NCFM NOTE: NCFM Member Larry Kerkman’s CRISPE Bus (Children’s Initiative For Sharing Parents Equally) traveled the country advocating for shared parenting.
I was privileged to work with Larry in developing CRISPE. The travel arrangements were unquestionably more comfortable than the Freedom Riders rides several decades ago. But riding for freedom it was nonetheless. State by state CRISPE and crew traveled rallying support for shared parenting. State capitals, county fairs, Washington D.C., wherever it made sense our bus took truth and hope across the country to millions who saw it.
CRISPE and one of it’s crews… the LA Bunch.
CRISPE was an awakening of sorts. An awakening for those who knew something was horribly wrong with our country but couldn’t put a finger on it to pin it down.
Many shared parenting advocates came before CRISPE. Many more advocate for shared parenting now. Legislatures are struggling over related bills opposed by elitist feminists, domestic violence industry operatives, and family law attorneys, all who reap billions of dollars (literally) each year making sure conflict runs unobstructed in our (il)legal family court systems.
No one cared. Not really. Not when it was just fathers being destroyed, ruined by our family court system, bankrupted by ideologically driven legislation, and buried with “suicide reason unknown” in their obits.
Larry the shared parenting movie star.
Legislators generally turned a blind eye on themselves, their male children, and male constituents when confronted with the slightest opposition; thereby destroying intact families, heritage, and fathers.
Our society would be perfectly content to keep bleeding men out, denying parents their children, stripping them of their last cent, forcing them into debit; then criminalizing them for failing to pay child support, even content to pay for the ambulance called to the suicide.
That is, our society would be perfectly content to do those things until women started feeling the pain too. Rachael Alexander notes, “Many women end up helping their male relative pay his child support and legal fees,”
And, that’s the rub, isn’t it? Outlandish child support paid by displaced dads is costing women their own money, especially second wives. Alimony reform is on the near horizon too for the same reason. It’s Ok to raid wallets, but not purses.
Leading Women for Shared Parenting, the catalyst for change.
The group cannot make up for all the pain, anguish, disruption, destruction, and interference into our American families, but they can scare hell (work well with) ignorant elected officials (well meaning legislators) who sold their constituents down a body laden river of discontent for political correctness and fear of being labeled a “woman-hater.”
It’s time to send home any elected officials who oppose shared parenting and alimony reform
So we don’t forget thank you Larry Kerkman and all the shared parenting advocates who sacrifice in standing tall for what they believe. Thank you too Leading Women for Shared Parenting. Keep standing tall too, please, for whatever reasons you chose…
Rachael Alexander, after all, “What sister, mother, grandmother, or daughter hasn’t had a brother, father or son suffer within the unjust family law system
Harry Crouch
CRISPE II
New organization of leading women for shared parenting may finally end courts favoring mothers
By Rachel Alexander
web posted June 3, 2013
A new group is emerging that may finally change the way Family Courts treat mothers and fathers. Currently, the default in most states is to award the lion’s share of the time with the children to mothers, and require the father to pay child support. This is unfair to fathers, and has resulted in massive abuses within the system, leading to fathers committing suicide and being imprisoned. A new organization I am a part of, Leading Women for Shared Parenting, seeks to remedy this inequality by having women and mothers speak up in favor of shared parenting. When legislators realize that women themselves are in favor of reversing this bias, they should finally change the laws to make the default a presumption of 50/50 equally shared custody.
Fathers’ rights organizations have tried for years to change the status quo, but have not quite pulled it off, no doubt due to the growing stigma against men in society. They have been marginalized by being called sore losers and deadbeats who only want to lower their child support.
Continually, between 78 and 87 percent of both men and women support shared parenting – and there is no statistical difference between the sexes. Dr. William Fabricius, an Associate Professor of Psychology of at Arizona State University, discovered these results when polling residents in Pima County, Arizona. He also found that polls taken in Canada and a vote in Massachusetts revealed very similar results. But sadly, Fabricius writes, “there is a very sizable gap between current popular views strongly favoring equal custody, as reflected in polls and votes on custody allocation, and actual legal outcomes.”
The reason we don’t have shared parenting is because it’s a big business. Family law attorneys make too much money off the years of legal fighting, and the state bar associations help their own keep their greedy claws controlling the system by lobbying state legislatures to oppose shared parenting bills.
There is significant research showing that shared parenting is best for kids. There are over three dozen medical studies which indicate that shared parenting arrangements – joint decision-making and near-equal parenting time – provide the best outcomes for children. The studies also reveal that parenting time of every other weekend, commonly ordered by judges, is harmful to children.
The stereotype that women are more nurturing than men has been challenged by a study published a couple of years ago in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study found that fatherhood awakens men’s nurturing side. Testosterone levels in men fall 30 percent after they become fathers, and even more when the children are infants and when the fathers are significantly involved with child-rearing.
According to a report released this month from Pew Research Analysis, women aren’t staying at home anymore, dependent upon men earning an income to support them. Mothers are the sole or primary source of income for a record 40 percent of households with children. This is almost a 400 percent increase from 1960, when just 11 percent of mothers were the breadwinners.
What sister, mother, grandmother, or daughter hasn’t had a brother, father or son suffer within the unjust family law system? Many women end up helping their male relative pay his child support and legal fees. I have no children of my own, but have spent money and countless hours helping male relatives with legal proceedings related to child custody and child support.
No doubt as a result of this broad unfairness, the women who are a part of this new organization surprisingly range from conservative Phyllis Schlafly to a former president of the feminist National Organization of Women. With agreement all across the political spectrum, there is a tremendous chance that state legislators will be able to fight off the slick lobbyists from Bar associations and pass shared custody legislation.
Legislators must also fight against pressure to substitute watered-down bills that do not provide for approximately 50/50 shared custody. “Joint custody” is often little more than a semantic difference from “sole custody.” Joint custody generally gives one parent much more time and control, as well as child support from the other parent. Unless one parent has committed abuse, serious crimes, or similar circumstances, the default should be a presumption of equally shared parenting.
Children – including daughters – who were withheld from their fathers while growing up, who saw their fathers living out of their cars and crippled financially, have now become adults and are saying enough. It is way overdue to stop appeasing Big Law at the expense of families. Now, a group of Leading Women is speaking out.
Rachel Alexander and her brother Andrew are co-Editors of Intellectual Conservative. She has been published in the American Spectator, Townhall.com, Fox News, NewsMax, Accuracy in Media, The Americano, ParcBench, and other publications.
Thank you Harry for your kind words of encouragement.
At LW4SP, our reasons for advocating for Equally Shared Parenting are simple:
A continuum of research shows its best for children,
A continuum of both research and polling show its what 80% of Women want, and
It would result in Justice.
We are truly heartened by the warm welcome LW4SP has received and are looking forward to our Fathers Day launch.
Thank you!
LW4SP