The Good and the Bad of Step-parent Adoption

Children who have only one parent usually dream of having two. Single parents who had help once but lost it due to separation, divorce, or perhaps the spouse's death, look forward to having the assistance of a new adult partner in their home. Parents who never had a spouse may look forward to the creation of a more traditional household. In all of this, the child wants to be part of the family, not a part who is connected to one grownup and not to the other. Children are very sensitive to the different status of other children in the household as well. Issues can be very complicated, such as:

'fairness' in the amount of funds available for support of each child,
the gifts or family relationships which may vary between step-children's extended families,
the problem of multiple last names,
different and often conflicting visitation schedules, and
different health care providers and health insurance programs.

Step-parent adoption is often the choice in these situations. It is more common in Georgia that a new husband adopts the children of his wife but, of course, it can be either parent who adopts. For the purposes of this article, the adoptive step-parent will be considered to be the husband and the legal parent will be the 'wife/existing mother.'

There are certain conditions which must exist for step-parent adoption to occur:

1. the legal father of the child must consent or be in a position where his parental rights can be terminated by court action,
2. if there is no legal father, then the possible biological father (or fathers) must have notice and an opportunity to legally form (or abandon) a relationship with the child
3. the child, if age 14 or older, must consent to the adoption,
4. the child's parent and the step-parent must be legally married,
5. the adopting person must have lived in Georgia for more than six months prior to filing the petition, and
6. the adopting person must be at least 10 years older than the child being adopted ¹

When a step-parent adoption is granted by a Court, the child's name can be newly designated in whole or in part as that chosen by the newly adopting parent and spouse. One of the most public reasons for step-parent adoption is to give the child the same last name as other members of the household (particularly if there are children of this new marriage). A new birth certificate is created which shows the child's new name and status.

By this adoption the former step-parent has moved into a legal position equivalent to that of the biological parent. This is one of the major problems which is often ignored by the happy couple considering the procedure. Most parents focus on getting the 'old' dad out of their lives. He may be delinquent in payment of child support, in jail, never around or (from their point of view) a dangerous influence on the child. These are 'negative' reasons for adoption. The parent and step-parent usually have positive reasons for adoption by often cutting out the prior parent is the driving force.

The result of the step-parent adoption is that the new husband and the child's biological mother are placed on equal footing regarding the child's support, custody and legal needs. In the even that a separation or divorce ever occur between the adoptive husband and the mother, there is no assurance that the custody would be placed by a court in the biological parent. There have been cases all over the state where the adopting step-parent has received custody in the event that the marriage fell apart, and the biological parent been ordered to pay child support. "Fair" is not the issue. Judges are directed to make their decision based on the best interests of the child, which may not lie with the biological parent.

There is a flipside to this issue. In the event that the marriage should not sustain itself after the adoption has occurred and the biological mother should receive or be conceded custody, then the adoptive father will be compelled to pay child support just as if he were the original biological parent. The obligations do not ever go back to the biological parent when such a marriage breaks down after a final adoption. The effect of the severance of parental rights which occurred in that adoption, legally disconnected the child from his original birth father.

That is one other issue which is often not considered by the couple when choosing to adopt. Although step-parents have no legal rights to control or consent for the child, they also have no legal obligations to support. The relationship is social and the step-parent's extended families can also be very close to the child. The child may have a set of Dad's family, Mom's family and the new step-Dad's family - all supportive of the child's needs. Even if the biological father is a disinterested and non-paying, his relatives may have connections to the child, and the child to them. The impact of adoption is to terminate the biological links and gorge new legal ones. Sometimes this is very hard on the child and on those biological relatives who have strived to maintain a connection.

After adoption the new dad has legal rights to consent to medical care, to enroll the child in school, and to take parental responsibility for acts done to and by the child. All of these are very valuable and important rights. Typically the child gains a tremendous amount in the process and the mother gets legal, financial and emotional support as a parent. But just as the adoptive step-parent is making a serious commitment, so is the biological parent who allows the adoption - she should be very aware of the risks which co-exist inside the benefits.

¹ Adults can be adopted in a much more simple procedure, however that is not in the scope of this article.

Return to Top