Twenty years ago, I put together a men's group where eight guys met twice a month to teach each other the lessons of manhood most didn't get from their fathers and to work through the issues that affect our relationships and limit our lives. We wrestled with friendship and trust, intimacy and sexuality, marriage and divorce, parenting and fatherhood, and emerged as better all-around men. This two-decade journey of my group is chronicled in my new book, Act Like a Man -- available now on Amazon in Kindle or print editions.
One lingeringly painful experience that several of the men in my group -- including me -- never managed to totally come to terms with, though, is the way we were marginalized and penalized as divorced fathers in the family court system. Comments from many readers of my articles echo the ongoing trauma of similar experiences. In fact, as I write this -- 30 years after my own divorce -- I'm hyperventilating just remembering the anger, frustration, and intense emotional anxiety I went through then.
It takes two people to make a marriage work and two people to destroy it. And, while it's debatable which gender is more responsible for the 50% divorce rate, all that matters to the children is having two parents who love them and can help them cope with the fallout from a broken home. Too often, however, the courts don't view custody cases from this perspective, operating instead from a 1950s paradigm in which fathers were considered breadwinners with little hands-on parental input.
This assumption that women are more capable of raising children than men are makes my blood boil. I raised my oldest son as a single dad from ages one to six in the late 1960s, when there was no daycare and I was just beginning my career after college. What I lacked in parenting skills, I more than made up for with love, nurturing, and a deep desire to be that little boy's hero. I never shirked my responsibility and, for years, had no social life.
Years later, having had temporary custody of my second son for a year, I found myself in family court when he was 10 after learning that he frequently found his mother drunk and passed out on the sofa when he came home from school. I had to hire a lawyer -- which wiped out my savings -- answer insulting and irrelevant questions in depositions, and be accused of being an unfit father -- despite my proven track record -- before finally being awarded full custody. And, despite the emotional and financial pain I endured, I consider myself lucky. The judge refused to pay give credence to opposing depositions and put my son's interests first by taking him into his chambers and talking with him for nearly an hour. He asked my son the only relevant question -- "Do you feel safe with your mother?" -- and ruled to protect him.
My oldest son is an adult now and the father of a young son himself -- in many ways, the dad I wish I'd had. He's gone through his own custody battle and I'm proud he made a stand for his rights with his son. It's agonizing to see him have to suffer the way I did just to protect his rights as a father, though, and my heart goes out to him each time he faces a new legal hurdle.
Few men would argue that they have to help support and raise their children after divorce. But sometimes women take advantage of the family courts for financial gain. To a father whose custody of his children has been limited, providing financial support can feel like marriage without any benefits. While I sympathize with a woman's need for financial support to help her raise the children, I have no sympathy for women who use the courts to destroy the financial lives of their ex-husbands. A failed marriage shouldn't be an opportunity to get even -- for either parent.
If it takes two incomes in today's economy to support an intact family, then it's going to take two incomes to support that family after divorce -- and maybe even more, considering the necessity for two separate homes. In fact, it's very important that children feel they do have two homes -- not a primary home with their mom and a weekend stopover at Dad's place. By giving equal custody to fathers, women would both lighten their financial burden and increase their opportunities to work outside the home. A shared arrangement -- both custodial and financial -- is both fairest for the parents and most advantageous for their children.
Equal physical custody is every divorced father's right, and I support and advocate for every man who struggles to maintain his role as equal parent to his children. And I hope women will realize that this shared parenting is in their children's best interest and will get behind men in this struggle. Read my book to see how guys can support each other -- and women can help -- in making the family court system truly serve justice for all.
www.recognizethebully.org
And the truly sad thing Ken? If your son would have said "Yes," no matter how good of a parent you would have been, he would have been in the custody of a drunk, passed out parent with whom he didn't want to say he did NOT feel safe.
Unfortunately, what should have happened was an overall view of both homes and the child then should have been placed in the best environment. What actually does happen is they look at her home, check your finances, give her enough money to make her home like yours, and give her custody. She has more money for whatever she wants and your child suffers. The family "court" system should more accurately be known as the "Child Confiscation and Mother Support System."
I am EXTREMELY happy to hear, for your son's sake, that it worked out. I'm sure you'd be pointed to at what is wrong with a court system that allows mothers to have their children taken away. It is a one-way system that cannot help itself. You know what would be interesting? Take all references to genders off 1000 cases and put them before family court judges for a ruling. Then compare to what actually happened when dad, and more importantly, mom was standing in front of them. What a paper that would be.
However, what do you suggest when a father has absolutely no interest in exercising those rights? I've spent more then a decade trying to get my ex-husband interested in his son. He only sees him when my MIL (his mother, who I've been truly lucky to have, she's just "Grandma" to my BOTH of my kids) comes to either get our son, or both of my sons.
In the begining, I would give him cash to take our son to a fast food place, with a "playplace". I had to stop, because not only could I not afford it, I was afraid that if I kept doing it, and at some point absolutely couldn't come through, my son would blame ME for not seeing his dad.
I've done everything I can think of to get him to be involved, to no avail. I'm certainly open to any ideas, suggestions, etc. that someone could give me.
