What rights does a father who doesn't live with the child have?
Okay... I recently just broke up with my boyfriend who just so happens to be my daughter's father. At first, he didn't claim our daughter because his family didn't want to claim her because his family wanted all the attention to be on their new baby. He stated before getting his paternity test that if our daughter wasn't his, he would have his cousin beat me until I couldn't take care of my baby. He's also told my parents and I if I ever took him for child support we'd never see him again because we'd see his money. So me, feeling like I needed to keep our little family together protected him from child support services. He didn't claim her until my daughter was 2 months old when he got his paternity test results. So I put off obtaining child support for a year and now DSS has terminated both me and my daughter's services because I didn't comply with child support. So to get my services back, I complied with child support and has completed my part. Although he signed the birth certificate, from the time of our daughter's birth, first he treated her different because he wasn't claiming to be her father. Then after paternity was established, I can count on one hand the times he's bought her diapers and or the times he's taken her by himself on an outing. He'd rather party. Drink and smoke weed. I give him ample chances to spend time with our daughter but he only does when it's convienent or it looks good in front of certain people. He collects close to 400 a week in unemployment and has only bought our daughter supplies or anything maybe a few times... It's always "I'll do it next week." And when I ask him to watch our daughter when I have class because I'm a college student, he states, " I'll watch her, but I don't want to." Also, his living situation is he gets his mail at his parents, pays his cousin rent but never stays there to stay at his friends' house because the mother smokes weed, and the father is an alcoholic. Me, I live with my parents who both have very important jobs, we have a 5 bedroom house and it's stable. So my first question is since my living quarters are much more stable than his can I go for Sole Custody of my daughter? Now for my second question, he keeps stating that I'm wrong for not letting my daughter spend the night with him, but like I said, his living arrangements aren't stable. The place he pays rent, when he IS there he sleeps on an air mattress in the middle of the living room. I've stated that I he can have her during the day, just make sure she's home for bed and that's around 930 or 10pm. I say this because 1. He doesn't have stable living arrangements and 2. He has habits of smoking weed and drinking and I don't feel comfortable leaving my daughter with him at night because this is when he does his most partying. My second question is What rights does he really have since he doesn't live with me or our child? I mean do I, being the mother, have more rights considering my parents and I are the sole providers for my child? I hope this question isn't too hard because I really want to know what I'm in for if I petition for sole custody.
