And it isn't only family members who often feel they have a stake in the life of a child. Many stepparents, same sex parents who haven't adopted a child, and sometimes other community members, feel strong bonds with children who aren't related to them by blood.
From the perspective of a child, there can never be too many loving adults in his or her life. The problem is, when the state undertakes to regulate the legal relationship of those adults to the child, everything gets a lot more complicated.
Some states have laws that recognize these third parties. They call them de facto parents. That means adults who have such a strong history of relationship with a child that, whatever their bloodline, to the child, these grownups are a parent.
Other states try to draw a clear line between third parties and natural (or adoptive) parents. But many of these states have either statutes or case law that carves out exceptions allowing some limited circumstances when a third-party can obtain visitation or custody of a child.
Maryland law has exceptions to the hard and fast rule that it does not recognize de facto parents. If a third-party can prove what the law calls "exceptional circumstances" or that the natural parent is unfit to parent, then that person can get custody. Other states have laws that say, for example, if a child has lived for a continuous year with a third party who has provided a certain amount of support, the third party can try to get custody.
As a grandparent, I have deep personal feelings about laws that undertake to give grandparents (and other third parties like aunts, uncles, siblings and the like) the "right" to a relationship with the children who come into the family. From a personal perspective, I like those laws. But as a lawyer, I'm think there's a lot of wisdom in making it hard for a grandparent or uncle, or aunt or stepparent to get custody or even visitation.
Most families have some amount of dysfunction going on, even the best of them. Sadly, whether the family history includes divorce or not, the dysfunction gets passed down from generation to generation. Having seen the havoc that is wrought on a child when two natural parents fight over custody and visitation, I can't imagine how much worse it could be if the law allowed more people with a relationship with a child to join the fray. Or how much damage could be done in a family that is determined to "gang up" on an individual family member whose only fault is to live a life other than the life sanctioned by the family.
It pains me to admit it, as a grandmother, but I have to say, from where I sit, the laws limiting custody to natural parents except in very unusual circumstances are there for a very good reason.
