Kathryn Joyce has a great piece up about the continuing agitating of anti-divorce nuts, who are trying to perform the social equivalent of putting toothpaste back into the tube. What’s really great about this dude from Marriage Savers, though, is that he openly argues that marriage should be a legal trap.
Basing its implied equation of liberal divorce laws with unjust war, McManus justifies the term “Unilateral Divorce” because “in four out of five cases, one spouse did not want the divorce, but had no choice.” In a press release announcing the new Reform Divorce website, McManus argued that one spouse’s freedom to divorce the other without permission was the reason behind America’s high divorce rate.
Unfortunately for them, these are reforms that will only pass Republican muster if you only reverse a woman’s right to sue for divorce. After all, the John McCains and Newt Gingriches of the world would have been fucked if their first wives (or second) were able to prevent them from trading them in for younger models. But I suspect that these Marriage Savers would be perfectly happy to accept a compromise that allowed men to sue for divorce and not women. Though I suppose even an equal divorce law that prevented men from divorcing as well as women would fuck women over more than men, because men that aren’t politicians would do what they always did before, and just leave without bothering with the divorce. Women are the ones who more often need the protections of divorce.
In case there’s any doubt that this is more about women’s freedom than men’s (though, to be fair, the anti-divorce nuts also get off on thinking about men being trapped in unhappy marriages as a sacrifice to the patriarchy), check out this article.
Divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing cost U.S. taxpayers more than $112 billion a year, according to a study commissioned by four groups advocating more government action to bolster marriages.
Of course, the groups are the sort that should immediately raise suspicions—a bunch of wingnut organizations that are too busy thumping the Bible to crack it open and realize that it’s about more things than the importance of all people being wedged into very narrow gender roles. They defined costs incurred by single “parents” (read: unmarried mothers) very, very broadly, making the findings pretty much guaranteed as illegitimate.
Scafidi’s calculations were based on the assumption that households headed by a single female have relatively high poverty rates, leading to higher spending on welfare, health care, criminal justice and education for those raised in the disadvantaged homes.
The idea that poverty is caused by single motherhood more than the other way around has no real evidence for it, and the reverse does have some evidence. So we can dismiss the study right out of hand. But I can’t help but point out how weird it is that they included education. Are they saying that a bunch of broke single moms would somehow be able to pull their kids from public school and put them in private school if they married, most likely to men that are in the same socioeconomic class? Skeezy, but I’m not surprised to see that kind of statistics-bending. These folks are so committed to proving that men are the sole source of everything—life, morality, civilization itself—and that women can’t provide any of these things, that they’re not going to be stopped by something minor like intellectual honesty.
Thankfully, the article has counterperspectives from people who know what they’re talking about.
But Tim Smeeding, an economics professor at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, who was not involved in the study, said he’s seen no convincing evidence that the marriage-strengthening programs work.
“I have nothing against marriage — relationship-building is great,” he said. “But alone it’s not going to do the job. A full-employment economy would probably be the best thing — decent, stable jobs.”
He also noted the distinctive problems arising in black urban areas where the rate of single-mother households is highest.
“A high number of African-American men have been in prison — that limits their future earning potential and makes them bad marriage partners, regardless of what kind of person they are,” Smeeding said. “A marriage program doesn’t address that problem at all.”
Another expert not connected to the study, University of Michigan sociologist Pamela Smock, suggested that bigger investments in education would pay long-term dividends — improving economic prospects even for children from fragmented, disadvantaged families.
“Providing a global number doesn’t give us anything to go on,” said Smock, who was skeptical of the study’s $112 billion estimate.
“We’re now nearing 40 percent of kids in America born out of wedlock,” she said. “I can’t fathom that those marriage programs, even with increased investment, are going to reduce that.”
73 Responses to “Conservatives continue to raise the alarm: Wives are escaping!”
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You already hit this from one angle, but I wanted to take a look at it from another. Is it really true that we’re spending more money on the education of poor people? Because they certainly could have fooled me. Here in North Texas, it’s pretty clear who’s getting most of the public school funds, and it sure as hell isn’t poor people.
No fault divorce is a GOOD thing. But like many good things, it can use a second look and a bit of reform.
No fault divorce did away with the snoops, the private eyes, the exhorbitant fees, the need to blame someone, but much of the anger and the costs are now pushed into custody battles, which make a separation a horrible thing for all, especially the kids.
