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Humanize Family Court

You’re not alone. They’re already on the field.

If family court has made you feel invisible, look at who is already out there: mothers and fathers, a family court judge, a state lawmaker, a filmmaker, a wife with a microphone, and a dad who started talking into his phone — people turning their own hardest years into laws, films, and testimony that protect the next family. Each of them has a story, and it starts where yours is now. This page introduces them and links you straight to their work.

Not mothers against fathers. Parents — and the people who serve them — for children.

This fight is not a gender war, and this page refuses to frame it as one. Mothers lose their children to this system too. So do fathers. That is why the voices below include non-custodial mothers, grandmothers, stepmothers, and wives standing beside fathers, a sitting judge, and a legislator — all asking for the same starting point: when both parents are willing, fit, and able, a child should not lose one of them by default.

Humanize Family Court works alongside judges, attorneys, mediators, and court staff — as allies who want the process to protect children without breaking families. The people on this page are proof that approach is already gaining ground in statehouses and courtrooms across the country.

On the battlefield

The people making traction

Legislative authors, a judge who runs a shared-parenting courtroom, national organizers, and voices carrying the message to millions. These are real people who have been where you are — every card tells what they went through, what it cost them, and links to their own work, in their own words.

Robert Garza standing in a blue suit in front of a courthouse
Texas · National

Robert Garza

Legislative author — Time Taken, Time Back

Robert is the original author and driving force behind Texas SB 718, and now works state to state helping parents and lawmakers carry the same reforms. But first, he was a dad in a courtroom, for longer than most people can imagine.

What he went through

Seventeen years of high-conflict family court litigation. More than 43 allegations made against him through CPS and the courts — none of them founded. Over $700,000 in legal costs spent just to stay in his children’s lives, and ten years before his case ever reached a final trial. When his children were finally returned to him, the courts returned the children — but not the parenting time that had been taken. Those lost weekends, holidays, and birthdays became the reason Time Taken, Time Back exists.

  • Texas SB 718 — “Time Taken, Time Back” signed on Father’s Day 2023: parenting time lost to unfounded allegations or precautionary removals is given back.
  • Texas HB 3181 (“Three Strikes”) — escalating consequences for repeated interference with court-ordered parenting time, effective September 1, 2025.
  • Utah’s Time Taken, Time Back law signed March 23, 2026, with his help — and advocacy now reaching all 50 states.
“This bill fixes a fundamental liberty and a parental right. It brings healing, and allows the child–parent relationship bond to be rebuilt.”
RobertGarza.us His story & record Facebook Instagram @robertgarza_texas
Judge Mica Wood Pence in judicial robes, seated at the bench beneath the Commonwealth of Kentucky seal
Kentucky

Judge Mica Wood Pence

Family Court Judge — Kentucky’s 43rd Judicial Circuit

Judge Pence has presided over family court in Barren and Metcalfe counties since 2018 — the year Kentucky passed the nation’s first rebuttable shared-parenting presumption. She was skeptical of the law at first. Running a courtroom under it changed her mind, and now she carries Kentucky’s experience to other states.

Her road here

Before the bench, Judge Pence spent ten years practicing custody and family law — she knew the old system from the inside, the one that gave a fit parent every other weekend and one day a week. When the shared-parenting law passed in 2018, she says judges and lawyers “were not happy” — she would have testified against it. Then she watched it work: “Boy, was I wrong. It has been an absolute blessing.” She is on this page because a judge saying that, out loud, in other states’ capitols, is something parents in her old courtrooms never got to hear.

  • Kentucky HB 528 (2018) — she executes the first shared-parenting presumption for permanent custody orders in the U.S., and reports it has reduced litigation and conflict.
  • Champion for Children Award — inaugural recipient, National Parents Organization, 2026.
  • Testified in Harrisburg for Pennsylvania’s HB 1499, sharing what equal parenting looks like from the bench — including that the presumption lifts automatically when a domestic violence order is in place.
“A child should not have one house they live in and one house they visit.”
Her Champion for Children profile Local coverage of the award X @mica4judge
Official Pennsylvania House portrait of Representative Jamie Flick in a suit and red tie, Pennsylvania flag behind him
Pennsylvania

Rep. Jamie Flick

Pennsylvania State Representative — 83rd District (Lycoming & Union)

A father of six and a CASA volunteer for foster youth, Rep. Flick now leads Pennsylvania’s “Kids Need Both” push in the state House. He did not study this issue. He lived it.

What he went through

After his divorce, a Lycoming County judge decided Flick’s custody in a matter of minutes: every other weekend — four days a month — with no explanation. This was a man the system itself trusted with other people’s children: sworn in as a Court Appointed Special Advocate, and given guardianship of two children from Brooklyn through the Fresh Air Fund. He still could not get equal time with his own kids. What followed was years of repeated continuances, allegations he calls false, and financial strain — and the custody factors were never even explained to him. He says the fight contributed to his stroke. It is also why he ran for office.

