Can an unwed father who has never paid child support and has not been in the child's life get custody?

Answer 1

That would be very unlikely since he has not yet established paternity and so he has no parental rights. Generally, if the parents are unmarried the mother has sole custody and control in most states until the father can establish his paternity. Remember, a child's mother can always be identified by medical records. Since the father didn't give birth and he was not legally married at the time of the birth he can establish his paternity through a DNA test. A paternity test can be arranged through the court. Once paternity is established in court, the father can request visitations or custody through the court. If the mother retains physical custody the court will issue a child support order.

In this case, the father has no prior history of involvement in the child's life. In order to obtain custody the father would need to provide compelling evidence to the court that the mother is unfit. He doesn't have much going in his favor since in other comments that were removed to the discussion page, he was eighteen and the mother was fourteen when she became pregnant. He ignored the situation and later married someone else. Then he had no contact with the child nor did he support him. He would need to prove extraordinary circumstances to convince a judge to take that child away from her mother.

In this case the mother should file a request to establish paternity at the local family court and request a child support order. The court will likely issue a visitation order at the same time.