Co-Parenting – One More Option For Creating Your Family

Co-Parenting is fast becoming an alternative to adoption, surrogacy and IVF for many in the LGBT community who want to have a family on their terms.

Co-parenting is quickly becoming a viable option for gay and lesbian individuals who want to be parents. Co-parenting also requires an incredible amount of care and preparation to ensure that all parties, and particularly the children, are protected and acknowledged legally.

Co-Parenting Defined

In a co-parenting relationship, two individuals who are not romantically involved come together for the purpose of having a child and parenting that child with a mother and a father. The key to understanding co-parenting is in the intention of the mother and father.  Many enter into co-parenting relationships because they do not want to be single parents and acknowledge their desire for their children to have a maternal and a paternal influence.co-parenting

Protecting a Co-Parenting Relationship: The Co-Parenting Agreement

Before entering into a co-parenting relationship, it is crucial to understand the legalities of parenting, as well as the potential pitfalls that may accompany this nontraditional parenting form. First, by becoming a parent, the mother and the father have a fiduciary responsibility to that child, and if the co-parenting arrangement dissolves, to one another in a child support proceeding.  This means that if both parties are not contributing financially to the child’s upbringing, either parent may bring a support action in family court.

Spelling out these financial terms, as well as visitation schedules, educational and religious training is the purview of the co-parenting agreement. The mother and the father will both have separate legal representation in the drafting and execution of a co-parenting agreement and the process of creating a comprehensive agreement will be very helpful for the parties to both feel comfortable with one another and the terms of their individual parenting visions.

Where Can You Meet a Potential Co-Parent?

As this new method of parenting has become more and more popular, so has an internet support industry of which I am a part. Websites such as FamilyByDesign.com, of which I am a legal consultant, and Modamily.com offer information to potential co-parents, as well as a database of individuals who are interested in becoming co-parents to find other such individuals.  Many LGBT Centers around the country now have family divisions that include information and networking about co-parenting.

Special Considerations

One very important aspect of co-parenting lies in the reality that the primary parents may have committed relationships with people other than the other co-parent.   This may be due to their sexual orientation or relationship status when entering into the co-parenting relationship.  Some states now have the ability to name more than two legal parents for a child. But more often than not, these “third party” individuals do not have legal relationships with the children of their romantic partners.  Primary parents must create these rights for their romantic partners by executing medical authorizations and guardianship provisions for the children.

For more information about co-parenting, contact Anthony M. Brown at Time for Families and speak to a specialist family lawyer to secure your and your family’s future or email Anthony at anthony@timeforfamilies.com.

in Featured Articles / Legal / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Same Sex Partners on Birth Certificates Halted

same sex partnersArkansas Supreme Court Halts Birth Certificates For Same Sex Partners

The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily blocked a lower court order that allowed same sex partners throughout the state to be listed as parents on the birth certificates of their children. It let stand the birth certificates obtained by three lesbian couples who had challenged the Arkansas Health Department Vital Statistics Bureau’s refusal to identify the three couples as the adoptive or biological parents of their respective children.

Same sex partners had a previous victory with Little Rock Circuit Judge

They won approval for their listing as parents in a narrow decision by Little Rock Circuit Judge Tim Fox. The same judge then issued another decision extending that recognition statewide. The state appealed the decision that allowed same-sex partners statewide to be listed, saying it conflicted with Arkansas statutes and left birth registrars in legal limbo.

The state Supreme Court agreed and said that “the best course of action is to preserve the status quo with regard to the statutory provisions while we consider the circuit court’s ruling.”

On Dec. 1, Judge Fox held that a state law restricting parentage identification to heterosexual couples was unconstitutional in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this year legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.

“(The) decision affords the plaintiffs, as same sex partners, the same constitutional rights with respect to the issuance of birth certificates and amended birth certificates as opposite-sex couples,” Fox wrote at the time.

Click here to read the entire article.

 

Hufingtonpost.com, December 11, 2015 – by Steve Barnes

in Adoption / In the News / Legal  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Same Sex Parenting Cases: Evidence Over Ideology?

Evidence Over Ideology in Same Sex Parenting Cases?

Last Friday, a Utah judge reversed an order in a same sex parenting cases, he had issued just three days earlier that would have removed a young girl from her home because her foster parents are lesbians. Under fierce pressure that even included grumbling by the state’s Republican governor, Judge Scott Johansen issued a temporary reversal after first ruling that it was “not in the best interest of children to be raised by same-sex couples.” The shift is good news for the girl and her foster parents, April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce; for child welfare advocates; and for anyone concerned with fairness, equality, or evidence-based policy.

Evidence should trump ideology when deciding on same sex parenting cases

Yet the matter is far from over. Johansen set a December date for the girl’s fate to be argued at a hearing. And the judge’s revised order left intact a critical foundation of his initial reasoning: what the judge still calls “a concern that research has shown that children are more emotionally and mentally stable when raised by a mother and father in the same home.”

Hoagland and Peirce told a news station they believe the judge relied on his religious beliefs to make his decision, something that would be plainly unconstitutional. Does the judge have any sound reason to give straight couples preference over same-sex ones?

