North Carolina Custody Laws for Unmarried Parents

If you share a child with a co-parent you aren’t married to, you may wonder how North Carolina custody laws work for unmarried parents. In North Carolina, unmarried parents have the same rights and obligations as married parents after the court has established the paternity of the child. However, the mother has sole custody rights until the child’s parents establish paternity. A North Carolina child custody lawyer can help you protect your child’s interests and your parental rights.

Does the Birth Mother Have Custody Rights of the Child Until Paternity Has Been Established?

When unmarried parents have a child, if the child’s birth certificate does not initially list the father’s name, the child’s birth mother has sole custody of the child until the father acknowledges his paternity or the court establishes paternity. A mother may seek to establish a man’s paternity over her child through court action, or a presumptive father can file a petition for custody and visitation if the mother rejects the man’s paternity and refuses visitation.

What Are the Different Types of Child Custody in North Carolina?

In North Carolina, child custody falls into two categories: legal and physical custody.

• Legal custody refers to a parent’s right to make decisions regarding their child’s upbringing, including medical care, education, and moral or religious instruction.
• Physical custody refers to a parent’s right to have the child in their physical care.

Courts also decide between sole and joint custody.

• Sole custody means that only one parent has physical or legal custody of a child.
• Joint custody means parents share physical and legal custody of their child.

However, even in a joint physical custody arrangement, the court may give one parent primary custody. This is typically the parent where the child stays most nights. This designation also affects decisions, such as where the child will enroll in public school or which parent may claim the child as a dependent for tax purposes.

In a joint legal custody arrangement, the parent of primary residence may have the right to make emergency decisions for the child or have the final say on child upbringing decisions if the parents cannot agree after good-faith discussions.

What Is the Most Common Custody Arrangement?

Courts prefer to establish a joint custody arrangement. Courts recognize that children thrive when they have both parents thoroughly involved. Courts may also prefer parenting time schedules that split overnight custody between parents roughly equally, although significant distances between parents’ homes may make equal parenting time schedules unworkable. When parents live too far apart for an equal parenting time arrangement, courts may grant the non-primary custodial parent parenting time lasting several weeks or months during school breaks.

However, courts may deviate from the typical joint custody when a family’s circumstances suggest that a joint custody arrangement will not serve the child’s best interests. These circumstances may include:

• A parent demonstrating an inability to care for a child, such as lack of stable housing or employment, drug or alcohol abuse, and inability to provide for a child’s physical and emotional needs
• Prior domestic violence or child abuse and neglect
• Prior incidents of a parent criticizing the other parent in front of their child or trying to sabotage the child’s relationship with their other parent
• Demonstrated inability to cooperate and compromise over child-rearing decisions

Where parents cannot collaborate on decisions regarding their child’s upbringing or one parent cannot provide a safe environment, a court may grant sole physical or legal custody to one parent.

Does the Mother Always Get Primary Custody of the Child?

Fathers may assume that courts grant mothers primary physical custody of children by default. However, North Carolina child custody law requires courts to take a gender-neutral approach, prohibiting any consideration of a parent’s or child’s gender when deciding on a custody arrangement. Instead, courts must consider factors such as each parent’s fitness to parent, their respective physical and mental health, the child’s medical needs, and the nature and quality of each parent’s relationship with the child.

Do I Need a Lawyer to File for Custody?

Although unmarried parents do not have to hire family law attorneys to file for a custody determination, they can best protect their child’s interest and their parental rights by hiring a lawyer. A lawyer can help an unmarried parent understand their rights and options, work with their child’s other parent or their counsel to negotiate a workable custody arrangement, and advocate on behalf of the parent if the court must resolve the custody dispute.

A lawyer can also help with related issues, such as enforcing the custody arrangement or parenting time schedule and seeking child support payments from the non-primary custody parent.

Can an Unmarried Parent Request Child Support from the Other Parent?

North Carolina law recognizes that every parent must financially support their children. Once an unmarried mother establishes paternity for her child, she can file a petition with the court to request child support payments from the child’s father.

Alternatively, a mother can file a child support petition against a presumptive father. During those child support proceedings, the court will likely order the presumptive father to submit to DNA testing to confirm his paternity. Although unmarried parents who continue to live together after their child’s birth may not need a child support order, parents can still seek custody and support orders to protect themselves if their relationship ends.

Contact a North Carolina Child Custody Lawyer

If you’re in a custody dispute as an unmarried parent, get experienced legal counsel and advocacy to protect your family’s rights and interests. Contact The Law Offices of John Drew Warlick, P.A. today for a free, no-obligation consultation with an experienced North Carolina child custody attorney to discuss your options as an unmarried parent.

Visit Our North Carolina Child Custody Law Offices