Submitted by Terry Brennan, co-founder of Leading Women for Shared Parenting, in response to an Aug. 1 op-ed by Sen. William Brownsberger, D-Belmont. Brennan is a Newton resident.

The Massachusetts House recently passed a Shared Parenting bill, a momentous achievement, fourteen years in the making. The bill was a compromise effort of a Governor's Working Group including bar associations, chief justices, parent's groups, and advocates for domestic violence.

The bill had the endorsement of each member of the Working Group and the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Shared parenting has received tremendous support as an overwhelming amount of research shows its best for children, families and society. Shared Parenting has been endorsed by 110 world experts, is supported by 43 peer reviewed papers, and was the conclusion of the largest study ever on child wellbeing, reviewing 150,000 children after separation or divorce.

Further, a non-binding ballot initiative in the 2004 Massachusetts election seeking citizen endorsement for a default of shared parenting received over 600,000 votes and passed with 86% in favor. The overwhelming favorability of Massachusetts citizens isn't unusual as Shared Parenting consistently receives over 70% support in both polling and legislative votes. With such results, 20 states considered shared parenting bills in the last legislative session with Utah, Missouri, and Arizona recently passing laws enabling children to spend more time with their fathers. In fact, Arizona lawyers now tell Fathers their children have a 90% chance of being allowed equal (50%) parenting time and all agree, the new law is working well.

Yet in the Massachusetts Senate, the Bill wasn't even allowed out of the Judiciary Committee for a vote. Why? In justifying his opposition, Senate Chair of the Judiciary Committee, William Brownsberger, cited three points:

"Whether divorce law should be changed to mandate shared parenting in post-divorce plans,"

"It might create too strong a push toward complex sharing arrangements in high conflict situations," and "There is no consensus that the process as it works now is unfair to men or to women or that judges fail to appreciate the value of both parents." Senator Brownsberger's counterpart, House Chair of the Judiciary Committee, Representative John V. Fernandes responded to the Senator's first objection, characterizing it as "a totally unfair and inaccurate reading of the House bill."

I will focus on the Senator's latter points of objection.

As a co-founder of Leading Women for Shared Parenting, an international child advocacy group, I've seen "conflict" used before in an attempt to block reform; almost always by the Bar Associations. Bar Associations are special interest groups representing attorneys and they don't like Shared Parenting. Instead of being influenced by attorneys who seldom even meet the children involved, Senator Brownsberger was given the opportunity to hear the 110 world experts who endorsed shared parenting with an offer extended to introduce the Senator to the psychiatrists, psychologists, child development experts, domestic violence experts, and family law experts making the endorsement.