Now this is the FCB Podcast Network. This is the Jeff Glory in Nick Show. Welcome to the Jeff Lauri and Nick Show. And we are an informative show that's dedicated to providing positive information to help folks and help our communities and cities become stronger, better places to live. Today, we have a wonderful guest, none other than Representative Maryland John who is who represents the district in Richland County, Maryland. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your district and welcome to our shows. Well, thank you so much for having me, and I would love to share more about my district. I live in the city of Shelby, which is in the northern part of Richland County. My district is one of the districts in the state and one of the house districts in the state that is an entire county and just an entire just one county, so Richland County. The county seat is Mansfield. We are halfway between Columbus and Cleveland, right in the center of the state, and so we have a lot of residents from the surrounding area that come here for business, medical appointment, shopping. Those types of things. So there's a lot going on in Richland County. We're moving in a great direction. As far as a little bit about me, I started my political career as the mayor of the City of Shelby, and then I became a county commissioner for Richland County before moving on to becoming the state rep and heading off to Columbus. So that's a little bit about me and my district. And your district number is House District seventy six. Seventy six, Yes, yepl to seventy six. We'd like to talk about one of the bills that you've sponsored, and that's House Bill fourteen. House Bill fourteen that deals with parenting of children. Could you tell us a little bit about that, what precipitated you to introduce this bill, and tell us a little bit about the bill itself. So I want to give full credit to the original sponsor of the bill, Representative Rodney Creach. Representative Creach is down around the Dayton area. He's out in the rural part of the area. But Rodney and I knew each other as county commissioners, and I've always thought highly of Rodney and gotten along really well with him. We came in as freshman legislators together now three years ago, and Rodney was really going from a life experience when he wrote this legislation. And he is a he is divorced from his first wife. He's remarried and is doing great, but he was divorced from his first wife, had two children, and spent a lot of money trying to get to see his kids because of things that had happened in the courts, not because he's a bad parent, not because of anything any legal problems that he had, but just because a judge who didn't know him made a decision that his children should spend the majority of the time with their mom versus him as a dad. So when I was talking with Rodney three years ago and he told me he was dropping this bill, I had several ideas about what I would also like to see. And then this General Assembly, the person that had sponsored the bill with him initially was not coming back to the General Assembly, and so I called him up and I said, will you please let me join this bill with you. I love the concept. I think that fathers are incredibly important to children, and that we are doing a disservice to our young people. By taking the fathers, taking them away from their fathers and not allowing their dads to have more impact on their life. So I joined the bill. I think that's great. What is the name of the bill and we know it's House Bill fourteen, that's the number. What is the actual title. The title of the bill is the Equal Parenting Bill. And what the bill would do is so right now, each county handles handles it somewhat differently when it comes to deciding custody for children. Not all counties, believe it or not, are are the same, Not all judges to make the decision the same. And so what the Equal Parenting Bill would do is it would it would be a starting point for all counties. It would require judges to begin at an equal parenting point. So when a couple decides that they want to separate or divorce, the children would would they would be equally responsible for the children and in decision making and time as close to substantially equal as they can be unless there is a reason, if there is, for instance, domestic violence that has been involved, then that would be a situation where the judge could make a different decision. But if you have two parents involved, in the family that are good parents who just no longer want to be together or married, they still have the same responsibility and role in the children's life as substantially equal as it can be. I think it's so important to pass this bill. There's so many men and I'm sure in some cases women. We actually just witnessed an incident just a few days ago, within the last week, where there was a there were two parents that have a child, and I guess one of the in this particular case, the mom should stay away from the child. And I think the mother actually wanted to. She kind of forced away on seeing the child, and that was it became a terrible incident. So it goes kind of both ways. But in a lot of cases that father is really needed, right, and we know that statistics show that nine times out of ten it's the mom who has the most time with the child. Yeah, fathers are needed. Father's matter, and I think in a lot of communities, you know, fathers just don't feel that they have the tools and the power and the voice. So could you kind of speak to that. Absolutely one of the reasons I jumped on so a little bit more about myself. I have been married to my husband for twenty eight years. We have two children together. I have not gone through a divorce. My parents were not divorced. However, I lost my mom when I was nineteen. She passed away. She had been ill for a few years and passed away, and so at the age of nineteen, I still needed my dad, And I've put myself in a situation and to think about what would it have been like at nineteen if I had not had an established relationship with my father as a child growing up, and then suddenly my mom is gone. I'm very blessed both of my parents growing up. So even though I lost my mom at a fairly young age, I still had a strong relationship with my dad because it had been established my whole life. And when I think about other children who have not been given the opportunity to have that established relationship, it really makes you look at the problems that we're having in society, and I think a lot of that can go back to they have not been able to establish a relationship with their father. What my husband gives to our children is different in many ways than what I give to our kids. God makes men and women different, and what moms do is a little bit different than what dads do. I can't replace what my husband does, and he can't replace what I do. So we need to both be involved. Our children are adults now, we are just as active in their lives. Maybe not on a day to day basis. Parenting changes, but if they need certain things, they call him. If they need something else, they call me. And I think it's so important that fathers and mothers both, if they are good quality parents, that they be given an opportunity to be as significantly equal as possible in their children's lives. I think there are a lot of fathers that are listening right now, even mothers that would like to see their fathers more involved. And some of that fighting and so forth, and disagreements and some of that stuff kind of pushed to the side for the benefit of the child. And I'm sure that's what