Posted on 07/28/2010 1:25:14 PM PDT by fathers1
At least in Germany they admit it.
In 2003, Harshad, a British citizen of Indian descent, had a baby daughter with his German girlfriend. Knowing nothing of Germany’s idiosyncratic custody laws, Harshad went along with his girlfriend’s suggestion that they skip the laborious process of registering joint custody.
It wasn’t until the couple split that Harshad discovered the enormity of that choice.
“I had no idea it would cause so many problems,” said Harshad, a 44-year-old IT professional. “My ex-girlfriend had said, ‘It’s nothing to worry about; from the paperwork point of view, it’s far easier not to do it, and I said, ‘Okay,’ not really understanding the situation.”
What it meant was that, after the separation, Harshad, who asked that his name be changed, had no claim to be the legal guardian of his daughter. Even if his former girlfriend were to die, custody would pass not to Harshad but to the mother’s parents.
In short, in Germany, single fathers have no parental rights without the consent of their child’s mother. In order to establish their rights, they have to file documents with the state and they can’t do that if the mother doesn’t agree. Apparently, she has to file along with him. If she doesn’t, it’s his tough luck.
This article tells us about German custody law and points out something I hadn’t thought of (The Local, 7/2/10). The law gives single mothers such total control over the parental rights of the fathers of their children that they can convert it into cash. As one single father said,
“I give (my ex-girlfriend) the regular child support and … then on the side, I pay her extra to keep things nice. I realised that I have to be nice because I’ve got no cards. I have nothing. There is no piece of paper saying I have any rights.”
There was a time that would have been called extortion, but apparently where fathers and children are concerned, it’s perfectly alright.
In the U.S. we’re far less candid about placing the rights of fathers, particularly single fathers, in the hands of mothers. We do it, but require subterfuges far more subtle than the one employed by “Harshad’s” ex. Here, in order for a mother to deprive a single father of his rights, she has to lie to him, avoid him, place the child secretly for adoption, lie to the court, etc. If they’re divorced or separated, she has to deny him visitation over a long period of time. Or, if the two are married and she has a child by another man, she has to convince her husband the child is his. That is, she’s got to jump through some hoops in order to deny the child the care of its father.
Now, for the most part, those hoops are perfectly acceptable to state legislatures and family courts. No state has passed a law that requires a mother to tell the father about his child. If she doesn’t, he’ll at best have real problems getting access to his child, if he ever learns about it. Again, his rights are in her hands. Does she commit perjury in family court for the purpose of denying the child to its father and the father to his child? For the most part, that goes entirely unpunished, as does the denial of visitation.
Up to now, German law has been far more frank about the matter of the rights of single fathers; they don’t have any without the mother’s say-so. That’s simple and easy to understand.
It’s also illegal - as of last December.
In December, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that German custody law discriminates against unmarried fathers by denying them custody without the mother’s consent. The government is now reviewing the law, with a bill expected this year.
“German law has to change and will change,” said Thomas Meysen of the German Institute for Youth Human Services and Family Law, which is conducting research for the government on international comparisons of child custody law.
“There should be a possibility for fathers to get into joint custody without having to rely on the mother’s consent. In that sense, the law is deficient at the moment.”
If Germany wants to change its laws, it has plenty of examples from which to choose that would allow it to continue discriminating against single fathers and still pass legal muster. Basically, it just has to create the fiction, like the U.S. does, that giving primary custody to mothers and “visitation rights” to fathers (a) is equitable, (b) likely keeps both parents in their children’s lives and (c) is good for children. Then Germany can dress the whole thing up with a nice pink ribbon called “joint custody,” and it all looks pretty good.
It looks good, that is, if you don’t examine it very closely. If you do that, you notice that our wonderful system harms children, denies fathers meaningful parental rights, enriches lawyers and enrages anyone with even a minimal sense of justice. It’s not really something to emulate.
I know Herr Meysen said that the law must and will change, but he may have been optimistic. It seems the government doesn’t agree.
Thorsten Bauer, spokesman for the Federal Justice Ministry, which has oversight of custody law, denied there was systemic discrimination in the courts…
Of course, as a member of the government, it may be difficult for Bauer to admit that “yes, we discriminate.” So his statement may just be posturing for the press. After all, when the law allows a woman complete power to grant or deny rights to a man, how can it not be said to discriminate? It’s the very definition of discrimination.
And then there’s this from Meysen:
“The mother’s rights or the father’s rights are not the most important questions,” he said. “In family conflicts, usually one parent feels they are the loser. The one that does might blame the authorities, in this case the Jugendamt.
“In break-ups … people’s feelings get hurt and most of the time, they’re fighting about something else, not the custody. Then they make it an issue of rights: ‘I have a right to the child and the mother - or the father - does not.’ Where are the child’s interests in that?”
Isn’t it funny how the concept of parental rights all of a sudden becomes suspect when fathers look like they’re about to get more of them? We see this frequently. When fathers agitate for more time with their kids or even equal consideration as parents, then and only then do certain people call into question the very idea of parental rights. I’ve never seen anyone talking about mothers’ parental rights make that claim.
