More and more fathers in Texas are determined to participate in shared parenting time and decision-making on equal footing with women. Men going through divorce have been increasingly hiring attorneys who champion father’s rights.
In addition to custody issues stemming from divorce, more unmarried men are seeking to safeguard their parental rights to contribute to their children’s well-being by establishing paternity. This trend toward establishing equal parenting rights may partly be the result of the increased numbers of men at home while out of work during the recent economic recession. When their relationships end, more men are recognizing the importance of establishing a firm foundation regarding parenting rights and settlement negotiations and that they need attorneys to navigate them through a complicated process.
Parenting issues can involve parents living in several different states. Statutes, definitions and terminology vary greatly from state to state. What some states once referred to as “sole custody” has been changed to terms such as “parenting time,” and rules for defining and applying the laws can change depending upon how the new and old terms are defined and applied to each case. Attorneys, judges and lawmakers are becoming increasingly responsive to fathers’ insistence upon their rights in parenting issues, perhaps in part because many were raised in single-parent homes.
The process of establishing, negotiating or changing parenting rights, custody and visitation is complex. An attorney in Texas representing a client with parenting issues could build upon the processes used in previous cases in which fathers’ parenting rights had been successfully increased. Settlement arrangements can be assisted by the use of mediators and parenting consultants to help ensure that the children’s best interests remain foremost in all proceedings.
Source: USA Today , “More dads demand equal custody rights“, Sharon Jayson, June 14, 2014