Một mối quan hệ mẹ trên thực tế, những người dự thảo cho chúng tôi biết, "không thể phát sinh do tai nạn, trong bí mật, hoặc là một kết quả của hành vi không đúng" 30 bởi vì nó thường đòi hỏi phải có thỏa thuận. | Undeserved Trust 95 A de facto parent relationship the drafters tell us cannot arise by accident in secrecy or as a result of improper behavior 30 because it usually requires agreement. The Agreement Requirement limits de facto parent status generally to those individuals whose relationship to the child has arisen with knowledge and agreement of the legal parent. 31 Lack of agreement may be evidenced by the failure of the partner to adopt the child if adoption was an option 32 as well as by the retention by the legal parent of authority over matters of the child s care such as discipline. 33 Although the Agreement Requirement requires an affirmative act or acts by the legal parent demonstrating a willingness and an expectation of shared parental responsibilities agreement may be implied by the When two adults share roughly equal responsibility for a child this equal caretaking by itself satisfies the agreement requirement. Consider illustration 22 For the past four years seven-year-old Lindsay has lived with her mother Annis and her stepfather Ralph. During that period Ralph and Annis both worked outside the home and divided responsibility for Lindsay s care roughly equally between them. Annis s sharing of responsibility for Lindsay s care with Ralph constitutes an implied agreement by her to the role assumed by In short any parent who acquiesces in her partner s decision to take on equal caretaking duties would likely have agreed to the partner s claim of de facto parent status. With respect to the Ex Live-In Partner s share of caretaking functions he must have performed at least as much care as the legal parent herself Caretaking functions consist of the chores necessary for the direct delivery of day-to-day care and supervision to the child. 37 They include physical supervision feeding grooming discipline transportation direction of the child s intellectual and emotional development and arrangement of the child s peer .
