Group advocates for grandparents’ visitation rights

The saying in Texas has long been that it’s easier for grandparents to get custody than it is for them to get visitation of their grandchildren. But a statewide group of advocates is hoping to change that.

Supporters say House Bill 575, authored by state Rep. Harold Dutton Jr. (D-Houston), could help some grandparents gain access to grandchildren, even if it’s against the wishes of a parent.

Currently, in order for grandparents to gain visitation rights through the courts, certain conditions must be met. Among those conditions are one of the grandchildren’s parents must be dead, incarcerated, mentally incompetent or out of that child’s life. And under current law, a grandparent can sue for visitation, but still must prove that the child’s mental health or physical well being would be significantly affected without visitation. And grandparents have to have an expert – a psychologist, doctor or other experts – testify to prove their grandchildren would be adversely affected.

HB 575 would lower the legal standards required for grandparents that want to obtain access to grandchildren. The law would essentially make it so that one of the child’s parents wouldn’t have to be dead, locked up, estranged or incompetent for a grandparent to seek visitation. And the law removes the requirement that an “expert witness” testify. 

Karen Reed, a member of the Grandparents Rights Association of Texas, is one such grandparent advocating to change the law.

Reed lost her oldest daughter to suicide almost 5 years ago, but she didn’t expect to lose the ability to see or have a relationship with her grandson in the process.

Reed’s grandson will be 10 in May and, according to her, it has been almost 5 years since she has seen him, because of a family disagreement between her and his adoptive parents, Reed’s brother and sister-in-law. 

A year before Reed’s daughter died, her grandson went to live with Reed’s brother and sister-in-law, the godparents, because of her daughter’s declining mental health and struggle with alcohol abuse. 

“I had always, through my daughter or through my brother and sister-in-law, had access to my grandson,” Reed said. “I just always had access to him unless they were terribly busy.”

But Reed said she started to notice, even before her daughter passed, that her brother and sister-in-law were always busy when she wanted to see her grandson. 

She sends him birthday and Christmas gifts and also receives thank you notes from her grandson for the presents. But she hasn’t spoken to or seen him since the death of her daughter.

Reed doesn’t want to adopt or have parental rights of her grandson. She said she just wants to see him, to have a relationship with him. But under Texas law, there isn’t a right for that.

“People don’t think that someday I may never have access to my grandchildren; you just don’t think that that’s ever going to happen,” Reed said. 

Reed tried to take her brother and sister-in-law to court several years ago, but the judge threw it out of court because there was no basis for her case. Reed said that’s when she started thinking that maybe she had to help change the law. 

She started reading up on the current law and she started contacting her representatives. She also spoke in front of the House Juvenile Justice and Family Issues Committee two years ago and she’s preparing to do so again this year on behalf of HB 575.

As of Feb. 20, the bill has been referred to the House Juvenile Justice and Family Issues Committee and Texas lawmakers have until the end of their legislative session, May 27, to pass it into law.

“What this new bill would do is give us the right to go to court, to be heard before a judge, to have our case heard to see the reasoning why,” Reed said. “We aren’t trying to usurp parents’ rights. Representatives don’t want to take away a parent’s rights and we don’t either. We just want to be able to say that we deserve to be in a child’s life, we’ve not done anything to endanger or hurt them, where we shouldn’t be in their life. If it’s a matter between adults, don’t use a child to hurt. Don’t use a child as a tool against someone.”

Critics of the bill, like Mason Prewitt of the Texas Home School Coalition Association, say it would allow virtually any family to be sued.

“In summary, the bill expands exponentially the pool of families who can be sued under this law to include virtually every family in the state,” Prewitt said in a press release about the bill. “It then lowers the legal standards required for in-laws to obtain access to or possession of that family’s children.”

Reed said grandparents are integral to passing down information about their families as well as wisdom about life, but under current law, they’re treated like a nonentity.

“Growing up, grandparents were an integral part of our lives,” Reed said. “I think they’re very important because they tell grandkids things: ‘This is what your mom did growing up; this is how she was, she was funny, smart and had a great sense of humor;’ and I think they need to have that information passed down. But grandparents are being treated like a nonentity and we have so much to offer to our grandchildren, the wisdom of what we’ve seen and what we know.”