  • House Bill 1499 — a rebuttable presumption of shared custody and equal parenting time for willing, fit, and able parents, backed by 78 bipartisan co-sponsors.
  • October 5, 2026 — press conference, Judiciary Committee hearing, and panel at the State Capitol, with more than 100 supporters in the room. The bill is still in committee; the push is live.
  • Act 11 of 2025 (HB 378) — already law: custody factors streamlined from 19 to 12, with written explanations for parents.
  • Champion for Children Award — inaugural recipient, National Parents Organization, 2026.
“The message in the bill is that kids need both safe, fit and loving parents.”
HB 1499 at the Capitol His Champion for Children award Facebook @RepFlick
Headshot of Mark Ludwig in a suit and red tie
Missouri · National

Mark Ludwig

Founder — Americans for Equal Shared Parenting

Mark put 35 years of political experience to work for other families. He founded Americans for Equal Shared Parenting (AFESP), leads the National Council for Equal Shared Parenting, and trains everyday parents to pass legislation in their own states.

What he went through

Shortly after his son Levi was born, a paternity dispute turned into a disappearance: Levi was moved without Mark’s knowledge, and Mark was told he would never see him again. It took 204 days — nearly seven months — to track his son down and get the DNA test that proved he was Levi’s father. Then came the second blow: even after all that, the court made him an every-other-weekend parent, because his baby had grown used to life without him. Mark has said plainly that the political career he once wanted stopped mattering that year. Being a dad was the job now.

  • Equal shared parenting laws passed with his help in Kentucky, Arkansas, West Virginia, Florida, and Missouri.
  • 600+ legislators met and legislation worked in 29 states, per a South Carolina House resolution honoring his work.
  • Author of Making a Difference — The Insider’s Guide to Passing State Legislation, and a featured voice in the documentary We the Parents.
“I’ll fight just as hard for mothers as I do fathers, because I’m not fighting for the mother or the father — I’m fighting for the child.”
AFESP.com His book & playbook AFESP on Facebook AFESP on X @afesp5050 YouTube @StLMarkLudwig
Portrait of Molly K. Olson smiling, wearing red glasses and a pearl necklace
Minnesota · Washington, D.C.

Molly K. Olson

President — Leading Women for Shared Parenting

Molly leads an organization built to end the idea that shared parenting is a “dads only” cause. Leading Women for Shared Parenting brings together mothers, grandmothers, stepmothers, and non-custodial mothers who support a rebuttable presumption of equally shared parenting — and who work side by side with men to pass it.

What she witnessed

Molly never lost a child to family court. She watched it happen to people she loved: three fathers she knew well — men she describes as fit, loving, responsible dads who wanted to be equally involved — had their relationships with their children destroyed by the courts. She had also seen the system from the inside, serving as a guardian ad litem in Minnesota. A witness is not the same as a bystander: what she saw turned her into a founder, and she has been at the capitol ever since.

  • Founded the Center for Parental Responsibility in 2000 — more than two decades of family-court advocacy.
  • Minnesota HF 322 (2012) — the shared-parenting bill she led passed both the House and Senate by overwhelming margins before the governor vetoed it. She kept going.
  • 150+ influential women lent their names to LW4SP at its founding, specifically to dispel the myth that only fathers promote equal shared parenting.
  • A standing reminder that women are hurt by one-parent defaults too — as non-custodial mothers, mothers of sons, and grandmothers kept from grandchildren.
Leading Women for Shared Parenting Her advisory board bio
Ginger Gentile outdoors in a pink blouse and red glasses, smiling
National · International

Ginger Gentile

Filmmaker — Erasing Family · Former Executive Director, National Parents Organization

Ginger’s documentaries tell the story through the children’s eyes — and her work has moved both public opinion and actual law, in the U.S. and abroad.

What she lived

Ginger didn’t come to this subject as a journalist looking for a topic. She grew up inside a high-conflict divorce, in the years when a child could watch a parent get erased and have no words for what was happening. As an adult she picked up a camera and started asking the question she had carried since childhood — what does it do to a kid when a loving parent disappears from their life, not by death, but by decree? Her films are her answer, told by the now-grown children themselves.

  • Erasing Family — premiered at Lincoln Center and now streaming on major platforms; follows young people reuniting with parents who were erased from their lives.
  • Erasing Dad (2014) — her first film, credited with helping bring joint-custody legislation to Argentina.
  • As NPO’s Executive Director, she added six new state chapters and led national attention for the Shared Parenting Report Card.
  • Named an Architect of Change by Maria Shriver; today she coaches parents working to reunite with their children.
GingerGentile.com Her NPO advisory profile Erasing Family on Facebook Instagram @ErasingFamily YouTube @ErasingFamily TikTok @ErasingFamily
Cover art for the Deadbeat Dad by Design podcast: a father at a table with his head in his hands, and the words ‘supporting fathers through the fight of their lives’
Podcast · Online

Rachel Kay

Creator & host — Deadbeat Dad by Design podcast

Known online as the “Father’s Advocate Mom,” Rachel is one of the women proving this conversation was never just fathers talking to fathers.

