Petition - Legal default of equal shared care for children upon separation

singledadhere said:

I can't help but notice that whenever I see these petitions, they have a very low take up of people signing it.

I think perhaps this would work much better if all the various father's groups pulled together, chose just one petition, and promoted it properly. Then I think there would be a much better chance of getting the signatures it needs?

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fkav said:

Hi. I joined today after reading this thread and being so pissed off at how few signatures there are.

I posted the following on Facebook (which I hate and never use, but I didn't know where else to put it):

If you have UK residency and you care about the role fathers have in their children's lives, please sign this petition.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/603110

And if you want evidence that nobody really realises how fragile the role of a father is in a child's life, just look at how few people have signed it so far, and consider that a petition complaining about a man kicking a cat got 150,000 signatures in a few days. I'm all for protecting cats; I'm just gobsmacked that so few care about how easy it is for fathers to be written out of their children's lives.

Actually, that's not true. I'm not gobsmacked. The truth is, I didn't notice either. The fragile nature of the father's role was utterly invisible to me, until I lost what I once had: a role in my children's lives equal to their mother.
I had absolutely no idea just how weighted against the father the system is until I went through a marriage separation and sought equal contact with my children.

As a father, you do your utmost to support your children throughout their lives, and continue to do so after your marriage breaks down - and rightly so. However what you may not realise is that after your marriage breaks down, even if you:

- continue to pay the mortgage on the family home for years after separation, so that your children's lives are disrupted as little as possible, and your ex can get their life sorted out;

- pay hefty sums each month in child maintenance (incidentally, it's in the primary carer's financial interest for the other parent to have the children stay with them as little as possible, as that means they're entitled to more money from the other parent. The system is built to incentivise one parent AGAINST their children spending equal time with the other parent, since they will lose out financially if they do so. Insane.);

- take on all the debt from the marriage and spend the next decade or more paying it back, while your ex gets to rebuild their life debt-free;

- manage to obtain a second mortgage to get your own home nearby, so that the children know that despite the sad fact of your marriage ending, you still want to be in their lives as much as possible (and, for good measure, your new home gets hit with crippling "second home" taxes, because you're still paying the mortgage on the family home instead of selling and splitting equity, due to not wanting to disrupt the children's lives);

- keep your mouth shut about your ex and not say a disparaging word about them to the children or anyone they're in contact with;

- spend tens of thousands of pounds on solicitors trying to get more time with your children;

- see signs of parental alienation manifesting in your children and learn there's nothing you can do except continue to be a supportive, stable, consistent influence in their lives in the limited time you do have with them;

- make your home a safe, welcoming and loving place for your children.

...even if you do all of those things, and have done absolutely nothing to warrant NOT being an equal presence in your children's lives, you will still lose out. Because it can take YEARS to resolve issues with child contact, and even then you might not get more time with them. Not to mention that by then they may have been convinced not to want time with you anyway.

And that's just one situation. There are tens of thousands like it across the UK.

Even if you have the financial means to go through the system, you will be crippled by costs that will take you years, if not decades, to repay. If you don't have money, you may as well forget it and just accept that you won't get to see your kids more than your ex allows, because the system will simply wear you down and break you - financially and emotionally.

Over the last few years I've learned that there are probably fewer "deadbeat dads" than we might think - and probably a lot more broken-hearted, broke dads than we realise.

Maybe if enough of us actually gave a shit, something might change for those dads. So consider signing, if you can, and share the link to the petition with other UK residents.

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dadsrights said:

ive sent this to a celebrity who is fighting for to see his daughter i hope he shares it also. More recognition is needed in the rights (or lack of) the father.

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