In “Stand Up For Zoraya”
South Dakota Shared Parenting
I recently came across a picture of a scene we all know way too well. A cold snowy day and a man holding a cardboard sign standing on the corner of a busy intersection, begging for money. But what was written on this mans’ sign was something far different than the “homeless” or “spaceship broke down, need money for repairs” sign. This man, Matt Doyle, was asking for donations to support family law change here in South Dakota.
“Currently, when parents divorce, only a small number of children are able to have shared parenting in many of the states,” according to Scott Hagerman, of 5050rights.org. “Only a hundred or so years ago, if a couple divorced, oftentimes the children would go with the Father. The industrial revolution and a lot of the “movements” that have happened the last hundreds years, the pendulum has swung to the opposite extreme.
There are good Dads, and in some cases good Moms who are being kept from their children for absolutely no reason, other than the other parents wants it that way, and a judge somewhere agreed. “I think the common misconception is this idea of “deadbeat Dads” that has made its way into mainstream media and conscious” says Jacklyn Oborne, a Step-Mother who has been helping her husband work their way through the legal nightmare of trying to get custody of his biological son and daughter. “It’s really a sad thing. So many good Dad’s out there are oftentimes presented as abusers, as mean Fathers, or even just as non-caring parents who want nothing to do with their children. My husband has been dealing with the after-effects of falsified claims of abuse, a common tactic in custody disputes, for nearly 4 years now. I have been married to him for 6 years now, he is a good man without a mean bone in his body, a good Father to his step children, but the courts and CPS seem to vilify him based off of claims by his ex-wife. It makes no sense, but that’s the life we live.”
According to Oborne, the troubles with custody actually came about a year after the divorce. Her husband had a somewhat amicable relationship with his first wife, but the courts gave the first wife custody of their children. He was put into a position of only having his children a few days a month. When he finally started dating again, “that’s when things went to hell. His first wife became increasingly jealous of any interactions that he and I had, and then when I was introduced to his kids, that’s about the time the allegations started to come out.”
Many people in the past have seen joint custody as a tool to help Fathers maintain their relationships with their children. Casey Wilson, of the Facebook group “South Dakota Shared Parenting” states “this is not just a fathers rights issue, alot of great mothers are losing custody too, the real enemy is the adversarial process the divorce industry creates, A winner must be chosen in many states, you are better off pursuing full custody instead of doing what’s right and pursuing shared, which is sad.”
For anyone who has not gone through a custody battle, they generally cost a few thousand dollars, and sometimes up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The money lines the pockets of attorneys, court appointed counselors, evaluators, mediators, and other “professionals.” No one seems to want the system to improve. The sad thing, is that it seems those who dont have the financial means end up being the ones who oftentimes lose in the legal system. If the legislative and judicial system would only keep in mind “When one parent wins, the children and the other parent lose” then we could have some meaningful, life altering change in family law.
Over twenty people testified of the complete dysfunction of our family courts in Miami and all across the state of Florida: https://vimeo.com/channels/878408.
A Broken Family Court System:
Children's Rights 