The New Battleground of Child Custody Reform: Shared Parenting

Child custody and support laws have become more onerous over the last 50 years due to fewer parents staying together and women becoming equally as capable as men at earning a living outside the home. Instead of reflecting these changes, the laws have lagged behind, continuing to favor mothers over fathers. The laws generally award primary custody to the parent who spent more time at home with the children and less time working, even if the difference was miniscule. The other parent is then ordered to pay a crushing amount of child support, sometimes on top of alimony. In a small percentage of situations, usually where the father was the primary caregiver, this situation is reversed and the laws punish the mother.

Fathers have reacted over the years in different ways. Some fathers’ rights activists in Britain dress up as super heroes and scale public buildings to draw attention to the inequity. The founder of Fathers 4 Justice, Matt O’Connor, started a hunger strike for equal parenting earlier this month outside the home of British Prime Minister David Cameron. Some fathers tragically commit suicide. Last month, a distraught father immolated himself on the steps of a courthouse in New Hampshire, after mailing a 15-page “last statement” to the local newspaper detailing his final frustrations with the child custody legal system. The most high-profile victim of the child custody system, actor Alec Baldwin, helped bring exposure to the unfairness by writing a book about his experience.

Although a few small changes have been made to the laws within the last few years, due to exposure and the efforts of advocacy organizations, there has not been significant progress. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 84 percent of custodial parents are mothers, a figure that has not changed since 1983. This is unfortunate, because Canadian economist Paul Miller analyzed data on families and found that “parental gender is not a…predictor at all of any of the child outcomes examined, that is behavioral, educational or health outcomes.” The children often end up with “Parental Alienation Syndrome,” developing a dislike for the noncustodial parent bought on by the custodial parent. Long term studies of children in the U.S. and New Zealand have found there is a direct correlation between a father’s absence and teen pregnancy.

The latest effort to change the system calls for “shared parenting.” Although advocacy groups differ on how shared parenting would be implemented, it generally consists of making the default custody arrangement 50/50 joint physical and legal custody when parents split up, absent egregious circumstances. This would replace the current system which leaves it up to a judge’s whim to decide what constitutes “the best interests of the child.” Shared parenting bills are being introduced in state legislatures around the country, and several states now have some version of shared parenting. In those states, studies are finding that divorce rates are lower and the children are better adjusted.

In addition to passing shared parenting laws, there must be tougher requirements for issuing restraining orders and reform of child support laws. 50/50 shared custody should not include child support unless there are egregious circumstances. Child support creates an incentive to continue fighting. Neither parent wants to get stuck paying it, and some parents greedily want it as a source of income to use as they please, since there is little monitoring of how it is spent. Eliminate child support in all but the most egregious situations, and most of the fighting clogging our family courts will cease.

The “deadbeat dad” roundups by law enforcement of fathers who are behind in child support needs to stop. Many of them are fathers who were not lucky enough to be awarded custody, and are now working two jobs just to try and keep up with expenses and child support. Figures from the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement show that more than two-thirds of “deadbeat dads” earn poverty-level wages, and only four percent earn $40,000 or more per year. Less than one in 20 noncustodial parents who suffer a drop in income are able to get the court to reduce their child support payments. Grandparents often end up paying the child support.

David Usher of The Center for Marriage Policy believes the solution lies in renewing the importance of marriage. He proposes eliminating no-fault divorce laws and requiring couples where only one spouse wants a divorce to work out the divorce agreement themselves. This would disincentivize divorce, since couples could no longer simply run to court to end the marriage, but would be forced to work with each other to come up with a custody situation they both agree to. Currently, marriage is about the only kind of contract where one party can unilaterally end the contract. The Center for Marriage Policy recommends shared parenting that would place a child primarily with one parent for the first half of their childhood, then with the second parent for their later years.

