This post has been sloshing around in my head for quite some time, but I have been unsure how to approach it. I have started and erased it at least a dozen times. I just can’t quite find a way to convey my point the way I want to, but I am going to try.

Jim and I are a married couple. By law that gives us equal custody of our children. In the eyes of the state we have equal right to our children and the decisions being made for them. More importantly, to us we have equal say in the upbringing of our boys. There is no veto power, we truly make our decisions together. If we don’t agree, we work on it until we find a compromise we are both comfortable with.

*Disclaimer- This is about the only thing we act grown up about so get your jaws off the floor*

Of course there are decisions each of us make on our own. If Chase needs his hair cut I don’t need permissionto cut it. I don’t need to run it by him, I just get it cut and vice verse.

I’m talking about the big stuff. Daycare providers. Private school vs public. Vaccinations. People we have around our children. What’s appropriate and what’s not. These are all things that are discussed between us as the parents of our children. It has nothing to do with our status of husband or wife. Or at least it shouldn’t.

I have some strong feelings about the way the court system (especially in my state) treats Dads. I am not talking about the men who don’t pay their support. I am not talking about the men who don’t try. I am talking about the men who were in the hospital when their children were born, and looked into their new baby’s eyes with love and wonder.

I’m talking about the men who changed diapers, stumbled into the kitchen to make bottles at 2 am and fell asleep with their little ones heads on their chest. I’m talking about the men who made forts and taught how to ride bikes.

Then, suddenly, because these men and their women don’t want to be together anymore they are the second rate parent in the eyes of the state. I will never understand it. Never. Worse, they are second rate parents in the eyes of the mother. The same mother who took a nap while he stayed up with a newborn. The same mother that watched him cuddle their baby, and thought ” This is almost better than holding him myself”.

What is it that makes this OK? I see this attitude in some of my friends. I saw it in my brother’s situation and countless others. Mom decides to send kids to pricey schools without talking to Dad about it…Dad has to pay for half anyway. That decision would have been made jointly if the parents were together, with the budget being taken into consideration. Why is it different now?  How is it possible that a man who has spent years co-parenting a child every day can be given every other weekend and is expected to be happy with that? It angers me to no end to hear Mother’s talk of their children ” visitingtheir fathers”. Never once have I heard the time that a child spends with their custodial parent referred to as visiting. A child lives with both parents, just at different times.

I am so frustrated with the system. I am tired off seeing good guys get screwed but a system that favors the Mother on principle, not on the merit of that woman in particular.

Because you know…just like it takes more than sperm to make a good Dad, it takes a hell of a lot more than the ability to shoot a baby out of your womb to make a good Mom.

* More disclaimer. I understand there are exceptions to the rule and some parents make it work marvelously. *