Ohio looks to overhaul child custody and parenting laws: Prohibits courts from giving preferential treatment to a parent or custodian because of someone’s financial status or gender

Suspicious-Sleep5227 · 2025-11-18T02:18:26+00:00

On the surface, it looks like the same shitty family law only they dressed it up to look better without providing anything of substance. There’s also this:

Senate Bill 174 had the support of groups including the Ohio Domestic Violence Network, the Ohio State Bar Association, and the Ohio Judicial Conference

To the layperson this looks like it has the right seals of approval. But as an MRA there are only two words that comes to mind when I hear this: RUN AWAY!!!

If a DV advocacy group likes it then it must be bad for men due to the presumption of male perpetrators and female victims. If lawyers like it then that means the law has the potential to offer more litigation opportunities and more money to pilfer from fathers.

If they truly believe that what is in the best interests of the child is equal parenting, then just adopt the presumption of 50/50 parenting.

BreakGrouchy · 2025-11-18T02:06:07+00:00

Yeah right and define best interest of the kids . They don’t care if one parent doesn’t take them to school or not .

Kerrizma · 2025-12-08T20:51:57+00:00

I'm an attorney in Ohio, and I'm also a father. I've been following this bill since it was introduced earlier this year.

It is without a data fantastic bill. There's no reason not to pass this. It significantly improves Ohio's custody laws. It essentially makes 50/50 shared parenting the default. It provides guidance on what the courts are allowed to consider when determining the best interest of the child. It specifically prohibits considering the gender or financial condition of the parent.

In my legal and personal opinion, this law would significantly improve Ohio's custody laws and make family courts more fair and efficient.

idiotseekingvillage · 2025-12-10T17:06:02+00:00

422 pages long, the main portions are roughly pages 150 - 200.

This bill was written by the family law industry. It sailed through the Senate despite dozens of parents opposing it in testimony. They gave opposition testimony the absolute bare minimum notification time to testify.

Senate President Rob McColley's mother (Denise) is a retired judge but very influential in family law circles. The bill's cosponsors -- Gavarone and Hicks-Hudson -- are both family law attorneys and COINCIDENTALLY were two of the seven members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Also, coincidentally of course,

There were no interested party meetings on this bill.

There were dozens who testified against it.

Yet the Senate rammed this through without any floor amendments nor debate.

ODVN is against anything that sets 50/50 (or anything near it) as a starting point. So those thinking it'll promote 50/50 should think again. The state bar association and the Ohio judicial conference are also in support of this bill.

The bill is a counter to citizen-led bills that tried to establish 50/50 as the start. Advocating for the judges, Paul Pfeifer even said so in opposition to 2023's HB 14:

https://youtu.be/PLwA-XfdBJM?feature=shared

This was introduced late last session as SB325 and is now SB174.

idiotseekingvillage · 2025-12-10T17:56:02+00:00

I apologize at the start for the length of this post.

Various groups are opposing it for different reasons but a few really stand out.

One is the notion "the bill promotes 50/50" when it really doesn't. Lots of parents were pissed about every-other-weekend being the starting point in the majority of Ohio counties, often next door to 50/50 starting point counties. Similarly situated parents getting disparate treatment is a GREAT way to corrode the public's faith in the judicial system, so, job well done, Ohio.

NPO (National Parents Organization) has a very active Ohio chapter and drew attention to a problem the judges didn't want to talk about, through a series of default parenting time reports:

https://www.sharedparenting.org/ohio-parenting-time-report

So part of SB174's ruse is to say (1) there will be a statewide policy to maximize parenting time if it's a child's best interests, and (2) do away with requiring standard schedules under ORC 3109.051(F)(2).

Doing away with requiring standard (as in, lopsided) schedules isn't the same as prohibiting them. And the, "...if it's in the child's best interests" could literally be any reason ("parents live 5 miles apart). And no starting point is...just that.

And if you think "no starting point " works great, consider Ohio is one of the few remaining states without a rebuttable timeshare adjustment for child support in 50/50 cases. So even if you agree to 50/50, figuring out equal custody child support in Ohio is a mess, often on an ad-hoc, hopelessly inconsistent basis.

Current law requires courts to approve mutually agreed plans to be accepted unless it's not in a child's best interests (3109.04(D)(1)(a)(i)). The courts can currently reject a plan and suggest changes.

But SB174, under proposed ORC 3109.046 allows a court to not only reject a mutually agreed plan, it grants the courts new powers to substitute the parents plan with one of their own.

I have roughly equal time with my kids. My ex and I didn't spend much. Amicable proceedings, perfectly workable and there was no reason for the court to reject the plan.

But this bill would've endangered that arrangement simply if a judge has a burr up his ass about anything close to 50/50, i.e. "court finds the 5-mile distance too far" and liberally applied its Texas-sized discretion to say, "sorry. Every other weekend plus 4 weeks in summer.

Speaking of discretion, they want to give courts "complete discretion" over the approval of the parenting plans under proposed ORC 3109.0412 on page 164 of the bill.

"Complete discretion" is wholly unprecedented by Ohio statute -- or any other state -- for judicial proceedings. Showing an "abuse of discretion" -- the hurdle one must clear to prevail at the appellate courts -- is impossible if the word "complete" is interpreted as "total", "absolute", etc. And one should use their gut and use plain-language interpretations for unprecedented statutes like this proposal.

SB174 could -- and SHOULD -- have just left this alone and used the current verbiage -- parenting plans are "discretionary with the court" under 3109.04 (D)(1)(b) or just had proposed ORC 3109.0412 read, "the court shall have discretion over the approval of a parenting plan." Either of these two sensible alternatives preserves the court's current broad discretion but not the judicial autonomy that "complete discretion" allows.

Title	Ohio looks to overhaul child custody and parenting laws: Prohibits courts from giving preferential treatment to a parent or custodian because of someone’s financial status or gender
Author	DougDante
Upvotes	148
Comments	9
Date	November 18, 2025 1:55 AM UTC (8 months ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1ozzcyb/ohio_looks_to_overhaul_child_custody_and/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/ohio-looks-to-overhaul-child-custody-and-parenting.1566750 https://theredarchive.com/post/1566750

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