And reading what Meysen said, you’d think that parental rights in some way excluded children’s interests. No, actually it’s one of the major reasons for increasing and enforcing fathers’ rights; children do better with two parents in their lives. “Where are the child’s interests in that?” They’re right there beside fathers’ interests hand in hand. Children need their fathers; they tend to do better with fathers involved in their lives than without. We know this. Meysen pretends we don’t.
But if Meysen is so dismissive of parental rights, I propose the Germans just reverse things. Give all single dads sole custody of their children and complete control over mother’s rights. If the dad says she can see the child, fine; if not too bad for her. Of course Germans are never going to even consider such a thing and in truth I wouldn’t want them too. After all, I’m serious about this two-parent thing. But still it’d be entertaining to see, if the positions of the sexes reversed, how quickly people like Meysen decided that parental rights weren’t such a bad idea after all.
Bet the girlfriend knew all along.
I’ll pre-empt those who may post “he should have gotten married before he had children” by saying that in the western world, the courts don’t care whether or not you are married; they only care about getting Child Support payments (and in the case of marriage ALIMONY/Spousal Support payments) from the “non-custodial” biodad.
In the U.S. the state Child Support Enforcement Units get matching fed dollars for every dollar in Child Support they collect so:
1. No incentive to grant a downward modification (even though dad may have lost his job)
2. No incentive to grant 50/50 custody (this would reduce the amount of child support paid and cut out a whole lot of bureaucrats salaries)
3. Judges often impute income and in this economy that’s DEADLY (Mr. Dad, you COULD be earning 80K a year, even though you lost your job; we’ll see you in JAIL) Yes there is a debtor’s prison and it’s for non-custodial fathers paying Child Support. Arrears are a given considering the way the CSEU computes their collections.
Of course there is no corresponding “Child VISITATION/TIME SHARING Enforcement Unit. . .no money in that and after all, men are simply neccessary evils; merely WALLETS, “sistahs are doin’ it for themselves” (with the help of the men’s wallets, of course)
Mom can decide without punishment to withhold the children from Dad whenever she wants; particularly if Dad has the NERVE to move on.
Um, talk to any man who has gone through a divorce. She gets half (or more in the case of many men including my current “hubby”) plus spousal support in a lot of cases, a whopping child support allotment and then she alienates the children from him.
The answer is not to get married, it’s to CHANGE THE SCREWBALL laws. Women want equal rights but in the 14% of the cases that they don’t get granted full custody, SELDOM do they EVER pay child support to custodial DAD. The courts turn a blind eye to this.
It's still true, though, that if a man wants his fatherhood rights respected, he should fulfill his #1 fatherhood responsibility: to marry his children's mother. Preferably before he begets his children.
Yes, well here in NYS, my “hubby” has “joint legal custody” and it’s not worth the paper it’s written on. His ex-wife who is a CPS worker, ironically, decided to simply alienate all three children and the courts looked the other way.
Men, whether married or not, in western civilization have little to no rights in custody matters.
So in reality, no, even if he were married and his ex-WIFE decided to yank the kids and just collect the support, I’m sure she’d be able to do so.
glennsacks.com
In the case of Montana, they have even refused to consider the court testimony in California that finally, after a six year battle, awarded sole custody to my nephew, with visitation rights with the mother, as long as she did not move out of state.
After losing the case, she moved to Montana.
She then sought Montana courts to enforce the visitation rights, seeking to have the boy go stay with her for summer vacation. Then, after my nephew was told by Montana courts that he had to let his son go stay with his mom for vacation in Montana, the same California court from which he obtained his sole custody ruling told him they would enforce the orders from Montana.
When school was about to begin, his ex-wife called and said she was enrolling the boy in school in Montana, and seeking a joint custody ruling from Montana courts.
My nephew subsequently moved to Montana, to fight his ex-wife's court actions there. Those courts have denied the use of all the testimony in the California courts that helped determine why my nephew was granted sole custody.
His ex-wife is bi-polar, stays off her med's all the time and has other issues. At one point she had all the wonderful motherly grace to say to my nephew's boy that "he was the product of rape and would likely be a rapist too" - a lie, but regardless if such a tale were true, would any loving mother say that to their seven year old boy?
My nephew continues to live in Montana because he has been unable to get the issue completely resolved in Montana courts. He only has "temporary" sole custody (going on six years now) in Montana, with lots of visitation rights for the ex-wife. Even the legal charges against her in Montana for welfare fraud and theft were disallowed in the court hearings on custody. My nephew is convinced that Montana courts will fail to end the case, before his son is 21.
He'd take the boy and return to California but last time he relied on the California court's original ruling in his favor, they failed him, deferring to the courts where the mother now resides.
I’m in the same boat as your “hubby”, joint custody is meaningless but my ex sure enjoys the checks. The Courts could care less about alienation, but there is just no recourse - sucks
thank you! The posters that say everything would be rosy had he gotten married are SORELY mistaken. This is one of the reasons why the Muslim world is overpopulating and taking over the western world. There is no “woman takes all” in Sharia law. Women in the western world know that they can cheat, and walk away from the marriage and still come out smelling like a rose (full custody of the children and have the dad pay for it all)
Posters who say otherwise have never experienced divorce through the eyes of a non-custodial biodad.
Who said otherwise?
kbennkc
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