Father's Day 2015: Shared Parenting Gaining Support, Equal-Time Child Custody the New Post-Divorce Arrangement

There is a current movement calling for shared parenting to give fathers equal rights over their children following a separation or divorce.

According to The Hill, when parents separate or the marriage ends in divorce, most of the time the court awards mother the full custody of the child and fathers are reduced to "visitors" 80 percent of the time

The uphill struggle of fathers over their children's full custody is supported by another data from the Census, which revealed that 83 percent of the custodial parents are mothers, Huffington Post reports.

Several years ago, it was found out that in Nebraska, the custody cases between 2002 to 2012 resulted in favor of the mothers and majority of the father (72 percent) were only given the privilege of seeing their children only 5 times a month.

The same trend applies to most of the states in the country. In the previous year, there was a national study which rated the child custody statutes of each state. Majority got a poor grade and no state got the highest rating.

According to National Parents Organization, 8 states received a rating of B, 18 states were rated with C, 23 states received a rating of D and 2 states got a grade of F. Among the states with high rating are Alaska and Arizona while New York and Rhode Island reportedly have the worst custody statutes.

The good news is people are becoming aware of this issue and currently twenty states have already supported the passing of a shared parenting bill this year.

The shared parenting movement is designed to cater the best interest of the children who have to deal with a broken family.

Several studies were done related to child development research and one of the recent studies published in Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health found that shared parenting serves best when it comes to the children's health. The said study involved 150,000 individuals.

Another study, "Fifty moves a year: is there an association between joint physical custody and psychosomatic problems in children?" examined the mental health of children who were subject to sole custody after their parents' separation or divorce.

The said study revealed that children who spend a generous time with both parents are less stressed than those living with one parent only, The Hill has learned.

This only shows that shared parenting is crucial to the physical and mental health of children. Thus, came the call for equal parenting time after separation or divorce.

This movement aims to make equal parenting normal and not the exception.This will also benefit the mothers because the time they need to spend with their kids will be reduced, so they can have more time for themselves of for their careers, The Hill reports.