We hear a lot about how the courts are biased in favor of mothers when deciding child custody. After a 10 year career as a divorce coach/consultant and doing extensive research on the subject, I've come to the conclusion that the courts are not the reason mothers retain custody in the majority of divorces. And, not the reason many fathers aren't involved in their children's lives post-divorce.
Below are a few stats from a Pew Research Center analysis of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) released in June of 2011.
Married Fathers:
According to the report, a married father spends on average 6.5 hours a week taking part in primary child care activities with his children. The married mother spends on average 12.9 hours. Since two-income households are now the norm, not the exception, the above information indicates that not only are mothers working, but they are also doing twice as much child care as fathers.
It only makes sense that mothers who have a closer bond due to the time spent caring for a child be the one more likely to retain primary custody after a divorce.
Divorced or Unwed Fathers:
More startling are the stats on absent fathers, or the amount of time fathers spend with children once the divorce is final. According to the above study, when fathers and children live separately, 22 percent of fathers see their children more than once a week. Twenty-nine percent of fathers see their children one to four times a month. The most disturbing fact though is that 27 percent of fathers have no contact with their children at all.
When you take into consideration that mothers spend more time taking care of children before divorce and only 22 percent of fathers take advantage of spending what I would consider quality time with their children after the divorce, the fact that more mothers retain custody seems reasonable... doesn't it?
Many men argue that family courts send the message that fathers are not essential to raising children. Not essential beyond the point of giving a percentage of their paychecks to the mother of their children anyway. They argue that the courts consider them nothing more than weekend visitors and that so few fathers take an active role in parenting after divorce due to the blatant bias they experience during the divorce process and the determination of child custody.
Some fathers, those among the 27 percent who have no contact with their children post-divorce, may even argue that gender bias during divorce litigation is the reason they no longer engage in parenting or any form of relationship with their children.
But don't you need to take into consideration how child custody is decided in the majority of divorce cases before blaming gender bias on a father's post-divorce status? What do the statistics say about how custody is decided during divorce and whether or not there is a true gender bias?
According to DivorcePeers.com, the majority of child custody cases are not decided by the courts.
In other words, 91 percent of child custody after divorce is decided with no interference from the family court system. How can there be a bias toward mothers when fewer than 4 percent of custody decisions are made by the Family Court?
What do these statistics tell us?
1. Fathers are less involved in their children's care during the marriage.
2. Fathers are less involved in their children's lives after divorce.
3. Mothers gain custody because the vast majority of fathers choose to give them custody.
4. There is no Family Court bias in favor of mothers because very few fathers seek custody during divorce.
I fully understand and appreciate the value of fathers in the lives of their children. We as a society should do everything in our power to encourage responsible parenting by both mothers and fathers.
After studying the statistics and working with divorcing clients for more than 10 years, it's my opinion that the "gender bias" argument is used by some fathers who fail to understand the value of legally fighting for more time with their children during the divorce process.
A gender bias argument should not be used by a divorced father unless he has personal experience and can back up that experience with proof. Until the statistics tell us that more than 4 percent of divorced fathers are seeking custody through the Family Court system, there are few men who have such experience and proof of a true "gender bias."
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No doubt there are more deadbeat dads than deadbeat moms. But that doesn't explain the inequities in the system.
Correlation does not equal causation as you are attempting to show here. Selling Ice Cream does not cause violent crime...
http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/11894_Chapter_5.pdf
The average work week for a married male based on these statistics is 38... for a married female is 23.
You are also assuming that the quality in this amount of time is the same. I know some people that are more productive in a few hours than others are all day. Parenting time can be the same... so caring for a kid while ignoring it and watching TV for 12 hours may not be as beneficial for the child as 6 hours dedicated to this child doing activities, working on homework, etc.
The family court system takes you through mandatory disclosure and initial pleading stages and after that it goes from bad to worse. Please understand when I use the term family court system I'm incorporating divorce/custody attorneys and the Guardian-Ad-Litem (Law Guardian or Minors Counsel) or Best Interest Attorney. These attorneys will fight for you and try to impeach the opposing party via depositions, request for admissions and propounded interrogatories, but at their rate of $200 - $400/Hour. And don't forget there are extraneous legal costs such as paying the court reporter to transcribe and type-up the depositions.
So, the system drains you emotionally, spiritually and financially. And I do mean F I N A N C I A L L Y. Even in cases that do not resort in high-conflict litigation and trials, it is still costly to reach an out-of-court Marital Settlement Agreement. And, just for the record, the last census bureau statistic I saw, motheres were awarded primary residential parent 85% of the time.
Dean Tong, MSc.
I later got married and have supported my husband in his custody battle. The courts never decided in favor or against him, but it was a long drawn out, expensive battle, we could not afford to finish. The highlight of the case was when my husband took his daughter's cell phone away, while she was at our house. She accused him of abusing her and said, "You attacked me, my lawyer said that if you attack me I don't have to come over!" There was no abuse involved, but the court appointed GAL encouraged her to make this accusation. We didn't know that until the police arrived at our door, since they went directly to the police department to press charges. Since it was parenting and there was no abuse, the report was disregarded, but not until after a DCFS investigation humiliating the rest of the family. Her mother continues to comment that it was entirely her daughter's decision.
The courts are biased! I witnessed this as a mother who "won" custody and the wife of a man who didn't have a prayer when it came to getting custody. Had the courts awarded even a reasonable amount of visitation to my husband, perhaps he would have been able to spend more time parenting.
Isn't that biased? First you make an assertion based upon questionable statistics. Then you limit the number of "acceptable" responses that you deem worth of your consideration. Finally you decide that the low number of "qualified" replies means that the bias is inconsequential.
From the number of comments apparently you are mistaken...
"only 22 percent of fathers take advantage of spending what I would consider quality time with their children after the divorce" - You don't even say the comparable percentage for women. For all we know from this article, 0% of mothers spend time with their kids when they live apart.
"How can there be a bias toward mothers when fewer than 4 percent of custody decisions are made by the Family Court?" - Ummm... there could still be a bias, it just happens less frequently?
"Not only are mothers working, but they are also doing twice as much child care as fathers." Actually, if you have 100 mom-dad households, and in 90 of them both parents work and each parent spends 6.5 hours a week with the children, but in the 10 remaining households the mother stays home and spends 70.5 hours a week, you'll get the same averages. You have to analyze comparable groups - households where the mother and father work (and work the same number of hours).
Finally, even if you managed to prove (which you haven't) that ON AVERAGE fathers are not as attentive as mothers, an individual father should still not be judged based on other fathers, and children still have the right to be placed with the best parent regardless of gender.