Legal Question in Family Law in Minnesota

These are tough questions. Let's start with the basics. First, if you receive any form of public assistance, you will be required to identify the father, and the county will then go to court and obtain a support order. This is the general rule. In cases of domestic abuse, you can request that the father not be contacted, but generally speaking you will be required to identify the father as a condition of obtaining public assistance.

Second, if you do not have public assistance, you are not necessarily required to notify the father of your pregnancy, although this would obviously mean that you are giving up any claim to child support, medical support, day care assistance, etc. Further, you must ask yourself whether depriving your child of his or her father will be in the child's best interests in the long term. Even if you do not notify the father of the pregnancy, but he suspects you are pregnant, or is aware of the pregnancy or of the birth of the child, he can later petition the court for custody, parenting time, etc.

Third, you do not have to give the child his last name. The child can be given your last name, although you will be asked to identify the father.

Finally, nothing requires the father to be present in his child's life, even if he is aware of the child. There are plenty of absentee parents among us, some by choice, others by circumstance,fate or for other reasons. After your child is born, until someone proceeds to court in a paternity or custody proceeding, the law presumes that you have sole legal and physical custody. The father does not automatically have any parental rights (to visitation or parenting time, for example), even if he signs a recognition of parentage.