Having a case before the court can be stressful and intimidating – especially when the terms used by the court don’t match the common terms used every day by the community outside the courthouse.  Perhaps some of the more confusing terms that parties deal with when they are seeking to establish child support are the many different terms for “Father” used in the court system. Depending on the nature of the case, parties may hear the party they refer to as the “Father” referred to as the “Acknowledged Father,” “Affiliated Father,” “Alleged Father,” “Genetic Father,” “Presumed Father,” “Putative Father,” and  “Legal Father” by the court or court staff.  All the while, the court or court staff simply refer to a child’s mother as “mother” during a child support or custody and parenting time proceeding.  What is the purpose behind having so many different names for “father”?

When a child is born — absent a child being dropped off anonymously to a safe haven drop off spot — doctors know for certain who the child’s mother is, and it is easy to quickly put that information on the child’s birth certificate.  However, it is not always known right away with certainty who the child’s father is — or the person thought to be the father and listed on the birth certificate may turn out to not be the father at all.  As a child support proceeding progresses through the court system, the court has to address the issue of paternity – who is the father of the child – so that child support and parenting time can be ordered appropriately.

Depending on the nature of the proceedings before the court, the terms the court uses for “Father” may vary. Without getting into specific statutes and case law, the basic meanings behind the most common different terms that may be used in a court proceeding to describe a father in a case are:

• Acknowledged Father ­— a man who has affirmatively held himself out to be the child’s father by signing an Affidavit of Parentage.

• Affiliated Father — a man who has been determined by the court to be the child’s father.

• Alleged Father — a man who by his actions could have fathered the child.

• Genetic Father — a man whose paternity has been determined through specific genetic testing outlined by law.

• Legal Father — a man legally determined to be the father of the child.  This could be due to the child being born while the father was married to the mother so that he is presumed by law to be the legal father, by the father and mother signing an Affidavit of Parentage establishing the man as father, or by a court entering an order determining that the man is the child’s father.

• Presumed Father — a man who is presumed to be the father of the child because he was married to the child’s mother at the time the child was conceived or at the time the child was born.

• Putative Father — a man reputed, supposed, or alleged to be the biological father of a child.

The court system has these multiple different legal definitions for “Father” to help keep things clear in the court record as to whether or not the party referred to as the father in the proceedings has been determined to be the child’s biological and/or legal father.  These different names for father during a court proceeding are important for ensuring that child support and parenting time is ordered as to the appropriate person according to law.  However, it is always important to remember that a father by any other name in court is still “dad” to the child who loves him unconditionally – no matter how he may legally be defined during the life of a child support case.

If you have questions about the FOC that you think would be helpful to address in future columns, please send them to the FOC email address:  foc@cassco.org

Sarah Mathews is the deputy Friend of the Court and the Cass County Friend of the Court.