Asked in court to cite any of the “myriad” studies he reportedly referenced in ruling against the same-sex couple, Johansen declined. And for good reason: There are none. A research team I direct, based at Columbia Law School, conducted one of the most exhaustive analyses of peer-reviewed studies on same-sex parenting published over the last 30 years. Our initiative, the What We Know Project, started with the question, “What does the scholarly research say about the well being of children with gay or lesbian parents?” Our results, which are constantly updated as new research emerges, are posted at our site, with links to the studies or their abstracts.

What did we find? Currently, there are 77 scholarly articles that address this question. Of those, 73—the vast majority—found that children raised in same-sex parenting homes fare just as well as their peers. Could the four outliers be the “myriad” studies Johansen is referencing? Not if he’s done an ounce of homework and is being remotely honest about what the research says. For starters, basing a ruling that breaks a family apart on four studies that are contradicted by 73 others is questionable on its face. But equally important, these four studies do not actually prove what their authors claim they do, and anyone who looks at them closely can see that.

Reviewing the studies clarifies that they all suffer from the same fundamental flaw: While the authors tout the importance of large, random samples and imply that that’s what they’re using, they in fact rely on samples that are anything but. Here’s how this works: They start with very large samples that come from a reliable dataset like the census. In some cases the original sample is as large as several million people. Out of this much ballyhooed sample size, researchers struggle to identify families in which a stable, same-sex couple raised children from infancy—the relevant standard, since what’s usually being debated, as in the Utah case, is whether such a couple ought to be allowed to parent. So researchers create their own definitions for what constitutes an “LGB” family, and they are uniformly very loose. In some cases they just ask children if a parent ever had a same-sex relationship and throw the “yes” kids into a category called “LGBT families”—even though they are a world apart from a situation in which children are raised by a stable, same-sex couple. This is not to say one type of family is superior to another, just that we must compare apples to apples to yield any useful conclusions about same-sex parenting. (Many of the gay-supportive studies also use small samples, but their authors don’t suggest otherwise, and—most important—they are actually studying children raised by same-sex parents.)

Click here to read the entire article.

by Nathaniel Frank, Slate.com
in Ethics / Foster Care / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Same Sex Parenting: OK Supreme Court Landmark Ruling

Same Sex Parenting Wins Increased Rights in Oklahoma

The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a landmark ruling same sex parenting increasing the rights of noncustodial parents who have been in same-sex relationships. The decision acknowledged the rights of a non-biological parent in a same-sex relationship who has acted as a parent.

The state’s high court ruled that an Oklahoma County judge improperly dismissed the case of Oklahoma City resident Charlene Ramey. The court reversed that decision and remanded the case for further proceedings so Ramey could pursue a hearing on custody and visitation of the child, who was born in 2005. Ramey was in a same-sex relationship with Kimberly Sutton. At the time of the relationship, Oklahoma did not recognize same-sex marriages, which changed following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year not to take up an appeal of Oklahoma’s marriage-equality lawsuit ruling.

The couple agreed to have a child, born by Sutton with a donor. Sutton and Ramey later separated after almost 10 years of same sex parenting, as co-parents. Sutton denied Ramey’s status as a parent and sought to end all interaction between Ramey and the child, according to the opinion.

“Ramey, the plaintiff, is not a mere ‘third party’ like a nanny, friend, or relative, as suggested by the district court,” the ruling states. “On the contrary, Ramey has been intimately involved in the conception, birth and parenting of their child, at the request and invitation of Sutton. Ramey has stood in the most sacred role as parent to their child and always been referred to as ‘mom’ by their child.”

The decision is intended to recognize same-sex couples who, prior to the U.S. Supreme Court legalization of same-sex marriage, entered into committed relationships, engaged in family planning with the intent to parent jointly and share those responsibilities, the ruling states.

“Public policy dictates that the district court consider the best interests of the child and extend standing to the non-biological parent to pursue hearings on custody and visitation,” the ruling says.

Click here to read the entire article.

 

by Barbara Hoberock, November 18, 2015 TulsaWorld.com

in Adoption / In the News / Legal / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Do gay parents parents spend more time with kids?

Study finds gay parents spend significantly more time with kids

Gay parents spend significantly more time with their kids, according to a new study that challenges biases against same-sex parenting.

Researchers from the Population Research Center at the University of Texas found that women in lesbian relationships spend 40% more time engaged in child-focused activities than their straight counterparts, largely because both mothers typically offer as much time as mothers in straight relationships.

Fathers in straight relationships spend only about half as much time on child-focused activity. However, fathers in gay relationships spend roughly the same time as the mothers (around 100 minutes a day).

Lesbian couples invest 40% more time in their children

‘Our findings support the argument that parental investment in children is at least as great – and possibly greater – in same-sex couples as for different-sex couples,’ Kate Prickett, the lead author of the study, wrote on the Child and Family Blog.

‘On measures of child-focused time, children with two parents of the same sex families actually seem to receive more time investment. They received more focused time from their parents – 3.5 hours a day, compared with 2.5 hours by children with two different-sex parents.’

Child-focused activities are those that support their physical and cognitive development, such as reading to them, playing with them, helping with homework, bathing them and taking them to the doctor.

It does not include watching television or doing housework while a child is around. Child-focused activities, as well as certain family events such as eating meals together or reading books, are associated with better child outcomes. The study used 11 years of census data from 2003-2013, with a sample of more than 40,000 parents, 55 parents of whom were in gay relationships.

Click here to read the entire article.

 

gaystarnews.com – by Darren Wee, October 21, 2015
in Parenting / Science  by Anthony Brown 0 comments