Category: Co-Parenting
Why Mother’s Day Matters for Fathers Who Live Apart From Their Children
Fathers who live apart from their children still have influence. Their words, choices, and actions shape how children understand relationships, conflict, respect, and love.
Mother’s Day offers a meaningful way for fathers to use this influence to strengthen the emotional world their children live in.
Forgive the Past And Make Room for the Future: An Invitation for Co-Parents
When a relationship ends, there are usually real reasons. Pain. Disappointment. Betrayal. Injury. Forgiving does not mean ignoring those things. It doesn’t even mean friendship is required.
But when children are involved, some level of forgiveness is often necessary for the family to heal. Why? Because the lack of forgiveness between parents never stays neatly between parents. Children feel it. They hear it in the tone, and they see it in body language. They pick up on tension, delayed responses, and sharp comments, and understand that their peace is always fragile.
Your Child Sees Everything: The Co-Parenting Truth Most Parents Avoid
We’ve been in the living rooms, courtrooms, classrooms, and parking lots, and on the late-night phone calls where parents are attempting something that seems straightforward but feels impossible. We’ve watched smart, hardworking people lose their footing because the topic is their child. And when the topic is the child, the stakes don’t feel theoretical. They feel like survival.
This is why the “co” in co-parenting matters more than most people realize.
How to Ensure Georgia’s “Responsible Fathers Act” Helps Dads Without Creating Unintended Harm
If you read headlines on HB 1343, you may think this bill settles the question of fatherhood for unmarried dads in Georgia, but it does not. If you read the talking points, you may think HB 1343 creates equal parenting time, but it does not. And if you read social media arguments, you may think it either saves the day or destroys the system. It does neither.
Fathers Incorporated welcomes HB 1343 as a meaningful step in the right direction. However, serious risks exist in its current language. As written, it has the potential to be very helpful for some fathers and very harmful for others — unless we fine-tune it now.
Co-Parenting Maturity: The Skill Set That Keeps Parents Strong When Romance Can’t
We want to move co-parenting out of the category of “something you hope works out” and into the category of “a set of learnable skills.” We also want to be honest about what usually goes wrong. It’s not always that people are cruel. Often, they are underdeveloped for the complexity they’ve been handed.
The Truth About Marriage, Responsible Fatherhood and Child Well-being
Marriage produces some of the best outcomes for children when it is healthy, stable, and cooperative. This is not a controversial statement. What we must stop doing, though, is turning marriage into a simplistic solution, as if the presence of a ring automatically creates safety, trust, emotional maturity, patience, shared responsibility, and the ability to repair conflict.
The Top Five Traits of Successful Co-Parenting Relationships
Co-parenting is one of the most significant tests of maturity, love, and patience that two adults can undertake. It requires shifting the focus from what ended between the parents to what must continue for the child.
Over time, through thousands of conversations with fathers and families, we’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. The five elements detailed here consistently stand out as markers of successful co-parenting relationships.
The Oneness of Co-Parenting
Here’s the truth I want every father and mother to hear: Your child doesn’t care about who was right. They don’t measure your love by how much you win the argument but by how well you work together for their well-being. They remember the tone of your voice when you speak about their other parent. They remember if they felt safe enough to love you both without guilt.
The oneness of co-parenting asks us to evolve — to put aside the “me” and embrace the “we.” It’s an act of maturity, faith, and courage. It requires both parents to look beyond themselves and see the divine assignment they share. You are co-creators of a life. And that life deserves wholeness, not division.
Child Support Without a Villain: Rebuilding the Narrative and the System (Part II)
Reforming the child support system, which affects millions of families across all 50 states and costs billions of dollars annually to administer, is not a matter of political preference. It’s a matter of social responsibility.
7 Critical Co-Parenting Tips: Essential Strategies for Fathers
Every father has the potential to be a positive and impactful presence in their child’s life, regardless of the family structure. These seven tips can help you navigate your co-parenting journey with confidence and compassion.
The Maze of Fatherhood: Why Georgia Must Reform Legitimation Now
In Georgia, a child born to unmarried parents is not automatically granted the legal right to both parents. While this may come as a surprise to many, to the thousands of fathers served by Fathers Incorporated, it’s a harsh and often heartbreaking reality.
When Co-Parenting Works: Building Families Beyond Brokenness
Co-parenting isn’t about liking each other. It’s about loving the child more than you dislike the past, and that requires something deeper than shared custody or court agreements. It requires humility, maturity, and a commitment to partnership even when the marriage (or the relationship) didn’t survive.
Valentine’s Appreciation Day: Rethinking Love Beyond Romance
We don’t talk about love for co-parents — a love that exists beyond romantic entanglement, a love that remains after the relationship fades, but responsibility doesn’t. There’s something powerful about acknowledging someone for their role in your child’s life.
Top 5 Emerging Fatherhood Topics: Charting a New Course for Fathers Everywhere
In this blog, we explore five emerging fatherhood topics we’re watching now — Child Support, Maternal Health Care Advocacy, Housing, Economic Sustainability, and Dads as Doulas — and discuss why these issues are vital, what actions are needed, and how FI is driving change in each area.
Fathers Incorporated’s 5th Annual “Home for the Holidads” Program
Fathers Incorporated’s Home for the Holidads fills a critical gap by focusing on the children who are most affected by their parent’s absence.