Arizona's Parenting Plan Unfair?
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.