[pinkprincess77]

I live in Wa and my son is 10 yrs old. He has strongly voiced that he wants my husband to be his legale father including changing his name. My husband has been the positive man in his life for 4 years now and would love to adopt him legally. However, even though we receive no help from the bio-father in any way, my son wants nothing to do with him, and he hasn't seen him in a year, he won't give up his rights. I care nothing for child support I just want to have it in writing that my husband is his legale father and God forbid something should happen to me, my son will remain with my husband. I know I can get the name changed no problem, but what do I have to do to get an adoption through? I can't seem to find the time frame in which a child is considered abandoned by the other parent. Do you know what that is as well and will it help my case?

[stinawords]

In most states a child is abandoned when left at a bus or the like with out supervision. In the states that do see no support and no contact as abandonment it has to be at least 365 days. That means not a dime in support no cards phone calls nothing. That could be used as grounds to have his rights terminated but ultimately you need to get a lawyer and go to court. If the bio dad shows up to deny the adoption then you just go for support cause there really isn't anything else you can do because he still has rights. If he dosen't show up then the judge may allow the adoption bassed on the fact that the father does not object.

[macksmom]

As stated correctly... to try and terminate the bio fathers rights based on the grounds of abandonment, it is usually a period of one year with no attempted contact, child support, letters, etc. After that time you can hire an attorney to petition to have the bio fathers rights terminated. The bio father will be notified and can fight in, in which most cases they win.

The best way to go about all of this is if you can get the bio father to willingly relinquish his rights. My daughters bio father wouldn't relinquish his rights to my daughter for a long time. He popped out a few more kids by other women and I was the only one that had him in the court system for child support... every time he didn't pay or switched jobs without notifying CSEA I was on the phone... his license was suspended many times and he was found in contempt once. I was a thorn in his side. Finally one day I brought it up again, and asked him to relinquish his rights so my husband could adopt my daughter. I told him child support would stop... and he agreed.

So the easiest way, of course, is to get him to willingly do it. And unless the laws are different state to state... from my knowledge, you need his permission to change the child's last name too.

I gave my daughter MY last name when she was born because her father and I weren't married. When I did get married I figured it would be easy to change her last name to my married name since she never had her bio dads name... wrong! Even though she had my maiden last name, I still had to get her bio dads consent before I was able to change it.

[stinawords]

Macksmom makes a good point I completley looked over the name change part. The bio dad has to agree with that as well unless he agrees to the adoption then it will be taken care of then but so you know a lawyer is a must for all adoptions of any kind any where.

[Fr_Chuck]

Ok, no this is not abondoment, this is merely a poor father. And in most states merely not paying support or not visiting is not grounds to take any rights awy.

But you can start inforcing the child support, get him sitting in jail for a week for not paying and he may be a lot more likely to sign over rights