The small changes that have been made in recent years are encouraging. Thanks to organizations like Fathers and Families, last year Massachusetts, which has some of the most punishing child support laws in the country, reduced the interest on overdue child support by 50%. Legislation has been passed in several states around the country within the past year protecting disabled and military parents from child custody abuses. As families continue to modernize, and more women also suffer the effects of outdated child custody laws, the laws will be finally forced to keep up. It may just not be in our lifetime. This is a new kind of civil rights struggle, and one day our great-grandchildren will look back and remember their forefathers who fought so hard for their right to have meaningful time with both parents.

I left my first wife and she kept the kids. Within 4 months, my oldest was living with me. The youngest, always a momma’s girl, stayed with her.

It worked out pretty well for the most part.

This would frustrate the feminist agenda of national wussification... cant have that now. Nation needs more Wieners and Michael Moores LOL

The Center for Marriage Policy recommends shared parenting that would place a child primarily with one parent for the first half of their childhood, then with the second parent for their later years.

Ummm, I'll take the first half....says this gal after five teens.

Our son has custody of our grandson. Our son is in the process of trying to alter mother’s visitation rights. She refused to send him home at Christmas, made up lies about grandson’s health, falsified a Doctor letter, and really messed the little boys mind up. The attorney fees are heavy, but hopefully our son wins.

I’m sorry to hear that. I hear such awful stories and most of them revolve around one parent (at least) using the kid(s) to hurt the other. Whoever thought changing our culture to make divorce common and *ok* (and even worse marriage not very important) was at best stupid and at worst evil.
I wish your son the best.
Someone very close to me committed suicide over divorce and an ugly custody battle. It changed how I look at this issue forever.

Laws like the Violence Against Women Act need to be repealed or significantly revised. Every year $1 billion is given to domestic violence organizations, making it very easy for one spouse to complain about the other and have the complaint used against them in child custody disputes. These organizations, which tend to favor women, have now formed their own lobbying organizations that fight against meaningful changes in child custody laws.
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too many people make money off the current system for it to be changed.
and false claims by ex-wives are almost standard, yet are used to keep good fathers from their own children.
the legal system is a willing accomplice, with lawyers making huge amounts from child custody battles, etc.

This is stupid. If the parties could come together to make a deal for the kids, they’d still be married.

Bringing the parties together in court to fight it out is the epitome of Judge’s arrogance. “I’ll hear the sides and decide! Packed lunches it is!!” If the parents split, then decide who makes the calls, and that’s it. No Judicial review. For Chrissakes get the courts out of the lives of people.

Is it that difficult?

This is selfish parents putting what they want before what’s best for the kid.

There’s nothing sadder than seeing kids with their little backpacks waiting to be picked up to go to their “other house” on a Friday or even mid-week. Or a seven-year-old getting yelled at because he forgot his soccer cleats at his “other house.”

You try living in two places; it’s horrible for an adult. For a kid it’s ten times worse: exhausting, disconcerting, and plays havoc with a still-developing sense of routine and stability.

The other parent can visit. Yeah, it’s a pain. But why should it be harder on the kid than on you?

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You try living in two places; it’s horrible for an adult. For a kid it’s ten times worse: exhausting, disconcerting, and plays havoc with a still-developing sense of routine and stability.

You are absolutely correct.

We count our blessings that my brother won custody of his son. The mother was a nut (and the court-ordered psych evaluation confirmed this!)

I’ve been a custody lawyer for over 30 years and I’ve seen fads come and go. Shared custody is a fad. The director of our local mediation services says “It’s not that important where the kid is on Tuesday night, it’s more important that her folks don’t fight.” He’s right. The experts right now are against shared custody, they say a child does better with a primary home. Fact is, once the parents split up, everything is a compromise and the kids do suffer. I tell my clients, male or female, to read “Joint Custody with a Jerk.” I also advise some sort of 12 step program since in 80% of the cases, someone is abusing alcohol or drugs. I use slogans like “don’t go to a hardware store for a loaf of bread.” “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”

Yes to both questions. My ex and I got along as good as ex’s can and once we weren’t living together any longer it was easier to do. I am of course closer to my oldest but I still see or call or email my youngest (19y/o) three or four times a week.

I’m going to have to stop calling her “my youngest” because in about 6 months, my new wife is due and I will have a new “youngest.”

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