Regrettably, I have read that a grandparent has no more rights in respect of a grandchild than the man in the street.

This saddens me deeply and I know if it was a descission that would benefit a child, then grandparents all the way.

What do you think?
Most of my friends lived with their grandparents due to failed mariages and are very successful in life.

sad thing is that even if the parents are really ****py parents they have rights above the grandparents.

But that's the same story that after a divorce, a mother can get away with a LOT before the court awards the baby/child to the father.

Personally I think that there shouldn't be set rules on this but a judge and a QUALIFIED councillor should take each case on merit and decide from there.

Just because people are grandparents doesn't make them good people. Shouldn't the parents have the right to decide who gets to be around their kids? My parents are very racist, toxic people but live in a nice home and would look upstanding to anyone outside of the family. I would fight tooth and nail if they tried to get some sort of visitation with my kids.

I think that they should have some kind of rights to their grandchildren. If something is wrong with the grandparents, then they could be proven unfit, just as a mother or father can be.

Ok I wasn'tsaying that grandparents are better then parents BUT the problem is that if parents are BAD parents they still have all the rights.

Why should I have to go to court to prove that someone should not be around my children? I am their parent. That is my decision.

What I think dad2b was trying to say is that someone else other than the parents should decide if the parents themselves are able to take care of the child.

I'm just saying that the parents should have the say on whether or not the grandparents should have access to the children. As far as I'm concerned, the grandparents are not blessed with any rights to them just because they had sex with each other a generation prior.

Well, my daughter in law was taken to court by her ex-mother in law and the woman got joint custody of the child. So, I guess it all depends on what expense the person is willing to go to and how good the attorneys are representing each side.

I also support the idea that grandparents should not have any rights regarding the raise of their grandchildren. I mean they had the possibility of raising their own children, so why should they interfere with the education of their grandchildren? Of course they can help the actual parents but nothing more..