I disagree. Equal parenting 50/50 custody only works when that is what both parents want, they get along, and it works for the child. Making it law for all is rediculous if the parents don’t want 50/50. My sons father doesn’t want joint physical custody and to make it law that he has to have my son 50% of the time would rip my child to shreds. His dad puts him in day care on his time, is gone most of the time on business trips and left with his SM, and my son wants to just come home. ON my time he is home with his brother and a stay at home mother. If he had to go 50% of the time to his dads it would be worse for my child and he would be torn apart. Joint physical custody is not right for every divorced family.
I think you need to realize each case is different and should never be treated the same.
Whatever they might negotiate as their preferred arrangement, it's important that the equal parental rights of both Father and Mother be explicit in law, and not subject to the whims and biases of public employees in robes.
If a Father agrees temporarily to less than 50/50 child custody, it should be with the clear understanding that his RIGHT to equal custody would be upheld by our legal system if his wishes were otherwise. Otherwise parents and their lawyers negotiate in a context of unfair coercion.
Justice is Conservative.
My point is that no-fault divorce is ruining families.
I believe that the process is slanted toward the mother and they know it. They can easily initiate a divorce and get all the goodies (kids plus child support), so they do it.
If the law were to say that both parties were equal and would get equal time with the children, child support toward the mother would be less. That would be less of an incentive for the mother to try to force the father out.
If it does go to a divorce and the father wants to stipulate that the mother gets primary custody, then so be it.
All the divorce lawyers agree with you. A case should never be settled until both parents finances are fully drained; the children's college expense funds are gone; and the grandparents, aunts and uncles have also been tapped.
This is what it means to have each case 'never treated the same'.
It is time for standards and expectations to be put into place. For the same reason that child support guidelines had to be implemented.
Because judges were out there doing doing 'wild and crazy things' with peoples finances. They are still doing them with peoples lives.
But that is what happens when you give one person absolute power and absolutely no guidance on what they should do.
Not true.
A lot of the divorce fighting is driven by the current legal system.
What do you think happens when the lawyer tells the mom that joint custody will be ordered unless the parties don't get along - and if they don't get along, then custody will be given to one of the parents - and that parent is 95% of the time the mom.
Did a light bulb just go off in your head? That's right, the mom triggers a lot of fights so that the judge has to shake his head and order custody to ... the mom.
It works when it is ordered and the judges crack down on the morons that violate the orders.
It is not appropriate for all situations. If a parent does not want to be involved, no judge on earth will be able to make him/her be involved.
Certainly shouldn't be ordered for drug addicts, etc.
Shared parenting is perscriptive, not mandatory. It isn't forcing those who don't want to assume 50% parenting to do it.