In a world of no fault divorce, what children and their parents need is a REBUTTABLE presumption of joint shared physical and legal custody. That doesn’t have to mean a rote 50/50 split, but it means that mom and dad are encouraged to share in their kids’ lives and provide the children with parenting, not fighting.
Rebuttable means that if one parent thinks the other parent is abusive, or dangerous, or for whatever reason, the usual custody battle can ensue.
And if one parent did not want the custody, that would be okay too and they could just as easily sign over into a sole custody divorce as they do now.
But the default would be to assume that both parents are capable and loving towards their children and can work together to provide homes, schools, and the mother AND father the kids’ need in their lives, (and the child the parents need in theirs.)
For more information: http://glennsacks.com
Maybe we’re like, psychic twins or something.
Am I the only one that thinks getting marriage needs to be more difficult, not getting divorced?
In my state (Illinois), a person can get married for a total of $25 and with 24 hours notice. Divorce obviously takes a lot longer.
If we had it so that everyone COULD get married, but had to jump through a number of hoops (say, filling out a worksheet indicating you’ve discussed this that and the other thing) or with increased waiting time, the people who REALLY want to get married would, and those doing it on a whim wouldn’t (Britney Spears’ first marriage). Stronger marriages, fewer divorces.
Hmm … unmarried mothers … can anyone say “partnered lesbians”?
most—I lived in a state with presumptive joint custody. It was not a panacea. Truth is, the vast marjority of divorcing couples agree on parenting arrangements. Of those who do contest, a lot of the reason for the divorce was because of disagreement over finances or even parenting. So the two spouses are not set up well to cooperate on parenting.
Of course no one should be kept away from their children. But, if the two parents are at odds, joint legal custody is almost impossible. Someone has to decide where the child goes to school.
Most–
And a good way to go about this would be to dismantle the patriarchy. If men were as encouraged to stay at home with their kids/spend time with their kids as women are (and if women were as encouraged to devote their energies to their jobs as men are), if everything truly were equal societally and financially for both sexes, then men would be assumed to be (and would actually be) the primary caregivers in as many cases as women. But this isn’t the case. Men are lauded for their career achievements, whether they have children or not, while mothers with careers are often looked down upon. People tell me my mom’s so ‘lucky’ because she was a stay at home mother. Yeah she was lucky…she was lucky that my dad made enough money for this to be a viable option. But it’s not everyone’s dream. People assume it should be though, hence why custody of children often goes to the mother–because in most cases she is the one who has been the children’s primary caregiver, and it’s almost certainly better to maintain as much stability as possible.
Support feminism, dismantle patriarchy, and you’ll have your fathers’ rights.
Ismone, you’re right, there are no panaceas. But there is gaming of the system. Right now threats of custody fights and actual custody fights are used to pressure one or another of the parents. The winner is the lawyer, the loser are the children and one of the parents.
A Rebuttable Presumption would not stop any custody fight that needs to happen from happening. But it would remove one more barrier to the divorce that occurs when one partner becomes desparately afraid that a divorce will leave that partner without access to the children, or worse, the children moving away to a far away location.
A rebuttable presumption of shared custody takes away some of the lottery, arbitrary, abusive, and unfair nature of the divorce process.
What does sole custody vs. a rebuttable presumption of joint shared custody have to do with patriarchy?
Very little. It has more to do with biology. Kids have two parents they depend on. Parents have children they love, desire, and need.
Ending patriarchy is a process that will take years and decades. Right now, right now, children and parents suffer and lawyers get richer. Saying ending patriarchy and you’ll have fathers rights is a callous, indifferent, oppressive, privileged position to take.
“Ending patriarchy” is an argument that denies the existence of families in which the household chores ARE shared, but that still break up. It ignores the mutual decisions of two rational adults towards issues of raising a newborn on breast milk while simultaneously having to pay rent.
“Ending patriarchy” is an argument akin to telling the disabled that the ADA should not require the retrofitting of existing stores and restrooms and schools and aircraft and buildings, that with time, their problems would be solved.
“Ending patriarchy” is an argument that tells minorities that there is no need for affirmative action, that as long as all existing laws are removed that discriminate, they will make up in time the deficits they believe to exist.
“Ending patriarchy” is an argument that pats women on the head and says, “no need to worry about your issues of reproductive freedom, what’s important is teh menz.”
Kids have two parents. We have no fault divorce. We have community property. We need a rebuttable presumption of joint shared physical and legal custody.
Kids have two parents.
