Divorced fathers are members of this country’s most mis-represented minority group — hopeless fighters for a losing cause.
Disposable Fathers
There are now nearly 5 million of us in the U.S.; many are disenfranchised parents who are disposable objects in all but financial matters. And we have been ignored, by and large, despite all the media hoopla about the so-called new phenomenon of the single parent.
The irony is, being a conscientious father is almost a guarantee that one will get a lousy deal. It’s no wonder so many men lose interest in their children. Faced with angry ex-wives, who for all intents and purposes have captured their children, and without joint-custody arrangements, fathers are reduced to the status of paying visitors or recreational directors. And if you are tempted to snicker at the revolutionary notion of fathers’ rights, be warned — especially if you’re male. If you should become a father, the chances are about one in three you’ll wind up a divorced one. Then you’ll want your rights-and frankly, at present, these don’t amount to much.
Take my situation. I have a son I’m very attached to. The way he slings his building blocks around leads me to think he might pitch a wicked fastball one day. But I’d be kidding myself if I expected to have endless hours to teach him to do that. Right now, I get to see him for just two three-hour periods a week. No, I’m not an alcoholic, nor do I have a record of child abuse or any other crimes. Visitation of a few hours a week, a day, maybe two half-days, is the norm for millions of divorced fathers whose ex-wives want it this way. Visitation arrangements like these make you feel a bit like a prisoner in maximum security — each week you look forward to a few precious hours in the exercise yard.
In spite of a growing body of evidence that children fare best after a divorce when they are free to develop full relationships with both parents, a custodial award in the mother’s favor is a shoo-in in the vast majority of states, unless the mother is a criminal, a prostitute, or a junkie. Once a woman has secured custody and child-support payments, if she desires effectively to discourage a relationship between child and father, she is totally free to do so. This is the shocking reality of today’s laws. If she wants Dad to remain a mere visitor in their child’s life, Dad will remain one. Naturally, many women follow this course out of anger and vindictiveness. In fact, there is nothing in the present system to encourage either parent to set aside grievances and put the child’s interests first.
In a recent book, The Disposable Parent, authors William Haddad and Mel Roman document the various strategies by which an ex-wife can virtually eliminate the father from his child’s existence: by sending the child to stay with friends and relatives rather than the father whenever she is unavailable, restricting phone contact with the father, withholding information about the child’s progress in school, and so forth. Without joint custody a father is entirely dependent on the mother’s deciding to adopt a cooperative attitude toward him and his relationship with his child. Rarely does this happen, as many lawyers attest, and it especially does not happen in the first few years following a divorce. After this time, much of the traumatizing associated with the absenting or “dismissal” of the father has been done.
Here’s what usually happens when the mother is hostile or noncooperative toward the father: he is at the mercy of the courts. I say “at the mercy of” rather than “dependent on” because a father, faced with a hostile ex-wife, goes to court only to seek relief against the worst cases of injustice — no time, or virtually no time, with his kids. More often he has to accept the slim pickings that the mother throws him in visitation time, because what he most likely will be awarded, in return for spending huge sums in legal fees and court costs, is so little additional time with his children that it is not surprising that some caring fathers are driven to acts of desperation, while others simply give up.
“If you are tempted to snicker at the revolutionary notion of fathers’ rights, be warned. If you should become a father, the chances are about one in three that you’ll wind up a divorced one. Then you’ll want your rights — and frankly, at present, these don’t amount to much.”
The tactics used by a father considering a court action for more visitation is a bit like a game of chicken. Mother risks losing only a few Brownie points if the case comes up before one of our few enlightened judges. Let’s say the child is “of tender years,” to use the legal terminology. Let’s presume that the mother has offered the father a total of six hours a week with his child, knowing that if the father takes her to court, the court will award him some time with the child, probably about this amount. Father still feels that this is inadequate. What choices does he now have? Very simply, he can spend money. He can get a detective to spy on his ex-wife, and try to prove she is inadequate as a mother. He can try to prove she works too long hours, or goes out most evenings, or entertains disreputable men or men in disreputable numbers. Armed with this evidence, and his own character references, he can then begin an action for sole custody for himself, which he knows in advance he will lose almost certainly. But he hopes that the threat of this action will obtain him at least more liberal visitation. By the time he pays his lawyer, the detective, and a psychiatrist to testify on his behalf, the bill will be no less than $10,000. The idea, of course, is not to get to court at all; he is gambling that the mother will hate the idea of spending large amounts to defend herself, or, if she has the money, will not want to run the slim risk of winding up before one of our few liberal judges. Needless to say, the father doesn’t want to end up in court either, where he is not likely to be awarded much more time with his child than his wife originally offered him, and he will be $10,000 lighter at the end of it.
If the case does go to court, a father may get more time with his kid because a judge was sufficiently impressed that the father went to this length and expense to try to see more of him. By this standard, the rich father cares; presumably, the poor father does not. But more often, the case does not go to court. What happens is: Dad agrees to cough up another hundred a month in child support, and for this he may get to see the kid alternate weekends as well.
These unenlightened legal roadblocks ignore many studies that categorically have favored consistent, predictable contact between children and both parents. Among these is the Wallerstein study, which concluded that “children not visited by the absent parent frequently showed diminished self-esteem.” A recent paper presented to the American Ortho-psychiatric Association reported: “Research is now abundantly clear that with few exceptions, the trauma of divorce can be minimized by the child’s continuous open and easy access to both parents.” And in an attack on the imposition of legal visitation restrictions, it stated: “We should do everything in our power to maximize contact between the child and both parents. One clear way is through joint-custody arrangements.”
But the courts usually do just the opposite. Divorced fathers are victims of legal practices that were established early this century, after Freudian psychology gained wide acceptance. (Before this, and no less unfairly, the courts routinely placed children in the custody of their fathers.) After the pronouncements of Freud and his apostles, the mother was put in full charge of the nurturing and child-rearing business, as if, breasts aside, she had some gift or talent denied men. A few years back, one judge argued against this: Judge Sybil Hart Kooper wrote, “The simple fact of being a mother does not, by itself, indicate a capacity or willingness to render a quality or care different from that which the father can provide.” Judge Kooper, unfortunately, is the exception rather than the rule. Most of what is handed down in family courts is devastating to the father, who is removed from his child in a way no demanding job ever could remove him, and is relegated to the role of a walk-on wallet.
And the most important and tragic victims of this legal and psychiatric blindness are the children of divorce, who have to pay a huge, unnecessary toll for their parents’ — and the courts’ — mistakes. The system now does everything possible to make an ex-father out of an ex-husband, despite the fact that 80 percent of divorced mothers now work, which means that millions of children suffer because they see less of both their parents.
Clearly, it is time for the law to show some sense of reality and compassion for all concerned, and begin imposing joint custody in the majority of cases. For those millions of men who are currently victimized — and for all those millions more who will join our ranks in the future — there remains no option but to fight to change the present system that separates divorced fathers from their children.
These days we have more resources than they had in 1982, of course. For exaample, we have this handy tool called The Internet. One can learn from all sorts of places now from the National Center for Men to various Father’s Rights Groups (although beware the not-so-subtle law firm association with many). … Bottom line: Being interested in, and involved with, the lives of your kids may not be as difficult as it once was. Although this all presumes a fundamental “goodness” in your parental approach — a caveat that applies to both men and women. You can find a trove of horror stories involving a failure of that base assumption too. Bear that in mind as we offer sincere wishes that you get exactly what you deserve. …
Nifty thing, that Internet. It might catch on.
