Divorce in the best of circumstances remains a painfully emotional ordeal. That only intensifies when the settlement involves the welfare of children involved in the breakup.
Traditionally, wives usually retain primary custody rights, relegating husbands to the role of occasional parent.
With few modifications, that’s still the guideline judges use when determining what’s in a child’s best interests. Perhaps that made sense back in the days of Leave It To Beaver or Father Knows Best, when television depicted the ideal family as the husband provider and the impeccable homemaker wife.
Those days, for the most part, no longer exist. In today’s economy, it usually takes a working couple to make ends meet.
And in the case of those families fortunate enough to live on one salary, that increasingly involves the wife as primary breadwinner. Stay-at-home-dads aren’t some sociological fad. They’re an acknowledged part of the modern family.
Times change, and so should our state’s outdated child-custody laws.