Eh, speak for yourself. I have four — two biological, two adoptive. Which kind of puts the lie to your “It has more to do with biology” BS as well.
Give everyone the same rights, and “fathers’ rights” become indistinguishable from “mothers’ rights” become indistinguishable from “parents’ rights.”
This is a feminist blog. If you’re so incredibly concerned about the rights of fathers (that is, men) in specific, there are lots of other spaces on the internet devoted to discussing men’s issues from the point of view of the dominant discourse, that is, assuming a man’s point of view by default. Just so you know.
most of the people: Kids have two parents.
I know two kids with four parents: their two fathers, and their two mothers.
I know several kids with three parents: their two mothers, and the sperm donor.
most of the people: “Ending patriarchy” is an argument akin to telling the disabled that the ADA should not require the retrofitting of existing stores and restrooms and schools and aircraft and buildings, that with time, their problems would be solved.
You have that exactly the wrong way round. The means of ensuring disabled people have access to aircraft and stores and restrooms and schools and other buildings, is by legislation requiring the new to be built already accessible, the old to be retrofitted, and grants to be available where retrofitting is unaffordable. In this way, and by other actions, with time, their problems will be solved.
The means of ensuring that, in a mixed-sex couple, both parents have equal rights, is to work towards ending the patriarchy: which means, in this instance, the man has to commit to being an equal parent, and “father’s rights organizations” have to work for labor rights that will enable a parent, either gender, to take time off work to do parenting. For a while, this will mean that men who make the same sacrifices of their career to their children suffer as badly or even worse than women do. Eventually, if all fathers do this, we will be that much closer to ending the patriarchy - because the patriarchal assumption that men can be fathers and depend on women to do the parenting work for free, will be changed.
If men don’t want to do this, they can’t expect to have equal parenting “rights” because they’re unwilling to take on equal parenting obligations, and unwilling to fight the labor structures that financially benefit men at women’s expense but which reward men for not taking on equal parenting obligations.
Th callous, indifferent, oppressive, privileged position to take is that men should get to have custody and control over children that these men were never willing to parent when that entailed a sacrifice of financial privilege.
PS: It ignores the mutual decisions of two rational adults towards issues of raising a newborn on breast milk while simultaneously having to pay rent.
Again: the rational adult decision is to campaign with all your heart and soul for the US to join the rest of the civilised world in not forcing a woman who’s just had a baby to get back to work right away so she can pay for food and medical care and shelter for herself and her baby - even though that means she can’t breastfeed her baby. Up to one years paid maternity leave would resolve that problem - for all parents, not just those who can afford to subsist on one income.
Slightly off-topic but humorous: I accidentally read “McManus” as “McAnus” the first time. Had to do a second look, ‘cause that caught me off guard.
I’ve got a post up that deals with two pieces of recent research about the economic cost of marriage and divorce. One is a rigorous scholarly study in a peer-reviewed journal, and it finds that on average divorce has little impact on women’s income. After divorce, some women’s income goes up, others’ go down, and in the end it’s basically a wash.
The other piece of “research” is the report Amanda references, about divorce and single motherhood supposing costing $112 billion. Rarely have I ever seen such a piece of laughable, specious bullshit. For more, read my post:
http://thegspot.typepad.com/blog/2008/04/the-economic-im.html
most, are you crazy?
“Ending the patriarchy” will not happen over night. It’s not like you can flip a switch and everything is okeedokee.
But you’ve got it exactly backwards. Fighting for the rights of women, children, minorities, disabled, LGBT is exactly how you end the patriarchy. You get rights for all, you end privilege for some.
When we talk about the patriarchy and blame it and fight it, we’re not throwing our hands up in the air and saying “oh well, it’s the patriarchy, it’s too hard and too slow to change, so too bad.”
“A high number of African-American men have been in prison — that limits their future earning potential and makes them bad marriage partners, regardless of what kind of person they are,” Smeeding said. “A marriage program doesn’t address that problem at all.”
Thanks, war on drugs. Thanks, Ronald Reagan. Thanks, “end welfare as we know it.”
I also see this spot-on analysis from another angle. Black women shouldn’t have to have good marriage partners to raise children. Full employment and full support for childcare would make this a non-issue. What we have now is “workfare,” which is basically replacing employment opportunity and career-building with private-contract-labor for the state. Wouldn’t it be great if, while we were trying to shut down the prison-industrial complex, we *didn’t* have single mothers’ poverty to point to as a symptom? I’d be fine with that. Take that piece off the board.
most of the people
Is biology why my kids’ school calls me instead of their dad with problems such as illness, head lice, forgotten mittens?
