December 23, 2015
By Ned Holstein, MD, MS, Founder, Chair of the Board and Acting Executive Director
We are winning the bottle for shared parenting throughout the western world! So please keep us on a winning streak by making a gift here before midnight on Thursday to help us make our 2015 budget and to set the stage for expanded efforts in 2016.
Shared parenting has become the norm in Australia, Sweden and to some degree Belgium and Switzerland. The Council of Europe recently passed a resolution urging shared parenting legislation in all the EU member states.
It is very common here in the USA if there are two working parents. It is common even with only one working parent in Wisconsin, Arizona, Utah, Texas and a few other states, and increasing everywhere else. And the Wall Street Journal reported a few months ago that over 20 states are considering some form of shared parenting legislation.
The media are finally taking shared parenting seriously, as evidenced by over 300 media placements this year alone by National Parents Organization — mainly serious stories that tell our dream of a better world.
The opposition of women’s groups and domestic violence groups is noticeably diminished (although not gone).
Legislators take it seriously, and no longer dismiss it out of hand.
Three big research reviews published in 2014 supported shared parenting, including by the International Council on Shared Parenting (ICSP) and the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC). Now mental health practitioners are increasingly recommending it.
Evidence of winning is everywhere. But we still have a long way to go, for sure, which is why we need your gift today. Shared parenting is less common in cases decided years ago, among the poor, if only one parent is employed, if parents are unmarried, if a breadwinning parent works long hours, or if a parent is ruthless enough to make up charges of abuse/neglect, kidnap the kids, alienate the kids, or create endless conflict every step of the way. We need your help to continue the fight to whittle down these abuses.
Looking forward to 2016, we will begin a major assault on excessive child support orders. This will continue as a major campaign for as long as it takes. This too can be done only with substantial funds, which is why I again ask for your help.
Also in 2016, if funds are sufficient, we will try something never before attempted in the family court reform movement:a pilot project in which we will hire a community organizer in a selected state to marshal an army of support for our goals. Membership growth, visible activism, media exposure with the help of our PR firm, lobbying, quick-response to negative statements in the media, teach-ins for legislators, media, and non-profit leadership, exposés of bar associations’ conflict of interest, and more.
We are winning the battle for shared parenting on every front, but need to do much more. And we need to open a second front to correct widespread child support injustice. We need to maintain and even increase our media presence. And we need to see whether hiring community organizers can accelerate the pace of change.
The children of America need us to do these things. There are millions of them pining for a parent they rarely get to see. They have no voice. Please be their voice by giving today or before midnight Thursday.
Together with you in the love of our children, and wishing you peace and contentment in 2016,
Ned Holstein, MD, MS
Founder, Chair of the Board and Acting Executive Director