SB 404 offers a stronger starting point for custody decisions. It may reduce conflict in some cases. It may create more predictable outcomes for some children. It may help shift the culture in family court toward expecting both parents to be involved.

However, it does not address legitimation — the structural barrier that keeps so many fathers from being able to participate in the custody process at all.

If we celebrate SB 404 without naming this gap, we risk creating a new narrative that sounds like justice while leaving an old injustice untouched.

By Kenneth Braswell, CEO, Fathers Incorporated

Movement matters. So let’s start there.

Fathers Incorporated (FI) is encouraged to see Georgia lawmakers advancing SB 404. Any time the state is willing to put fatherhood, parenting time, and the child’s relationship with both parents on the legislative table, that is progress. It signals something we’ve been pushing for a long time: Fathers are not an afterthought. They are part of the solution.

SB 404 has real potential for some families. It underscores shared parenting as a starting point for custody decisions. For married parents navigating separation or divorce, this shift could mean less fighting, less uncertainty, and a clearer expectation that children deserve meaningful time with both parents. For some fathers already recognized as legal parents, SB 404 may help normalize what many children already know in their hearts: Both parents matter.

FI knows it, as well, so this is not an op-ed to dismiss the intent of SB 404. We welcome it and appreciate it, but we also have a responsibility to tell the full truth.

Even good movement toward a desired outcome can create a kind of momentum that outruns reality. The excitement of seeing something finally shift can tempt all of us to overstate what has actually changed. And this is where the public conversation gets sloppy. 

Phrases like “50/50” and “shared custody” — or branding a bill as the “Good Dad Act” — can sound like a complete victory when they are not. In other states, these phrases often rest on an underlying presumption of fatherhood and a clean legal pathway that already recognizes a father as a legal parent to his child. Those structures allow 50-50 talk to make sense. 

But in Georgia, enthusiasm and headlines overshadow the truth: This bill does not erase the existing legal reality that non-custodial, unmarried fathers must still go through a separate legal process to gain legal access to their children. This is why we want to be careful with our enthusiasm and our language. While we are appreciative, it’s prudent to slow down and recognize the work that still needs to be done.

SB 404 is not a complete answer to Georgia’s fatherhood problem, because Georgia’s fatherhood problem is not only about custody schedules. It is also about legal standing. It is about who the state recognizes as a parent before the custody conversation even begins.

And in Georgia, that question still splits families down the middle.

In Georgia, a married father is presumed to be a legal father. An unmarried father is not.

This single distinction is the difference between walking into family court as a parent and walking into family court as someone asking permission to be treated like one. It’s the difference between having rights acknowledged at the starting line and being told you must file a separate petition, pay separate costs, and survive a separate legal process just to be eligible to have the shared parenting conversation in the first place.

This is why we say, clearly and without apology, that SB 404 leaves some dads behind.

The promise of shared parenting cannot be fulfilled if the law does not first recognize both parents equally. A 50-50 starting point only matters if both people in the case are legally recognized as parents, and SB 404, as currently framed, does not fix the underlying system that has kept thousands of Georgia fathers on the outside looking in: legitimation.

Legitimation is not a technical footnote. It is the gate. 

Legitimation is the legal process Georgia requires for an unmarried father to become his child’s legal father. In plain terms, a man can be biologically connected, emotionally present, financially responsible, and still not be legally recognized as a parent unless he goes through that process. 

In many cases, paternity is enough to establish child support, but not enough to establish parenting rights. This disconnect creates an arrangement that is both confusing and deeply unfair: responsibility without rights.

When a father has to petition the court to be recognized as a legal parent, his relationship with his child becomes conditional. Conditional on paperwork. Conditional on the mother’s consent or lack of opposition. Conditional on whether he can afford the process. Conditional on a judge’s interpretation of “best interest” before he is even granted the status to parent.

Place SB 404 beside this reality. The bill speaks to a presumption of shared parenting time and joint custody. This is meaningful for parents who already stand in court as legal equals, but for many unmarried fathers, the primary challenge is not convincing a judge to consider 50-50. The primary challenge is reaching the point where they can even request it.

This is the part of the story Georgia families deserve to understand.

SB 404 offers a stronger starting point for custody decisions. It may reduce conflict in some cases. It may create more predictable outcomes for some children. It may help shift the culture in family court toward expecting both parents to be involved.

However, it does not address legitimation — the structural barrier that keeps so many fathers from being able to participate in the custody process at all.

If we celebrate SB 404 without naming this gap, we risk creating a new narrative that sounds like justice while leaving an old injustice untouched.

We will hear people say, Georgia has 50-50 now, but the truth will be more complicated.

For an unmarried father without legitimation, “50-50” can still remain out of reach. Not because he is unfit. Not because he is unwilling. But because the state has not fully recognized him as a parent in the first place.

That is not a small issue. That is not an edge case. That is not rare.

Georgia is a state where a significant share of children are born to unmarried parents. Those children deserve laws that protect their right to a relationship with both parents from day one, not after costly, confusing, and time-consuming litigation. They deserve a system that treats their parentage as a matter of fact, not as a matter of permission.

Fathers deserve what should be a basic human right: the right to be recognized as the legal father of their child when parentage is known and uncontested.

We are not asking lawmakers to abandon the pursuit of shared parenting. We are asking them to finish what shared parenting requires. Shared parenting is not simply a custody framework. It is a legal architecture. It depends on both parents being recognized, not just one.

If Georgia wants to make good on the promise implied by SB 404, the next step is not optional: Georgia must reform legitimation.

This doesn’t mean removing safeguards for children or ignoring safety concerns. Courts must always protect children from harm. Families affected by domestic violence deserve clear, strong protections. Nothing about recognizing a father’s legal standing should weaken safety.

But we can hold two truths at the same time: Children must be protected, and legal parenthood should not be harder to establish simply because the parents are not married.

In a modern Georgia, children should not have different legal access to their father based solely on the marital choices of adults. The law should not reinforce a two-tiered system in which some fathers are presumed eligible for parenting time, while others must first prove they deserve the status to request it.

This is why FI is encouraged but not resting. We can applaud movement while still demanding completion. We can acknowledge that SB 404 shows promise while noting that the work remains incomplete. We can support lawmakers who are trying to make progress while still challenging Georgia to confront what remains broken.

SB 404 moves some fathers forward, but it leaves too many dads behind.

And when dads are left behind, children are left behind, too.

So let this be the moment where Georgia does more than adjust custody formulas. Let this be the moment where Georgia commits to a fair and consistent definition of parenthood, one that recognizes children’s needs, reflects family realities, and honors the role of fathers without making their legitimacy dependent on a separate court fight.

This is how we strengthen families.

This is how we reduce conflict rather than relocating it.

This is how we keep the promise to fathers and their children.

If Georgia is going to set a new default for custody, Georgia must also set a new standard for legal fatherhood.

Until legitimation is reformed, the state will continue to tell a large share of fathers the quiet part out loud: You can love your child, support your child, and show up for your child, but you still may not be recognized as your child’s legal father.

That is not shared parenting. It’s unfinished justice.