END THE PATRIARCHY!
skycraper, it’s been scientifically proven that estrogen is the magical cure for head lice, and that 35% of all lost mittens were actually wedged carelessly between the mother’s breasts. As for illness, women have been biologically determined to be more vomit-resistant than men.
Anyone who links to Glenn Sacks unironically is at best a concern troll.
if the two parents are at odds, joint legal custody is almost impossible.
YES.
A presumption of shared custody is either meaningless (i.e. does it matter which form of custody is presumed if it’s going to be equally easy to set up whatever works?) or just plain stupid.
My parents went through a nasty divorce, can’t stand each other, and are rarely on speaking terms. But they wanted shared custody because they both wanted to be involved in our lives, and because materially and logistically it wasn’t too hard to work out. It was still absolute hell for us kids, though, because our parents couldn’t fucking agree on anything. Not to mention that my dad, having had the traditionally patriarchal “fun babysitter” fatherhood role, completely dropped the ball on the whole parenting thing when it came to the day to day realities. But he had a lot of money and clout in our town, so instead my parents just got to have two stalemate custody battles instead of one.
I’m all in favor of men wanting to be involved with their kids’ lives, and I guess I’m happy that my dad didn’t just ditch us or whatever. But, honestly, shared custody is not the answer for everyone, and presuming shared custody would be disastrous. Or at the very least is no more in the interests of kids than any other custody option.
There’s a simple way to deal with this problem: Don’t get married. No marriage, no husband who can force you to stay in the marriage. And, as an added bonus for the conservatives, the divorce rate drops to zero.
Don’t get married. No marriage, no husband who can force you to stay in the marriage. And, as an added bonus for the conservatives, the divorce rate drops to zero.
I think that’s part of what they’re whining about - “Look at aaaaaaaaaaaalllllllll those awful single unmarried/divorced mothers!!!! They’re taking OUR hard earned money! Why do WE have to pay taxes to educate their brats?!”
For them, marriage traps are part of the package of oppression - no real choices for those ambulatory wombs. There’s a trap for just about every stage of a woman’s life (and some of these stages overlap) - no abortion or birth control, if you get married you’re not getting out, and if you dare to have children out of wedlock or get divorced, tough luck for you! Should have learned your lesson, little lady! There is no “win” for women.
Honestly, I think it’s stupid. People will make stupid mistakes. I think it’s really wrong to force a person who does not want to be married to stay married - that just seems like cruel and unusual punishment right there.
I am extremely curious how you feel about the several cases in which lesbian couples have fought over exactly this same question of custody trying to keep the “social mother” (as opposed to biological mother from having any custody. Including one lesbian mother who has claimed that the marriage wasn’t legal in the first place.
Here’s a summary of this thread so far:
a) it won’t work if the parents don’t like each other
b) it doesn’t matter because if it would work, those parents would have adopted it anyway
c) it’s okay to make many children and their parents wait for an untold number of years or generations
d) it’s more important to fight for the rights of other disadvantaged groups, just not these disadvantaged groups (fallacy of the hidden middle by the way)
e) some children have more than two parents, so presumably ALL of those parents would need to share even though divorce is (currently) only between two parents
f) some children had a sperm donor who might want to share custody as well
g) kids call up their mom for mittens and head lice (actually in my case I was the one to buy, and repurchase, and repurchase the mittens AND perform all of the head lice procedures on multiple occasions (by the way, don’t buy RID, use plain old mayonnaise, it’s much better for the kids and works much much better) (also their mom calls me to stay home with the kids because my job permits working from home and hers does not.) But because kids call up their moms for mittens and head lice, it shows that kids don’t need both parents, and that it’s okay to separate one parent from their child.
h) legal mandates won’t work, can’t work and will never work if people just fundamentally disagree
i) this is a feminist forum, and though feminists say they are the best friends of men, if you come here to discuss an issue that concerns men (and women) you’re wrong and need to find your own space
j) there’s no need to even take the first steps
This is the sort of recommendations one could have found on the Internet in 1964 during the civil rights movement, during the 70s during the fight for affirmative action, during the fight for title ix and during the 80s during the fight for the ADA. It’s the recommendations that were heard when people wanted to get rid of covenants that kept Jews and African Americans out of their neighborhoods.
