Why Is Establishing Parentage Important?
Establishing parentage means obtaining a court order or signing an official Declaration of Paternity that says who the legal parents of a child are. For example, if the parents of a child were not married when the mother became pregnant or when the child was born, the child does not have a legal father until parentage is established. So even if a father can prove he is the biological father of a child, if he was never married to the mother, he does not legally have any rights or responsibilities for the child. This means parentage must be established legally.
When a child is born out of wedlock or without the benefit of their parents being married, there are always issues regarding child custody, child visitation time, and child support. Determining whether someone has legal rights as a father to a minor child, as well as the protection of the rights of the mother and child, are often delicate situations.
The parentage statutes provide methods of establishing parentage for parents who were not married at the time of their child’s birth. The courts in California may also apply the common law of de facto parentage, which provides a means for someone who has fulfilled a parental role to a child (without a biological or adoptive relationship to the child) to establish a parental relationship. The de facto parentage laws may benefit same-sex couples because both members of a same-sex couple cannot be the biological parent of any children born to either of them, and the second person filling the parental role may not always establish a recognized legal relationship with the child through adoption.