He wanted me to share this information. He believes that the State of Arizona is being unfair to him, a father who will not have residential custody of the child, by only allowing him to see the child one day each week.
I was able to find the document that he showed me, along with all the other pages. Here it is. I must disclose that I am not an attorney, and nothing that follows constitutes legal advice. Here's the result of my admittedly brief research.
Arizona has, indeed, adopted a process by which a parenting plan must be agreed to at the time of a divorce. ARS 25-403.02 is the applicable statute. That statute does not stipulate what the parenting plan must be. The Superior Court of Arizona in Maricopa County established Parenting Plan Guidelines in order to help parents who are divorcing to establish a plan that is in the best interest of children. It is not about legal custody, child support, who is right or who is wrong. It has to do with children. As I understand it, in many divorces involving children, residential custody is established by the court. That means that the child lives primarily with one parent, and the other is awarded visitation rights. As an aside, I also learned that even joint custody does not mean that visitation is necessarily 50/50.
The parenting plan is a road map to which both parents must agree at the outset, as part of the legal proceeding. Children should never be an afterthought, and the relationship between divorcing parents and children should not be a matter of contention after the fact. Hence, the plan. When the split is not an amicable one, the residential custodial parent might make it difficult for the other parent to see the child if there was no legally adopted plan. The Parenting Plan Guidelines offer suggestions, by age group, for at least the most basic visitation rights that will be recognized as reasonable by the courts, absent extenuating circumstances. If the parents can agree, more visitation may be arranged. In every case, however, the court will always consider the child first.
In this case, it seems that this couple isn't agreeing on much, so basic visitation may be all the father gets. I am led to understand that with a child this young, infant development justifies that the parent with visitation just doesn't get much time -- enough to develop a bond, but not enough to confuse the child. In this case, it just isn't as much time as he'd like.
So, although I wanted to get back to my sushi, I knew that this young man was hurting and feeling betrayed by Arizona. There's not much I can write that is encouraging. I have not been able to determine if Arizona law is more stringent in this regard than other states, or if other counties in Arizona have the same parenting plan guidelines.
I only spoke to him for a few minutes, but he seemed like he'll be a great Dad. I hope it works out for him and for his child.
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Comments
I think it’s unfair that mother’s seem to automatically be chosen to be the custodial parent. There are situations when the father is the better parent. I have suffered through this with my husband and my step children. Their mother has mental illness and anger issues which have been very damaging to them.
I have been dealing with this same biased unfair law creation. I have working for four years against a completely biased system. Women’s lib has been disgraced and men have disgraced themselves. If women are seen to have equal rights as men then this would not be happening. My daughter was abducted by police when she was 3 months old by Page Police. The mother was drunk and irrate that night. The police sided with the mother because of the biased law, not for what was best for the child. I was not allowed to see my daughter until I was able to get a court order, that took 3 months. Then the judge awarded mom $1000 dollars a month in support for one child. Judge A. allowed her to have support calculated on overtime. Believe me, there are many more cases of this unfairity going on, because we are not suppose to talk about it. Also, mothers are usually given free law help. I have payed a nice college fund in attorney fees. You don’t hear about free care to fathers. Fathers do not have a place to go when abbused by their spouse. A woman in Arizona could have many children with different fathers and live very well, because our system is biased.
An example of bias, I have a restraining order on me. This restraining order was installed because I was contacting mom thru her cell phones. One cell phone was given to her daughter for a period of time. Therefore, I was considered harrassing her child for carrying this cell phone when I called it looking for the mom. Now, I have a scorn record. Just recently, the same child called my phone looking for her sister. Just recently, the mom followed me on and off the freeway. Just recently, the same mother flicked me off and called me names in front of our child. Now I have called the police when the mom has broke the restraining order, they say sorry can’t help, it’s a civil matter. But, if the tables were turned, I would be thrown in jail or laughed at.
So – divorces are ugly. I do not care how *amicable* the split is, there is nothing really attractive about a divorce, especially when children are involved. I guess you could say I am the small percentage of moms that struggles with a deadbeat dad, however the state of AZ continues to allow him to see our daughter. He is abusive, and just a lost soul. Granted, we have grown up together in the same town our whole lives, he just grew to be a lost soul, who now does nothing with his life but corrupt my daughter. After suffering through his alcohol problems and driving him home from bars as I thought an honorable wife should do, he punched me so hard in the face one night while driving that I had to get 15 stitches in my eye. Our daughter was 2.5 years old. That is when I called in quits. This did not stop him – he wrecked our house once getting out of jail – with no help from the police or court systems. I am stuck in this state, still having to deal with this loser and encourage a relationship with my now 8 year old daughter that is only deteriorating her health. I am finally going to goto court to leave this state bc this is just not healhty for her.
Nobody wins – and for one parent who only wants the best for her child, I say if you are civil do what is best for the child – who gives a damn about what you think.
