A bike trek for equal parenting was recently covered in the Detroit News:
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080519/METRO/805190370It reads:
But many custodial parents, family law attorneys and domestic violence activists oppose making joint custody mandatory.
They say every family is different, and 50-50 custody doesn't work in every situation.
It becomes especially difficult when parents live in different school districts or one of them doesn't want joint custody. Another factor is that mandating joint custody can sometimes disrupt a child's stability.
"When a child's whole world is changing, we want to keep as much stable in their lives as we can," said Karen Sendelbach, chair of the Family Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan.
Other opponents say noncustodial parents sometimes want joint custody simply to even the score with their ex-partner or to reduce their child support obligation. A noncustodial parent's support payments can drop by as much as 40 percent if the child stays overnight 128 times or more each year.
"The 50-50 custody split is more about people not wanting to feel the other parent has won," said Kent Weichmann, chair of the Legislative Committee of the Family Law Section.
"It has nothing to do with the relationship with the child. It's more about who's winning. It also has to do with paying less child support."
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but the object of the equal parenting movement is not about "50-50 custody doesn't work in every situation" but a
rebuttable presumption of joint-custody, meaning that if it's not appropriate, some other arrangement can be worked-out.
The phrase "rebuttable presumption" is not very difficult to understand, and yet this is construed as being "50-50 custody... in every situation". Do the people who do this do it knowing full well that they're lying?
Also, as for the idea that it's for the purpose of "paying less child support"... if a dad has joint custody of a kid and the kid is living under the dad's roof, the child support he was paying to the mother for the "care" of the children, will now go into his household expenses that are associated with the children. So
his money is being paid-out in support of the child living with him.
So do they just make these arguments-up out of whole cloth?
