This is another clear sign more sanity is gaining
a foothold in legislatures in different jurisdictions around the world.
For more links visit the Fathers & Families page
here.
By Mandy Lunn, The
(Nashville) Tennessean
Eric Kyle, a divorced father of two
children,
would like to spend more time parenting.
By Janell Ross, The
(Nashville)
Tennessean
A Tennessee
bill that would evenly split child
custody in contentious divorce cases is drawing national attention and
dividing groups along gender lines.
On one side is an alliance of women's groups,
some judges and the Tennessee Bar Association, who say the change would
make divorces tougher to settle and give abusive ex-husbands leverage
they shouldn't have. Spending half of the time with each parent would
also impose impractical schedules on kids, they say.
On the other side are fathers' rights groups who
say kids get deprived of full relationships with both parents. Courts
have too long ignored laws calling for custody decisions to be made in
children's best interests, they say, and judges are overly influenced by
notions about the mother-child bond.
The state's House Children and
Family Affairs'
Family Justice Subcommittee is scheduled to meet today to review
divorce-related data it requested from the Tennessee Bar Association, as
it works to determine whether to send the bill to a second committee
that could send it to the full House.
Other states, including Missouri, start from a
presumption of an even custodial split unless there has been abuse, said
Janet Richards, a law professor at the
University of
Memphis who specializes in child custody matters. Tennessee would be
alone in requiring clear, convincing evidence that one parent is unfit
before dividing custody unequally, she said.
"This law sets up a standard of proof that's just
short of the criminal standard of beyond a reasonable doubt," Richards
said.
Committee hearings
on the bill have drawn
standing-room-only crowds full of mothers wearing saucer-size lapel
stickers that read "Vote no on HB 2916" and fathers wearing everything
from military fatigues to business suits.
Right now, parents divorcing in Tennessee — or
unmarried parents trying to work out custody arrangements — are urged to
work out a plan with a mediator. Under the pending bill, courts
automatically would divide children's time equally between moms and dads
who are unable to agree unless one parent can prove the other utterly
unfit.
The way Eric Kyle
sees it, he hasn't been able to
properly father his children since his 2005 divorce.
Kyle, who lives in Davidson County, Tenn., wanted
his son and daughter to split their time equally between him and his
ex-wife, who lives in Williamson County, Tenn. But when Kyle sought an
attorney willing to try to negotiate that kind of arrangement, one after
another told him the same thing.
"You
either have to dirty up your ex and do
whatever you have to to get full custody, or you accept what I
understand is a pretty standard 80-20 time split," he said. "Of course,
it's dads that get the children 20% of the time, in most cases."
Rep. Mike Bell, a
Republican and the
bill's key sponsor, said he introduced the bills after constituents'
complaints and hopes it might encourage more parents to reconsider
divorce.
"It's a concern
that children are being deprived
of one parent or another in most cases in a custody battle," said Bell,
who has been married 25 years and has five children.
Opponents want to scare the public with claims
about children being shuttled back and forth and attending multiple
schools, said Mike McCormick, executive director of the Washington,
D.C.-based American Coalition for Fathers and Children.
"I say — with the recognition that there is
nothing like (this bill) in the country — all it would actually do is
require parents to be on equal footing in courts of law," McCormick
said. The bill ignores the problems some families have, said Kathy
Walsh, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition Against Domestic
and Sexual Violence.
Some
parents divorce after years of the kind of
controlling, domineering or even violent behavior by one party that
doesn't go away just because the relationship ends, Walsh said.
She said the bill could prompt victims to stay
with their abusers so they don't have to leave their kids alone with the
other parent.
Monica
Gimbles said she doesn't think the bill is
realistic. She is in the process of finding an attorney to work out
custody arrangements for her 5-year-old daughter with her onetime
fiancé.
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