Three Men and a Baby - custody questions

What about the baby's father? He'd have the superior claim to any of the threesome.

It might be possible for the mother to sign over guardianship to one of the guys, which would make him legally responsible when she steps out of the kids' life, depending on how CA state law is written.

Have you considered calling a CA attorney and asking?

Adoption is very difficult, but in the US there is the option of choosing the adoptive family - you can't do that in the UK.

Now, the father would still have a say, how much of a say I don't know though, given that he's in prison , and he may well object to his child being brought up in an enviroment that most would not consider unusual. In that instance he could well block the adoption process for those individuals.

If he raised an objection and it went to a legal case, then the threesomes lifestyle may well be looked at, and, depending on the decisions of social services, they may well agree with the father. I know people who were overlooked for adoption for the smallest of reasons, so I can fully see how an unconventional romantic situation could raise a lot of questions.

Also, you might need to look into the staus of gay adoption in that state.

I can't speak for California, but I was actually at a panel at Norwescon that dealt with poly parenting in Washington State, and one of the panelists was a family law attorney. I am not a lawyer, and most of this is coming from what I remember of the panel and what I've managed to glean elsewhere.

The question you're asking did get brought up in another form during the panel. Here's the problem. Generally, parental rights have to be terminated in some form in order for the legal adoption to take place. It is actually pretty difficult for a birth parent to relinquish rights, and in some states it is not possible unless child services gets involved and goes to court to get parental rights removed. The difficulty involved in relinquishing parental rights is why the men's rights activist issue of child support for unwanted children comes up. It is difficult for just that reason, so parents can't wiggle out of child support.

The exception to this being when babies are put up for adoption. I'm not sure about California, but some states require permission from both parents (if they're known) in order for a mother to put a baby up for adoption. So this is something I would check into. If she is able to give the child up for adoption, then it is entirely possible to do a private adoption.

The problem: No, it is basically not possible for three people to all have equal parental rights. Two can adopt. It is possible to write legal documentation and contracts and the like to protect the interests of the third and involve him, but here's the thing, any court judge can decide to overrule that in favor of the child's best interests. There are no absolute legal protections. If something goes wrong with the three, the one who is not legally attached gets screwed. He has no rights to the child whatsoever.

As far as the mother dying and the brother getting custody -- possible. Depends where. There are more conservative areas of California that it probably wouldn't fly, but if it's in a liberal area and the judge seems to think that they care about the kid and that's what's most important, I could see it flying. It's possible, certainly.

As far as poly, it's not really the oddest thing anyone has seen. This got brought up in the panel I mentioned, and pretty well everyone agreed that they had very little issues from officials, except in custody cases (and frankly, that gets messy even in your average two person relationship), and that nobody really cared. They didn't necessarily go out of their way to say "HEY I'M POLY" but they also didn't hide it, either. The thing that was mentioned was that families are becoming increasingly diverse. You have divorces and stepfamilies and extended families, and it's just not that unusual anymore to see several people involved in a child's life. The thing that was mentioned that I thought was cool was the number of people that actually expressed approval; teachers and doctors telling them they thought it was awesome that the kids had so much support and love.

You might look at some of the online poly groups and see if there is a lawyer in California, or anybody who has dealt with this kind of situation, that might be able to answer questions.

I think this comes down to is there a way to get this done that gets you more or less there, or not. You have the issue of polygamy, which isn't legal in any state, and homosexual marriages, which I've lost track of its status in California, on top of the normal issues involved in adoption. Someone approaching an attorney to accomplish this would probably be quoted a retainer of $100k to start, and don't be surprised if it hits seven figures by the time it gets done.

But as well as confronting problems, attorneys are paid to figure out a way around the problem. And that means identifying the end goal, which is three guys want to raise one child, with each having the authority to act like a parent. In other words, each guy needs the power to make decisions. The fact that they may not agree is something between the three of them, as it is between most parents.

The father is presumptively out of the picture, but may in fact be somewhat useful in accomplishing this goal if he agrees with what is happening. Going after him for a termination of his rights seems problematic, and I'd ignore the situation. This presents some level of problems, such as taking the child out of the country, but you can't have everything you want.

