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Question from JustryinhardNov-2
My 20 year old daughter and her 17 year old minor boyfriend have a 3 month old child together, they are not married and the father of the baby (who is 17) left them.  He is telling her that he can come and take the child away from her at anytime, whenever he wants.  Since they are not married and he is a minor, does he have any rights to take or keep the child from the mother (my daughter)?
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Fallen Nov-3 78959.2
Why would anyone be listening to a teenager over a legal matter?  As a practical matter, what he *can* do is in theory endless.  Would she just let him in the house or let him take the kid?  Unlikely.

They're being married and his being a minor are both irrelevant to any legal issue.  You don't bother to mention whether paternity has formally been established or whether either has been to family court to address custody, but I presume at least the latter hasn't happened (otherwise you'd be telling me there's a court order saying X).  

Even if paternity has formally been established but there's no custody order in place, it's not as though cops would help him if he called to say "she won't let me have my baby".   They'd tell him to go to family court and get an order.  (That said, if paternity has been established and there's no court order on custody, neither of them technically has any more legal rights than the other.  Of course, in these matters, possession is truly 9/10ths of the law absent a court order.)

Tell your daughter that she needs to petition the family court to address the issue of custody and seek child support (and perhaps paternity, if that hasn't happened). 
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