Disputes over child custody and visitation mostly involve a child’s parents, but not all the time. It’s not a new idea, but families with grandparents as primary caregivers are becoming more common. Typically, the parents are still central figures in a child’s custody case, but the grandparents also get a say.
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Each state determines to what extent grandparents have legal rights to time with their grandchildren. Most allow some sort of visitation for grandparents, so long as there are no safety concerns like alcohol abuse and other similar situations.
In many states, grandparents may take custody of their grandchildren if the parents are both incapacitated. This can be done through the department of social services, generally. In these cases, the grandparents have the rights and duties of parenting time and decision making.
But in some states, grandparents have the right to file for intervention in divorce cases. This hasn’t always been the case but it is becoming more common as laws move away from viewing children as property, and toward making their protection primary, over the rights of parents.
Parents have a constitutionally protected right to raise their children. Grandparents have no such right. But this simplistic view overlooks the interests of the children. Sometimes, in order to protect the children, grandparents are the best choice for raising the children. In some states, this can come about either in the Department of Human Services cases or in family law cases.
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