Unfortunately, current law is still such that children can only have two legal and two custodial parents. In multi-parenting, there are more than two parents. Sometimes there are three parents (such as a female couple and a single father) or four parents (such as a male couple and a female couple) who want a child together. You can come up with interesting constructions on how to “divide” parenthood and custody so that there is as much equal parenting as possible.
Back in 2016, the special State Commission on Recalibrating Parenthood advised the Cabinet to amend the law so that children can legally have three or four parents under certain conditions. Unfortunately, this law is still not through.
In this blog, we provide 5 tips on how to deal with this when entering into a multiple co-parenting/intentional multi-parenting agreement.
1. Suppose there is a female couple and a male couple, then the choice can be made to still consider the father who is not the biological father of the child as the legal parent. Also, this father (together with the biological and legal mother) can have parental custody of the child. You can apply for joint parental custody here. You can further choose, for example, to have the co-mother declare the child at birth.
2. Determine how you want to handle the parental authority in practice. You can include in an agreement that all parents will always behave among themselves as if the joint custody lies with all four parents. Note: Outwardly (for example, when registering a child at school) this will not apply; the school will be satisfied with the consent of the two parents with actual custody.
3. Agree on what you want to do when the new legislation on parental authority and legal parenthood does pass. You can agree that for that case you intend to give custody and legal parenthood to all four parents. At that time you can -if you choose the construction as mentioned in point 1- consider the biological father as the legal father.
4. State explicitly that the best interests of the child always come first. Sometimes it is difficult to get along with two parents, let alone four. If you have properly discussed with each other that you will always put the best interests of the child above your own interests, this may save some hassle.
5. Pay attention to the inheritance consequences. A child can only inherit from a legal parent. The Uiteen inheritance law specialists can advise you about this.
Want to know more? Please contact Janneke Mulder.