I’m 14 and my mom is making me live with my dad. How do I stop this?
I’m 14 and my mom is making me live with my dad and is giving him custody. What can I do to prevent this from happening?
I’m a divorce and family lawyer, and I see this question arise frequently.
If you don’t want to live with your father for the wrong reasons, give both your dad and yourself a break, and live with Dad. You know what I mean; if you don’t want to live with Dad because he has reasonable, sensible rules and expectations for your protection and benefit, you’re only hurting yourself if you try to avoid being held to high standards.
If Mom is too permissive, too hands-off, lets you get away with murder, doesn’t hold you accountable, then living with her is likely going to ruin you.
What Randy Pausch said has stuck with me ever since I heard it: “Your critics are the ones telling you they still love you and care. Worry when you do something badly and nobody bothers to tell you.”
If you don’t want to live with your mom because she’s abusive and neglectful, I wouldn’t go tell Dad first. Instead, I would try to find a lawyer who would help me. Be prepared to spend a very long time trying to find such a lawyer. They exist, but they are few and are thus hard to find.
Why not tell Dad about the abuse and/or neglect first? It’s a little complicated, but I’ll try to make it clear.
First, with few exceptions, courts are biased against fathers when it comes to deciding which parent with whom a child will live. Fathers who try to get custody are often believed by many courts as motivated only by self-interest, not by the best interest of their child or children.
Fathers who seek sole or even joint custody of their children are often portrayed as being motivated by anything but honest, virtuous objectives. Instead, they are often accused of/presumed as being motivated by a desire to avoid paying child support or a desire to hurt the mother emotionally by cutting the children off from her.
It is hard for some judges to believe fathers seek custody to protect the child from an abusive or neglectful mother because it’s hard for the court to believe the mother is abusive or neglectful in the first place. It is hard for some judges to believe that awarding to fit parents the joint equal physical custody of their children is best for the children. Far too many judges perceive the “safe bet” when making the child custody award as being: award custody of the children to Mom.
And so if your dad were to be the one to break the news to the court that you told Dad mom is abusive and/or neglectful, your dad’s claims would immediately be met with skepticism, if not scorn. Both your mother and the court would likely accuse your dad of lying for self-serving purposes, not for the purpose of protecting you and fostering your welfare.
So you may ask why you should not simply call child protective services and the police by yourself. Why not make these reports directly to child protective services and the police by yourself? Why get a lawyer to help you with this? These are good questions.
If you make abuse and/or neglect reports against your mother directly to child protective services and/or to the police, the risk is too great that child protective services and/or the police will 1) believe that Dad put you up to it anyway; and 2) write you off as not credible, regardless of whether they believe your dad put you up to making the abuse and/or neglect reports to them (after all, you’re “just a kid”).
And so it is my opinion that if you can find an attorney to help you, it is better to get an attorney—someone who knows how child protective services, the police, and the courts function and “dysfunction”—to help you navigate the system successfully by helping you avoid making costly, even irreparable, mistakes in your interactions with the system.
Utah Family Law, LC | divorceutah.com | 801-466-9277
Tags: best interest of child, child custody, Children in Divorce, co-parenting, custody, divorce, parents, sole custody