National Movement Pushes Shared Parenting Bill Before Legislators In Missouri

Missouri legislators are thinking about allowing both parents to share an equal custody of their children after a divorce. This will allow both parents to spend equal time with their children, making it less difficult for the kids to live in a single parent household.

The current law states that judges award enough, but not necessarily the same time for the divorcing parents to spend with their children. However, a national movement is suggesting that judges should give equal amount of time for the parents to be with their child/children.

According to ABCNews.com, a Senate bill that was read in the assembly would probably change from "significant but not equal" to "approximate and reasonably equal" time.

In other cases, if both parents are deserving and capable of raising the child, the custody is usually granted full custody to the mother. In an interview with a local station KY3, Andrea Bishop who is the executive director of the Betty and Bobby Allison Ozarks Counseling Center said that the most common thing the children need is to have both their parents with them. "There are some exceptions when the parent has really just lost the privilege of being a parent."

However, Bishop also explained that in some cases, it is better for the child to have a parent that's completely not around than to have one who is there only on several occasions. This would create an illusion of a family to the child, which can hurt them in the long run, parenting.com reported.

Shared parenting system has already been proposed in 18 states in the past years, according to the National Parents Organization, which promotes laws relating to that. Utah and Minnesota passed the shared parenting laws, while Missouri, Massachusetts, and Kentucky have shared parenting bills in the legislatures. Other states which thought of the same bill last year are expected to bring it up to their respective legislature again this year.

A founder and board of chairman of a group based in Boston explained that parents sharing equal amount of time is much better for a child than the decision of the judge to let one parent win and the other parent losing. He also said that the bill doesn't mean that mothers are stripped off of their custody, but it will allow the judge to start thinking that both parent deserve the same amount of time with the child, and base the decision from there.

Video Credit: youtube.com/childrenrights