Letter: Putting parents on equal ground

Saturday, April 2, 2005 | 9:24 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

April 2 - 3, 2005

Senate Bill 109, if passed into law, would place both parents on equal ground after a divorce. Arguments against the bill are weak. To state that equal rights for both parents, and equal rights for children to both parents, will cause more domestic violence is hogwash.

Once most people are treated fairly, they tend to get on with life and learn to co- parent. In fact, eliminating children from one parent's life actually drives most people crazy.

Not passing this bill would accomplish a few things for sure. It would keep money flowing from families to divorce attorneys and court-appointed psychologists. The dysfunction in our society would certainly continue and worsen.

Today both parents typically are working trying to maintain two households. Children are often latchkey residents and are raised more by babysitters and peers than parents.

Once the financial incentives are removed, parents may not be so impulsive to divorce. If a parent knows that they will not have total control over the children and a paycheck, they might think twice before divorcing.

Furthermore, if parents understand that in spite of not sleeping in the same bed and residing in the same home, that they must raise their children cooperatively, then the end of the lucrative divorce industry may begin. This will stop the never-ending expansion of the Family Court bureaucracy and the increasing wealth of divorce attorneys. Instead, by avoiding protracted litigation and preferential treatment to one parent over another, families and children will begin to benefit.

ALAN R. DICICCO

Editor's note: The writer is founder and president of the Coalition for Family Court Reform.