Equal Shared Parenting – Part 1

February 18, 2021

For the past 12 years I have been involved with the Family Court system.  During this time I have come to realize that the Texas Family Law Foundation and divorce lawyers who oppose the presumption of 50/50 custody do so on three main platforms:

  1. They say it undermines judicial discretion in determining custody,
  2. They say it leads to more conflict in the future, and…
  3. They say the current Expanded Possession schedule provides for nearly 50% already.

They often add the narrative that the people who advocate for 50/50 are simply sore losers who don’t want to pay child support.

In every instance, I will use the TFLF’s own argument to support 50/50.

Sore Loser

In case this is the first blog you’ve read on this site, let me address that last point first:

I have primary custody.  

I receive child support.

And I believe so strongly in fighting the abuse of the Divorce Industry that I publish this blog site as well as a Facebook page of the same name (www.facebook.com/the325thwatchdog).  I also own all of the domain names for the District Court numbers in Tarrant County (www.the233rd.com, the360th.com, etc, etc).

Point #3

I’m going to work backwards through the list because Points 2 and 3 involve math.  I like math. Point 3 involves simple math.

The explanation I’ve heard from divorce lawyers is that every day a parent does parent‑type stuff it counts toward calculating the percentage of time they have custody.

So let’s use that definition to determine how much parenting time a Non-Custodial Parent (NCP) will have under the Texas Expanded Schedule, shall we?

Under the Expanded Schedule the kids are are with the NCP for dinner and homework every Thursday night.  Clearly, this is Parent-type stuff.  Then, every Friday morning the NCP gets them ready for school. More Parent-type stuff… am I right?!  Heck, the kids are with their teachers more than they are with either parent… or so the lawyer logic goes. 

Also under the Expanded Schedule the kids are with the NCP on the 1st/3rd/5th weekends. On these weekends the NCP is doing parent-type things from Thursday through Monday. Five (5) straight days!

If we apply this lawyer logic to February, 2021 we see that the NCP is doing Parent-type stuff for 14 days.  Lawyers then simply divide 14 by 28 days in February and… Presto!  The NCP has 50% custody.

And the lawyers say they are fine with this.

But they’re lying.  Did you catch it?

“…every day that a parent does parent-type stuff counts towards calculating the percentage of time they have custody.”

So lets see what happens when we apply the lawyer logic to the Custodial Parent (CP).

The CP gets the kids ready for school every Thursday morning.  When it’s the 2nd and 4th week they also feed the kids dinner every Friday night.  In fact, according to the Texas Expanded Schedule, the only days when the CP isn’t doing parent-type activities are Fri, Sat, and Sun on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th weekends. And the 5th weekend only occurs 4 times a year.

Which means, in February, 2021 the Custodial Parent has the kids 22 out of 28 days.

Thus, according to divorce lawyers, in February, 2021 the NCP has custody for 14 days and the CP has custody 22 days – resulting in a grand total of 36 days…

…in one month.

If lawyers will lie to you about things that impact children they will lie to you about anything.

We are not talking about a lie such as Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy.

We are talking about a lie regarding the amount of time a child spends with a parent.

I’ll tackle Point #2 in the next blog.