Sorry, I can’t agree with this.
There’s a significant difference between an “absent” Father and parents that are simply divorced. There is no way to draw any conclusions about anything - let alone murderous intent - with two variables as major and material as the two mentioned.
With a 50% divorce rate, I know many co-workers and have many friends that are divorced. It would be pretty well arrogant of me to assume that I’m somehow a better Father to my kids simply because they’re divorced.
Like anything - you get what you give. You get the results you work for.
“With a 50% divorce rate”
A statistical lie. Yes, 50% of marriages result in divorce, but it is the once-divorced that marry and re-marry multiple times.
Something like 2/3 of one-time married people stay married until death.
With a 50% divorce rate, I know many co-workers and have many friends that are divorced. It would be pretty well arrogant of me to assume that I’m somehow a better Father to my kids simply because they’re divorced.
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All things being equal - a man is ALWAYS a better father if he is at home with his wife and mother of his children than if he is divorced and living elsewhere.
ALWAYS.
Nothing arrogant about that, is there?
Sorry, but in fact, better fathers are less likely to divorce. Marriage is extremely difficult: the men who endure miserable marriages in order to remain in the home and act as a fulltime father have a very large influence that those who are not physically with the children do not.
If family courts would stop shafting fathers on custody, divorce wouldn’t take such a toll. I have joint shared custody of my 2 kids as a result of a very recent divorce. I’m lucky. I would have taken full custody if I could have. I’m more involved in my kids lives than I ever was, and I was a very active dad when married.
Men tend to compartmentalize things in their thinking. So to viewing "being a father" as separate from being in the same home, married to their mother, is the comparison you are making, and it's invalid. Even if parents don't get along perfectly, there is enormous value in just being together as a family and not complicating the union from which the kids came and who belongs in one's extended family with second and third spouses and their kids.
Kids go through great emotional turmoil from age 6 or 7 until they are, say, 30 or 40 years old or so. Divorce cannot help but heap more, much more, especially if the parents "date" or have other relationships during or after a split-up.
Statistics apply to groups, not to individuals.
“With a 50% divorce rate, I know many co-workers and have many friends that are divorced. It would be pretty well arrogant of me to assume that I’m somehow a better Father to my kids simply because they’re divorced.”
You can be a good father when you are divorced. It can be done. It is simply much, much harder to do. There is no question about that.
Let me repeat, for emphasis: It is simply much, much, harder to do.
The statistics simply reflect that fact. Any time you make things harder to do, people do less of them.
somehow a better Father to my kids simply because they’re divorced.
There is no “simply” in divorce. First the extremely comprehensive and sacred vows taken are abandoned. The family is broken up, living in different places, sometimes quite far away. Then new lovers come into the lives of both parents in many case multiple times. New children are born....and on and on it goes.
God help us if we ever exercise judgment, eh?
But the kids do judge. They know that a daddy they see every two or three weekends is not a real father. When they're older, they can even articulate it. When they're younger, they just yell and break stuff--and, on occasion, hurt other people.
>> parents that are simply divorced.
There’s nothing simple about divorce nor the precursors that attract it.
I know lots of good people who have a divorce history....their second marriages seem to have hit the mark....like they all of a sudden realized what they really wanted in a marriage....friendship, companionship, and a shared vision, not a drinking buddy....
You would be pretty stupid if you didn't. A father lives in the home with the mother, period.