A mother automatically has parental responsibility for her child. A father also has automatic parental responsibility if he was married to the mother when the child was born (or in Scotland, when the child was conceived).
If a biological father is not married to the mother, he does not automatically have parental responsibility, even if he has lived with the mother for a long time. There are four ways an unmarried biological father can get parental responsibility:
- Marrying the child’s mother
- Registering the child’s birth with his name on the birth certificate. If the child’s birth certificate has already been registered, then the father must re-register. The mother’s consent is required and no other father may already have been named on the certificate
- Making a Parental Responsibility Agreement with the mother. In Scotland, this is known as a Parental Responsibilities and Parental Rights Agreement
- Getting a court order. A court order is an official ruling made by a court. In principle it can grant a father parental responsibility even if the mother does not want this.
A father can get parental responsibility without ever having lived with the mother.
What about step-parents?
Getting divorced or separating doesn’t end your parental responsibility. You continue having the same rights and responsibilities for your child whether or not you live with them. This means if you become a step-parent by marrying someone with parental responsibility for a child, you don’t automatically share that responsibility.
