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Louisiana has several laws that grant the
right to seek grandparent visitation, assuming visitation is found to be in
the best interest of the child. However, a recent US Supreme Court decision
has cast doubt on the future of Louisiana grandparent visitation laws. |
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There have been many cases heard in Louisiana on the subject of grandparent visitation. Although the welfare of the children is paramount, it appears that only where a child's parent dies, is interdicted, or incarcerated, do the parents of that parent have the right to visitation of their grandchildren. |
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My grandparents were pioneers in the battle for visitation rights To me, they were dependable, a security blanket I would never lose. By Damien Cave - - - - - - - - - - In Jamaica, they fell in love, and in a generic church that satisfied Dad's Catholic and Mom's Jewish relatives, they married. At that point, they had known each other for less than a year. Neither had a college degree, job prospects or a clear idea of what they stood for, rather than against. I've always believed that their relationship was based on a shared lust for life's rushes -- everything from drugs, to the sunrise, to sex, to meeting new people. But whatever it was didn't last. I was born less than a year after their wedding, but the marriage dissolved before I turned three. "My acid habit and your mom's drinking just didn't get along," Dad told me a few years ago. "I took you because I didn't think I was quite as messed up as she was." Whatever. Relative stupors aside, Dad drove me cross-country, kicking off several years of lying and a custody battle rife with claims of kidnapping and abandonment. I don't remember much of this, and have never given it too much thought. Early on I stopped asking questions because the responses always contradicted each other and seemed sensationalized, backfires from a family spin machine that over-compensated for the anger that everyone but me seemed to feel. Plus, the custody mayhem appeared irrelevant. After the divorce, which finished in 1983, five years after it started, my mother floated out of the picture. My most important relationships -- those with my stepmother and my maternal grandparents -- blossomed outside the court's view. Then, upon hearing that the Supreme Court would soon hear a case similar to my own -- one that might lead to the end of the rights that I instinctually favored -- I asked my father to send me a copy of the divorce papers. I'd never looked at them before, but in their yellowed pages I discovered that my grandmother was right. They received a few weeks per year with me, thus joining thousands of other grandparents who also won such rights during the '70s and '80s. For my grandmother, legalized visits were a victory. When she spoke of them, pride enveloped her words. I tended to see their efforts as a positive as well, but then I began to wonder if it wasn't that simple. Apparently several judges have done the same. All 50 states still have laws permitting grandparents to seek visitation rights, but lower courts in Washington (where the Supreme Court's case comes from) and other states have struck them down. Judges have argued that the laws interfere with parents' fundamental right to raise children of their own. Other critics, such as Joan Bohl, a family-law expert in Los Angeles, say the laws bog down the judicial process and embitter parties that already are at odds. I expect the Supreme Court to offer a broader vision. At least I hope so. Too many have already ignored the fact that grandparents who fight for custody do, in fact, transform not only the divorce, but also the reshaping of families that follows. For us, the children, problems also arise. Grandparents with formal rights become parental. They think they know best, and they often do. But visitation rights create a sense of entitlement and give teeth to such claims even now. For years, my grandfather has referred to my grandmother as "your mother." And, even now, though I am 25 and filled with opinions of my own, my parents and grandparents often resemble cold-war superpowers: They don't talk, but work behind the scenes to guide me toward their respective ideologies. And yet, despite these hassles, I must side with the majority. Life without my grandparents would have been a lesser life, a poorer existence. My earliest memories have nothing to do with a nuclear family and are without settings because I was moved around so much. But through it all, my grandparents were there, calling, visiting, sending cards and gifts. To them, I was "the baby," the first grandchild and the first boy to come from four daughters. To me, they were dependable, a security blanket I would never lose. |
Troxel v. Granville
Single Parent Central
Read more about the effect of Troxel on future Louisiana Legislation in Part Two of this article.
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