There is an overwhelming need in our country for an education campaign on the value of fathers and mothers equally in the lives of their children. I am writing you to request your help in convincing the people and politicians of our country to support Shared Parenting legislation. The reason your help is needed is due to the current lack of knowledge about and support for this much needed legislation and below is why your support is requested.
There are a number of reasons that mothers gain sole custody of children to the tune of 85% of the time when a family breaks apart. There also are a number of reasons that we should have equal custody for fit, willing and able parents mandated through legislation like last years Michigan HB 5267. Here is a link to see the bill. (http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(5ptzgoiqptretoe4fj4k5jb1)/mileg.aspx?page=getObject&objectName=2005-HB-5267 ). You also may want to visit: http://www.dadsofmichigan.org/shared_parenting.html
Three basic reasons cause fathers to be discriminated against in our family courts. First is the politics of political correctness practiced by politicians who pander to feminist groups by saying that mothers are more important then fathers through existing laws like the “Best Interest of the Child criteria” and the way these laws are enforced. Second is misplaced chivalry of those that think it is their job to protect mothers from falsely accused fathers combined with the soft bigotry of low expectations of mothers when it comes to equally supporting their own children and then allow fathers to be more then a pay check and an occasional visitor. Third is the all powerful desire of most politicians to make sure that federal welfare funds keep flowing by ensuring that fathers are made into second class parents so that bloated child support payments can be forced.
Politicians have learned that it is not politically correct to say that fathers and mothers are equally important in the lives of their children. Some politicians try and play it safe without ever doing research on the truth of what children truly need. Here is a link to a study that was done on this subject for your review: http://www.apa.org/releases/custody2.html
Here is a short synopsis: Children Likely to be Better Adjusted in Joint VS Sole Custody Arrangements in Most Cases, According to Review of Research (Living Situation Not As Influential As Time Spent With Parent) ...a meta-analysis of 33 studies between 1982 to 1999 that examined 1,846 sole-custody and 814 joint-custody children. The studies compared child adjustment in joint physical or joint legal custody with sole-custody settings and 251 intact families.
There also have been studies done on the impact of divorce and the bias within our society. Children are taught that their mother is more important then their father through school curriculum content, entertainment themes and news media slanted presentations. The news shows present stories on the importance of mother’s work outside of a traditional job without trying to remove any of the gender bias in the story by letting the viewers know about the work that father’s typically do outside of the work place and the importance of the work that father’s do to support the household and our society. Many children’s books that have a parent in them have the mother but not the father or show fathers as foolish and incompetent. At school fathers have to push the system to include them when it comes to news, information and events and are told since they are not the custodial parent they can not make decisions for their child. The feminist would have you think that fathers are not biased against when it comes to the court system but the facts show that bias is present and active. Lawyers often tell fathers that they well not get equal custody and that they should not push for it because it could upset the pro-woman judges and make the divorce process harder. Below is a link to a study that shows that bias starts as soon as a father sees a lawyer, see page 8-10:
http://www.public.asu.edu/~devra1/matt&jenessa.pdf
The following link will show a number of other studies and statistics that further support the claims that I have made: http://www.gocrc.com/research/index.html
The great big secret that the politicians, Friend of the Court, lawyers and judges do not want people to know about is that the state is paid to make non-custodial parents. When Michigan Governor Granholm was asked during my telephone call to a radio show about supporting equal physical child custody she told me directly that she believes children should spend as much time with each parent as possible. On the other hand when addressing my written letter she had Michael Kohn of the Michigan Child Support Unit respond. He wrote that the state has two interests, to maintain stability and to make sure someone is supporting the children besides the state. Here is a link to an article that explains this in great detail: http://www.achildsright.net/html/title_iv-d.html
Judges do not want to decide custody, the FOC wants to pressure parents into stereotypes and lawyers want to win but what about the children? Please feel free to call and write to me about all of these topics.
Sincerely,
Darrick Scott-Farnsworth
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