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Journal Article In 1994, the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed an order dissolving the adoption of "Baby Richard" and returning the child to his biological parents after 3 1/2 years with an adoptive family. This decision prompted the Illinois General Assembly to make significant changes to the State's adoption laws. In an effort to secure the finality of adoptions, the legislature promulgated several new burdens on putative fathers. The author examines the problems faced by courts and legislatures across the United States in addressing the plight of thwarted putative fathers, analyzes the case and the new…
Brief
Wonderful Ways to Love a Teen is a handbook of tools to guide you in the art of relating to your teenager. Even when your parent/teen relationship appears hopelessly beyond repair, you can follow its suggestions to help you rebuild a loving bond. (Author abstract)
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Journal Article Although it is generally assumed that fathers are absent from the lives of children being raised on AFDC, evidence from a case-control study in Worcester, Massachusetts, suggests that there is considerable father-child contact. Participants in the study included 220 sheltered homeless women and 216 low-income housed women and their dependent children. The women were interviewed about the father of each child, the physical and mental health of each child, education, support networks, and custody. The children also were asked about their social networks. Twenty percent of the fathers paid child…
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Journal Article To further the understanding of the determinants of fathering, the parenting of 64 fathers of first-born male toddlers was observed at home at four ages across the second and third years of life (15, 21, 27, and 33 months). Four qualitative measures of fathering were derived from the observational data. Hierarchical linear regression models were used to assess the association(s) between these fathering behaviors and variables representing three broad domains of influence on parenting (parent characteristics, social-contextual factors, and child characteristics), as well as social economic…
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Journal Article This article describes the court case in which the Kansas Supreme Court addresses the stepparent adoption provision of the Kansas Adoption and Relinquishment Act. The court for this case held that the statute will be strictly interpreted in favor of the birth father who was in danger of having his parental rights forfeited when the issue was whether he failed or refused to fulfill his parental obligations. The court for this case reversed the district court order granting the adoption by the stepfather. The court granted significant protection in the stepparent adoption to the father who…
