The power of parental equality

By Ned Holstein, M.D.

Fathers are not equal. And society pays a price for this, especially children.

To demonstrate this point, consider the scenario of just one dad. Until his divorce, a father I know well did 60 percent of the parenting. He dressed his kids and got them off to school, cooked dinners and took them to the doctor. Although he asked for joint physical custody, he got the "standard possession order" – every other weekend with his children. This is the outcome in over 80 percent of divorces today.

Thankfully, we have a solution to this crisis: shared parenting when parents split. I'm encouraged that state legislatures in nearly 20 states have recently proposed legislation supportive of shared parenting – where children spend significant time with mom and dad post-divorce. This Father's Day, we must move these reform efforts forward to best honor fathers and their families.

The example father's unfortunate experience didn't stop at his parenting time order. After four months during which no one answered the doorbell at his ex-wife's home when he arrived to pick up the kids on his designated weekends, the family court still took no action. Clearly, the family court considered his value to his children to be minimal. In fact, shared parenting occurs just 20 percent of the time, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Sole custody, usually awarded to mothers, persists a great majority of the time.

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Society's indifference to the value of fathering is also reflected in federal budget priorities. The federal government spends about $5 billion per year to enforce child support payments, but spends essentially nothing to enforce fathers' court-ordered parenting time.

Further, data from Massachusetts shows that a non-custodial mother who falls behind on her child support has only one-eighth the chance of being jailed as does a non-custodial father who is behind in a similar amount. Apparently, the courts are far more reluctant to deprive children of their non-custodial mothers than their non-custodial fathers.

Policies surrounding restraining orders also demonstrate the low value placed on fathering. About a million restraining orders per year are obtained because the woman claims to be in fear that something might happen. Attorney Elaine Epstein, former president of the Massachusetts Bar Association, as well as many others, has often publicly stated that in many cases such restraining orders are obtained as a legal gimmick to gain advantage in an upcoming divorce. There is no attempt to determine if there is actually any danger. The police instantly remove the father from the home. The separation lasts for months to years. Thus, depriving millions of children of innocent, loving fathers is considered so insignificant that it does not even require a dangerousness hearing.

In each example above, fathering is considered of low value, even though a large body of research now shows that fathering and mothering are both vital to the healthy development of a child. For instance, this spring, a 150,000-person study published by the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health found that shared parenting after divorce or separation is in the best interest of children's health. So when loving fathers are kept out of the lives of their children, the children pay a heavy price. (The complex data on same-sex parenting are beyond the scope of this article, but clearly there is no obvious damage to children from this arrangement.)

Women certainly pay a price, too. The gender stereotypes that honor mothering over fathering and see women as the natural caretakers of children are the same gender stereotypes that see men as the natural masters of the public sphere outside of the home. We will never achieve equality for women in the workplace until we also achieve equality for men as parents. To give just one example, the gender pay gap cannot be closed as long as about 30 percent of mothers are single mothers tasked with 80 percent of the parenting time, depriving them of the time and energy they need to compete in the workplace.

It is time for gender equality, for women in the public space and for men as parents. This Father's Day, please join me in advocating for parental equality and shared parenting.

Ned Holstein, M.D., M.S., is founder and chairman of the board of National Parents Organization. Dr. Holstein served on the Massachusetts Working Group on Child Centered Family Law, and he previously served on a task force charged with reviewing and revising the state's child-support guidelines.