On Your Own; Your Legal Right @ Eighteen On Your Own formatted final version | Page 68

Children
Both legal parents are responsible for providing financially for their child,
even if the parents are not married. If a baby’s birth mother is married,
the law will assume the husband is her child’s legal father. If a mother is
unmarried, the mother will be considered the sole legal guardian until a
legal order establishes that the father is the child’s parent. Listing the
father’s name on the birth certificate does not establish parentage.
Unmarried parents can establish a child’s father by signing a Voluntary
Acknowledgement Form and filing it with the Vermont Department of
Health. Both parents must sign the form. Signing the form means that
either parent may seek rights and responsibilities or ask for parent-child
contact, and both parents have a legal duty to financially support the child.
You can also establish parentage by filing a parentage case in family court.
Being a parent is more of a responsibility than a right. If you cannot meet
your responsibility to your child and place your child in circumstances that
jeopardize the child’s health or welfare, the law permits the state to
remove your child from your home. This law applies to parents of all ages.
Divorce
To end a marriage, you must get a divorce. To get a divorce, you must file
for divorce in the family court. To file, one of you must have been a
resident of Vermont for at least six months. Before the court will hold a
final divorce hearing, one of you must have lived continuously in Vermont
for at least a year.
There are several legal grounds for a divorce, but the most common is “no
fault,” that is, living separate and apart for at least six consecutive months,
without any likelihood you will get back together. Once one of you files for
divorce, there is usually an automatic order that essentially preserves
circumstances as they are—so you can’t sell property, move out of state
with your children, remove your partner or children from your medical
insurance policy, and so forth—until you and your partner agree on what
to do or the court makes an order about those things.
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