Why fathers need to push for 50/50 Shared Parenting. By Matt O’Connor.
I have been asked 2 questions at least 5 times every week ever since I started Fathers4Justice in 2001. Do I know a good lawyer? The answer is still no. Should I ask for shared parenting? Hell, yes!
In any negotiation, you have to ask for the world. You can always come down, but you can never, ever go up. And the more fathers that demand 50/50 shared parenting, the more ingrained the idea of equality and justice becomes in the system.
An idea that might have sounded absurd in 2001, becomes the new normal.
We are already seeing it in Westminster. In meetings this week, more MPs were slowly being converted to the idea that shared parenting is responsible parenting, generating better outcomes for our children, our families and our country. At a time of increasing hardship, we need our fathers to be actively engaged with their children – shared parenting will lift children out of poverty.
So whilst we battle on every front, we need you to spread the shared parenting gospel in every court you attend. We need a Mums & Dads army of shared parenting evangelists busy converting friends, colleagues, MPs, priests and anyone else you can speak to!
A friend of mine once spent an eye-watering, buttock-clenching fortune on Mishcon de Reya solicitors in an attempt to get contact. They told him he would never get shared parenting. After he sacked them, I attended the Principle Registry with him once, and we walked out with a Shared Residence Order.
My message is simple. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Matt O’Connor, Founder, Fathers4Justice
Pic: Matt & his son at a Fathers4Justice demo at Trafalgar Square, 2012
