If your pregnant daughter will not be marrying her child's father, help her create a written parenting agreement. The parenting agreement can be general or can cover specific scenarios in great detail, but it should at least describe how your daughter and the baby's father will meet their parental responsibilities.
How will they take care of the child's needs: medical, psychological, educational, physical, social, and spiritual?
Who will make decisions about daily life and about large important issues?
How will they make sure that each parent spends time with the child?
The goal of writing a parenting agreement is to reduce conflict between your daughter and the baby's father and to help the child have a good relationship with both parents. "Building a Parenting Agreement That Works" (by Mimi Lyster Zemmelman) has lots of good information (even though it is written mostly for parents that are divorcing) and has good templates in the back of the book.
You may also find it helpful to read the chapter "Where does the baby's father belong in all of this?" in our book "How To Survive Your Teen's Pregnancy".
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2 comments:
Is a parenting agreement a legal document, or does it need to be done through a lawyer, etc? What's to say that the father (if he's one of those guys who isn't too happy about the pregnancy) isn't going to simply ignore the agreement?
Hello CHattin, thanks for posting a comment!
A parenting agreement can become a legal document if necessary. If you wish the parenting agreement to become legally enforceable, yes you will need to have a family-law lawyer review it and then have a judge rule on it.
State courts are overwhelmed and are often having parents try to resolve custody and visitation issues outside of court first (usually via mediation). But having a written parenting agreement that the parents have discussed is a good place to begin mediation.
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