Legal Question in Family Law in Washington

Re: Custody

Custody is broken down into two components: physical and legal. Physical custody deals with who has possession of the child at a given moment and thus controls what she eats, where she sleeps, etc. Legal custody deals with who makes education or medical decisions for the child, as well as other decisions that affect the child.

You have physical custody by virtue of the fact that your child is in your care. However, if I were you, given what you indicated the father now wants, I would immediately start a paternity action to ask the court to put in place child custody orders (called a Parenting Plan) as well as a child support order. You may be entitled to back support, which may be significant, depending upon the father's income.

Unless there are facts which would preclude the father from seeing the child, such as he is or lives with a sexual predator, or has been found to have committed domestic violence by a court, then the odds are that initially he will have limited visits which will eventually turn into a regular visitation schedule, depending upon where he lives in relation to you.

Unless there is seriously something wrong with you, since you've been the primary caretaker- or the sole caretaker of your daughter, and since she does not even know her father, I think the odds that a court will award him anything more than visitation are extremely low, at least based upon what you've said.

Still, it is the policy of the legislature and the courts to facilitate relations between all parents and children, and to that end, you ought to pursue this rather than avoid it, since it will happen anyway. At the same time, even though you've been taking care of your child on your own, unless you're a millionaire, I'd advise you to seek the child support and if you don't want it, put it toward your child's future needs (education for example).

Either way, you ought to consult with local attorneys and they can fill you in on what to expect after going over everything with you in detail. Certainly, they'll give you a much better idea of what to expect than I can here with limited information.

Re: Custody

I don't know from this statement whether paternity has been established (legally), but assuming it has, Whoever has the child with them if they are the parent has "custody." If you don't have a parenting plan/residential schedule you need to get one established and you should get a child support order during the same process. Generally, courts will award primary residence to the parent who has been the primary caregiver, unless there are factors that would support going the other way.