Kin, Care, and the Law: Reforming Georgia's Guardianship Framework to Recognise Black Matriarchal Caregiving Through Legislative and Feminist Reconstruction

Shiv Shakti Singh

doi:10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i04.86215

Kin, Care, and the Law: Reforming Georgia's Guardianship Framework to Recognise Black Matriarchal Caregiving Through Legislative and Feminist Reconstruction

Author(s)	Mr. Shiv Shakti Singh
Country	India
Abstract	The prevailing legal conception of the family in the United States has long been anchored to the image of the biological nuclear unit, a construct that bears diminishing resemblance to the lived realities of a significant portion of the American population. For centuries, and indeed long before the formal abolition of slavery, African American grandmothers, aunts, and other female matriarchal figures have assumed primary caregiving responsibilities for successive generations of children whose biological parents were unable to fulfil that role. These women have formed the quiet but indispensable foundation of countless African American family units, yet the universalist legal order has historically overlooked their contributions, privileging instead the formal rights of biological parents and the theoretical ideal of the nuclear family above the social realities of kinship care. Whilst legal mechanisms nominally exist through which kinship caregivers might obtain rights comparable to those of a biological parent, including temporary and permanent guardianship, the procedural complexity, adjudicative unpredictability, and practical inaccessibility of these avenues render them unworkable for a great many non-traditional caregiving families. This Note examines Georgia's existing guardianship framework and the manner in which its demanding consent requirements and capricious adjudicative processes operate to restrict kinship caregivers' access to the financial and social resources they urgently need. Two legislative remedies are proposed. The first is the adoption of a statute modelled upon New Jersey's Kinship Guardianship Notification Act, which would ensure that kinship caregivers are made aware of the state support mechanisms available to them. The second is the reintroduction of de facto parenthood legislation, previously advanced before the Georgia legislature as House Bill 321, which would remove the extensive petitioning requirements and procedural obstacles that presently impede recognition of de facto custodians. Beyond these specific proposals, this Note advocates for the integration of Black feminist theory within family law's analytical framework, urging a fundamental reorientation of the legal narrative of family away from the abstract Anglo-American nuclear ideal and toward a conception that is genuinely responsive to the diversity of family formation across all ethnic and social communities.
Keywords	Kinship, Guardianship, Matriarchy, Recognition, Pluralism
Published In	Volume 8, Issue 4, July-August 2026
Published On	2026-08-21
DOI	https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i04.86215

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Kin, Care, and the Law: Reforming Georgia's Guardianship Framework to Recognise Black Matriarchal Caregiving Through Legislative and Feminist Reconstruction

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