The fact that a parent remarries does not, of itself, require any change in the custody of a child. After a divorce, parents are free to form new relationships. As long as that new relationship does not adversely affect a child, the court is unlike to make a change in custody.
Too often, a parent, who did not like a child custody or visitation ruling in one state, would take the child to another state. In the new state, the parent could seek a new custody order or simply avoid the reach of the other parent's attempts to have the custody order of the first state enforced in the second state. To combat these problems the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act was drafted. In 1997, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws drafted the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA) to address issues that arose from the application of Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act. The UCCJEA provides interstate enforcement procedures for child custody and visitation orders.
The changing nature of marital and other domestic relations in the United States, and concurrent changes in public attitudes toward such things as the status of children born outside of marriage, have been accompanied by an evolution in the manner in which the legal system treats a number of issues of family law. One group of these issues concerns the right of a putative father, that is, a man who is supposed or reputed to be the biological father of a child born to a woman to whom he is not married, or who claims to be the father of such a child, to assert his entitlement to custody of or visitation rights with the child or children who are subject to his claim of fatherhood.
Wage withholding is a method of paying child support by having the obligation taken directly out of the parent's pay by the employer. Some parents voluntarily agree to wage withholding; others have it imposed upon them by a court.
Only in very rare situations will a court terminate a parent's rights of visitation. The standard used by courts in reaching the decision to terminate visitation is whether visitation would endanger the child. In most cases, the decision is in the discretion of the court.
