The above is a question that many non-custodial parents find themselves asking when they are considering allowing a stepparent adoption for their biological child who resides with the custodial parent. For many non-custodial parents child support is a large factor when deciding to allow a stepparent adoption. Child support can be extremely expensive, and sending off such a huge check every month for a child that the non-custodial parent never sees, for one reason or another, can get the non-custodial parent wondering why he or she is paying so much for a child who never visits, or who has bonded to someone else?

While child support obligations would cease for the non-custodial parent once the adoption is completed, it is important for the non-custodial parent to know that any child support debt that has been accrued while the non-custodial parent was still the legal parent of the child, will remain the debt of the non-custodial parent, even after the adoption has been finalized. What exactly does that mean? It means that if you fell behind in your child support payments while the child was still legally yours, you will still have to pay off your debt after the adoption has been completed.

Many non-custodial parents get duped into signing a stepparent adoption agreement, under the pretense that the custodial parent will forgive any past due child support, as long as the non-custodial parent will agree to terminate his or her parental rights. It is important for the non-custodial parents out there to know that custodial parents do not have this power! Only the state can forgive past due child support amounts, and once they get involved in collecting past due accounts, like pulling money directly out of paychecks, seizing tax refunds, and so forth, they tend to forgive the debts just short of never. The state has to spend its own money in an effort to collect the child support, and very rarely is the state going to decide that it would simply rather be out the money that it has already spent, than to recoup what it can.

While child support can be, and most likely will be, a factor when deciding if stepparent adoption is right for you as a non-custodial parent, it should never be the deciding factor. Financial situations change, and child support can be lowered as well as raised throughout the life of the child. Just because a payment is high now, does not mean that it will always remain that high. Wages and earning will change throughout the years as well, and non-custodial parents can find themselves with their own foot planted squarely in their own rear for giving up on their child due to financial reasons, only to have their financial situation change in the future.

Be wary of a custodial parent who paints a stepparent adoption as the saving grace for all involved. Stepparent adoptions, just like other adoptions, are based on loss, and that loss is going to be felt by all involved, including and especially by the child. While stepparent adoptions can help to stabilize life for the child, giving him or her two parents under one roof to call mom and dad, it does not change the fact that the child still has another biological parent out there who is not involved in his or her life. Stepparent adoptions are an answer to some divorce situations; they are by no means THE answer.

If you a non-custodial parent who is considering a stepparent adoption for your child, please make sure that you take the time to figure out what the adoption will, and will not fix in your situation. If you are looking into a stepparent adoption to rid yourself of a child support payment that is just too high for you to meet each month, and you are already behind in your payments, then the adoption will do nothing more than terminate any legal say that you have towards your child and how he or she is raised, it will not take away your support obligations until you have caught up to what was owed prior to the adoption.

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