Dad Petitions Court For Visitation One Day A Week From 8 AM To 10 PM With A Toddler He's Never Met
His request raised major red flags.
Vaillery / Shutterstock Managing a custody battle is a harrowing experience, as family court is a complex system that doesn’t always center on the best interests of the children involved.
A single mom named Sunni shared her side of a custody situation, raising major red flags about her child’s father.
The father petitioned the court for one day a week of visitation from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m., but he has never met the toddler.
“Somebody tell me how much time your child’s other parent asked for in court,” Sunni said before describing the shocking request her child’s father had made of the New York family court.
“Our paternity test comes back in theory today,” she said. “My child’s alleged father, literally with his whole chest, asked for visitation on Mondays from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., pickup and drop-off at a neutral location.”
Sunni shared a crucial and telling detail about the father, declaring, “Keep in mind, he has never met this child.”
'He asked for 14 hours straight with a two-and-a-half-year-old who had never met him,' she said.
Not only is it alarming that he’d insert himself into a child’s life that he literally doesn’t know at all, [but] his sense of appropriate caregiving techniques isn’t at all aligned with what a 2-year-old needs.
A sleep coach named Ana shared her institutional knowledge of baby and toddler sleep habits, noting the different bedtimes for every age.
From 3 months old until 3 years old, a child’s bedtime should be between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Ana also noted that the more consistent parents are with a bedtime routine, the easier it gets, which this dad doesn’t seem to comprehend.
During her explanation of the custody case, Sunni shared that her child’s father “Set me on fire and sent a bloody pig’s head to my house, but [that’s] not part of this custody case,” a sentence which highlights how unjust the justice system can be.
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Sunni said he had plenty of opportunities to meet the child.
“He wants to keep his address confidential,” she said before revealing that he’s never responded to her asking him “time and time again if he wanted to meet the baby if he would like to be introduced to the baby.”
“His lawyer keeps stressing that he filed in September, but he had since September to meet the baby,” Sunni said.
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Thankfully, the courts have procedures in place to protect children in volatile custody disputes.
Yet there seem to be certain protections in place for situations like Sunni’s, as a Mental Health Educator named Antoinette Bashir explained.
She explained a bill that was passed in New York in 2022 that requires “A custody evaluator, be a psychologist, a psychiatrist, or a social worker, who has been trained through the New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence on the dynamics of abuse, including coercive control, psychological, financial, emotional, and all forms of child abuse, which include witnessing domestic violence.”
“They must take all of these into consideration when doing their investigation in determining what is in the best interest of a child,” Bashir said. “This should be very helpful in changing that status quo. It will amplify the voices of victims and their children and protect them from violence.”
Sunni is not wrong to think that 10 p.m. is way too late to keep a child awake. One can only hope she and her child get the support and care they need to stay safe.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture, and all things to do with the entertainment industry.