ABSTRACT
The Restatement of Law, Children and the Law, protects a child’s relationship with a ‘de facto parent’ – a person who has ‘established a bonded and dependent relationship with the child that is parental in nature’. De facto parent doctrines are part of a broader category of functional parent doctrines that extend parental rights to an individual who has developed a parent-child relationship and acted as a parent to the child. Application of the de facto parent doctrine depends on a conclusion that the person formed a parental relationship, and yet debate remains over whether the person is a parent or merely a third-party nonparent. This Essay examines the Restatement’s full-throated embrace of a de facto parent doctrine – an immensely important development—in the context of family law’s evolving treatment of functional parents. In the past, family law generally cast functional parents as nonparents …
NeJaime, Douglas, Parents in Fact (March 28, 2024), Yale Law School, Public Law Research Paper Forthcoming; 91 University of Chicago Law Review 513 (2024).
Leave a Reply