GRANDPARENTS’ RIGHTS

GRANDPARENTS’ RIGHTS

Thomas W. Crockett

As difficult as it is to believe, baby boomers have entered and continue to enter in droves that exalted, privileged and sometimes heartbreaking status of grandparents. As long as the intra-family relationships between the in-laws, step-families and other combinations resulting from our complex society, ripe as it is with divorces, remarriages and other disruptions, remain healthy, grandparents can have a fulfilling and loving relationship with the grandchildren, and become a part of the extended family that all children need so much in these turbulent times.

Things do go wrong, however, and the closest of relationships can be disrupted by the divorce or death of one of the parents, leaving the grandparents to deal with the son or daughter-in-law, who may have (and sometimes with good reason) become hostile to the grandparents and takes out this hostility by denying the grandparents visitation. Sometimes, even if the marriage is intact, both parents may unite against the grandparents to deny visitation.

When the relationship between the grandparents and the parent or parents has become so hostile as to be irreparable, grandparents need to know what legal rights they have to require the custodial parent or parents to allow them visitation. The Mississippi statute grants grandparents the right to petition the court for visitation rights in two circumstances:

First, if a parent dies, or loses custody or parental rights, then that parent’s parents have the right to petition the chancery court for visitation rights.

Second, any grandparent who is not entitled to petition under the above facts may petition for visitation if the grandparent has established a viable relationship with the child (which means a relationship in which the grandparent has voluntarily and in good faith supported the child financially in whole or in part for not less than six months), or had frequent visitation including overnight visitation for a period of not less than one year.

Although the grandparents have the right to petition, the visitation is still subject to certain restrictions, the most important of which is that the visitation is in the child’s best interest.

Assuming that the court finds that the visitation is in the child’s best interest, the additional factors the court will consider in determining the grandparents’ rights are:

(1) amount of disruption visitation will have on grandchild’s life,

(2) suitability of grandparents’ home with respect to amount of supervision,

(3) age of grandchild,

(4) age and physical and mental health of grandparents,

(5) emotional ties between grandparents and grandchild,

(6) moral fitness of grandparents

(7) distance of grandparents’ home from child’s home;

(8) any undermining of parent’s general discipline of grandchild,

(9) employment of grandparents, and

(10) willingness of grandparents to accept that the rearing of the child is the parents’ responsibility and that the parents’ manner of child rearing is not to be interfered with.

Although these rights are there to be used in extreme cases, the enforcement of them is costly in time and money, disruptive of relationships, and uncertain of outcome. Avoid the need to do so by respecting, understanding, and even tolerating the parents – both of them – as they muddle through the difficult job of rearing children. In short, grandparents’ legal rights are like good credit; they should be used only when absolutely necessary.

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Thomas W. Crockett is a shareholder in Watkins Ludlam Winter & Stennis, P. A., which has offices at 190 E. Capitol Street, Suite 800, Jackson, MS 39205-0427; One Hancock Plaza, 2510 14^th Street, Suite 1010, P. O. Drawer 160, Gulfport, MS 39502; and 8925 East Goodman Road, P. O. Box 1456, Olive Branch, MS 38654; tcrockett@watkinsludlam.com