PARENT'S RIGHTS NOW!

My husband died, his parents blamed me and the kids were caught in the middle. They did not want to admit that their son was sick. He was an alcoholic and crack/cocaine user that committed suicide. Right after he passed, his mother did not keep the kids best interest at heart. I know and sympathize she just lost her child, but her actions were far too abusive to my children. I do not mean physical abuse, but mental abuse. My children would come home from her house upset and crying all the time because she would take them to the cemetery and pound in their head that their dad was dead because of me. I finally told her that she needed time to grieve and ceased visitation for a while. She didn't like that so she and her husband took me to court for grandparents rights. To make a very long story short, we spent years in court and wasted a lot of money that could have bettered the children. Instead of working through it together, it totally destroyed the family. The last court battle (there were three), she was taking me back to court again because in Illinois the Governor passed a law stating that if the Grandparents can prove it is in the best interest of the child, visitation may be granted. They ended up dropping the case because they said they did not have the money to fight anymore because I had hired the lawyer that took the law to the Illinois Supreme Court and had it overturned originally stating the grandparents rights were unconstitutional. Now the children haven't seen them in almost two years. If the grandparents thought it was in the best interest of the children that they be part of their lives, why haven't they called to talk to the kids? Or remembered their birthdays, special occasions or something? My court proceedings were nothing but a grieving mother being vindictive and trying to control what she shouldn't have any control over....MY CHILDREN! So parents out there going through this, stand firm and believe that you know what is in the best interest of your children. Politicians do not live our daily lives and have NO clue on what is really going on! Why should they be able to come into our homes and tell us how to raise our children!?!
 

The UK charity National Society for Children and Family Contact fully support and concure that the human rights of parents and extended family members should be fully implimented in accordance with the Human Rights Act article 8.
www.nscfc.com
 

Sherrie raises a point that we often hear—the only people who “win” in Family Court are the lawyers. Shouldn’t there be an hourly rate cap on what the “losing party” is ordered to pay in Family Court? Does it make any sense to require people to have to pay as much as eighty times minimum wage when they may make only two or three times the minimum wage?
 

Wherever issues involve children and visitation, whether with parent's or grandparents, perhaps the first step should be mediation.
 

The first question that needs to be decided is whether the Family Courts should even be given jurisdiction to decide visitation disputes between parents and grandparents. We see pros and cons to the proposed legislation, but it is worth noting that for every right given to a grandparent, a corresponding right is taken from a parent.

On the issue of mediation, we know of many folks who swear by the practice. Others believe that engaging in mediation just adds another layer of expense and delay to the whole process. So we'd like to know what you think could be done to insure that requiring mandatory mediation would both speed up the litigation process and lessen the negative financial impact on the litigants.