If you are going through a divorce that involves children – or you otherwise have parenting or child support concerns – you’re going through a very trying time. If you’re a mom, you face your own unique concerns, and ensuring that your parental rights are well protected is critical. An important point to keep in mind is that you are not alone – an experienced moms’ rights divorce attorney in Chicago can help.
It used to be that mothers almost routinely became the primary custodial parents, and the kids had a standard visitation schedule with their fathers. This was a function of society at the time, and the philosophy backing it up was called the tender years doctrine (or the maternal presumption) – meaning that children, during their tender years – needed their mothers first and foremost. This kind of thinking has fallen by the wayside, which leaves many mothers concerned regarding how to protect their parental rights regarding child custody, which is referred to as entry of an allocation judgment for parenting time and parental responsibility in Illinois.
If you go before the court regarding a parenting issue, its decisions are always focused on what it considers the best interests of your children. Custody is not a term used in Illinois any longer but instead is an entry of an allocation judgment that incorporates both parenting time and decision making. Illinois is divided into what used to be called legal custody (now called parental responsibilities) – which relates to who makes important decisions on behalf of the children – and what used to be called physical custody (now called parenting time) – which relates to how you and your ex split your time with your shared children.
Decision making as it relates to parenting issues can be either sole or joint, and sole decision-making means that one parent takes on the parental responsibilities to make the major decisions about medical, religion, extracurricular and education. While joint decision-making means that parents share in the decision-making process.
In the past, fathers typically did not become the primary custodial parents unless they could prove that the mother was unfit in some capacity, but those days are gone.
If you’re a mother who has parenting concerns, the accomplished moms’ rights divorce attorneys at WARD FAMILY LAW in Chicago have the brand of focused attention to mothers’ rights that you are looking for. For more information about what we can do to help you, please don’t wait to contact us today.
I knew we were going to have a custody battle from day one. It was going to be mean and messy and expensive and long. I did not know if I could handle it but I had to do it for my kids. Jennifer litigated my case to the end - we had an attorney for the kids, we had psych evaluations, we had reports for the Judge, we had court date after court date. She was strategic, smart, planned well ahead, and kept on top of everything. Thanks to her and her legal eagles my kids are in a…
We were not married but had two kids and we were both listed as the parents on the birth certificates. What I did not know at the time was that the birth certificate (for parents who are not married) does not count in Chicago! You have to have a paternity test or have signed some special paperwork at the hospital that we did not know about at the time. Ward Family Law prepared the court filings so that we could establish our parental rights. Thank you!
At the end of my divorce case I realized that the paperwork required us to provide the court with a Qualified domestic relations order (QDRO) in order for our retirement and investment accounts to be divided as we had agreed. The problem was that we did not have them done in time. Jennifer and her team stepped in and handled contacting the plan administrators, completing the draft QDROs, submitting them for pre-approval of everyone and then presenting them to the court. While we had hoped this was super easy there were a lot of steps and a lot of things…
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