It’s so refreshing to read a piece about shared parenting that’s free of the mis-/dis- information we so often see. That’s the case with this editorial about HB 1400 currently pending before the Massachusetts legislature (Worcester Telegram, 5/13/10). HB 1400 that’s backed by Fathers & Families would establish the presumption of equally shared parenting on divorce. The pertinent part of the bill is here:
In making an order or judgment relative to the custody of a minor child, there shall be a presumption that, absent emergency conditions, or abuse or neglect of said child, the parents shall have shared legal custody and shared physical custody of said child. The judge may enter any order or judgment for sole legal custody for one parent and/or sole physical custody for one parent if written findings are made setting forth the specific facts supporting a determination that the child would be harmed as a result of shared legal or shared physical custody. In making any order or judgment concerning the parenting schedule of each parent with a minor child, the rights of the parents, absent emergency, abuse, or neglect of one of the parents, shall be held to be equal, and the Court shall endeavor to maximize the exposure of the child to each of the parents so far as the same is practicable.
The Telegram‘s editorial makes several simple points that bear repeating. First, the vast majority of custody cases are between parents who are entirely qualified to care for their children. It’s true that the ugly, acrimonious cases are the ones that get the headlines, but the overwhelming majority of them aren’t that kind. So by establishing a presumption of equal parenting, the law will accomplish that in most cases. In short, in most divorces with children, fathers and mothers will be able to parent equally and children will not lose one parent.
Will there be cases in which shared parenting is either impossible or isn’t in the best interests of the child? Of course there will be. Those cases will still make the headlines. And, as they do now, judges will be forced to make some tough calls about custody, visitation and what is in the child’s best interests. Because those calls are tough, some of them will be made wrongly and some of those wrong calls will be tragically wrong. Those are sad but true facts.
But they’re no less true now. Irrespective of what the law is on custody, there will always be some parents who will flout it; there will always be parents who are so at odds with the other that they make the children suffer; there will always be parents who will go to any lengths – even illegal ones – to deny access to the other parent; and there will always be parents who abuse children. That’s true now and it will be true if HB 1400 passes. The bill seeks to change the law, not human nature.
HB 1400 would enact into law what we know and what we aspire to. What we know is that children do better with two parents than with one. What we know is that fathers are vital to the wellbeing of children. What we know is that the current system marginalizes non-custodial parents in the lives of children, even to the extent of becoming non-parents. And what we know is that 84% of those non-custodial parents are fathers. HB 1400 seeks to keep children connected to both parents post-divorce.
What we aspire to is gender equality. That means parental equality for dads and workplace equality for moms. Currently, as I said above, 84% of non-custodial parents are fathers. Social science shows that, whether the non-custodial parent is a mother or a father, he/she tends to become a non-factor in the child’s life. That harms the child and it harms the parent. HB 1400 seeks to equalize fathers and mothers in the child’s life after divorce.
By equalizing parenting, the bill would have the collateral benefit of helping women to be equal in the workplace. Currently, women earn less than do men. An enormous amount of data show that one of the major reasons women earn less is that they work less at paid employment. They work less at paid employment because they do more childcare than do men. Even a cursory glance at Bureau of Labor Statistics figures bears this out. When time spent at paid work and at childcare are added together, men’s and women’s times are essentially identical. But men spend more time earning and women spend more time in childcare. The result is that men earn more than women; they also get more promotions and save more for retirement. Equally shared parenting would help to equalize men and women in the workplace.
That’s my only quibble about the Telegram editorial. It’s headlined “Fairness for Fathers.” That’s accurate enough, but it excludes the fact that HB 1400 is fair for children and mothers as well.