In this day and age most people accept that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. While gender bias remains, there are fewer and fewer roles that are seen as being just for women or men. The days of men having a limited role in raising children are over for most of us. But, family court seems to be a holdover from the old days for unmarried fathers. Too often, unmarried dads in this area are treated like possible threats to their children, even when they have never committed a crime.

Courts in this area often do not give unmarried fathers the 25% parenting time that the law presumes all parents should have, and social services agencies required visits to be limited and supervised for many dads who have clean records and want to be a part of their children’s lives. I do not know why this bias exists, it appears to be based on some very outdated notions of parenting and fatherhood. The reality is that many children are born to parents who were not married. The legal system needs to recognize that and give children of unmarried parents the benefit of having both parents in their lives.