Parents have certain protected rights under the law. They generally live with their children or have the right to parenting time if they share parental rights. They also make decisions about how they raise their children. Parents also have responsibilities to their children, including the obligation to provide shelter, food and other basic necessities.
Married couples automatically share those rights, and mothers benefit from the state having an automatic awareness of their relationship with their children after birth. Unmarried fathers may feel less certain about their legal rights and protections.
Especially if a father has ended his relationship with the mother of his children, he may worry about what rights he technically has. Does the law grant parental rights to unmarried fathers?
The state must acknowledge a father first
Technically, neither sex nor marital status directly influences parental rights. Both parents can have the same rights under the law as long as the state acknowledges their relationship with the child. Parents often share both time with their children and authority over them.
Mothers and married men have automatic parentage rights when family dynamics change. Unmarried fathers have to establish paternity to assert the same rights as other parents. Some unmarried fathers have already done so by working cooperatively with the mother at the hospital at the time of the child’s birth.
Others can execute A Simple Acknowledgment of Paternity (ASAP) by cooperating with the mothers of their children. If voluntary acknowledgment isn’t a feasible solution, fathers can ask the state to support them by ordering paternity testing.
Formally establishing paternity can help unmarried fathers make use of their parental rights. Shared custody and visitation are easier to obtain once the state acknowledges a man as a child’s father.