6.13Parental Rights and Obligations

After an order of adoption is entered, the adoptive parent becomes  the adoptee’s legal parent, is treated as if he or she is the adoptee’s natural parent, becomes liable for all parental duties, and is entitled to all parental rights over the adoptee. MCL 710.60(1). The adoptive parent’s parental rights include the right to custody, control, services, and earnings of the adopted child. MCL 722.2.

Once a child is adopted, the biological parents’ legal relationship, including all rights and obligations, to the child is severed, and the adoptive parent becomes the legal parent. Theodore v Packing Materials, Inc, 396 Mich 152, 162-163 (1976). The adoption of a child also legally severs the child’s sibling relationships with other children born to the biological parents. Wilson v King, 298 Mich App 378, 382 (2012) (adoptive parent’s “adoption of the three older children legally severed their sibling relationship with [the youngest child subsequently born to the biological mother;]” “[t]his adoption legally severed, at law, the three older children’s ‘prior, natural family relationship’ and created ‘a new and complete substitute relationship after adoption[]’”).