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Dear Parents
We have been recently involved in a Grandparent Visitation case where the my husband and I, for a year, tried to prevent state intervention with who visits with their child. I legally adopted my husbands daughter immediately after we married. My daughter's natural mother deceased 1999 due to an overdose of Hydrocodone. Birth mother had a serious drug addiction to Xanax and Vicodin.
We married in 2001. We have adjusted beautifully and the maternal grandparents are now requesting a court order visitation with the child - as they have not seen the child for well over 2 years. Grandma lives in Indiana and Grandpa is a school bus driveRr in Simi Valley. He was accused by his belated daughter (my husbands formal spouse) that she was molested as a child by him. We, The current parents of this child, have grave reservations regarding their request of only unsupervised visitation. They refused all extended invitations of supervised visitation as they demanded to be alone with our daughter. Isn't that a parental right to be able to make decisions if parents feel that their child is in danger or can be harmed? I know I did not want to stick around to see if I was wrong or right about my motherly instincts, but the state believed otherwised.
The Grandparents are legally separated since 1994 and have repeatedly made threatening phonecalls to our newly blended family that they are out to get us for everything we've got.
The maternal grandparents not only harbor blame to their daughters demise to my husband, but blame him for every problem they have had in their lives, even their separation, as it was confessed repeatedly in the trial.
My husband has made mistakes in his pass, but for the judge making a judgement based on my husbands actions before he was in 1993 and 1995 - we ask, is this fair?
I do not have any record and have been known in my community as the most hardworking mothers, supporter, and role model citizen.
The maternal grandparents on the other hand have long history of mental illness and suicide. As we could not subpoena records from another state as our attorney did not have that power in Indiana, we could not afford to bring evidence at the time of trial. We have now just recieved the evidence from the Hospitals and Institutes of the Grandma attempted suicides, the childs birth moms suicides and the childs birth moms brother, childs uncle suicide. It was a misfortune that based on money - we could not have won our case.
The outcome, to our newly blended family now has 3 attorney bills - totally out to well over $100000.00, money stolen from their daughters trust, and they are doing Character assasination to us and in our community. Because of the maternal grandparents financial status compared to the ours, they have been able to pay there way to all areas of their lives.
The maternal grandparents have made numerous anonymous tips to Child Protective Services (which document evidence shows no concerns), they are requesting for $100000 for punitive damages (which till this day have no evidence to any) and they are now able to visit with the Now 6 year old child with a psychologist (pending on psychologist recommendations), still talking in front of her how bad her father is. She is now needing to visit with a therapist as her anger towards life has been so awlful for all of us to see. As a family of 5, we have been suffering greatly as the time goes by with all of the accusations, lies, and the jeopardy of our daughter life and her future in regards to her mental state.
As parents, we are shocked that Ventura views adopted parents as second class citizens and removed all rights of a parent, just because the maternal mother is deceased.
We are shocked that based on hearsay and no evidence - Ventura can say that Mother is unfit due to marrying the father and father is unfit because his formal spouse is deceased. Ventura Judge has also indicated that because the maternal grandparents son in law is an attorney for Ventura as well, makes all witnesses credible. The list goes on. Please give us this opportunity to share out story.
Please let us know what you think we should do as we feel hopeless. We also cannot afford to appeal - as everyone including our attorney is indicating that we have no option.
Help!!!
Sandie
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Sandie, Don't ever lose hope that things will get better, because they will. These type of toxic people will not stick around for long, they just try to do as much damage as possible and then when they can't cause any more damage just leave. I hate the courts when they don't take the time to hear the truth. My ex-husband is a prime example..he went to court to gain custody of my 2 children, he said that I was beating them and neglecting them, these were all false accusations, but it took 4 years and about $30,000 to clear my name of all these accusations!!, and then after all was said and done, he moved to Florida and rarely comes to see his children which he cherished sooooo much!! So have no fear, they will eventually go away when nobody will listen to them anymore!! Because they can only tell lies for so long!! Keep your chin up!! Sincerely, Brenda....
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Sandie - I know where you are coming from! My past experiences are so similar to yours that it is amazing!
