By Christine Reid, Camera Staff Writer
January 15, 2024
David Arnsberger left several successful enterprises in Texas and became a
stay-at-home dad in 1998 when he and his wife moved to Colorado so she
could pursue her career......
By Christine Reid, Camera Staff Writer
January 15, 2024
David Arnsberger left several successful enterprises in Texas and became a
stay-at-home dad in 1998 when he and his wife moved to Colorado so she
could pursue her career.
Three-and-a-half years later, Arnsberger said, their 15-year marriage
crumbled and he was kicked out of his Boulder house because of a temporary
restraining order. More traumatic for the man who had been the primary
care-giver for his then-5-year-old son and 7-month-old daughter was the
possibility he might lose the right to see them because his estranged wife
wanted sole custody.
"It's like I was in Oz," said Arnsberger, 53.
In less than three years, Arnsberger said he has spent more than $100,000
for attorneys, mediators, arbitrators, special advocates and therapists,
and his fight to get equal joint custody continues without an attorney
because he is out of cash as a substitute teacher.
Arnsberger said one Boulder County magistrate agreed his circumstances
would be different if he were the kids' mother, instead of their father.
"The judge said 'If you were a woman, you'd get half the house, the car,
the kids and child support,'" Arnsberger said.
Arnsberger's plight is not an anomaly. Thousands of Colorado fathers sued
the state in November, demanding they get an even split in parenting
duties with their childrens' mothers.
The class-action lawsuit is similar to the nearly 50 filed in other states
last year, claiming men's civil and constitutional rights are being
trampled when family courts grant anything less than equal parenting time
in contested divorces when neither parent has done anything wrong.
"We want the problem to be recognized," said Troy Kramer, a Highlands
Ranch man who is heading up the Colorado suit, which continues to collect
names. "Ultimately, we want a change."
Kramer, who gets to see his daughter four nights a week, said studies have
shown kids who have both parents in their lives are happier and better
adjusted than those who don't. He said he doesn't understand why the
courts don't get it.
"It's really, really scary," Kramer said.
Melinda Taylor, the state's judicial education coordinator, said equal
parenting time and other fatherhood issues will be addressed at the next
conference this spring for judges rotating into family court. She said it
wasn't in response to the plethora of lawsuits, but rather because it's a
"hot topic" nationally.
"In reality, (judges) are making decisions in the best interest of the
child, regardless," Taylor said. "Every year we try to focus on getting
balance and educating them."
Robert Muchnick, who in 1998 founded the Center for Children's Justice in
Denver, said children have the right to be raised by both parents, and
family courts have too often stripped them of that right.
The problem is extensive, he said.
Nearly two-thirds of marriages that end in divorce involve children. Even
the 10 percent of divorces that end "amicably" tend to result in the
father getting the kids every other weekend and one night a week, Muchnick
said.
"It's the quietest catastrophe that's ever occurred in human history,"
Muchnick said.
Contact Camera Staff Writer Christine Reid at (303) 473-1355 or [email protected].
This is good stuff Ernie - don't think we aren't reading just because
there aren't a lot of comments.
How do we get a class action suit started in Nebraska?
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"Some say the bee stings: but I say, 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since."