Case in point: In the course of some consulting work, my husband has been dealing with a VP of a major international company. A year or so ago he went through a divorce; his wife and kids live in a 4,000 square foot house, and he has been living in a one-bedroom apartment. After a year, he has FINALLY gotten to the point where he can begin putting aside money for savings; he made the mistake of mentioning it to one of his kids, who told his ex-wife, and now she is taking him back to court to get more money. So now his savings have to pay his attorney.
It's only anecdotal evidence, I know, but time and time and time again I have seen, known, witnessed, men whose wives divorced them for no real reason (no cheating, no abuse, no drug problems), except that these women want to "find themselves." The men have to pay SO MUCH in child support that they are left destitute -- too destitute to be able to do much with their kids on the every-other-weekend they can see them. They can't afford a place big enough for the kids to have their own rooms when they're there.
Enforcement of visitation and other issues is not an option -- again, anecdotal evidence, but I have witnessed the same ol' thing many times with different fathers. A vindictive mom throws roadblocks up for visitation: "Johnny can't be there this weekend because we made other plans," she says. In order to enforce his right to see his children, the father has to PAY an attorney to pursue it, and often as not the dad simply CANNOT afford it. Or, as in our case, stipulation was that my husband's ex was to pay for half of the transporation costs for visitation (she took the kids and moved out of state).
Fine and dandy on paper, but we never saw a dime from her in reimbursements for her half of the kids' plane tickets -- many times, in fact, the day before the kids were scheduled to fly out, husband would call them only to hear: "Gee, dad, we're not going to make it," and ex would tell him, "Sorry! I can't force them to do something they don't want to do!"
Sure, we could have had it "enforced," but to do so would have had to pay so much in fees to our attorney that we would have lost money on the deal. As it was, we paid $10,000 one year in fees to our attorney to fend off the woman's ploys to get yet more money from my husband. She lost, but we still had to pay the $10,000 to our lawyer PLUS another $1000 to hers, per judge's orders.
Onlookers may say, "Yeah, but that's only money." I say, it's more than money, it's the message being sent to the kids, which is: Mom is in charge, dad has no authority, and the only thing he's really good for or responsible for, is money.
Bottom line: it gives girls unrealistic and shallow expectations of men overall, and gives boys a very poor example of what fatherhood and manhood is all about.
A suggested solution: change child support laws to put a cap on the amount a custodial parent can get for support of the kids. It would take away a lot of incentive for getting divorced.
I have a word I like to use to describe women who marry a man to have children, divorce him, and use the state to extort money from him:
"WHORES"
By definition, a prostitute is anyone who uses sex as a means for financial gain. And a turd by any other name still smells as foul.
Pretty much agree.