for supervised visits and when he has supervised visits they usually only last a few hours rather than entire weekends.

As nohelp stated the only person that can force his visitation rights is a judge. If he gets a court date a judge is likely to give visitation probably starting supervised then working up to more. What you need to realize is that even though you don't want the support he is still the bio father and if he gets a court date and the court ordered DNA test proves him to be the father then he will have rights and responsibilities. I realize that you are trying to protect your son but kids don't just drop out of the sky they are made by two people and those two people have rights and responsibilities toward that child not just one.

Yea, I know... its just hard to accept. I should have thought of that before :(

Once he starts the process of taking me to court... how long do I have until he see's results? Meaning, gets the visitation right, picking up our son. Etc

That completely depends on the judge, getting into court is what takes the longest I've seen a wait of three months be pretty common. After that it is really dependent upon the judge in my experience if the ncp hasn't been around the child it will start with supervised visits (so as not to freak out the kid) a couple hours 1-2 days a week for a couple months then a few hours on saturday's alone for around six months then if that is still going well every other weekend for the next couple years at which point it can be modified again.

And just out of curiousity, it's a long and.. expensive process, right? Like on his part?

I mean, he'd have to pay a ton of stuff to get it done, right? {i guess my little ray of hope is that... I don't think he has that much money to be spending on lawyers, court stuff, etc... maybe prices will make him back down and leave us alone... }

He can most likely get it done very cheaply if he is low income but maybe your ray of hope might be he doesn't know or want to be bothered with going through the whole process.
Plus if you tell him that while he is applying for visitations you are going for child support that might back him off too.
But you should do that anyway so that might not be a good idea.

Oh great! :(

According to him, he's already begun the process.. I guess its only a matter of time until I get the letter...

About child support. HE'S the one who's telling me we're going to get that done. Ive never asked him or threatened him with it. I gues he knows its mandatory if he's trying to get visitation rights. That's crazy though, 4 years of paying nothing... and now he's telling me that we need to do child support.

I guess I really don't have much choice. All I can do is pray on it and hope to God that he doesn't emotionally hurt my son, or let him down.

All you can do at this point is stress to the Judge your concerns and request supervised visits
A caseworker is not going to want to spend more than a few hours at his home so that would limit him time wise.
But he could also find a family member that would be willing to supervise but then you have to make sure they actually are supervising. Hopefully that idea will not even come up.

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Originally Posted by JsMommy1204

ive been told to not worry. that mothers have far more rights than fathers,

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Who is telling you this? If I were you I would be consulting an attorney NOW. You can't go into court and tell the judge you don't want visitation because you are uncomfortable. You have to document and get evidence. An attorney can help you prepare for court. If you don't have an attorney and he does, you will lose, I can almost guarantee it. Despite, that mother's generally do tend to be given preference.

As far as Child Support goes, he doesn't have to do a thing about it. Since you are the custodial parent (at least until a court rules otherwise), then you are entitled to support. Visitation and support are separate issues. He can file for visitation, even joint custody, without doing anything about support. If he files for visitation YOU have to counter file for support, even try for back support. Maybe those expenses will deter him.

I know this may scare you, I hope it does, because you need to be scared and get aggressive and stop being so passive.

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Originally Posted by JsMommy1204

and just out of curiousity, its a long and ..expensive process, right? like on his part?

i mean, he'd have to pay a ton of stuff to get it done, right? {i guess my little ray of hope is that....I dont think he has that much money to be spending on lawyers, court stuff, etc... maybe prices will make him back down and leave us alone...}

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I would suspect that he's already consulted an attorney and determined an approximate cost.

In my city the courts really don't look too favorably on long visitations to a dad with a bunch of roommates but that doesn't mean he wouldn't get visitations. The more you can document the better. Also like Scott said get a lawyer, if you don't have much money you can go for a court appointed lawyer.

I would venture to guess that he has already paid the retainer fee for his lawyer most of them have a set fee for taking on a case. If you haven't consulted with one or more you might want to do that because you should be getting a letter with the court date any day and lawyers (like others) like a little bit of warning before they have to show up.

DAMN IT! I've spent the last 4 years trying to avoid this mess. I hated the idea of having to handle this in court. I feel like , seriously! :(

But yes, thank you all for your advice.. I will look into it SOON and find myself a lawyer. I refuse to take any chances. My son is my heart. Bieng a single mother for 4 years... I can't even imagine his dad taking him just like that...

Thank you..

I know we would all like to avoid dealing with courts and attorneys. The expense and the often dehumanizing aspects can be painful to deal with. But the alternative is often worse. We see so many instances here of people who have been taken advantage of because they relied on justice and not the law. So you do NOT want to be put at a disadvantage in court. You need to be prepared.

Good luck and keep us posted.