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When you relinquish your parental rights, you are giving up the right to direct the child's upbringing, including any decisions related to medical care, education, and religious upbringing. You also give up the responsibility to monitor your child's behavior or provide food, clothing, or shelter for your child.  Once you give up parental rights, you are also giving up your right to have any contact with your child, including rights to visitation or telephone contact.  Sometimes, you can negotiate an arrangement where you are allowed to contact the child, but these arrangements are highly unusual and hard to enforce. They often occur only where the state has moved to terminate the parental rights, not where a parent has voluntarily sought termination.  Be aware that during the termination process, you will still be responsible for the child. This includes any child support payments due. In many states, you cannot relinquish your parental rights unless someone else is available to accept them. This will ensure that the child does not become a ward of the state.  Typically, if one parent wants to give up parental rights then both parents must agree. Furthermore, there should be another person waiting in the wings to adopt the child, otherwise a court is unlikely to approve of termination even where the other parent agrees. You cannot give up your parental rights simply to get out of child support payments. A court does not terminate parental rights unless it is in the best interests of the child. Family law is complicated. Many different factors will impact your case and how a judge will view it. Accordingly, you should try to secure the services of an experienced local attorney to help you with the relinquishment process.  You can find an experienced family law attorney by visiting your state's bar association website, which runs a referral program. If costs are a concern, be aware that many attorneys now offer “unbundled” legal services. With “unbundled” services, the attorney agrees only to do discrete tasks for a fee. You control what work the attorney performs. For example, you can have an attorney look at an adoption contract or represent you in court while you perform all other legal tasks yourself.
Learn about your parental rights. Understand the limitations on termination. Meet with an attorney.