On April 10, Kentucky enacted a law that now brings to fruition what many Courts have already began to put into place long before by making shared pareting time and joint custody the law. In technical terms, HB 492 creates a presumption that at the hearing for temporary orders, generally the first hearing in a divorce or custody action, that the Parties should have joint custody and share equally in parenting time. Further, the new law sets forth that should the Court deviate from equal parenting time, the Court must do what is necessary to put into place a schedule that maximizes time with both parents.
The text of the bill can be found at http://www.lrc.ky.gov/recorddocuments/bill/17RS/HB492/orig_bill.pdf and I would encourage you to read the actual law for yourselves to see the preference in black and white for both parents.
I have been telling people consistently in my office for several months that the days of one parent seeing the children every other weekend are over. Generally, this is for good measure. The children of these relationships love both parents, and do not view the parents in the negative light often held by the Parents. They simply want to spend time with both parents like they were before the divorce or break up. This is a law that puts children's welfare first, and puts the ball in the objecting parent's court to prove with good evidence any reason to deviate from a 50/50 situation.
For far too long since the significant rise of divorce, our laws have prioritized the Parents problems over the children's well beings; this has caused many child custody wars where no one wins and the family is further distressed and torn apart during the process. While nothing will alleviate these problems completely, the law now makes it clear that the children should no longer a pawn to win in the custody fight. In my opinion, this is a win win situation, and the court's movements to this prior to the law's enactment should be applauded. No longer should we have one parent being the single parent and doing all of the duties for the child while the other parent rarely enjoys time with the child. Like the custody process itself, the result in past primary parent situations only breaded further unrest and fighting when one parent was doing all of the child rearing and bearing all of the cost and responsibilities while the other parent only had to visit occasionally. Both parents should be engaged and responsible for their children, and in turn, take stresses off of the parents who now have equal help in raising the children.
This is a formal step in the right direction. Bravo.