All parents have certain rights when it comes to their children, including unmarried fathers. In the past, courts typically favored mothers when it came to divorce and child custody battles, but as parental roles have modernized, the Illinois court system now makes decisions in the best interests of the child. The court typically leans toward keeping both parents in the child’s life and maintaining their parent-child relationships, unless one proves to be a danger to the child in some way.
As a parent, your ability to spend time with your child may seem like a given, rather than a legal right. While all parents are granted these rights at the child’s birth, they are only enforceable to those who are legally recognized as the child’s father. For unmarried fathers, the need to have your role as a father legally established may not seem urgent, though the failure to do so can actually lead to legal, financial, and emotional issues as time goes on. That is why it is important to understand what paternity means from a legal standpoint for both the child and his or her father.
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