Opponents warn the change would give abusive fathers easier access to children while dismissing legitimate claims of abuse by mothers.
When Ayden Wright was one month old, his mother sued his father, Rustin Wright, over custody, child support, and visitation.
That lawsuit began a nearly 20-year legal odyssey during which Wright fought courts over jurisdiction, and fought Ayden’s mother over his role in Ayden’s life.
Wright and other non-custodial fathers say they are often left to the mercy of judges, lawyers, and law enforcement who are either indifferent or antagonistic to their parental rights.
They’re pushing for more states to abandon the traditional adversarial family court system of awarding child custody in favor of shared parenting, an approach that begins with the presumption that parents will share care and responsibility for their children as equally as possible.
In a shared parenting arrangement, each parent is typically responsible for the direct costs of caring for his or her child while the child is with that parent. Shared parenting may not completely negate the necessity of child support, but aims to avoid a situation where one parent has primary physical custody, while the non-custodial parent pays child support but has a rigid visitation schedule. The object is to minimize, for children involved, the disruption inevitably caused by a divorce.
Advocates for shared parenting say that when applied properly, it protects parental rights, reduces stress and pressure on children, and may reduce rates of divorce and domestic violence.
Opponents say shared parenting laws reduce the amount of discretion a judge can exercise before any evidence is presented. This gives an advantage to abusive parents by presuming they have the same claim to the child on the same level as the more fit parent, despite allegations of abuse that may have been lodged against them.
Ayden’s Story
Ayden, now 20, said the conflict between his parents deprived all three of the relationships they wanted and possibly could have had. Instead, Wright said, law enforcement removed his son from middle school in handcuffs when the boy was in eighth grade.
Ayden was taken into police custody because he refused to return to his mother’s house.
Wright didn’t see his son again until he graduated from high school more than four years later.
Ayden was the result of a brief college relationship. Wright said Ayden’s mother was angry that he did not want to make the relationship long-term.
“I did not love her, and I did not want to be with her, right? [But that had] nothing to do with me taking care of my son,” he told The Epoch Times.
