[bornyesterday]

My ex-boyfriend, son, and I reside in Florida. My son is seven months old, and my ex has not visited him (three miles away) for five months. He abuses drugs and alcohol, and is willingly unemployed (he says he cannot find work because he is a felon). The biggest attempt he has made for my son is to send me text messages saying he misses us. I freely allow his mother and grandparents to maintain contact with my son. I fear that one day he will try to get visitation (to spite me). I do not want such a negative influence in my son's life and I am worried that he would be fatally irresonsible in caring for him should he get visitation (frequent drunk driving, drug use, etc.) I encouraged their relationship at first, but then concluded that it would be detrimental to my child for such a relationship to exist. However, I have never prevented him from seeing my son and he willingly abstains from doing so. I want to know if there is any legal action I can take to prevent him from having the ability to make parental decisions regarding my son while he continues to engage in such devious behavior. What is abandonment exactly? I have read the statutes but they are very vague. If my son brought home a friend who engages in the same activities as his father, I would not condone the relationship, so I'm confused as to why the courts would promote the very same relationship just because he wanted to have sex one night and the only contribution to my child that he has made is a single microscopic organism. Please help--I'd like to raise a decent human being, not a replica of the man who helped to create him!:confused:

[Clough]

I would first speak with his mother and the grandparents concerning the problem and see what they have to say.

[Clough]

Another thing is, that I hope that he is being made to pay child support for your son. If he isn't, then taking the steps to make him pay child support may help to change some of his bad habits and using the excuse of being a convicted felon as being his inability to be gainfully employed.

[bornyesterday]

I am not asking for child support and I am able to provide for my child without his money or government help. If I get child support, he gets visitation. His family is well aware of his problems, but they fall under the category of enablers. I have come to grips with the fact that he most likely will never change (his father never did, and he is deceased because of it). I just want to protect my child, and unfortunately it seems to mean keeping his father at a far distance.

[Fr_Chuck]

This is your error here, your ability to pay is not what child support it, it is the payment the state believes is the fathers share.

Also sorry child support and visitation does not go hand in hand, he has all the rights to visit even if he was not paying and you wanted it, refusal to pay child support is not a reason to refuse visits

And you may make him have supervised visits but I doubt you can stop him from having visits.

[bornyesterday]

What I meant by child support going hand in hand with visitation is that if I take him to court for support, then he will arrange for visitation. I don't want my child to be left unattened with him, and the fact that I can support my son without him is reason enough not to file. I believe the court has its own agenda regarding child support and would rather an unfit father be a part of his child's life than have to provide government assistance to the single mother. I still don't know what is involved in abanonment.