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Family Law: Mother's Rights, Father Rights in Indiana

I see a lot of traffic coming to this blog searching under the topics of father's rights, or mother's rights, or non-custodial parents rights, or custodial parent rights. I am sorry to disappoint those people that there are not any posts that explicitly focus on those topics. As for writing about mother's or father's rights, you will not find any post explicitly about those topics on this blog.

Why no posts touting father's rights or mother's rights? I know I could probably get more attention to my blog and probably increase my client base. I do not do this because I think talking about father's rights or mother's rights falsifies Indiana law.

Indiana does not look at whether a mother or a father has a right to custody except for a small exception under Indiana's paternity law. About that, see my article here. Indiana law interests itself in the best interest of the child and not the interests of the parents. That rule applies to child custody, child support, and parenting time (visitation).

Fathers get custody of their children. I have had two cases like that this past year and a third pending. They got custody because we were able to show the child's best interests were better served by the father having custody.

Most mothers do get custody. Fathers do not always want custody. I would say the majority of cases settle with the father agreeing that the mother should have custody.

Nor am I so naive not to know that some judges favor one sex over another. A former judge in another county consistently favored women even when the evidence did not support the mother. I know of another judge, male, who disfavored a mother because she admitted to smoking one joint at a birthday party. Attorneys know these things. There are tools available for dealing with them - choosing which court to file in, motions to change venue, appeals. What we cannot change is the rule of the child's best interests.

I refuse to limit myself just to men or to women. To do so means I must ignore the best interests of the child. I prefer my clients to be the parent who will be in the best interests of the child.

I am even sorrier for those seeking answers to their questions without finding them here. Some would find more if they looked further into this blog such as under the topics of child custody and paternity. There are links to all the topics I have written about down the right hand side of this blog.

Full post as published by Sam Hasler's Indiana Divorce & Family Law Blog on January 06, 2008 (boomark / email).