parental rights

MumOf2Beasties

Hello just after a bit of advice.

Long story short I have a four month old baby, father is not involved and doesn't have his name on the birth certificate (he was abusive towards me so I left him when I was pregnant).
I gave him chances to see him but he continued to bully and harass me, his sisters did the same.

I would like to give my mum some sort of parental rights to my son, is this possible?

I would also consider my mum adopting him with me so he has another next of kin besides me. I do not in any way wish to give up any of my own rights, I am a full time mum and will continue to have him living with me full time, I just want a legal safety net for him should anything happen to me.

Thank you.

whitewing

Speak to Women's Aid, I imagine they will have dealt with similar situations.

ilovelondontown

I'm almost certain this would be the sort of thing drawn up in a will to state who would have right of care if something happened to you.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/baby-checklist

See here #14 on the list.

MumOf2Beasties

Thank you, I already have a support worker at women's aid. They can't offer legal advice sadly, and I had to pay for the last solicitor's appointment. I'm trying to gather as much info as possible before I see the solicitor again so I can get the most out of my hour with her.

thorsoak

Have you thought about contacting Gingerbread Organisation - they may have some advice.

jackyann

The commonest way of doing this is to arrange for your mum to share parental responsibility. These are the people who can help:
http://www.coram.org.uk/section/family-parenting/Coram-Childrens-Legal-Centre

pmlindyloo

MumOf2Beasties wrote: »

Hello just after a bit of advice.

Long story short I have a four month old baby, father is not involved and doesn't have his name on the birth certificate (he was abusive towards me so I left him when I was pregnant).
I gave him chances to see him but he continued to bully and harass me, his sisters did the same.

I would like to give my mum some sort of parental rights to my son, is this possible?

I would also consider my mum adopting him with me so he has another next of kin besides me. I do not in any way wish to give up any of my own rights, I am a full time mum and will continue to have him living with me full time, I just want a legal safety net for him should anything happen to me.

Thank you.

I think you should consider very carefully about your options.

You may find yourself in a new relationship in the future and to do something like asking your mum to adopt him seems very permanent and may cause a lot of legal wrangles in the future.

If your real concern is about what would happen to your child if you died then, as someone has already said, you need to make a will with your mum named as legal guardian for your son. If things changed in the future and you no longer wanted this to happen then you could make a new will.

GwylimT

There are two things you can do, outline your wishes in your will, or you can have arrange for your mother to be a legal guardian where your mother has parental responsibility for little one. You can change any of these when you see fit and they are both easy to do, the will is easier and personally I would most likely do that. My oldest son is adopted and as I was a single parent I named my brother in my will to be my sons legal guardian if anything happened to me, now my wife has parental responsibility for him, well not anymore as he is now 19.

MumOf2Beasties

Thank you for the replies, it's so hard thinking of measures to put in place if anything were to happen to me but it has to be done

Mojisola

MumOf2Beasties wrote: »

Thank you for the replies, it's so hard thinking of measures to put in place if anything were to happen to me but it has to be done

Think of it like buying insurance - you don't really expect your house to burn down or to end up in hospital while on holiday but you still cover yourself "just in case".

itsanne

A will is very important for other reasons too.

One other thought - death is not the only thing that can happen, so something else as well so that things would be in place if a different horrendous situation arose.