It never fails to surprise me how little outrage there is over our current family law system. I, being a 20 year old female with no children of my own, had no idea of all the lies and complete hell that too many single fathers are going through every day because of our “justice” system. Feminists have been fighting for equal rights so let's give it to them! Equal parenting time should be a given, unless either parent is incompetent, and let’s scrap child support. Doing so will change the stigma that single parenting is an easy way of getting paid to sit at home, to focusing on the child who needs all the love they can get from both the mother’s and father’s side.

To be convinced that our family law is not anywhere close to just, all you need to do is go and sit in on some court cases on Tuesday mornings in the courthouse! All the single mothers with way too much time on their hands are confidently walking around with their noses in the air, their free duty counsel lawyers right by their side (because their income is so low), all this while the fathers, beaten down by our law system are representing themselves, usually just trying to get what is fair! By the courts giving mothers the majority of the parenting time and insane amounts of child support, they are giving them a false sense of entitlement, that the child is theirs to “give” to the father, at their discretion.

In the Canadian charter under section 15, it is everybody’s fundamental right to have equality which includes gender equality. Competent, hard-working fathers who are doing everything they can to get 50/50 are being bullied by the courts into being a paycheck and the oh-so-popular “every second weekend dad”. All this because they have no choice but to work full time jobs to support themselves and pay the child support. If we are truly living in a country of equality then let's switch it up! The mothers can go work full time for a year and have the child for a total of about 6 days a month while paying copious amounts of child support! Imagine how outraged they would be at the “unfairness”!

If the fathers, heaven forbid, would like to have an equal say in raising their child they are forced to convince the court that the mother is not fit to have the child for the majority of the time and will need to prove through witnesses and evidence that it is indeed in the child’s best interest to have equal time with both parents. Whatever happened to our Canadian right under Section 11 that makes us innocent until proven guilty? Fathers are considered guilty of not being a good enough parent for equal time with their child before even entering the courthouse. It starts to make sense why they settle for the little time that is offered to them instead of fighting for more, because the judge will push on them that it is the best they will get.

Just in my own circle of friends I know good fathers who have been in their child’s life since day one and have still had to fight for years to get what is fair. I also find it interesting how most fathers will see getting 50/50 as a win, whereas most mothers will only consider it a win when they are as close to 100% custody as possible while still receiving their monthly cheques. Who really has their child’s best interest in mind?