Parental rights - Maryland
Parental rights in Maryland
1 of 3 questions have been reviewed for Maryland. A question shown as "Not yet reviewed" makes no claim either way.
Educational reference, not legal advice. Nothing here creates an attorney-client relationship. Family law is state-specific and it changes: a statute or case cited here may have been amended, repealed or overruled since the review date shown. Verify against the primary source before relying on anything on this page, and talk to a lawyer licensed in your state about your own situation.
When a non-parent or the state asks a court to override a fit parent's decision about their child, what must they show?
Maryland: Not yet reviewed
Not yet reviewed. This page makes no claim about Maryland on this question.
Can parents' own custody or child-support agreement bind them without a judge approving it?
Maryland: Not yet reviewed
Not yet reviewed. This page makes no claim about Maryland on this question.
One parent enrols the child in daycare, an activity or a private school without the other's agreement. Must the other parent pay a share?
Maryland: Child care share limited to work or education related cost
Statute: Md. Code, Fam. Law sec. 12-204(g)
Only actual child care incurred because of a parent's employment or job search is added, divided in proportion to income. The amount is capped: where actual family experience does not govern, it is the level required for quality licensed care, or the actual cost if the parent chose something cheaper. A more expensive unilateral choice is not automatically passed on.
Authority
- Md. Code, Fam. Law sec. 12-204(g) Statute
actual child care expenses incurred on behalf of a child due to employment or job search of either parent shall be added to the basic obligation and shall be divided between the parents in proportion to their adjusted actual incomes. (2) Child care expenses shall be: (i) determined by actual family experience, unless the court determines that the actual family experience is not in the best interest of the child; or (ii) ... 1. the level required to provide quality care from a licensed source; or 2. if the obligee chooses quality child care with an actual cost of an amount less than the level required to provide quality care from a licensed source, the actual cost of the child care expense.
How this was checked
Every citation here was checked against the primary source rather than a summary. U.S. Supreme Court quotes come from the official United States Reports PDFs published by the Library of Congress, and the reporter page shown is the page the quoted words actually print on. State case quotes come from the Caselaw Access Project's page-anchored text of the official reporter. Statutes and regulations are quoted from the issuing legislature's or agency's own site. Quotes are normalised to plain ASCII, which changes punctuation only, never words. Holdings are distinguished from dicta and from concurrences and dissents, which bind nobody, and contrary authority is included and labelled. Not yet reviewed is NOT a finding: it means nobody has read that jurisdiction's law for this question yet, and such a row carries no claim at all. No authority found is a different and weaker statement: a search was run and turned up nothing on point, which is not proof that nothing exists.
Dataset last reviewed 2026-10-17.