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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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 Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 11:30 am Post subject: The unfair perils of divorced fathers |
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In the 1979 movie Kramer vs. Kramer, a New York mother bored with child care bolts to Los Angeles �to find herself,� leaving her husband suddenly in sole charge of their little son.
The heart of the movie is the riveting evolution of a patriarchy-era father � career-obsessed, domestically disengaged � into a New Man: putting career ambitions second to his child�s needs, parenting clumsily and frantically at first, but eventually with tender efficiency.
Not without realistic missteps and emotional pain along the way, they form a loving bond. The child is happy. Nevertheless, when the mother swoops back into town 18 months later and sues for custody, a patriarchy-era court ignores the dad�s obviously superior moral claim � and the child�s wishes � awarding the mom custody on the basis of her gender.
Thirty years later, New Men are the norm in bourgeois society. But the instinct to privilege the mother-child nexus, ironically a dominant feature of both the sentimentalist patriarchy and today�s feminist-dominated family law, continues to rule in family court.
As many New Men are shocked to learn, all the midnight feedings, bedtime stories and soothing band-aid applications to scraped knees count for nothing against morally indefensible gender bias in family court: In 90% of litigated custody cases, the mother gains sole custody.
Thus, with mom-friendly courts always the trump card up a mother�s sleeve, even the best of fathers in all custody negotiations must depend on the mother�s good will rather than justice for anything approaching equal access to his children.
In 1997, when the current Divorce Act came into effect, a Special Joint Committee was convened to make recommendations on child custody and access. After 55 hearings and more than a year of study, the 48 recommendations of the 1998 report, For the Sake of the Children, converged on one theme: The sole-custody adversarial system, as it pertains to the majority of custody and access disputes, denies children and non-custodial parents basic human rights, and puts children�s psychological and emotional health at risk.
The report recommended the �non-rebuttable presumption� of equal parenting (in the absence of abuse) as both fair to parents and best for children. But it was ignored by the then-Liberal government and fell into a political black hole.
We know what Canadians think on this issue: Polls show that 80% of Canadians support equal parenting. We will know the present government�s frame of mind when Saskatoon-Wanuskewin MP Maurice Vellacott�s Motion M-483 in support of equal parenting comes up for debate in parliament this fall.
A hopeful sign: On June 19 the Northwest Territories passed a supportive motion for Vellacott�s initiative with a vote of 11 to zero (with seven abstentions).
Vellacott has lined up 17 of a necessary 20 seconders to his motion and feels optimistic about its reception: �The social science is air-tight on the importance of fathers and mothers in the whole range of life experience as [children] grow older.�
He is correct about the social science. In a September 2007 policy paper, UBC sociology professor Edward Kruk, Canada�s foremost expert on custody, adduced a wealth of peer-reviewed data to support the superior effects of �shared parental responsibility.�
Yet, as he observes, judges in family courts tend to perpetuate old stereotypes, ignoring evidence in cases where the father is provably the more responsible caregiver, or presuming fathers only seek sole custody to evade financial responsibility.
Under mounting critical scrutiny in recent years, the judiciary�s lack of expertise in determining the �best interests of the child� has become increasingly apparent. As a result, a new parental �responsibility-to-needs� discourse has emerged in the socio-legal realm.
A child�s �needs� cannot be optimally met by a single parent, however loving. Kruk�s findings show that a child must spend at least 40% of his time with a parent to establish and maintain a beneficial attachment.
Kramer vs. Kramer ended happily, with the mother�s recognition that fairness to the child required voluntary relinquishment of her legal entitlement.
Unfortunately Hollywood is not running the divorce industry in Canada. In real life, mothers are rarely so selfless; court-battle endings are rarely so happy for fathers and children.
In 2006, Stephen Harper�s electoral platform promised to implement �a presumption of shared parental responsibility, unless determined to be not in the best interests of the child,� with mediation as an alternate method of conflict resolution.
Campaign talk is cheap. When can divorced Canadian fathers � and their children � expect justice, so long demanded, so long promised and so long deferred? |
www.nationalpost.com
Time for gender equality. |
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ReeseDog
Joined: 05 Apr 2008
Location: Classified
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| Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 12:59 pm Post subject: |
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Here's one for you:
My ex had custody of our daughter for nine years, during which time I paid child support faithfully. She gave me custody one year ago. She paid child support for the first two months and then stopped. She's in the wind, now. She doesn't call or anything. All I hear about these days is so-called "deadbeat dads." What about deadbeat moms out there? Or do they get a pass because they're female? |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 1:14 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, something has got to give.
We can't build functioning societies with appeasing feminist vengeance as a foundation any more than we can keep Canada as a Western nation with a cultural foundation that "Western" is merely one way of knowing, equally valid (though less so) in the many ways of knowing.
It is time for a big dose of realism. Cultural, gender, civilizational realism. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 1:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Thirty years later, New Men are the norm in bourgeois society. |
How true is this claim? |
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Kikomom
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: them thar hills--Penna, USA--Zippy is my kid, the teacher in ROK. You can call me Kiko
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| Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 2:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Thirty years later, New Men are the norm in bourgeois society. |
How true is this claim? |
I have a cousin doing it. The stories I hear from his mother are horrendous (and I won't repeat them here--family secrets, ya know).
