The Truth About Child Custody Laws

In this article I'd like to talk a little bit about the subject of child custody and the laws that enforce it. Divorce is extremely simple if there are no children involved. Basically, there's just an equitable distribution of assets and the two individuals part ways. However, when children are involved and it can result in years of litigation and hundreds of thousands of dollars lost during the process.

A large amount of money is at stake when there is a disputed child custody issue. My child custody dispute was far and away the most difficult situation I've ever faced. I'm a combat veteran, I've been shot at, and I've lost both my parents; but the most painful personal situation I've ever experienced was when my custody rights were violated and I had my children taken away from me.

There have been several studies that have shown that joint custody and shared parenting are absolutely the best possible scenario for any child in a divorced household. The ideal situation is for both parents to live in close proximity to one another and for the child to spend equal time with both parents. This is, of course, assuming that both parents want to be involved.

The reason it doesn't happen this way most of the time is that the divorce industry itself makes a huge amount of money both litigating and administrating split child custody arrangements. They do this by setting up a custodial and non-custodial parent; if the child spent equal time at both homes there would be no need for child support. So by awarding custody to one parent only it sets up a situation where child support needs to be paid from the party making more money to the party making less money. Most often it is the man who pays the woman.

The way the divorce industry makes money on this is an old banking trick. They collect money from one party and hold it a few days or a week later, and they make money on the float or the interest that collects during the time it is in their account. That amount may not seem like a lot initially, but when all the child support payments each year are added together, it suddenly becomes a large amount. The amount of the child support has almost nothing to do with what is actually best for the child.

Personally, I spent my last dime paying my attorney in an attempt to get custody of my children. When in reality it was a foregone conclusion that my wife would get custody. I'm a father and fathers are discriminated against in the system. My ex-wife would have had to have been a drug addict, in prison, or suffering from a diagnosable mental illness for me to win custody of my kids. If I'd known that going in I probably wouldn't have even tried to get joint custody; and would have spent my time and money attempting to get better visitation rights.

The Friendly Parent doctrine is an idea that is gaining more favorable attention in the U.S. It says that the parent most likely to include the other parent in the parenting process should get custody. However this doesn't apply in my state. So all my ex-wife had to do to get sole custody is simply not include me. She cut off communication and refused to discuss important issues with me. It was easy for her to prove that I wasn't involved because she wouldn't allow me to be.

Child custody disputes are the biggest motivating factor in my work. Like many fathers, I want to be part of my children's lives and this is the reason behind my writing, my blogs, and my websites. For more information, please visit my site: http://www.greatcustody411.com.