ACFC: Illinois Right of First Refusal Legislation Goes to Governor

This is good news. Probably still needs a few kinks worked out, but definitely a step in the right direction.

But I think your "probably" is well warranted. Several Governor's have vetoed bills supportive of fathers rights in the recent past, despite unanimous and bi-partisan support for the bill.

I haven't had a chance to read the bill (beyond what's described in this article), I'm curious what "kinks" you see?

At first I had trouble clicking on the article, so I googled other articles on the topic instead. They indicated that anytime a parent needs to leave the child in the care of someone else, they must first give the other parent the right of first refusal even if it is last-minute, atypical, or for a short duration. With that in mind, I foresee a few situations which could be "gray areas" (or "kinks") where unreasonable parents could possibly make a stink over.

Gray areas: when custodial time with child includes dropping them off with extended family or grandparents, or a slumber party with a friend or when time includes lessons, team sports, groups such as boy scouts or Sunday school, or time in the family home with step parent and half siblings while the custodial bio parent is at work. In these situations the custodial biological parent is not physically in close proximity to visually see the child, yet the child is still under his/her influence as a family.

Going to court is expensive and time consuming, so hopefully parents would not file legal actions for petty things but if they do hopefully judges would make reasonable rulings in the above mentioned situations.

I see this bill as a good thing. It will mostly help parents who live in close proximity to each other get to a 50/50 physical custody if their professions allow for it. What I don't want is for parents who already have 50% or more custody using the bill to sabotage or get even more time, just because they don't approve (or just out of bitterness) how the other parent uses their time.

Also, I have not read the bill, so maybe there are some stipulations or wording that would help alleviate or clarify these situations.

Also, as children get to about age 13, they have more unstructured time, where they purposely try and be without any parental supervision to get away with stuff they shouldn't be doing. This can be difficult if one parent allows this more than the other. I think back to my high school days and how I hung out at the homes where no parents were around. Often the kids hang out at the mall, smoke pot, have sex in home while parents are gone, etc. These were typically single mother homes.

I would hope this bill could provide some cure for this by including time where child is under "no one's watch", but I also see how it can be hard to implement especially if the stricter and more able-parent is also the parent who already has most custodial time, and I would assume the child would prefer the less strict parent so there may not be voluntary disclosure or the child may resist giving more time to the stricter parent.

But again...it's a step in the right direction