• Fathers & Families gathered thousands of signatures to place shared parenting on the 2004 Massachusetts ballot, then led a successful campaign for its passage, winning 86% of the vote.
• F & F enlisted over one-quarter of the Massachusetts Legislature as co-sponsors of our shared parenting bill.
• F & F persuaded the left-of-center Boston Globe to become first major newspaper in country to endorse shared parenting in principle in an editorial last year.
• F & F pushed “shared parenting” to the number one issue on the Massachusetts Governor’s website for citizen input.
• F & F ignited a spirited debate over shared parenting at the Massachusetts Democratic Party Convention in June. There was a  40 minute debate on the floor of the Convention, before 3,000 politically active Democrats, and shared parenting only lost by a 60-40 margin.
• Leading up to the Convention, F & F organized supporters to attend 25 Democratic Party platform hearings to advocate for shared parenting, and flooded the Democratic Party Platform website, eventually accounting for 40% of all platform suggestions submitted to the website.
  

For the past few months, Fathers & Families activists such as Peter Hill have attended public appearances by Governor Deval Patrick.  On each occasion, one or more activists have asked Governor Patrick to support shared parenting. Governor Patrick noticed the concern, and suggested to Peter that a meeting be arranged.

Peter and I met with the Governor today, together with Todd Sandahl, Wayne Jewett, and Bob Norton. The Governor was gracious and appeared sincere. He listened intently, and clearly gave thought to our comments. He asked good questions. He asked for more information on certain issues. The Governor continued the discussion for 10-15 minutes after his aide had told him that we were beyond the scheduled time.

A variety of issues were raised, including child support, restraining orders and jailings of fathers. My comments were consistently focused on increasing access to our children. I advocated continuing dialogue to explore and analyze the obstacles that are placed between fit fathers and their children. I emphasized the benefits to children, and the overwhelming public support for shared parenting...