A sucky situation all-around.Follow

Blame the hormones, but this Sandra Bullock situation has got me thinking about the rights of step-parents. I think it's a damn ******* thing to become involved in a child's life as a step-parent when the birth parent is iffy, become the maternal/paternal figure for said child, develop and have all the feelings and inclinations of a parent on their behalf, and then be left with no rights whatsoever in the event of death or divorce. I really feel for her as far as her attachment to those kids. They're been married longer than Joph and I have been together.

Janine Lindenmulder, Jesse's ex-wife, did say she would welcome Sandra's involvement in her daughter's life and that she is grateful for how well she took care of her, but she's just one of the three.

What's your opinion?

My opinion is pretty obvious: especially with the coming of a new addition, I would like to think I could keep my family intact, and it kills me that an absentee parent has more rights than I do simply because they went through the pregnancy and I didn't.

I'm biased due to my situation, but I voted that stepparents should have every right to custody that an absent parent does. Moreso actually as they're involved with the child's life. What's best for the children should always be what's at stake and an absent parent is rarely the one fitting that criteria.

That's pretty generous. Of course she isn't the custodial parent.

I voted for step rights, although a child old enough to know what's going on should have a say, as well.

She's using this to sue him for custody.

Edited, Mar 30th 2010 9:31am by Atomicflea

I usually want to give the biological parent(s) the benefit of the doubt. Only in cases of abuse (and neglect is a form of abuse) would I think that the step parent should win custody.

So yeah, what pretty much everyone else answered.

Yeah, I was speaking more specifically about the Bullock situation, where the kids are in the father's custody for a reason. I forget why; I just remember having Federline flashbacks and thinking, "if he's the better choice, whoo boy."

Too bad Bullock never formally adopted the kids, but that's a whole other can of worms when the bio-mom is still hangin' in there.

Matched mine.

On the plus side, I've told Flea to just lay low if I should shuffle off my mortal coil in an untimely fashion. It could be up to a decade before our kid's birth mother thinks to pick up the phone and see what's going on.

For clarification, in both Sandra's situation and mine, the birth father has custody. It's not necessarily that the non-custodial parent is a bad parent, but that the child may have formed an emotional attachment to their step-parent and may be hurt by the separation.

That makes sense. It's also kinda sad.

Okie Dokie. Sorry for being nosey.

My step-dad ever offered to adopt me or my brother, but that could have more to do with how old we were at the time. But I never really thought about what would happen to me if my mom died. I suppose we would've ended up with my dad and a step-mom that we had never met.

Aw, that's sweet.

I think when I was a kid, I made it a point to blame anything I didn't like about myself on my dad. I was pretty angry for a long time.

Having grown up in an extremely stable household with two biological parents, I don't have any firsthand experience. But I would imagine that if in a case like this, if one (or both) of the biological entities was mistreating or neglecting or otherwise ******** up a child, and the other was otherwise unavailable, that a step-parent should be considered for custody.

Humbling, how kids will love you even when you flat don't deserve it.