WHY DIVORCE IS SO PREVALENT: The #1 Answer To Society's #1 Problem

WASHINGTON, D.C — One of the messiest areas of the law is divorce and child custody cases.

"Legal Notebook" guest, Stephen Baskerville, says that fathers are more often than not treated no better than criminals. Baskerville is a professor of political science at Howard University in Washington DC, and a spokesman for Men, Fathers and Children International.

Host Tom Jipping said to Baskerville, "In some of your writing, I´ve seen a contrast between fatherhood and fathers, particularly in terms of things that the government does. We see a lot of public relations talk about supporting fatherhood, and then, of course, you do a lot of writing as to the way fathers are treated. Distinguish fatherhood versus fathers."

Baskerville said, "It´s an important distinction. Fatherhood has become a buzzword for the government. Increasingly there is awareness of the importance of fathers -- I think it´s reaching general knowledge that fathers are important to children, that many social pathologies – most social pathologies today – result from fatherless homes, fatherless children. And the fathers are very important not only for the upbringing of their children, but for our social order as well."

Jipping said, "To me, some of the most interesting newer work in that area, not just kind of divorce generally, or broken homes sort of generally, but specifically fatherless homes -- that to me is some of the most interesting social science research that´s been done -- and not just by what you might consider conservative activists or something. There are lots of folks at your prestigious universities that are coming to the same conclusion."

Baskerville noted, "That´s right. What´s not being realized, though, is what the cause of this problem is. The assumption that is often unstated is that the fathers have abandoned or deserted their children. This is almost never the case. There´s no solid evidence whatever that large numbers of fathers in this country are simply abandoning their children. There is very solid evidence that fathers are being thrown out of the family systematically by family court, primarily."

Jipping asked, "Do fatherless homes also result from marriages not taking place – is the family simply not forming, while the mothers have the kids and the kids just stay with the mom?

Baskerville answered, "That´s true. And those cases are much more difficult to document when there´s never been a marriage in the first place. But even in those cases, most of those fathers have court orders either regulating when they can see their children, or ordering them to stay away from their children altogether."

Jipping asked, "Is there specific research on what portion of the broken homes, or the fatherless homes, result from these different causes, whether it´s [that] simply no family forms in the first place, fathers abandon their children, or the category we´re talking about here, which is intervention by family courts and fathers being ordered out of the home."

Baskerville stated, "Well, if there´s a marriage, then there is documentation -- we know who files for the divorce. And in most cases, when children are involved, it´s almost always the mother, two-thirds to three-quarters of the time. So in those cases, we have solid documentation that fathers very seldom voluntarily divorce when their children are involved. For the non-married cases, it is difficult to document. But there´s no reason to assume these fathers love their children any less. If you talk to those fathers many of them will tell you -- almost all of them will tell you -- that they desperately want to be with their children and to be active parents, and they are forcibly kept away."

Jipping mentioned an article he read in the Washington Times, on September 19, of an author, Judith Wallerstein, PhD who has been studying the effects of divorce, and has a new book out, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, a 25 year study, documenting what divorce does to family and children.

Baskerville said, "I think we´ve been denying this for many years now, that divorce is, in fact, harmful for children. I don´t think there´s any question. In many ways, divorce is kind of a conspiracy of grown-ups against children. And this is especially the case when it´s only one of the parents who want the divorce."

Jipping asked Baskerville if he agrees with the author of the book that at the time of the divorce itself, it´s really about problems and the effects that that has on the mothers and the fathers. But, the effects on the children are much, much more long-term and occur decades later.

Baskerville agreed, "Absolutely. For a child, the most terrifying thing is to lose a parent; the fear of losing a parent is horrible for a child. And also by the institution of forced divorce, we´re sending a lot of very harmful and destructive messages to children. We´re showing children that the family and the state are in effect dictatorships, in which children can be ripped apart from their parents for no reason, or for any reason, and they don´t have to have done anything wrong, or their parents don´t have to [have done anything wrong]."

Jipping asked, "We hear the phrase ‘no-fault divorce´ is that what you mean by forced divorce – is that what that becomes?"

Baskerville replied, "Absolutely. This was this deception that was brought [with] no-fault divorce. The idea was that this would be for mutual agreement -- you could have a divorce without a contest. What, in fact, it has become is [what is known as] unilateral divorce. And 80% of the divorces in this country are unilateral. They are over the objections of one parent. And that becomes even more when children are involved."

