Do grandparents have a "right" to see their grandchildren in your state?

Yes, in Illinois

Even if the parent cannot, the grandparents can.

http://family.findlaw.com/child-custody/custody-more/state-grandparent-custody.html

Thanks, DrBill. wife and i are throroughly confused as why we are being kept away from her. we are the innocent people in this situation. i can understand RO against my son, but why us?

@john65pennington I’m sorry for your situation. Without knowing any details about your specific situation, allow me to theorize. This is me playing Devil’s Advocate only. Please don’t mistake anything I say for my actual beliefs or opinions.

Your daughter-in-law and/or the law may feel you should not be able to visit your grandkids because:
* You raised your son, and whatever issue led to the RO may have something to do (in their minds) with his upbringing
* They may not trust you to put the grand child and the law ahead of the interests of your son, and may think you will help him violate the RO.
* The daughter-in-law may feel traumatized by whatever experience led to the RO, and just want nothing at all to do with any memory of him, including his family.
* The daughter-in-law may not want to put the child in a situation which will naturally lead to the child asking “How come I can’t see Daddy but I can see his Mommy & Daddy?”

Again, I don’t have a clue anything about your situation. These are just my “off the top of my head” theories about what might be going through your daughter-in-law’s mind.

Thanks Mritty, i will do some more research. this site was vague in its answer.

I agree. That site also seems to have a very annoying typo or something specifically on WA state’s entry. I hadn’t noticed that before I posted the link. Sorry about that.

Thanks for the comeback MrItty. i understand your answer, based on a general information and all cases are different. this is not the case here. our ex daughter-in-law has psychological problems and this has been verified by several doctors. we still love her. we had a very close relationship with her. before the baby arrived, we would fly to Seattle to visit she and my son. she would always fix a great meal and we had many enjoyable visits with both of them. suddenly, she becomes pregnant and our ex daughter-in-law had a complete change of personality toward my son and us. we later discovered of her mental instability. as per expected, she has made up fantastic stories, some of which you would not believe. i understand this whole situation, since i use to see it everyday in law enforcement. but, we are innocent good people here and this is a ploy, just to keep our side of the family away from her. seems like all she wanted was to become pregnant and then drop all ties with our side of the family. we have made many trips to Seattle to assist our son in this tangled situation. this is when we learned that grandparents have no rights in the state of Washington. 3,000 miles is a long way to travel in attempt to keep the family together and on the right track.

specific to TN, as well, grandparents do not have any legal rights granting them access to children. if WA has similar laws, your very best bet is to try to salvage some sort of relationship with your (former?) daughter-in-law and make her feel safe and comfortable about allowing you to to build a relationship with her daughter.

There was a Washington State grandparent visitation case, Troxel v Granville that went all the way to the Supreme Court, and it was ruled that a parent does not have to allow visitation to grandparents. The court said that unless children are in some way being harmed by the parents, the government does not have the right to interfere with parenting. A grandparent must prove that the child is in some way being harmed by being denied access to the grandparents.

This is a tough spot to be in. I have a friend whose parents weren’t allowed contact with a child fathered by one of their sons. They sent checks in the child’s name to the mother, who cashed them on her behalf. Their granddaughter did contact them around age 16, and when she asked why they hadn’t tried to contact her, they showed her the cancelled checks, gave her a box of Christmas and birthday presents that had been purchased for her every year, and a journal that my friend’s mother kept about family events since her birth.

Of course you have the ability to see your grand daughter. Fly out and see her. Remember that rights to not equal convienience. I personally know of your situation and you could arrange your visits around the time that the child is visiting her father.
If you are confused about the reasons that the court has put restrictions on his ability to see the child I would suggest you look at the court records surrounding the case. There are multiple cases involving the father and these are all public record. A simple google search would provide you with numerous reasons.
It is disappointing that your method of getting supportive answers to your queary is to impune the charactor of your son’s ex wife. I suppose the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.