Opinion: Tenn. Legislator Who Wants Divorced Parents to Always Get Equal Parenting Time Has No Idea What He's Talking About

Dan you have "hit the naiil on the head" very good comment from someone who works in the Court system and has saw a lot of vindictiveness. It is not about the children at all- it's about getting even to them- the "child's best interest" is never thought of by them! Keep the good comments coming!

i seriously doubt most men can handle 6 month of the screaming, of the sickness..of the rides to soccor practice, dance, baseball, and still keep their careers in a good line of sucess...women give up a lot to raise their children..chances of vacations, (men would you give up your week of fishing..?? hunting, snowmobiling, or would that be the week you would give the wife the kids...showing your as selfish as you accuse women of being....making lunches, dinners, breakfasts...give up a social life in the 6 months you would have custody??? would your girlfriend do the brunt of the work or even put up with them, without the marriage ring...you all want a better relationship, i agree you should..but first take the kids for 2 months and see if you can do the job... then make the decision on who get them when and how often...maybe you women out there will like the 6 months off the job...and only have them on week ends when you can be the 'GOOD GUY" and not the one saying no all the time...and beware...6 month off of raising kids and having time on your hands might just catch on with moms....omg even a social life again.....lol... yes i was divorced...and he could of come over anytime...but chose to disappear instead, showing up when they were in their 30s...wanting a relationship...and no..they walked away this time...leaving him...alone and old and sick...without regret....

Dan made a good comment, and Linda agreed.
Dan has one star and Linda has three.

The people who agree with this biased writer don't even care. They just hate you if you have a penis, because you're automatically a criminal, rapist, spousal abuser, etc... Just pointing out the hypocrisy. That's all, Seacrest out.

Kathy, your comment is a blanketed comment that does not apply to all. I am a divorced father from a divorced home myself. I have my child 5 days a week and I pack his lunch, bathe him, play with him, read to him, go to his school functions, make sure he has hair cuts, dentists visits, doctors visits. I provide him with his clothes, toys, extra curricular activities and I don't ask for a dime from anyone else.

I have had him this way for the past 4 years and it has worked out just fine. Your comment is a stupid comment based on your own experiences. I haven't taken a vacation or sick day for myself in case I need them for when my child is sick or has a day off and I have to be with him. I know several other dads who do the same and have these "moms" who are lazy and do the bare minimum. Not every dad is a dead beat dad. I know more dead beat moms spending their child support on getting their nails done or out whoring around on the town rather than spending time with their kids.

Think before you speak. I know it may be hard but your life isn't everyone else's life.

Why is "doing the right thing" always seem to that good ole support check?

I am sorry to tell you that men are not the only ones who abuse children. From what we read, there are nearly as many women as men who are abusive. And why is it that "equal" time with the children is somehow impossible if one parent has to move because of job requirements? Women have been taking their children and moving to different states and even different countries for their jpbs, their families or sometimes their new boyfriends without a thought for the father's rights - or the children's neds; why is this syddenly a problem now?

Are you stupid!!! You said that until a man can carry a child for 9 months and stop abusing woman that the child must go to the mother. I am a woman and i think that what you have written is the most stupidest thing that I have ever read. 1st off, in this society we woman have struggled for so long with getting EQUAL rights and i am not going to let some dumb girl who wants out of a relationship to ruin the image that we females are dumb, mean, and vindictive. There is a guy I like, he is a nice guy, does tons of volunteer work, and extremely gentle. He is divorced and has a daughter, and he only gets to see her 2 times a week and every other weekend he gets her for a day, which amounts to 10 days a month. Supposedly, his Ex says he can see her any time he wants, but she moved 100 miles away, so that it is a hardship for him to see her. With his work schedual and her living so far away, sometimes he doesnt even get to see her on the schedualed days, because his Ex played the courts and just to pay the child support he has to work 2 jobs, he works as a teachers assistant full time during the school week and then takes a second job as a transporter at a hospital. His ex is now a stay at home mom and doesnt have to work because he is supporting her. He doesnt even want to think about ever marrying again because he cant afford it because of his daughters support check, but she, the ex has no such problems because she doesnt have to think about if it is economical to marry again for the second time, because even if she remarried she would still get his check. And he is also worried that if he married again the second girl might do the same thing, because of her he is to cautious to find the right someone and she has it all.

Also, the retarded thing you said "until a man can carry a child for 9 months" Guess what, until the woman of this country wanted equal rights there were high weight lifting rules for being qualified to being a police officer, and those kept woman from being police officers and they changed that rule so that woman would have equal rights. Well, the problem is that we cant make rules that can change who can carry a child. So basically you want to make laws that say that a man should not have any custody for his child because he has a penis, which in fact is sexist, and i bet you are one of those crazy individuals that support womans rights and cry out about womans rights being violated and how men are so sexist but you never look at your self as being sexist. There are some basic things that obviously you were not told. 1st a man cant carry a child for 9 months, not because he is a bad person, but, DUH he has no vagina and not uterus and there for does not have the sexual organs that would carry a child.

Another thing is that some woman can be mean and vindictive just as much as men can. Have you ever heard the saying "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" That is because when you have pissed off a woman or if you hate her there is nothing scarier. I know this from the many times that my mom is mad and you can hear her screaming from down the street, or so it seems. As young children we used to flinch and hide any time we heard mom screaming because it would start with her being mad at my mom or older brother, and soon she had something mean and vindictive to say to everyone in the entire house.

