What is more rights? Custody is determined by the state but guardianship is the same all over. The importance of adoption is permancy for the child and guarantees your rights. It is true the parents would need to go to court to regain custody and you may be right that the parents will not come back. Many times the bio gets a new bf who realizes bio can get money from state so they seek custody. I would recommend adoption to avoid future problems. The actual adoption should not cost a great deal. It gets expensive when parent contests adoption and it drags through the courts. You've come this far, why not finish it?

In our case, we had legal custody of our three grandchildren for nearly 10 years, and everyone knew the bios would never be able to claim them again because of chronic drug use.

The reason we decided to adopt was because my husband began collecting his SS, and we discovered that grandchildren can get SS benefits - only if the grandparents adopt. With three kids eating us out of house and home and no child support, we did it for survival.

Also, be aware that adoption can totally freak the kids out. We began to discuss it about a year ago, and through counseling the kids have gone from opposing it to accepting it. Even the youngest children realize that adoption means they "don't have real parents." We wanted to ensure that the adoption process wouldn't set them back in any way.

Adoption also opens up the grandparents to benefits not available to custodians, which I don't understand at all. I'd think temporary caregivers would be the ones to receive assistance, on the theory that if you have your own children you should be 100% responsible for them. But for some reason the permanency of adoption kicks in benefits from scholarships to assistance. Go figure. HAHA

As long as the bios are wiling to sign the consent forms, the adoption should go fairly smoothly. It is something to consider, especially if you're nearing retirement age.

8legs, We have legal guardianship of our granddaughter. She has lived with us since birth and without her bio mom for 2 1/2 years. We know we are her parents, her bio mom has seen this and she states this is why she's willing to consent to adoption. Bio mom, our daughter, lives in another state and knows she cannot and / or will not take the time to build a relationship, other than over the phone. We just want to officially bring our granddaughter into our family, we want her to know we've always wanted her to be with us and we are committed to her.

Our daughter flips and flops depending upon how much she's let her emotions and / or drugs take her way. I never want to be nervous or anxious that she's found to a reason or has guilt and wants to take our granddaughter on a whim...sometimes her actions are very drastic for a whim...she's gotten pregnant again on a whim!

It is true she would need to go to court and right now from this distance all appears to be well in her relationship. But we got a rude awakening the Friday after Thanksgiving (just that morning our daughter consented to the adoption of our granddaughter). Her boyfriend / new baby's father left my daughter and grandson (his son) at our home and started driving back to Ohio! He said he was done with her, this was at 9pm and he just left, no diapers, he took the car seat, no money...the only cause I could see was our daughter wanted help with the 15-month-old, just wanted him to help her put him to bed! My husband said he feels it was that they were not allowed to smoke pot during the visit to our home (they stayed in our guest bedroom)...he said he witnessed multiple trips "out to the car" during the 36 hours they were there. After much drama (almost two hours), he returned for him family. Needless to say, I asked (and begged a bit) our daughter to get some help (we've tried to help her multiple times), she said she's "looking into it" but then stated the next visit would be just her and the baby. Which means she has no intention of leaving this man.

Just leads me to believe that nothing has changed in our daughter's life, she tends to be violent and picks violent partners...they usually reside in the kind of neighborhoods where the residents do not report or call the police for drugs and violence. So we have no basis except for what we saw to do much for the grandson right now.

Our granddaughter cannot handle this type of drama, she doesn't even like loud noises...which I'm sure has much to do with what she experienced whenever my hubby and I were at work and the two bios were home alone...in fact we went on vacation and that's when our daughter was arrested for domestic violence, we weren't even gone 24 hours!