Congratulations for recapitulating the structures, prejudices, rationalizations, and forces of the Patriarchy that you oppose.
I am curious if you realize that many 2nd wave founders of feminists have come out in favor of a rebuttable presumption of joint shared and physical custody and have stated that’s what they were advocating.
Including one lesbian mother who has claimed that a gay marriage wasn’t legal in the first place.
what children and their parents need is a REBUTTABLE presumption of joint shared physical and legal custody.
Speaking as an attorney who has done divorce work over the years, this sounds like a recipe for more litigation of custody issues, and completely impractical.
The only way these arrangements work is if both parents make a big effort to make them work–but if they will do that, you don’t need to worry about technicalities like “joint” custody.
Well, sure, but if only about 10% of the population is gay, and out of wedlock births are at 40% then the math doesn’t come out.
/nitpick
Well, sure, but if only about 10% of the population is gay, and out of wedlock births are at 40% then the math doesn’t come out.
There’s also such a thing as partnered but not married straights. And some of us have kids.
Point taken. Clearly there’s not good data on who the “single parents” actually are.
most of—How many states don’t have presumptive joint custody?
And again, how have you shown that it makes a difference?
My understanding, wrt to fairness and family courts, is that it varies drastically from judge to judge. Some are deeply sexist in favor of women. Some are deeply sexist in favor of men. And abused women have difficulty getting custody, unless they have police reports and hospital records, because their abusers charm the courts just like they charmed these women. (The worst problems I saw wrt to men not getting a fair shake are from the early 80’s. I don’t know people who have been part of more recent custody battles, I have been told that things have gotten better.)
WRT lice and mittens, I think the point was that the SCHOOL assumes that it is somehow the mom’s job. Which is annoying. In my household, it will be both of our jobs, depending on who has the day off or who has the less demanding job.
Also, how would not extending EQUAL rights solve these problems? Do men need special rights? Do non-stay-at-home parents need special rights?
I love that these menz rightz douchebags seem to openly care more for the father’s right to joint custody (AKA refusing to let the ex-wife ever get too far away) than the welfare of their fucking children.
It’s such a King Solomon situation. The fact that these folks would rather their kids’ lives be torn apart (and possibly face lackluster parenting, since a great many families do not split childcare down the middle) than lose even the tiniest speck of control proves that the “rights” they want are bullshit.
@opoponax or some other feminist I trust. Can you explain to me this joint rebuttal thingy? I did a google and got a bunch of rabid MRA sites that kinda’ freaked me out.
most of the people, could you clarify the rebuttable presumption you want? The states I know of that have it confine it to joint custody. I think you said you want joint *legal and physical* custody, but I am not sure.
Joint (legal only, not physical) custody is an MRA favorite because it means power without wiping asses and tying shoelaces. The father gets to call all the shots as much as the mother, while having no obligation to share in the work she does. If the law started out with a position that of course Dad has to do childcare gruntwork as much as Mom, I’d be down with that. So please, most, direct us to the states where that’s the rule (or the reform proposal on the table).
So please, most, direct us to the states where that’s the rule (or the reform proposal on the table).
ha! please, for MRAs physical custody is like the booby prize. they consider it further oppression by Teh All Powerful Femalz That Rule The World.
While in principle I favor a rebuttable presumption of joint custody, in practice I think joint custody should be denied to anyone who runs off to have sex with another person, leaving their kids behind for the spouse to care for.
By the way, this is not a male or female issue. The person I know of who did this was my husband’s ex. That is why he and I have been raising my stepkids together since they were toddlers.
No fault divorce is great and rebuttable presumption of joint custdy is great but two great tastes don’t always taste great together. The person who abandons the children by leaving the state to have sex with someone outside the marriage should automatically be assumed to *not* have joint physical custody unless they’re willing to fight for it, because if you abandon your children for Teh Hawt Sexx, you are automatically a bad parent. I’m sorry. You are. The other parent might suck *too* but at least they are trying. And if this is to be enforced then we’d have to bring back the concept of fault in divorce, because right now who broke up the marriage isn’t even considered when deciding who the kids should go with.