I have been attempting to have a “normal” relationship with my daughter for nearly nine years. Her mother, however, has done just about everything imaginable to harm that relationship, e.g. being extremely slow or completely non-responsive to visitation requests, communicating soley via fax or attorneys, etc. (the mom took almost a full two years before formally agreeing to joint Parenting Plan) Social workers, therapists, medical professionals, judges, and, yes, even law enforcement agencies have all been involved and to little avail. The last two years have been the most difficult as I have had to defend myself legally against false allegations of abuse. I have since been exonerated, but the damage has been done. Alienation has resulted despite months of therapeutic intervention. The mother was ordered to seek individual therapy and postively affect the reunification process. Despite several reprimands handed down by the court-appointed therapeutic interventionist, the mom, enabled by her attorney, continues to abdicate any form of accountability and neither the court nor therapist will step in and do the right thing – perhaps for fear that they too would be accused of wrongdoing by the mom. It’s incredible thing to witness and tremendously frustrating. The tens of thousands of dollars that I’ve spent trying to do what’s best for my child (by most contemporary standards) has almost been for naught. It’s wasted money and the only ones benefitting are the attorneys and therapists – a cottage industry. Meanwhile, my daughter’s college tuition is being pissed away in order to pay my legal bills. The legal system, for the sake of children caught in this type of situation, must be revamped from the inside out. The courts must become more proactive, very early in the process, to facilitate Parenting Plans and Parenting Coordination for the sake of the child. Long delays, false starts, or just plain belligerent interference by one parent or the other must be stamped out immediately. There are existing and more cost-friendly resources available to assist, such as the Parenting Coordinator Program. The problem is that there is no consistent court-integrated process through which parents can and should be required to participate. Gimme a break! Am I alone here?
I am in need of a Parent Coordinator to address issues simular to those mentioned. I need recommendations with the most cost effective success stories.
You might want to contact Community Information & Referral and ask if they can direct you.
http://www.cir.org/
Hello,
I have just spent a long 2.5 years to get my children back after my ex-wife accused me of outrageous crimes with no proof. It took two lawyers and tons of money (now bankrupt) to get my boys back to me. Now the final decree has been posted and I need a parent coordinator to work with my ex-wife and I when it concerns the children. This is of course when we can’t agree. I just want to say that the court was extremely unfair to me and my children. The emotional damage that has been done to them by my ex-wife will probably never be undone. I’m just happy to have my children back to me now. By the way I only had my children 2 times a week for a total of 7 hours with supervision. The court found that there was no justification for what my ex-wife did and that 50/50 should be awarded. I’m broke but at least I have my children now.
Parenting coordinators (PC) are violation of CIVIL LIBERTIES on naive Americans!!! PC will try to convince unaware parents to go to them for custody evaluation during the child custody dispute. He works in a gang with several corrupt lawyers who will try to convince you that it may be cheaper then go to court. To get your trust they will pretend to be fair and just in beginner, but one parties fall into his trap, they will suck thousand of dollars from both parties involved. At the end of custody evaluation PC will recommend you to go to Parental Coordinator to himself of to one of his friends. Then he will totally get control of both parents life, because PC are both judicial, executive, legislative and financially motivated party in this case, i.e. they making the “rules”, decide if you follow them, punish parents by putting limitations on all aspects of parental time. Using you natural love to kids he will be controlling every step of your relationships with them and you personal life. Common civil liberties include the rights of people, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech, and additionally, the right to due process, to a trial, to own property, and to privacy. But forget about it now: PC will check your house, tell you where and how you can live, what friends you can have, he will control every word you can say, what candy your kids can eat, and many more – sky is the limit, because there is no law controlling them, whatever they think in “child best interest” they can do. Also this PC will charge both parties for every word of this precious “recommendations”. Eventually he will cost both parents thousands more then just go to court. DO NOT FALL INTO HIS SCHEMA! If you did already, try to go to court and have a judge to remove PC from your case, but PC very resilient to removal. If you file malpractice suite or complaint to psychologist board, he may drop, but then he may ask court to assign a new PC they choose to your family.
Here is several good links for parenting coordinator victims:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parenting_Coordinator
http://www.thelizlibrary.org/parenting-coordination/parenting-coordination.html
http://ncmbts.blogspot.com/2010/01/parenting-coordinator-concept-lack-of.html
http://www.barbrack.com/news/20-rules-of-engagement-for-parent-cooridnators.html
This message is for Kim Sprunger who posted below – will you call me please 6237557801
Many,many babies go to day care for 9,10,12 hours a day, starting a six weeks, when their parents go back to work. Yet a FATHER gets only ONE 8 HOUR visit a WEEK? How is that fair and how is that best for the baby?
Babies go to daycare for 9,10,12 hours a day, 5 days a week, beginning at 6 weeks. Yet a FATHER only gets 8 HOURS a WEEK! How is that fair or good for a baby?
I know this article is several years old, but I would like to know what, if any, laws have changed since the entry of this blog. Or are we (parents) just kicking the can down the road
Follow-up reply: On January 1, 2013 that statute in Arizona will be revised. Here is the text of the changes:
http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/50leg/2r/laws/0309.pdf
It renames “custody” to “legal-decision making” and “visitation” is now called “parenting time”. It still requires parenting plans, but seems to give the court more leeway when awarding parenting time in that the judge may discount which parent had primary care of the child before (usually the mother) and is more oriented toward the judge deciding what is best in the child’s interest. I found this brief description, in more easily understandable language:
http://heyannette.com/senate-bill-1127-changes-to-arizonas-custody-statutes/
It seems to be an effort to not make custody (how do we stop using that word?) decisions based solely on who the primary caregiver was, which seems to mostly benefit Dads.
Hi Mac,
I don’t know of the process has changed in the last five years, but the statute, to which I linked in the article, hasn’t changed.