I think the best way to handle this situation, involving the State and the courts the least, would be for the mother to do three power of attorneys, one to each guy. Each would then have the legal right to make any decision that the mother would make regarding the child. Each guy's legal rights would be exactly the same, and a power of attorney can accomplish a lot.

In runs into a problem with a school district that requires a guardianship for residency, but I don't know if that's a problem in California.

But this approach is relatively inexpensive, is quickly accomplished, and although it isn't legally accomplishing what an adoption would do, provides the guys with a de facto adoption.

And here's one of the things. If you can hold this together for 18 years, it works. Providing mom doesn't die, and dad doesn't cause problems, you could slide this under the radar for 18 years and make it actually work, even if it didn't quite legally work. Even if it blows up, the longer it goes on, the more the voice of the child will be heard in determining what happens if the State or the courts becomes involved.

The power of attorneys would be stronger with dad's signature.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

Do mind that power of attorney can be overriden. It's not an absolute guarantee.

This is from a tv show, a gay couple adopted a baby and were so creative as to give the baby a different last name. Once the boy got older, they had lots of trouble proving relations at border crossings because they "weren't related by name". The border guards saw two gay men and an "unrelated" teen, suspicious.

Is the mother married to the father? If not, does she need to say who he is? Does he need to know he's the father? Does he have to be involved at all? Couldn't she just claim she doesn't know?

Nonny said:

Do mind that power of attorney can be overriden. It's not an absolute guarantee.

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Correct. It can be canceled at any time. But I'm thinking that there's no court that would give three people (no matter how it's arranged) joint custody, never mind adoption, except for in a couple of unusual cases. If it was just a gay couple, that's not a big problem these days. But polygamy is against the law, and subject to arrest upon discovery. At least the power of attorney gives you something. And I know of a couple of cases where it's worked for the eighteen years.

Lil said:

Is the mother married to the father? If not, does she need to say who he is? Does he need to know he's the father? Does he have to be involved at all? Couldn't she just claim she doesn't know?

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An adoption requires that both parental rights be terminated. If parental rights are not terminated, the parent can come back subsequently and attack the adoption (and stand a good chance of winning). This has happened quite a few times in the past couple of decades. As a result, no court is going to allow an adoption without both parent's rights being terminated.

And as anyone who's involved in this type of thing quickly learns, "I don't know who the daddy is," translates into actually meaning, "I don't want to tell you who the daddy is." Because the reality is that absent a gang bang or a rape with the rapist being undiscovered, the woman always can provide a lot of information about the guy. Maybe not the name, but definitely enough so that a private detective stands a good chance of finding the guy. If there are several possibles, DNA works wonderfully at finding out who gets to hand out the cigars and pay the child support.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

jclarkdawe said:

An adoption requires that both parental rights be terminated. If parental rights are not terminated, the parent can come back subsequently and attack the adoption (and stand a good chance of winning). This has happened quite a few times in the past couple of decades. As a result, no court is going to allow an adoption without both parent's rights being terminated.

And as anyone who's involved in this type of thing quickly learns, "I don't know who the daddy is," translates into actually meaning, "I don't want to tell you who the daddy is." Because the reality is that absent a gang bang or a rape with the rapist being undiscovered, the woman always can provide a lot of information about the guy. Maybe not the name, but definitely enough so that a private detective stands a good chance of finding the guy. If there are several possibles, DNA works wonderfully at finding out who gets to hand out the cigars and pay the child support.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

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I know I'm not the OP, but thank you. I always wondered about this.

She could always have one of them sign the child's birth certificate. That way if something happens the one whose name is on the certificate can claim parental rights. At least that's how it was explained to be by a social worker.

jclarkdawe said:

Correct. It can be canceled at any time. But I'm thinking that there's no court that would give three people (no matter how it's arranged) joint custody, never mind adoption, except for in a couple of unusual cases. If it was just a gay couple, that's not a big problem these days. But polygamy is against the law, and subject to arrest upon discovery. At least the power of attorney gives you something. And I know of a couple of cases where it's worked for the eighteen years.

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Exactly. They CAN try to arrange court documentation to allow rights for the third person, but this is only of limited efficiency. A judge can overrule it anytime, and various other officials won't always follow it either. Look at the number of cases of gay couples who ended up setting power of attorney but had it ignored by hospitals.

Really, there is no absolute legal protection for poly parents, period.