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polarbear08 · Feb 19, 2011, 02:37 PM

My daughter is 2 1/2 years old now. Her father and I split when she was 18 months(never married). When we were together he never helped take care of her and yelled at her often for things that all babies do, after we split he didn't show an interest in her for the first few months. Now he has a new girlfriend and suddenly he wants to have some sort of legal custody over her. My big issue is that when she comes home she is often sad or she acts very violent towards everyone in my house when she is normally very happy and not violent at all. There are also a lot of times when he "forgets" to feed her after he has had her all day, so when I get her home at 9 or so at night the last time she ate was before 10 when he picked her up. Right now he only takes her two times a week, and sometimes not even that much. I don't think he is a fit father at all. I have stopped letting her spend the night because he moved 30 minutes away from where we live(and into a pretty bad city) and the last time she spent the night he refused to let her play with her toys for an hour because she wanted a hotdog for dinner (btw this is after 9 at night) and he was trying to feed her strawberries. I just happened to call at this time to say good night to her and she was crying and screaming in the background "no daddy i go home, i go home" when I asked why she was crying he told me what he was doing and said he refused to let her eat junk food. (which is funny because when he brought her home she was eating wendy's?? )
A while ago he threatened me saying he was going to have her taken away from me because I was mentally unstable and I wasn't a fit parent. (He is reffereing to when I was in high school like 6 years ago I went through a phase where I was a cutter and he knew about that but it was a phase in high school and I haven't done that since.) I have been the one to take care of her and make sure all her needs are met since day one. He doesn't help me financially or anything. A lot of days my daughter doesn't even want to go with him. She tells me she wants to stay home with mommy, in those cases she doesn't go with him. But he bribes her with taking her to the park and other fun places so she will want to go with him.
I am in Florida if that helps any.
:(

justcurious55 · Feb 19, 2011, 02:59 PM

Do you currently have any sort of legal agreement for custody, visitation, child support, anything at all? If not, you should go to court and get it straightened out right away. Ultimately it will be up to the court to decide what is in your daughter's best interest. They'll most likely want more than just your word that he may not be fit, it would be best for you to have an attorney to help you. And you should definitely file for child support, he should be helping financially.

polarbear08 · Feb 19, 2011, 03:02 PM

Thanks for your reply :) I am in the process of trying to find an attorney there are just so many of them. I don't have any legal agreement as of yet but I am definetley working on it. Do you happen to know how an attorney would be able to prove he is an unfit parent?

ScottGem · Feb 19, 2011, 04:24 PM

Proving unfitness as a parent is very difficult. While there may be guidelines for a judge to use, its generally up to the judge's discretion. Usually a judge looks at whether the parent is a danger to the child.

Fr_Chuck · Feb 19, 2011, 06:51 PM

Yes, her crying at his home to go to bed could be viewed by the court as he needing her more to get used to his home.

Wendy is acceptable food, and so he won't let her have junk food at night, I hope you don't either.

Also the court will look very badly on you for not letting her stay at his house.

I think you need to work out a fair visit program now with him, or he will get it in court and most likely more than you want to give

polarbear08 · Feb 20, 2011, 08:53 AM

She doesn't normally cry at his house, it was because he was refusing to feed her anything except strawberries for dinner and then punishing her because she wouldn't eat it.
I cook for her every day breakfast lunch and dinner and very rarely do I take her to get fast food or any other junkfood. I do let her stay at his house during the day but after her being over there all day long with him and then him refusing to feed her I don't want her staying over there more then 12 hours or so, it is not the first time he has refused to feed her or just forgotten. I wouldn't want to go more then 12 hours without food wo why would I let my daughter?