Jipping questioned, "So, does no-fault divorce really mean, under the state laws that govern the stuff, a divorce by only one of the two spouses for whatever reason that spouse chooses, not specified reasons?"

Baskerville said, "Overwhelmingly that´s true. And what´s even more shocking is that the parent that divorces is almost always the parent who expects to get custody of the children. A study by the University of Iowa found that the expectation of getting the children was the single most important factor in deciding who files for divorce."

Also from 1961, also non-coincidentally... Lack of separated paragraphs = 2:42 a.m.

Harrison Bergeron

by Kurt Vonnegut (1961) THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General. Some things about living still weren’t quite right, though. April, for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron’s fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away. It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn’t think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn’t think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains. George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel’s cheeks, but she’d forgotten for the moment what they were about. On the television screen were ballerinas. A buzzer sounded in George’s head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm. “That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did,” said Hazel. “Huh?” said George. “That dance – it was nice,” said Hazel. “Yup,” said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren’t really very good – no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn’t be handicapped. But he didn’t get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas. Hazel saw him wince. Having no mental handicap herself she had to ask George what the latest sound had been. “Sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a ball peen hammer,” said George. “I’d think it would be real interesting, hearing all the different sounds,” said Hazel, a little envious. “All the things they think up.” “Um,” said George. “Only, if I was Handicapper General, you know what I would do?” said Hazel. Hazel, as a matter of fact, bore a strong resemblance to the Handicapper General, a woman named Diana Moon Glampers. “If I was Diana Moon Glampers,” said Hazel, “I’d have chimes on Sunday – just chimes. Kind of in honor of religion.” “I could think, if it was just chimes,” said George. “Well – maybe make ‘em real loud,” said Hazel. “I think I’d make a good Handicapper General.” “Good as anybody else,” said George. “Who knows better’n I do what normal is?” said Hazel. “Right,” said George. He began to think glimmeringly about his abnormal son who was now in jail, about Harrison, but a twenty-one-gun salute in his head stopped that. “Boy!” said Hazel, “that was a doozy, wasn’t it?” It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes. Two of the eight ballerinas had collapsed to the studio floor, were holding their temples. “All of a sudden you look so tired,” said Hazel. “Why don’t you stretch out on the sofa, so’s you can rest your handicap bag on the pillows, honeybunch.” She was referring to the forty-seven pounds of birdshot in canvas bag, which was padlocked around George’s neck. “Go on and rest the bag for a little while,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re not equal to me for a while.” George weighed the bag with his hands. “I don’t mind it,” he said. “I don’t notice it any more. It’s just a part of me. “You been so tired lately – kind of wore out,” said Hazel. “If there was just some way we could make a little hole in the bottom of the bag, and just take out a few of them lead balls. Just a few.” “Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took out,” said George. “I don’t call that a bargain.” “If you could just take a few out when you came home from work,” said Hazel. “I mean – you don’t compete with anybody around here. You just set around.” “If I tried to get away with it,” said George, “then other people’d get away with it and pretty soon we’d be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn’t like that, would you?” “I’d hate it,” said Hazel. “There you are,” said George. “The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to society?” If Hazel hadn’t been able to come up with an answer to this question, George couldn’t have supplied one. A siren was going off in his head. “Reckon it’d fall all apart,” said Hazel. “What would?” said George blankly. “Society,” said Hazel uncertainly. “Wasn’t that what you just said?” “Who knows?” said George. The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn’t clear at first as to what the bulletin was about, since the announcer, like all announcers, had a serious speech impediment. For about half a minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say, “Ladies and gentlemen – “ He finally gave up, handed the bulletin to a ballerina to read. “That’s all right –” Hazel said of the announcer, “he tried. That’s the big thing. He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get a nice raise for trying so hard.” “Ladies and gentlemen” said the ballerina, reading the bulletin. She must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous. And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred-pound men. And she had to apologize at once for her voice, which was a very unfair voice for a woman to use. Her voice was a warm, luminous, timeless melody. “Excuse me – “ she said, and she began again, making her voice absolutely uncompetitive. “Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen,” she said in a grackle squawk, “has just escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. He is a genius and an athlete, is under–handicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous.” A police photograph of Harrison Bergeron was flashed on the screen – upside down, then sideways, upside down again, then right side up. The picture showed the full length of Harrison against a background calibrated in feet and inches. He was exactly seven feet tall. The rest of Harrison’s appearance was Halloween and hardware. Nobody had ever worn heavier handicaps. He had outgrown hindrances faster than the H–G men could think them up. Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides. Scrap metal was hung all over him. Ordinarily, there was a certain symmetry, a military neatness to the handicaps issued to strong people, but Harrison looked like a walking junkyard. In the race of life, Harrison carried three hundred pounds. And to offset his good looks, the H–G men required that he wear at all times a red rubber ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his even white teeth with black caps at snaggle–tooth random. “If you see this boy,” said the ballerina, “do not – I repeat, do not – try to reason with him.” There was the shriek of a door being torn from its hinges. Screams and barking cries of consternation came from the television set. The photograph of Harrison Bergeron on the screen jumped again and again, as though dancing to the tune of an earthquake. George Bergeron correctly identified the earthquake, and well he might have – for many was the time his own home had danced to the same crashing tune. “My God –” said George, “that must be Harrison!” The realization was blasted from his mind instantly by the sound of an automobile collision in his head. When George could open his eyes again, the photograph of Harrison was gone. A living, breathing Harrison filled the screen. Clanking, clownish, and huge, Harrison stood in the center of the studio. The knob of the uprooted studio door was still in his hand. Ballerinas, technicians, musicians, and announcers cowered on their knees before him, expecting to die. “I am the Emperor!” cried Harrison. “Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!” He stamped his foot and the studio shook. “Even as I stand here –” he bellowed, “crippled, hobbled, sickened – I am a greater ruler than any man who ever lived! Now watch me become what I can become!” Harrison tore the straps of his handicap harness like wet tissue paper, tore straps guaranteed to support five thousand pounds. Harrison’s scrap–iron handicaps crashed to the floor. Harrison thrust his thumbs under the bar of the padlock that secured his head harness. The bar snapped like celery. Harrison smashed his headphones and spectacles against the wall. He flung away his rubber–ball nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder. “I shall now select my Empress!” he said, looking down on the cowering people. “Let the first woman who dares rise to her feet claim her mate and her throne!” A moment passed, and then a ballerina arose, swaying like a willow. Harrison plucked the mental handicap from her ear, snapped off her physical handicaps with marvelous delicacy. Last of all, he removed her mask. She was blindingly beautiful. “Now” said Harrison, taking her hand, “shall we show the people the meaning of the word dance? Music!” he commanded. The musicians scrambled back into their chairs, and Harrison stripped them of their handicaps, too. “Play your best,” he told them, “and I’ll make you barons and dukes and earls.” The music began. It was normal at first – cheap, silly, false. But Harrison snatched two musicians from their chairs, waved them like batons as he sang the music as he wanted it played. He slammed them back into their chairs. The music began again and was much improved. Harrison and his Empress merely listened to the music for a while – listened gravely, as though synchronizing their heartbeats with it. They shifted their weights to their toes. Harrison placed his big hands on the girl’s tiny waist, letting her sense the weightlessness that would soon be hers. And then, in an explosion of joy and grace, into the air they sprang! Not only were the laws of the land abandoned, but the law of gravity and the laws of motion as well. They reeled, whirled, swiveled, flounced, capered, gamboled, and spun. They leaped like deer on the moon. The studio ceiling was thirty feet high, but each leap brought the dancers nearer to it. It became their obvious intention to kiss the ceiling. They kissed it. And then, neutralizing gravity with love and pure will, they remained suspended in air inches below the ceiling, and they kissed each other for a long, long time. It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor. Diana Moon Glampers loaded the gun again. She aimed it at the musicians and told them they had ten seconds to get their handicaps back on. It was then that the Bergerons’ television tube burned out. Hazel turned to comment about the blackout to George. But George had gone out into the kitchen for a can of beer. George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again. “You been crying?” he said to Hazel. “Yup,” she said, “What about?” he said. “I forget,” she said. “Something real sad on television.” “What was it?” he said. “It’s all kind of mixed up in my mind,” said Hazel. “Forget sad things,” said George. “I always do,” said Hazel. “That’s my girl,” said George. He winced. There was the sound of a riveting gun in his head. “Gee – I could tell that one was a doozy,” said Hazel. “You can say that again,” said George. “Gee –” said Hazel, “I could tell that one was a doozy.”

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