From birth, we are wired to seek out our parents’ voices, smells, sounds and even their very presences. National Parents Day, annually celebrated in the United States on the fourth Sunday in July and signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994, recognizes this unique and important relationship between children and their parents. In fact, the day was specifically established for “recognizing, uplifting, and supporting the role of parents in the rearing of children.”
Even reading straight from the legislation that created National Parents Day, we can see that our country’s leadership recognizes the importance of parents in children’s lives, specifically calling out our nation’s “struggles with effects of family breakdown, youth violence and a host of other critical problems.” This intrinsic need does not diminish with time – it is part of us, as human beings, to want to know both of our parents.
Therefore, it is especially sad (and surprising) to know that 86 percent of children in divorced families live primarily with one parent, with the other parent being relegated to the status of “visitor” with a cookie-cutter amount of “visitation” assigned to them. In very rare instances, it might be appropriate to limit the amount of time children see one parent; however, in the vast majority of families, both parents are “fit” caregivers, and children overwhelmingly want to maintain a relationship with both parents.