House Bill fourteen is all about. What kind of changes does House Bill fourteen make? I mean, what can you tell those folks that are dealing with that right now, those fathers that say, look, I wish I was there with my child. I know my child needs me. So first of all, it would recommend require the judge to better explain. I think what we are hearing from parents is, you know, when you go into a situation like that, many people have never been in a court, They don't know what all of the paperwork is, and it's such an emotional time that it's difficult for them to really comprehend and understand everything and every decision that they're getting ready to make. They're also very angry at each other, and for the most part, you know, that's why they're deciding to not be together as a couple any longer. So having the judges required to say to the parents, you need to sit down and come up with a plan, a plan of as close to equal parenting as possible first off, and then if they can't do that because of whatever reason emotionally they can't come pull it together, then the judge should start at equal parenting. That's the starting point. It may not be where they end up because of circumstances, may be related to a job. Maybe one of the parents drives truck and is not home where the parenting can't be equal. Maybe one of the parents does have some mental illness or some legal issues where they can't they shouldn't be have equal access to the children. That's still up to the judge to decide, but many there are many counties in the state of Ohio unfortunately that start off with two out of fourteen days, so and in and a significant portion of those cases the mom has the child for twelve or fourteen days and the dad gets them every other weekend. That's not a significant amount of time to be able to impact your child's life two out of fourteen days. I also want to point out that a lot again, in a lot of these situations, you now have single moms raising kids who have the majority of the responsibility to look at child care. And so these moms are do not have the opportunity to further their education, to maybe begin a career or further their career because now the majority of the responsibility for caring for their children falls to them. And so I think that it's a for single moms out there who need an opportunity to be able to provide for their families to further their education. This would also open up more opportunities for them in if this bill becomes law, well, so House Bill fourteen. It's a pro family bill. It strengthens the relationship between the child and both sides of the family, the family of the mother and the father, And there's a great benefit to empowering that child, make self esteem and so much other things, and just the child will feel more love, more value, and just a greater connection to again both the mother's family, father's family, and their friends and communities. So I think it's so important and this bill would go a long way to those who believe who are profan family, and who believe that children should have their fathers in their lives. So what can individuals do? What can pastors and other leaders do to support this bill and support you? Always feel free to reach out to my office again. You can email me at REPS seven six at Ohio house dot gov. You can also go on to the legislature's website. You can look up House Bill fourteen and look to see it. We have who has testified in favor of the bill. Who are the groups and individuals that are opposed to the bill. You can read their testimony. Reach out to our offices and let us know how you feel about it if there are if you have stories to share, We've had so many people across the state share the story, their story about how maybe they've been kept from their children. We've had you. You bring up a really important point. You know, my children are very close to their grandparents, and in situations where maybe they have been they're kept from one of their parents except for two days a month. Not only do they not get to see their parent, but they also don't get to see those grandparents or those aunts and uncles, or those cousins or those family friends. Suddenly they're taken from all of those people who may or may not be, but more than likely are important in their lives. And so it's really about bringing balance back. It's about taking the children away from being the football back and forth between two people who don't get along, and no longer being used as a weapon against one against the other, but being allowed to be children who feel loved, accepted, and wanted by both of their parents. Thank you, Marilyn John. We're gonna we're gonna support this us again. It's House Bill fourteen, Equal parent It's the equal Parenting Bill. Where is it right now? Because we want to get behind this. We'd like the legislature to pass this bill, support it. Is there a testimony that's needed on this? So right now we have had three hearings. So how the process works is we introduce a bill, it gets sent to a committee, it gets referred to a committee. So it has been referred to the Families and Aging Committee. The chairperson of the committee, Chair Schmidt, has worked very well with Rep. Creach and I on the bill trying to work through it. We've been meeting with the opponents of the legislation also to see if we can come up with compromises to get them on board with it. So we've had three hearings. We've had again people come in who are a supportive of the bill, people who are opposed to the bill. We're still working through to try to get the opponents on board to see if there's things that need to be changed. So the most important thing is if people have stories, please reach out to my office. I'll make sure to share that all of this information with Rep. Creach's office and pass along information to Chairman Schmidt's office to make sure that they know and we will just continue to push to get this legislature legislation to become law. If people do have stories and they'd like to get behind this and be supportive, is there a phone number that they can call? Yes, My office number is Airy code six one four four six six five eight zero two. And again, any information that I receive in my office, I will make sure to pass along to Representative Creach. This was his original bill, and I want to make sure that he has he gets all the credit. He has fought for this for three years and has done an amazing job of representing this bill. I'm so proud to be on it with him. So any information that's sent to my office, you can google Representative Rodney Creech and get the same information on him. Contact information on him, and we would love to hear from people. Representative Marilynd John, we just thank you so much. This is just great. It's so empowering for our young people, for families to take the load off moms and help dads to get more involved. And I think it's just a win win win situation for all of us, for our communities to get to remove some of the anger and put more love into our communities and into our people. So again, we thank you so much. Representative Maryland John from Ohio's seventy sixth district having me on today. We're gonna stay in touch with you. We're gonna have you back and again, thank you so much to our audience for staying with us. And let's remember to keep fighting a good fight. We can all do better. Keep doing your part to make our communities better, which makes our state better and our nation better. God bless you all. This has been a presentation of the FCB podcast Network, where real talk lives. Visit us online at fcbpodcasts dot com.
