How many times have you heard someone in a child custody dispute remark about how one parent received more time than the other parent? Rarely do you see a child custody order in Texas which contains equal time for both parents.
Is the quantity of time, however, the real value we should take away from a child custody schedule? If the mother of a child gets that child during the week, what does that mostly entail? It’s going to consist of getting that child ready for school in the morning, dropping them off at school, being away from them for the better part of the day while they’re in school, then getting them to do their homework, followed by dinner, then getting them in bed just to do it all over again in the morning.
Dad, on the other hand, gets the kids at least half of the weekends of the month (in Texas, if there are five Fridays in the month, it’s 3 out of the 5 weekends). What is Dad doing on those weekends? Spending quality time with the kids, going to the zoo or the park, maybe catching a Houston Astros or Houston Texans game.
I don’t want to completely minimize the value of having your children around during the week, but are parents who are subject to a standard possession order in Texas losing sight of the value of that order when they focus on the quantity of time instead of the quality of time?
When parents raising children in split households begin focusing on what they do have instead of what they don’t have, quality co-parenting is a far easier task.