SO KEEP YOUR SEXIST, IGNORANT BULL SHIT TO YOUR SELF.

FROM THE WOMAN SCORNED, ME

It is kind of hard to "punish" mom. Usually with her brand newest man she just adds her tax free support check to the discretionary funding fund then goes back to court for more. Worked for my ex.

WRONG!!!! In this day and age, the woman is NEVER responsible for the childs medical needs. The child is ALWAYS on the dads medical insurance or he is responsible and he always is the one that pays for their medication. When ever their is a custody issue in court, even if the descision is 50/50 the court descision always makes the father legally responsible to pay for medical insurance AND childcare. I know this for a fact, because i have a friend who is a support enforcer and she told me so. Woman can be really scummy and try to take advantage. I work at a childcare center and we have 2 children that attend and their mother is a real loser. they share the children almost 50/50, and he pays for the childcare and he is the one that pays the insurance. not only that but they are school aged children and when school age children have a no school day then they are supposed to bring their own lunch. our lunch is only for the full time, younger kids. when she brings them in then they are unwashed and she does not bring them with any food and they end up begging us and their friends for scraps of food and we end up feeding them because we are good people that dont want kids to go hungry, but when he brings them in they look clean and well cared for and they have food because he actually cares about them. the mother is a loser and she lied to the father and told them that the state was helping her pay for the childcare but he had to still pay $138 a week for childcare at a discounted rate. In reality she was paying for $138 A MONTH, and she was pocketing the extra $414 that he was giving her. then the children would always be with him in the middle of the week instead of weekends and she worked it out so that the kids were schedualed for dad only on the days and times he was working. and them when he brought the kids in she would complain to the state that he wasnt taking care of them and doing his responsibility even though all that money he is making is just to pay her support payment plus the money she is ripping off him in addition to his support payment with the cash that she is getting for the extra 414 dollars that she was embezzling off of him that in reality was not paying for childcare plus 500 dollars he pays for their medical coverage. when he brought the kids she would claim that he couldnt do that because her name was on the daycare contract as the person paying for childcare and he complained to us saying that with the $138 bucks a week he is paying that he should have the option of taking them to daycare when he needed to work, which is when we informed him that the 138 was for a month not a week, which is when he got really mad, and said that he was going to court, we havent heard the bitch complain about him recently or tell us not to let him bring them. She has a new boyfriend of course. the thing is, he is a way better parent then she is, at least he remembers to bring them in clean clothes, bathe them, and isnt lying to pilage the other parents hard worm cash, and with the extra money she was scamming from him, if you took the extra 414 per month times the 2 years we had them at the same rate it would equal about 10 thousand dollars. so for the 2 years we had them she scammed his ass out of 10k. That is alot of clothes. Damn, my college education was about that much. and she is low income supposedly and the government gives her clothes stipends and food stamps and he WIC and he doesnt get the stamps because she is the mother and even though they have them 50/50 they are claimed on her forms, but he is the only one i see that is actually feeding them.

I agree, Jody. My ex used to take the kids to the walk-in clinic or ER every chance he could (on average, once a month) knowing full well that since I had primary custody, I'd get the medical bill. Even though he was supposed to reimburse me 50% of what insurance didn't cover, it would takes well over a year and at least 2 trips to court before I was reimbursed. And don't even get me started on how the insurance premiums were taken out of my check and he was supposed to reimburse me 50% of the children's portion of the premiums.

I'd rather see the laws change so that medical/dental bills are split in half and sent to each parent to handle. My credit sucks because he refused to reimburse me for anything.

Hopefully, extra expenses will be considered in a divorce settlement.
But Misha...While not all people (be it a man or a woman) are fair, calling someone retarded and stupid is not going to solve anything. Insults will prevent anyone from seeing your point. Your statement about how your boyfriend has no money b/c he supports his ex by sending a child support check should be viewed as his supporting his child. He is putting a roof over the child's head, food in the child's mouth, etc. I'd like to know how she is supporting herself and her child on child support alone!!
This law, I believe, can be great in certain situations. In my situation, it wouldn't be. Only because my child couldn't handle the chaos that came with our agreement because of his dad's work schedule. I could have moved back home (I had no family near me because I had moved with my husband for his job to another state) , but I didn't move so that my son would be near his dad. I gave extra time in our decree, because I thought my child would need it. It turns out that it didn't work out that way. My son cried every time he had to leave to go until he was 8 years old. So the Tennessee idea would have been horrible for us. He now doesn't mind going to his dad's for the most part. Since a judge told my ex that he had not bonded with his son, he has tried somewhat to do so. My son recently had his appendix out and his father didn't EVEN bother to come to the hospital for his emergency appendectomy. (You couldn't have kept me away!!!!) Sometimes there IS a difference between men and women and where their kids are concerned. And that should be considered before passing a law that is simply not that black and white. Unfortunately, my ex is 'going to get his time' whether it is at the cost of my child or not (my child could have a complete emotional meltdown about not wanting to go with his dad), yet his dad doesn't even care. It is all about him. He forgets to pick him up sometimes. Tell me that if it was REALLY about getting to spend time with his child, he'd forget something like that. He'd be looking forward to it and counting down the days...not leaving him to wonder where he is. I know every situation is different as are the people involved and it should be treated on an individual basis for that reason alone.