My daughter's sorry excuse for a father and I split up in 1999 when she was 2 yrs old. He was killed in 2001 and his mother actually thought that she could pick up with the same visitation schedule that I had set up with him. Needless to say, this didn't go over well with me and she started getting nasty. All of a sudden I was a bad person and her son was a saint and a good role model. By the way - this guy was an alcoholic and started a fist fight with his brother, (in front of my 3 1/2 yr old daughter), which resulted in his death.
Well when I restricted all visitation, my ex's mom sued me and she and everyone else in his family started calling me and leaving messages on my voice mail at work, or my answering machine at home, on my cell phone, etc. I ended up changing all my numbers, and telling my friends and family to not talk to them or give out my personal info.
The next thing you know, we were going to mediation - per the judge's request. All during mediation, she never once asked how my daughter was doing. All she could do was sling insults at me and say how I did her son wrong by leaving him. Needless to say, I stood by my point of denying her visitation and our case went to court again. The judge felt sorry for her, but it basically came down to the fact that grandparents have NO rights unless the child's surviving parent is deemed unfit. Because she couldn't say I was unfit, she had no rights to influence my decision of who my child could or couldn't visit with. My husband had not yet adopted my daughter, but it wouldn't have mattered if he had or not, because the dispute was between me and the ex's mom.
It ended up costing me less than $600 in lawyer's fees, and I basically did a ton of research myself before going to court. There are a lot of law related websites regarding "grandparents rights", so please check them out. I was printing off legal decisions from all over the US which related to cases like mine, and it came down to being "fit" or "unfit". Money shouldn't play into it.... the law is the law! If I were you I'd do some personal research on the matter and get a state appointed attorney to handle your case as a pro bono matter.
Let me know if you need more help or info from me!
Good luck,
Renee
Unfortunately, adoptive parents seem to be "second class" citizens in a lot of places, particularly when it comes to time limits biomoms have to reclaim their kids. If I am wrong, then correct me, but in FL, I think that they have a YEAR! If that is correct, then that is horrible and ridiculous. I cannot imagine having my child taken from me at a year old. I admire biomoms, but I feel the laws need to take the adoptive parents into consideration. Blood is not everything, people!
Grandparents rights basically are a moot point anymore. If I were you, Original poster, I would take the child and move as far away as I could, or take out restraining orders on those bozos. If you get a decent judge, eventually they will HAVE to leave you alone. They are harrassing you, plain and simple.
FL............ugghhhh......yes they have a period of 12 months for the birth mom or dad to get there act together but even then after the 12 months they can appeal it. So there are children placed in foster homes for years and then at two and three being ripped away.
Just my thoughts
Jody
Have you considered contacting your local newspaper or tv station as a human interest type story? We've had a few of those type stories on the local news here and they seemed to have helped.
They get the community behind you. They do alot of research into the subject, possibly bringing light to their lives and not just yours. They sometimes even lend a little financial assistance by way of people just sending in donations for your expenses.
Once the community gets worked up, you maybe able to go to court yet again, with community sympathy so to speak.
It wouldn't hurt to make a few calls. It would certainly be news program I wouldn't miss!
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I respect the feelings of adoptive parents and birth parents, but I would remind you all that bio grandparents fought very hard to gain their rights to relationships with their bio children's children.
Would all of you like, some time in the future, to be denied the rights of a relationship with your grandchildren, due to divorce?
punxy gma, i hope you are NOT defending the gparents in the original post. If so, I would wonder about you. I think parents should have the final say in who sees their kids, no matter. I would hope I would have a decent enough relationship with my child in the future to have the privlege of seeing my gkids. It is a privlege, not a right. Yes, some parents are at fault, but you cannot have blanket laws because they take rights away from parents should a really nasty gparent just want to see their kids. Do you have any solutions?
I agree that grandparents should have a right to visitation with their grandchildren in some situations.
BUT in the original message, the 'loving grandparents' have not seen nor inquired about the child in 2 years.
They have now caused this little girl much grief and confusion, that it appears therapy and counseling are required.
It appears that the family has been destroyed financially. And harrassed and defamed in their community.
WHY is this allowed?
What good has come of the visitations on the part of this little girl?
I don't see any in the original post.
The child should be first, not the grandparents, the parents or anyone else for that matter.
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