‘Even in divorces where a mother has been the family breadwinner and the father has stayed home, a lot of women insist on fighting for sole custody’
I first noticed the article The Daddy Track (Boston Globe, 7/8/07) because there’s a nice quote in it from Dan Hogan of Fathers & Families about the anti-father gender bias of our family courts. However, there are several other items of interest in it:
1) “Donna Booth, a Saugus divorce lawyer, says that…Even in divorces where a mother has been the family breadwinner and the father has stayed home, a lot of women who come into her office, Booth says, insist on fighting for sole custody.”
And most of the time they get it. The feminists have abdicated all responsibility on this issue–for decades they’ve harangued men to put aside their careers so they can spend more time on child care and to support their wives’ careers. Yet when a father who did exactly as the feminists wanted loses custody of his children, you’ll not hear a peep from the National Organization for Women. In fact, they’ll often support the mother.
2) “‘Society is really changing,’ says Rosanna Hertz, a Wellesley College professor of sociology and women’s studies. ‘What we’re seeing is more and more men stepping up to the plate.’ At the same time, those dads are discovering what single mothers have long known: Along with offering rewards, the job requires sacrifices.”
I’ve criticized Hertz’s work on numerous occasions–see my co-authored column Are Single Mothers the ‘New American Family?’ (World Net Daily, 9/28/06)–and I won’t repeat the argument here. In the above quote Hertz is trying to be nice, I suppose, and I guess I should appreciate that. However, I disagree with her premise–common among feminists–that the only parenting that counts is child care. Whatever it is that privileged men go off and do 60 hours a week that seems vaguely connected to the house, cars, necessities and luxuries the wife and children enjoy doesn’t count. For thousands of years, Ms. Hertz, men have “stepped up to the plate” by working hard at dangerous, demanding jobs in order to support their families. (To hear me gripe about this more, see my column Hate My Father? No Ma’am!, World Net Daily, 4/8/02).
3) “When he divorced, [Jay] Portnow enjoyed something of a national reputation for his work in rehabilitative medicine and was routinely invited on the paid lecture circuit. After one son came to live with him full time and he gained half-time custody of the other, he started turning down out-of-town engagements because being home ‘was the more important job to do.’ Portnow says he is obligated to continue child support to his former wife for another four years. In addition, he is paying almost $100,000 a year for his sons to attend New York University and Yeshiva University in Manhattan.
“I consider it ransom,” he says. “Twelve years ago, it was much harder for men who wanted to be a part of their children’s lives.” Indeed, Portnow says, to make it happen back then, he bought a house not far from the marital home, where his former wife still lives. His sons see and always have seen their mother. Of his relationship with his ex-spouse, however, he says, “I send the checks, and if I’m late, she calls. That’s it.”
This is very common. In my co-authored column Not the Era of the Deadbeat Dad but the Era of the Hero Father (Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, 6/19/05) I wrote:
“While divorced dads are unfairly stigmatized as stingy, some noncustodial fathers raise their children in their homes but still pay child support to the children’s mothers. Many others never ask for child support. In the face of a family court system which usually grants mothers a monopoly of power over children, these fathers must buy or rent their children back. When mothers allow their children to live with their fathers—or send them there because they’ve become unruly or inconvenient—fathers often won’t challenge custodial and financial arrangements because they fear doing so will mean they’ll be pushed out of their children’s lives.”
4) I’ve often pointed out that while fathers are often slammed as “deadbeat dads,” men actually have a far better record of paying child support than women do. When women do pay it, it’s usually minimal. According to the article:
“With his children’s mother living in Canada, [Keith] Mochida, too, is left mostly to do everything – shopping, cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring, chaperoning – ‘and that doesn’t include the surprises.’ His former wife, who has remarried and has a new son, pays him $300 a month in child support. She comes down every three months or so and takes their son and daughter to a hotel for a few days to visit, and the children go to Canada for a good part of the summer.”
And I bet she complains about her bum ex-husband sucking $300 a month out of her…
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September 28th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
There’s no mild argument that the comments are true and accurate Glenn. I did think about what you wrote and how the times have changesd with respect to many fathers wanting not only to be involved in their children’s lives but custody in total.
I personally believe that the real changes since the 60’s in the intense hatred of men that women have developed. Most never really even realize it, but once they have children or once the honymoon is done it’s pervasive in everything they do in relationships. Men don’t do enough around the house became one of the first battle cries. The answer I always had “according to who?”. Maybe the guy was happy with the ways things were, maybe she wasn’t but everyone seemed to decide “her” evaluation was the one that counted. “Hey, knock yourself out baby” no longer became an issue in any arguement. She had to be placated.
Same same with child rearing. Things got weird with American kids after the 70’s, lack of discipline, test scores fell yadda yadda yadda. ABout the same time “Father’s knows best” became an insult to the ever expanding American frau. The Stones went from “Under my thumb” to “She’s the Boss”. Noting got better. Families fell apart.
Enter the fragile men’s movement. Warren Farrell wrote about the reality of what the women’s movement tended to leave out of the papers. Pretty much what you echoed above. Men weren’t really deserting families, the female was pushing him out with the government as his replacement. Sanford Braver and others opened the eyes of everyone with the fact that domestic viloence wasn’t a male exclusive and that women didn’t really suffer ala Lenore Wwiztman’s blatent lies in ther tomb blaming men for everything.
The facts have been there all along. I think it’s the hatred they have of men that makes the lies believed, they WANT to believe them.