You’re asking a good question, but it’s not the question you think you’re asking. Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS), Divorce Education and Orientation Courses, QDRO (Qualified Domestic Relations Order), Stalking Injunction/Civil Stalking Injunction, Utah Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA). Credit. I think this misconception stems from past history where mothers were the primary caretakers and most of them were stay-at-home moms. For instance, most individuals tend to believe that most single mothers who choose to raise their kids on their own are either unemployed or receive government assistance. Go. There has been a tremendous amount of public discussion over equal rights in recent years. While it remains a common belief that courts favor, or are even biased for, mothers in custody disputes, this is not the case. The department investigators who visited Lena at … First, we need to understand a few things about the way the law governing the award of child custody has evolved. Oct 13, 2006 #6 MrsK said: The govt should sterilize people who have this sort of attitude. Most states define custody as legal custody and physical custody. Long Standing Dedication to Family Law. A handful of states don't officially consider the wishes of a child when awarding custody. Maybe before the age of the modern woman, the courts may have favored mothers just because they were female. Louisiana: Joint custody is an option, and courts will consider the wishes of the child in custody matters. Attorney Profiles. On average, a typical divorced dad living in a red state will see his child 400 fewer hours each year than a blue-state dad and 700 fewer hours than a purple-state dad. However, the NPO report shows that in 80 percent of U.S. child custody cases, states award a mother sole custody. When divorce became more common in the 1970s, society, including the judges within it, assumed a gendered division of labor within households. Georgia law states, “In all cases in which the custody of any child is at issue between the parents, there shall be no prima-facie right to the custody of the child in the father or mother. Today, while the numbers still favor moms, they are not as clearly in their favor. The govt should sterilize people who have this sort of attitude. However, that is not the case any longer. In families like these, it was clear that the mother usually did, in the majority of divorce cases involving such families, the majority of the child care taking. Parents can be granted joint custody. The judges were mostly men and didn’t see child raising as a proper role for a father. Source: National Parents Organization, “STATE-BY-STATE ANALYSIS HIGHLIGHTS PARENTAL INEQUALITY ACROSS THE NATION,”, USA Today, “Report: States fail on shared parenting laws,” Jonathan Ellis, Nov. 13, 2014, National Parents Organization, “2014 Shared Parenting Report Card A New Look At Child Welfare A State-by-State Ranking,” 2014. Family Law. Gender should not factor into these determinations. Thread starter FireNSpice; Start date Oct 13, 2006; Accident - Bankruptcy - Criminal Law / DUI - Business - Consumer - Employment - Family - Immigration - Real Estate - Tax - Traffic - Wills Please click a topic or scroll down for more. Some states presume that parents have joint custody, while others do not. Virtually all states have abolished using the tender years doctrine in making child custody decisions, but that doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of judges still lean towards awarding a mother custody rather than a father. 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