A man who can't feel his own emotions, can't feel anyone else's either. Your son will suffer unless or until his dad can feel the love in his heart that most men feel for their sons.
He's a prime candidate for a men's group, but that's a big step for some men to take. Whatever his issues about his son, that would be the ideal place to discover it and work it through.
Be the best mom you can, and if possible, a male friend, relative, or even Big Brothers, might help your son, and at the same time, wake up your ex-husband to the joy he's missing.
I'm always heartbroken when I read stories like yours. Good luck.
It wasn't until a few years ago, (he's 14), and his father started moving strange women into his trailer, that he started asking why he didn't see his dad much. (and, especially so after he started having other children) That's been the hardest thing, trying to explain to him that it's not HIS fault his dad doesn't see him. That's what kills me, that he's started to notice that his father doesn't really want much to do with him, but will happily have all of these strangers around, and then procreate with them.
What if we were to cease referring to it as "custody" and, instead, simply acknowledge substantially equal parenting time for each parent (defined as 165 to 200 overnights and days each year) and the authority and opportunity to be substantially equally involved and participate in the child's life?
What if we made any battle only about the logistical challenge of two homes and NOT which parent is a tad bit or even a lot better than the other parent (so long as a minimum threshold was met whereby the child had competent parents)?
What if we never asked a child to pick a parent, but only to provide information from which the logistics of one parent's proposed parenting plan could be compared to the other parent's proposed parenting plan and the one BEST for the child, not the convenience of either parent, was selected by the judge?
What if judges no longer could tell parents who are divorcing or are divorced what they cannot do or must do if the judges do not have the right to tell the married parents the same thing?
What if all moms and dads told our government (schools, legislatures, judges) that this is My Child, Not Yours?
I'd love to hear your ideas. Find me and follow my effort to stop the overreaching of government into parenting.
The burden of proof should be on the parent who feels the other is incompetent, and that proof should be that person's financial responsibility, 100%.
That would end much of the personal vindictiveness that plagues divorce and custody hearings.
I'm appalled by how children are treated after divorce. It's a sick game in which no one should ever have to participate.
From a Constitutional perspective, do we really want there to be a "scorecard" on which each parent is graded and the parent who gets a 88 is rewarded by getting more time with the child than the parent who scored a 81 or even a 70? The price and the burden are on the child. BTW, let's assume competency for a parent is a 50 below which the parent just ought to be considered for parental rights termination (burden is on the State and the consequences are permanent and severe).
Instead, there must be reliance on the Constitution and parents' rights (both mothers and fathers) to parent without government intrusion unless "there is a showing of actual harm by clear and convincing evidence with the burden on the party contending such harm justifies the impairment of either parent's rights." Such reliance would come from legislation as the appellate courts are too often willing to talk the talk about rights but then just permit trial courts the "discretion" to do whatever it wants for the "best interests of the child" which brings us right back to people (judges) and litigants (parents) and those who benefit (attorneys, guardian ad litems, psychologists) who permit and even encourge the "fight club" which what I now call the judicial system in which such custody battles are waged.
http://dads-house.org/EducationalManual
Right as rain.
Thank you.
My experience in divorce has, sadly, revealed that a divorcing mother will do/say anything to get control over the children and that a divorcing father who wants to be an equal-time father will have to overcome bias and hostility in the divorce system.
While women have the upper hand in the court's eyes, I don't believe the majority of women support the assumption that it's okay to use custody as a way to punish ex-husbands.
I suspect most women find this as appalling as everyone else who had posted comments here.
I've found this to be true for all women who don't have an attorney saying, "You have a RIGHT to have your children. What did he do? You did all the parenting, didn't you? We should make sure you get your children." And they do this all of the time. Unless we can keep the fox out of the henhouse, the chickens will keep disappearing. Maybe it is legislation, maybe it is judges taking a more vested role in reality, but neither will gain seats of power for either of the parties, so they're quite comfortable with where they are, hiding behind the curtain they made that loudly proclaims, "Best interest of the children," and then they can get away with anything they want.
· “Teenagers living in single-parent households are more likely to abuse alcohol and at an earlier age compared to children reared in two-parent households.” – The Effects of Family Cohesiveness and Peer Encouragement on the Development of Adolescent Alcohol Use. A Cohort-Sequential Approach to the Analysis of Longitudinal Data, Journal of Studies on Alcohol 55 (1994)
· “The absence of the father in a home affects significantly the behavior of adolescents and results in the greater use of alcohol and marijuana.” – Deane Scott Berman, Risk Factors Leading to Adolescent Substance Abuse, Adolescence 30 (1999)
Whether we like it or not, women and men are different. I'm all about equality, but there are areas in life where women are expected to be treated differently, and we do with no exception. We as humans haven't decided what side of the fence we are on.
So, while I feel that fathers and mothers should have split/shared custody by default, women still (majority) are more capable than men. But, there is so much a child will learn when growing up with their father.
I am a single dad who wishes to have shared custody. My girlfriend has a son whose father is not around, and you can tell it affects him.