Legal Question in Family Law in Rhode Island
legal stranger?
My husband has a 5 year old daughter. The mother throws a fit any time I'm alone babysitting the daughter or if I take her to get her hair cut, ect. She calls me a ''legal stranger''. I'm married to the father and love her like me own, do I have any legal rights? She says I don't have the right to do anything ''motherly'' and she's mad because the child has said I'm more like a ''real mother'' then a step-mother to her.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: legal stranger?
Unfortunately you do not have any legal rights with respect to a girl who is not your natural daughter and is not adopted by you. Absent any other facts you do not have any legal rights with respect to this child. However, what this mother has a problem with is not with your legal right to do anything but with her jealousy regarding how the daughter sees you.
By the same token, without a court order prohibiting you from having any contact with this little girl, the mother cannot deprive you of contact with your step-daughter if it is during time that your husband has visitation with this little girl. As a father, your husband has the right to allow you to do motherly things and to help care for the child if he wants to. That is his legal right.
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