40% of Children are Now Born to Unwed Parents, What are Your Rights?

According to a report published by the CDC the rate of births to unwed mothers has reached an all-time high of 40%. This is a 25% increase from just 3 years before. With a huge increase in the numbers of unwed parents looking for custody orders, where does that leave you?

Family law courts have had to adapt through the years to the changing conditions of the communities that they serve. In years past children were considered fathers properties then time marched on and mothers became the de facto choice as the thinking of the time was that mothers were better parents than fathers and unwed fathers were on the outside looking in.

Now that the stigma of being an unwed parent is a thing of the past, courts have been changing the way they think of parenting too. The battle cry for now-a-days is “best interests of the child”. Gone are the days that the sex of the parent was a valid reason to give primary custody to one parent over the other. Welcome to the age of the blended family.

People who believe that a woman automatically gets custody haven’t been keeping up with the trends. While there are valid reasons for mothers to be the primary care provider of infants those reasons quickly disappear as a child grows older.

Custody and visitation is based on the best interest of the child and many things can figure into that including work hours, living arrangements, location of parents to child's school, and many more. The parent who focuses on keeping the child's routine and fitting their life to it is likely to do well.

So stop focusing on the old standards and thinking like the dinosaurs of old. Update your vocabulary, start looking at ideas like, “best interests of the child”, “routine”, “co-parenting”, “parallel parenting”, and stay away from moral issues that have to do with the ex.

Moral issues like the ex’s dating, alcohol, and recreational drugs are of little or no consequence in today’s world. Unless you have physical proof or can conclusively show that they have endangered the child, these issues only serve to take the focus off the child and put them on you.

Yes things have changed for unwed parents. The rulings now mirror the way we live and the new blended family we are more likely to be part of.