Alabama's Children Deserve Both Parents
“Equal shared parenting is a win-win-win solution to raising kids when parents are living apart”—Guest Opinion by Don Hubin, in support of HB147
Guest Opinion by Don Hubin
What if there were a way to promote the best interest of Alabama’s children that was virtually cost-free? Would Alabama’s lawmakers jump at the chance to enact it? There is. And they should.
House Bill 147, sponsored by Representative Kenneth Paschal would establish the commonsense approach to raising children when parents are living apart: keep both parents fully and equally engaged unless there is a good reason not to.
Alabamians have common sense. In recent independent polling, 96% of them said children have a right to spend equal or nearly equal time with both parents when parents are living apart and 87% of them support a change in the state law to create a rebuttable presumption that such shared parenting is in children’s best interest. Of course that presumption is overcome when there is evidence that this would risk harm to the children.
This commonsense solution is backed by science, too. More than 40 years of scientific research has shown that, on every metric of child well-being, children of separated parents raised in a shared parenting arrangement do about as well as children raised in intact families and much better than children raised in sole custody arrangements.
Opponents of shared parenting presumptions sometimes raise concerns about domestic violence or child abuse. These are serious matters, of course, and they deserve serious, research-based responses. Fortunately, all the available evidence indicates that presumptions of shared parenting decrease both domestic violence and child maltreatment. Enactment of shared parenting presumptions are followed by lower rates of intimate partner violence and child abuse. There is no instance of such presumptions being followed by increases in either forms of violence.
Equal shared parenting is a win-win-win solution to raising kids when parents are living apart. It’s not only typically best for children, as a mountain of research shows. It allows both parents to continue to be fully engaged with their children and, also, to have time to decompress, to pursue their education or professional advancement, and to develop a healthy social life.
Representative Paschal has offered the Alabamians a commonsense, scientifically-backed approach to modernizing Alabama’s child custody laws. It’s a way to improve the lives of Alabama’s children that doesn’t require a costly bureaucracy. All it requires is keeping separated parents equally involved in raising their children unless there is a good reason not to.
The Alabama legislature should pass, and Governor Ivey should sign into law, HB147. Alabama’s children deserve two parents.
Don Hubin (donhubin@sharedparenting.org) is the Chair of National Parents Organization, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at The Ohio State University, and Founding Director Emeritus of the OSU Center for Ethics and Human Values.
For more information on HB147, see THIS LINK.
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