And bourgeois is just one step above redneck. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 4:16 pm Post subject: |
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| ReeseDog wrote: |
Here's one for you:
My ex had custody of our daughter for nine years, during which time I paid child support faithfully. She gave me custody one year ago. She paid child support for the first two months and then stopped. She's in the wind, now. She doesn't call or anything. All I hear about these days is so-called "deadbeat dads." What about deadbeat moms out there? Or do they get a pass because they're female? |
Did you try to seek a legal solution? |
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some waygug-in
Joined: 25 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 5:20 pm Post subject: |
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Reminds me of my cousin's case.
He got divorced after a couple years of marriage.
They never had any children.
His ex got the house as well as monthly support payments from him. As far as I know, he has been paying these faithfully for the last 12 years or so.
The courts told him he was her prime means of support, so he must support her indefinately for the rest of her life....
Unless of course, she gets remarried.
She gets the house and a lifetime living allowance and never has to work another day in her life. She is free to have all the boyfriends she wants.
How fair is that? |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 5:46 pm Post subject: |
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| some waygug-in wrote: |
Reminds me of my cousin's case.
He got divorced after a couple years of marriage.
They never had any children.
His ex got the house as well as monthly support payments from him. As far as I know, he has been paying these faithfully for the last 12 years or so.
The courts told him he was her prime means of support, so he must support her indefinately for the rest of her life....
Unless of course, she gets remarried.
She gets the house and a lifetime living allowance and never has to work another day in her life. She is free to have all the boyfriends she wants.
How fair is that? |
That sucks. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 5:52 pm Post subject: |
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| some waygug-in wrote: |
How fair is that? |
Without seeing the judge's ruling, I can't say. Did she give up med school half way through to marry him and help his career? |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 5:54 pm Post subject: |
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My sister has a child. The father of the child is an absolute parasite. She has to tolerate him, because she has a child with him. He gambles, drinks, and gets himself into enormous debt. He deliberately got her pregnant (has boasted about it to her since) so that he could keep her (he knew she was going to break up with him). He uses the son so that he can keep his claws in my sister and sponge off her. My sister has tried to seperate from him several times. Unfortunately, she was the responsible person who had a job and bought a house. He keeps coming back to live at her house. Because of their son, she feels unable to throw his ass out on the street. Now they live together, although they are seperated.
If she could be rid of him, maybe she could have a decent man and buy a bigger house, and go on holidays and live a peaceful life. But parasite either lives at her house, or demands she pays his rent when he lives elsewhere. She's at the end of her tether. Even though he could never hold down a job, he never helped her with the kid. She has a full demanding good salaried job, yet has to carry the burden of the child mostly alone, or with the help of me and my mother. Not only that, she carried the full economic burden of housing and feeding them all. She is absolutely exhausted. She never has a moments rest. Either she is working, caring for her son, or travelling to and fro from work. She doesn't know what she can do. I am very worried about her. She is burning out.
It's not just men who get a raw deal in this life you know.
Last edited by Big_Bird on Thu Jul 17, 2008 5:55 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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some waygug-in
Joined: 25 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 5:54 pm Post subject: |
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Not that I know of, but I haven't asked my cousin too much about it.
I felt like it wasn't my business at the time. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 5:59 pm Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| some waygug-in wrote: |
How fair is that? |
Without seeing the judge's ruling, I can't say. Did she give up med school half way through to marry him and help his career? |
Yeah, MM2 has a point - this is something that people forget. A lot of women give up a great deal in their marriages. They often give up their further education. They give up their own careers. They put their own dreams and aspirations on hold. This is all done to help the man acheive the best possible outcome, in the belief that they are a team, and what is best for him is best for the family. If they get divorced, all her sacrifice was for nothing. In plenty of cases the man does have a continued obligation to keep paying. But not in all cases. |
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some waygug-in
Joined: 25 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 6:04 pm Post subject: |
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But they were only married a couple of years. Why couldn't she continue her studies after the divorce if she wanted to?
I don't think that is a valid point , at least not in this case. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 6:18 pm Post subject: |
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| some waygug-in wrote: |
But they were only married a couple of years. Why couldn't she continue her studies after the divorce if she wanted to?
I don't think that is a valid point , at least not in this case. |
Yeah - I agree with you. If it was just a couple of years, I don't believe he should be paying her indefinitely. |
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Cornfed
Joined: 14 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 6:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Yeah, MM2 has a point - this is something that people forget. A lot of women give up a great deal in their marriages. They often give up their further education. They give up their own careers. |
This is in some kind of fantasy realm where work is a barrel of fun and it is a hideous imposition to have to "give it up" and have someone else pay all your bills. I'm generally against marriage, but I'd consider it if I got to "give up" my career, be supported by by a woman working all the hours god sends and got to loot what was left of her property and kidnap her children whenever I felt like it. |
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