If you are a Tennessee father, your top concerns likely involve the health, safety and welfare of your children. Sometimes, however, you may feel that the law does not adequately protect your rights, especially if you are not married to your children’s mother. The fathers’ rights movement seeks to address and remedy these issues.
Many women, as well as men, participate in the fathers’ rights movement, especially women who are the second wives of divorced fathers. While fathers’ rights have been described as a social movement, many people look upon it as a civil rights issue since some state laws tend to discriminate against fathers, especially unwed fathers.
Fathers’ rights inclusions
FindLaw explains that fathers’ rights can and often do include all of the following:
- Having a say about decisions regarding abortion, adoption, family planning and child rearing
- Establishing paternity of children when not married to their mother
- Receiving full and/or joint custody of the children after a divorce if the situation calls for it
- Receiving unimpeded parenting time with children after a divorce
- Receiving parental leave for child rearing purposes and/or medical emergencies
- Having access to information about the children, such as school and medical records
Proper motives
It goes without saying that you should have the proper motives when you seek to establish and/or assert your parental rights as a father. You should do so only in the best interests of your children, not because you want to “get back” at their mother or cause her to suffer.
While you should not consider this information as legal advice, it can help you better understand fathers’ rights what all they entail.