What she witnessed

Rachel describes herself as a mom, an ex-wife, and a bonus mom — and she watched family court from the seat beside the father, in her own home: what the process did to her husband, what it cost their family, and how a present, involved dad can be relabeled by the system he is fighting to stay in front of. She didn’t read that story. She lived at the same address as it. The podcast is her turning the witness stand into a microphone, so other families hear a woman saying out loud what she saw.

  • Deadbeat Dad by Design — “supporting fathers through the fight of their lives”: episodes on child support structures, litigation abuse, parental alienation, and the emotional toll on whole families.
  • Systemic patterns, not personal attacks — the show’s stated focus, and a deliberate refusal to make it about bashing the other parent.
  • A growing community of mothers, wives, and fathers listening together — including conversations with other women advocates, like Lauren “The Dadvocate.”
Listen to the podcast Facebook — Deadbeat Dad by Design Instagram @fathers_advocate_mom TikTok @fathers_advocate_mom
Randy Keith on stage in a navy suit with a red tie, holding a microphone, with an NCESP.org banner behind him
Arizona · Online

Randy Keith — The Present Father

Founder — Present Father · Father & family court advocate

Randy is an Arizona police officer and father who built Present Father out of his own case — in his words, “built from experience, not theory.” What started as one dad speaking into his phone has become one of the largest fatherhood communities online.

What he went through

Randy went through his divorce still living under the same roof — a situation he does not recommend to anyone. His case ran through protection orders and emergency custody of his kids, then five and seven, and he tells of the night he lay awake believing he might never see his children again, searching the internet for answers about false allegations and parental alienation — and finding thousands of parents living the same night. His message to the parent in that moment now is the one he needed then: don’t let fear make you give up.

  • A community of hundreds of thousands of parents — roughly 800,000 followers on Facebook alone — built around co-parenting, family court education, and protecting the parent–child relationship.
  • The Present Father Show podcast and a weekly Coffee Hour — conversations with fathers, attorneys, and advocates, plus a standing room for dads in the middle of it right now.
  • Spoke at the NCESP Summit 2026 in Washington, D.C., urging parents to make one more call to a legislator, and educate one more attorney and one more judge.
“Present Father was built from experience, not theory. I know what it’s like to feel frustrated, exhausted, and unsure where to turn.”
Present-Father.com Facebook — Present Father Instagram @present.fathers TikTok @present.father YouTube @present-father

Proof it’s moving

Traction, in order

These are not petitions that went nowhere. They are laws on the books and one live fight in Pennsylvania — each one carried by parents who refused to stay silent.

Watch & listen

See it and hear it for yourself

Two films and a podcast that put real families on screen and on the record. Start with any of them; share the one that sounds like your story.

Documentary film

DEADBEAT

2026 · 2 hours 1 minute · Deadbeat Productions LLC

Directed by Louis Holmes — a decorated New York City firefighter and Persian Gulf veteran who made this film out of his own fight to stay in his son’s life. DEADBEAT follows fathers fighting to be with their children as they work their way through family court, and it has picked up five festival awards, including Best Documentary Feature at the Robinson Film Awards.

Watch on Apple TV

Documentary film

Erasing Family

Directed by Ginger Gentile · Streaming on major platforms

Told from the children’s point of view, Ginger Gentile’s film follows young people as they reunite with loving parents who were erased from their lives after divorce — and shows what reunification actually takes. If you have ever wondered what this feels like from the child’s chair, start here.

About the film & filmmaker
Deadbeat Dad by Design podcast cover art

Podcast

Deadbeat Dad by Design

Hosted by Rachel Kay

A wife and mother hosts the conversation many fathers thought they were having alone: child support structures, litigation abuse, parental alienation, and what this process does to a family over time — focused on the system’s patterns, not attacks on any parent.

Listen to the podcast

Your turn

Stand with them

Nobody on this page started as an expert. They started as parents, spouses, and citizens who showed up once — then kept showing up. Here is how that begins.

Step one

Follow the people doing the work

Every card above links to a real organization or body of work. Follow them, read the bills they are carrying, and share their updates — momentum in a statehouse is built out of ordinary people paying attention.

Step two

Learn your own state’s bills

Family law is made state by state. The National Parents Organization’s Shared Parenting Report Card grades every state’s custody statutes, so you can see where your state stands — and which bill needs your voice.

Step three

Show up in person

Hearings are open to the public. When Pennsylvania’s HB 1499 got its Judiciary Committee hearing on October 5, 2026, more than 100 parents, grandparents, and advocates filled the room — and the committee heard about it for over two hours.

Step four

Tell your story, briefly and calmly

Legislators remember three honest minutes from a real parent longer than a stack of position papers. Advocates like Mark Ludwig literally train parents to do this — it is a learnable skill, and it is how Robert Garza’s first bill began.

This process can be the fuel that propels you — or the fuel that ignites you. The people on this page chose to let it propel them, and then they turned around and reached back for the next parent.