“Ohio leaders behind times on issue of shared parenting”

By Don Hubin

National Parents Organization just published the 2019 NPO Shared Parenting Report Card, and the news for Ohioans isn’t great. The Buckeye state received a middling “C,” the same grade it received in the NPO study five years ago.

That’s no surprise.

In those five years, the Ohio legislature has made no improvements in our laws dealing with post-separation parenting. As a result, Ohio is behind the times; let me count the ways.

First, Ohio legislators have not responded to the research done in the past three decades that provides compelling evidence that in most cases, and absent abuse, children of separated parents do best when parents share as equally as possible in the responsibilities of raising the children. Indeed, surprising many, this research shows that children who are parented equally by both parents living separately do about as well on average as children raised in families where the parents live together. And they do much better than children raised in sole-custody arrangements.

Our statutes, to the degree that they seek to truly promote the best interest of children, should reflect these results.