Legal Question in Family Law in Texas
Our daughter is the custodial parent of a 5 year old. She is going to be hospitalized (emotional/mental issues) tomorrow. We don't know anything about length of stay,etc. They live with us and we have been supervising during the first phase of 3 phased, court-ordered visitations. It has taken the father one year to complete the first phase (almost there). He comes for awhile, then stops...sporadic at best. Never calls to talk to her, never sends letters during these times; just doesn't show up & then there he'll be. He was ordered to pay child support but isn't, at this time. He's paid for 2 months (out of 13). My question is: do we have to tell him that his daughter's mother is in the hospital?
1 Answer from Attorneys
You can say that she's stepped away for a little while.
Hopefully he won't be smart enough to ask a follow up question.
You are not lying by the answer that I gave you.
However, kids say the darnest things!
I assume the 5 year old might say something so be careful what you tell her.
When this is all over you might want to consider talking to a family law attorney again about being added as an additional conservator of this child in case anything ever happens to the mother then as a grandparent you would have legal standing to custody of this child. Of course, your daughter would have to be in agreement 100% for this to work. It's unusual but I've done it for families when one parent was very ill & the other parent was irresponsible. The ill parent wanted to make sure the irresponsible parent could never get legal custody of the minor child & by adding a 3rd conservator is pretty much assured that if mom died then the non-parent conservator would be able to step into mom's shoes.
Also, dad is in contempt of court for not paying child support.
It's just a thought.
Good luck!
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