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Am i obligated to surrender children to the fathers mother if he has warrants for skipping out on drug charges and sends his mom to get the kids instead?
my wife. she's with me. sorry. guess i was a little confusing.
Anyways he was arrested on Meth charges and skipped his court date and plans on sending his mom to pick the kids up. Just wandering if he has a warrant for drug charges if we are obligated to give them to his mom.
Consult a family law attorney. What does your custody agreement say about family members picking up the children? Maybe it states he os the one and you can refuse on that ground.
I would consult your attorney. You should be able to deny him visitation if you fear for the safety of your children though. But chances are with the drug charges you can get the custody agreement altered anyway.
Best to have the kids with family rather than in state care--that is dangerous to the children..the father is not the issue----is his mother a bad ass?....if not send the kids to her....don't be spiteful...as for the father...I hope he matures..
OP – are you saying that the father can’t/won’t pick the kids up only because he has warrants out for his arrest and doesn’t want to get caught? He’s otherwise available to be with the kids during his visitation period? Hmm. That changes the response I just finished writing.
Well, here's the new response, then... (My old response follows.)
The decrees I’ve been familiar with specifically state who can pick up the kids in a parent’s absence. If the grandmother is in the visitation order as being a person who can pick up the children in the father’s absence (and barring any other funky thing in the visitation orders involving his drug use, illegal activities, or anything else), then YES, you are legally obligated to turn the kids over to the grandmother so that they can visit with their father! I know this may be shocking … but it’s true. If the visitation order permits it, then (legally) you must abide by it until the orders are changed. Do parents ignore the law in cases like yours and take their chances? Yes. Will police enforce the decree as it stands? Yes. I’ve personally seen it happen – police, with tears in their eyes, dragging young teens from their school and into their (ostensibly unfit) parent’s car against the kids’ will. In this case, the police contacted the other parent and asked that parent to pursue a change of orders so they wouldn’t have to do that to those kids again. They had to do it for almost a full school year, every other week, until the orders were finally changed. Courts are slow.
In your case, it would be awfully hard for the father to call the police for your failure to follow the decree! What are his alternatives?! And so, I would think you could pretty easily get away with not turning them over. BUT, you would probably not be complying with the letter of the law. (I say this knowing absolutely nothing about your wife’s decree or visitation orders. You really need a lawyer!)
All that being said, here’s what I wrote when I was assuming the dad was out of the picture – on the lam, in jail, knowingly unavailable for visitation:
1. Only an attorney can give you an answer you can rely on. Nobody here will know the answer to your question with any certainty, me included.
2. If your wife's divorce decree is similar to the others that I'm familiar with, you are not obligated to turn the kids over to the father's mom for her own access or visitation. Chances are (if the decree is like the ones I've been familiar with), the kids' father's mother is not currently assured any legal access or visitation or custody. If the father were to pick the kids up and then leave them with his mother for the duration of his legal access, then she would be permitted to keep them the entire time -- that's 'his' time with them, and he can do with it what he wants, as long as the children are safe. (For instance, I knew a man who would take his kids for the Texas standard month of July, drive them up to Ohio to leave them with his mother for the month, then drive himself back to Texas, where he remained for the entire month, without the kids. While the kids were with her for the month, she routinely bad-mouthed their mother and prohibited any communication between the children and the mom for the entire month, year after year. It was all perfectly legal, though the mother's family -- and kids -- felt it violated the spirit of the decree. The kids had no recourse. Eventually, that guy lost all access to his kids -- for other reasons, as did his mother! But that's beside the point.)
3. As for 'the right thing to do,' I agree with Oleg Bach in the post above. If the kids' grandmother is a safe family member -- if she does right by the kids -- if they like her and are safe in her presence, then by all means, you should turn the kids over to her during their father's visitation period. The more family members they have loving up on them the better off they'll be. The more cooperation there is between both sides of the family, the better off they will be. She doesn’t have to be ‘perfect.’ Just ‘good enough’ and safe.
As a parent yourself (or as a step-parent), you surely already know that we can't actually control our kids' behavior. Especially once they're adults. The grandmother's son sounds like he's a pretty lousy influence right now -- but that doesn't necessarily mean that she is. She could be a good woman who cares a lot about her grandchildren. She may feel compelled more than most to love up on those kids and give them all that they need because of the parental shortcomings she sees in her own son. If she's that kind of grandmother, you should definitely just cooperate with her. And thank her for all she does for them!
the legal advice you get on the internet, though well intentioned, is worth what you paid for it. contact your attorney ASAP.
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