Reply to Several States considered laws to promote shared custody of children after divorce

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I agree custody should be 50/50, if that is how childcare is split during the marriage. But why should the parent, who has worked FT, and done 90 percent of the childcare and 100 percent of the household tasks during the marriage then lose the lion’s share of custody in the divorce?

That parent is already at a disadvantage economically, as he or she has probably taken a lower-paying job in order to have the flexibility needed to be the default parent.[/quote]

Under our current system, all men need to do to ensure 50% custody during divorce is to make sure they do 50% of the childcare and household admin during the marriage.  Take your child to daycare or school 50% of the time.  Go to 50% of the doctor appointments.  Buy children's clothing 50% of the time.  Do carpool 50% of the time.  Go to 50% of the parent/teacher meetings.

The current standard for custody of children in many states is "best interest of the child."  If you do 50% of the care of your child during the entirety of the marriage, then it will be in the best interests of the child that you continue to provide that care.

All mandatory 50/50 custody laws do is ensure that men can fail to care for their children during the course of the marriage and still get half custody after the marriage, and ensure that they pay little to no child support to boot.  And statistic after statistic show that men, by and large although not all of them, consistently fail to do equal childcare.  [/quote]

It's not about you.  It's about the kid. The kid cares about being clothed, fed, sheltered and love. [b]The kid does not care about doctor's appointments.[/b] Your kid is not going to ask you about how many doctor's appointments you attended during their childhood.
If time is spent equally with both parents there is no need for child support.[/quote]

It is your job as a parent to care about things that your child does not care about, including going to the doctor. You don't get to just do the fun stuff. It's not just about if time is spent equally, it's if the work of parenthood is done equally.

I am generally in favor of shared custody. I'm married, happily, in a equitable marriage (we both work, we both care for our kids including work and fun parts) and if god forbid we divorced, I would expect 50% custody. So this isn't personal to me. But posts like this make me think that those posters who are pessimistic about how it would work out in practice are right to be worried. You can't just decide you don't care about doctor's appointments and decide to opt out if you truly want to be an equal parent with the responsibilities of 50% custody. I think the original PP here is right: men who do 50% of the work before marriage should absolutely have shared custody. But if one parent is doing 90% of the work of the child, it's not in the best interest of the child to give 50% custody, at least not until the parent who hasn't been helping do the work demonstrates that he or she can do it. Otherwise you end up in the situations we hear about with kids with cavities because their teeth are never brushed, going to school dirty, etc.
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