Little Man’s Law

• If you don’t have time to read this petition, sign the petition if you loved a grandparent.

Did you have a special grandparent?  Odds are yes.  According to Dr. Karl Pillemer of Cornell University, “Research shows that as many as 9 out of 10 adult grandchildren feel their grandparents influenced their values and behaviors. Grandparents transmit to their grandchildren the values and norms of social order.”

• If you want to know my personal story:

My husband & I are asking for your help.  Specifically, for our situation with Mini-Man (Patrick) but also for all the thousands of grandparents nationwide we have come to realize are going through the same or similar thing.  Many grandparents we know are actually afraid of their own children, so they are being financially extorted or emotionally abused.  If they don’t give, they don’t get…get time with their grandchildren.  Cut off.  With no recourse.  We are looking for solid recourse for grandparents who have demonstrated significant, consistent, and meaningful time with their grandchildren.  We are petitioning to tighten up the law with regards to reasonable, consistent and meaningful placement times between the grandparents and grandchildren who have already developed a bond.  This protects the children’s mental health.  We are not looking to take away any parental rights.

Anyone that knows us, knows that we have spent the last two years doing everything and anything for Mini-Man.  He is the light of our lives and the feeling is mutual.  We are his world.  More than that, we have been consistent in his life.  With teenage parents that were together but worked crazy hours.  Now with parents that have split and immediately started new relationships (one set already engaged in just a matter of months).  New significant others have entered the picture, so Nana & Papa need to exit stage left…or so they think.  Going as far as to say we are unfit and offering twice monthly supervised (at their apartment) visitation.  I won’t go any further into that…anyone that knows us or follows Mini-Man knows how utterly ludicrous that is. 

• What this petition is for:

This is not a request for Grandparent’s rights (even though they deserve them).  This is also not a request to take away any rights of parents.  Parents, unless found unfit, should retain parental rights. Grandparents have been fighting for grandparent rights for years with some wins and some loses, but what they really should have been fighting for is the children’s rights.  To fight for promoting normalcy for children within a reasonable and prudent standard of care during visitations.  Rights to continue to visit with their grandparents.  Grandparents who have developed a parent-child relationship with the grandchild by spending significant, meaningful time, should not be alienated by their own children using their children as pawns.  This tends to happen when a non-nuclear family separates and new significant others enter the picture.  Controlling, manipulative, significant others are often the people who try to separate their new love interest from the grandparents and take over as the new step-mom/dad.  This is absolutely heart breaking to the grandparents, but this Petition is for the children.   This is a request for legislators to legalize rights for our Grandbabies.  Our little people should have rights too and we don’t have anyone fighting for their mental health.  Rights the grandparents will have to petition the courts to uphold.  Our court system needs tighter laws so they can protect the children from detachment issues. Littles don’t have a voice yet. They can’t pick up the phone and call nana & papa.  They sometimes can’t even ask to go visit.  They don’t understand what is happening and why people they love just disappear.  But just because they don’t understand it doesn’t mean the separation anxiety isn’t taking place.  Please help us give them a voice.  A voice to help them retain a meaningful relationship with their nanas & papas. Littles need the right to continue significant, meaningful visitation with nanas & papas. 

There has been much research done on the impact of parent-child separation.  The US Census of 2000 found that 2.4 million grandparents have responsibility for their grandchildren.  They have made numerous sacrifices in order to provide a better life for their grandchildren.  These are parent-child relationships too.  Grandparents are demanding legal rights to our grandchildren nationwide now, whether the child is in custody of the parent or the state.  We need to love, protect, and nurture our grandchildren.   Our children's children are our children. When they are taken away from us, it feels like death to the grandparent.  Imagine what it feels like to the child.  The child with no understanding. The child with no voice.  The child with no rights.

In these recent times, more and more grandparents are actually raising their grandchildren.   That alone, proves how important grandparents are in their grandchildren's lives.  In addition, some of children's happiest childhood memories happen at their grandparents’ home.

Recently there has been concern for the children separated from their parents at the border.  We are fighting for them.  Can’t we fight for our own children too?  They are going through similar detachments, which are detrimental to their development and can lead to abandonment issues as adults.  The trauma that children experience when undergoing long-term separation from their parents is extremely detrimental to the child’s development, according to a new University of Michigan report that highlights the implications of family separation on young children.

“We know very young children who are exposed to this type of trauma go on to not develop their speech, not develop their language, not develop their gross and fine motor skills, and wind up with developmental delays,” says Dr. Colleen Kraft, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The typical stress response for human beings is to have increased levels of cortisol and other "flight or fight" hormones that normally helps to protect us from a dangerous situation, she said, but "in the instance where children are separated from their parents, the one buffer they have against these fight or flight chemicals is gone."

"And so these children are on red alert all the time and they're not able to buffer these hormones," Kraft said. "What this can do is disrupt the synapses and the neurological connections that are part of the developing brain."

This type of trauma can lead to lasting harm that can be very difficult for children to recover from.

Grandparents should have the right to petition for the legal rights of their grandchildren to maintain reasonable, consistent and meaningful placement times with their grandparents.

Protect all the children in our nation. Grandparents are the first line of defense with children.  They help secure the well-being of the child.  The majority of grandparents have their grandchildren's best interest in mind at all times.  Therefore, this country needs to recognize the severity of the damages that can be caused here by isolating children from the grandparents, and then make legal changes accordingly.  Child health experts have likened child/parent separation to child abuse.  Please stop the abuse.

Sign my petition for all grandchildren, and especially abused and neglected ones. AND PLEASE SHARE, for all the other children that need us now.  If we do not make the proper changes, we are all guilty of turning a blind eye, and more children are going to continue to suffer, and more relationships between grandparents and grandchildren severed. There is strength in numbers.