Posted on 12/14/2001 3:21:12 PM PST by Dr. Octagon
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."
Just curious. How would those ratios be affected by your neighbor getting divorced. I assume she now has to to 100% of everything now. So how did divorce make her life better?
Of course, there is no excuse for the husband in this situation to have his wife work AND do most of the work around the house. But I just don't see a divorce as solving the problem.
BTW, other than cooking (which I do pretty well), I detest the rest of the housework. So when my wife went back to work fulltime after the kids got old enough for school, we hired a cleaning service to clean the house once a week. Worth every penny and it's not as expensive as one might think. I think we pay $75 for four hours of cleaning. Also, I do 100% of the yardwork. No way is my wife lifting as much as a rake out in MY yard!
Getting rid of no fault divorce is the better answer. As much as I appreciate what organizations like DADI are trying to do, I can't help but dislike the move towards "men's rights" which for the most part pretends that men and women have no distinctive roles to play in marriage and as parents.
You missed the point. It's not about being wealthy or not, but about being willing to live a spartin life putting your children and your marriage first if need be. If you put wealth ahead of your marriage, if you are willing to give up your marriage (especially with children involved) in search of a "better" life, that's where things go wrong and is part of the discussion here.
Read some researched work on the topic. 
She doesn't have to come home every night to a selfish pig. She's not angry at him; she's at peace. I personally think divorce should be much harder to get because of it's effects on the children, but I'll tell you, I could not live with a man who wanted me to work, and then didn't lift a finger to help.
Yeah, your comments are correct. But, it might cause people to think twice before going the easy way out and simply getting divorced; point is to try to keep them together. People know that it's relatively easy to do. Mandating counseling is preferable, but if one party won't fully participate, it's worthless. Hence my thought to make it more costly, and tougher emotionally.
Yes there are too many. But lawyers don't "ambulance chase" for divorces; the clients come to us. It's not the plethora (a veritable plethora, even) of lawyers, but the relative simplicity of obtaining a divorce that is the problem.
This perspective is antithetical to both the reality of situations of any given family, and a virtual deification of motherhood in concordance with the feminist peripheralizing of fatherhood.
And in the last 30+ years of the movement to peripheralize fatherhood, just look what has happened to society: drugs, crime, immorality, "alternative lifestyles", abortion....
The co-incidence is not coincidental.
It is cause and effect.
I'd like to note also that within the father's rights movement, those who are in it primarily for financial reasons form a distinct minority.
The vast majority want equal time with the children they love, and need protection therefor enshrined in law. The vast majority would trade every dime they have for equal time with their children.
And here is a critical point.
Too often, the rhetoric of "best interests of the child" is proferred with zero substance thereto attached.
The best interests of the child in reality, as opposed to in women-first fathers-last feminist philosophy, is for their time spent with each parent after the divorce to as nearly as possible reflect the time spent with each parent within the marriage.
Any objections to this are based upon a women-first perspective, not a child-first perspective.
I agree with you, and so would my husband!!! I have seen many sides of this issue - the woman using the kids to get what she wanted from; the woman using money to give the man what he wanted; and the man using control and manipulation to keep the woman from getting what she knew she wanted.
The absolutely absurd part of this - it was all just one man. Three different women, but the same man. How do I know this - I was the 3rd woman!!!
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