The country’s annual salute to dads came recently via Father’s Day. That is notably a day on which legions of dads in the Atlanta metro area and nationally count their blessings. Conversely, some of them also rue what they perceive as a stark family law challenge.
On the one hand, they give thanks for precious cargo, namely, their children. On the other hand, many fathers across the country who recently divorced their spouses or are in the process of doing so fear that they might be treated unfairly in court-dictated custody outcomes.
Does Georgia law side with mothers in child custody matters?
Concededly, judges are human. Although their rulings ostensibly derive from the pure application of legal principles, it can hardly be said that their innermost personal convictions never influence a judicial outcome.
The bottom line, though, is that Georgia law concerning custody is clear and facially impartial. Judges are bound to scrupulously follow it, with modifications of their rulings being possible in some instances.
An in-depth overview of Georgia custody matters flatly notes that “parents are equal under the law.” Put another way, that means that a state judge cannot lawfully issue an order grounded in a view that a mother should presumptively be awarded child custody.
A child-centric determination in Georgia and elsewhere across the United States must be objectively based on what will best promote the interests of affected children. Increasingly, courts are concluding that optimal outcomes feature the close and continued involvement of both mom and dad. That often means a shared custody arrangement.
Are dads embracing increased at-home involvement with their kids?
You bet they are. And empirical evidence strongly evidences that. Reams of relevant data have emerged to underscore just how much divorced and otherwise separate/single fathers want to be with their kids in a more meaningfully intimate way. Here are a few examples of that, as derived from data culled by the national Pew Research Center:
- Number of stay-at-home dads nationally is progressively spiking, rising sharply higher in recent years
- Cited reason for staying home commonly stresses desire to care for and nurture the children
- Just as many dads as moms say that strong parenting is key to their identity
- Dads reportedly spend about three times as much time with their kids nowadays as they did a couple generations ago
In a nutshell, the Pew Research findings reveal that huge numbers of dads in Georgia and nationally relish close and sustained contact with their children and are willing to do all they reasonably can to ensure it.
That resolute drive for inclusion and unshakeable parent/child bonding spells an obvious positive for American families, of course. And it fundamentally spotlights that dads in Georgia and across the U.S. cherish their role as fathers and embrace the opportunity to enhance it.