The number one stability point of child needs is not where they live, but who they have a relationship with.

And the stability of the relationship with both parents is more important than what house they live in.

After experiencing the family court system firsthand, Mark Ludwig founded Americans for equal shared parenting

to make equal access to both parents the default in divorce proceedings.

Too often, judges relegate one parent, typically the father, to a lesser role in a child's life.

The opposition has done a great job of creating the narrative that this is just a bunch of angry dads

who have anger management problems, conflict resolution problems.

Maybe they shouldn't even be a dad.

Ludwig travels the country advocating for what he calls a 50-50 rebuttable presumption,

legislation that makes 50-50 equal custody in a divorce the norm, so long as both parents are fit, willing, and able.

Now I'll fight just as hard for mothers as I do fathers,

because I'm not fighting for the mother of the father, I'm fighting for the child.

This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Yanya Kellick.

Mark Ludwig, such a pleasure to have you back on American Thought Leaders.

Ah, thanks for having me back. I appreciate it.

So, Mark, when we interviewed five years ago, and this was actually one of the earliest

American Thought Leaders interviews, I remember it very well, you told me that I think 80%

of the people that go through some sort of divorce cases, one of the parents basically becomes the main custodian.

And that's kind of what we expect in a sense to happen.

Like, why is that an issue?

Yeah, until it happened to me, I wouldn't have thought there was a problem either.

If somebody would have told me one parent gets every other weekend, I would have thought, well, yeah, isn't that normal?

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