(Note that I am not saying adultery automatically = lose your kids. I am saying *abandoning* you kids to commit adultery = lose yourkids. If you leave your kids behind because you are seeking work in another state and have every intention of asking them to live with you once you’re settled, that’s fine. If you cheat but continue to live with your kids and take care of them, that’s fine. If you leave your kids in orde to go have sex with someone else, you are a bad parent and you’d better prove you can do better before you should get your kids back.)
oh, and i meant to add. You can SAY this:
This is the sort of recommendations one could have found on the Internet in 1964 during the civil rights movement, during the 70s during the fight for affirmative action, during the fight for title ix and during the 80s during the fight for the ADA. It’s the recommendations that were heard when people wanted to get rid of covenants that kept Jews and African Americans out of their neighborhoods.
til you’re blue in the face, but it’s still not true. You seem to be forgetting that some of are old enough to remember those movements, or have studied them intensively, and therefore are quite aware of what the objections sounded like.
And they didn’t sound like what’s been said in this thread. or even what your butchered interpretation says.
some of US, sorry.
Most -
I was trying to point out how the patriachy is ingrained in basic society.
Look big picture dude. Patriarchal society deems women more capable of caring for the kidlets. By default, men are less capable. Fighting to end patriachy means an end to that bullshit. Read between the lines - by ending patriachy men are impowered in the care and lives of their children.
Also I said the school calls me not the kids.
a) It won’t work if the parents who won’t work together. To say “parents don’t like each other” is a simplistic strawman. Examples were given (ie, where is the child going to go to school?)
b) The parents whom presumptive custody would have worked for are ALREADY doing it. For those who are having a problem, it would not work. Basically, this would be, at best, an unnecessary piece of legislation.
c) Children and parents wait for what? I’m not entirely sure I understand this statement at all.
d) Which disadvantage group aren’t we advocating for? I’m missing a step here. Children? Because feminists have done lots of work advocating for children and children’s rights.
e)people were rebutting the claim about single parents, saying that there are more than just the nuclear family, and conservatives were missing. Before you came and thread-jacked about joint custody presumption, we were talking about single parents and their costs
f) ?
g) this was saying that the vast majority of the time, it is still the mom who is the primary caregiver- that we are not in a post-patriarchy where parents are equal contributors. If you are the primary caregiver, you are still given presumptive custody in the case of a custody battle (the law is gender nuetral, the reality is not)
h) No one ever said this. This is a complete strawman
i) This is a feminist space, we’re not going to hold your hand if your a guy bemoaning your loss of privelege. If you want that, go back to Glenn Sacks.
Does that study take into account the amount of money (child support, alimony) that never actually makes it to the woman? Many women are awarded reasonable living expenses and child support payments by the court, of an amount that should keep them out of poverty… assuming the man actually makes the payments…. I’d rather see a study on the effects of deadbeat dads on the economic stability of newly divorced woman-headed families.
Can you explain to me this joint rebuttal thingy?
At your service, somegirls!
My understanding of ‘presumed joint custody’ is that the default custody arrangement would be that the parents would have joint custody. Anything else would require further arbitration, more billable hours to the lawyers, more judiciary discretion, etc. etc.
This is stupid because joint custody is not the right decision for most families. One red flag is that, if sole custody for the mother required a lot more back and forth between parents, lawyers, judge, etc. that means that such an arrangement will cost the mother a lot more. And we all know about pay inequality, pink collar jobs, the glass ceiling, and all the zillions of things that result in women generally having less financial power than men.
The right answer is to have no particular default and simply arrive at the best arrangement for the family in question. If the father is truly involved and truly equipped to handle parenting full-time, he should have no problem seeing the kids as often as he wants.
Shorter most of the people:
OMG WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ!
The person who abandons the children by leaving the state to have sex with someone outside the marriage should automatically be assumed to *not* have joint physical custody unless they’re willing to fight for it, because if you abandon your children for Teh Hawt Sexx, you are automatically a bad parent. I’m sorry. You are. The other parent might suck *too* but at least they are trying.
Ummm, no.
I mean, I guess it depends what you mean by “abandoned”, but in general, no.
My mother left my father, and might perhaps have been having an affair (let’s just say my stepfather came in to the picture FAST).
However, she’s the one who was the primary caregiver. She’s the one who changed the diapers, made sure the homework got done, put dinner on the table, signed our report cards, did the actual day to day work of parenting.
My dad, on the other hand, Teh Forsaken One in my parents’ marriage, had pretty much the traditional “dad” role. AKA glorified babysitter.
I felt bad for my dad, and all, but childrearing isn’t the sweet reward for betrayal, it’s FUCKING CHILDREARING.
Thanks opoponax.
I know anecdote is not evidence, but in any divorce with children I’ve seen custody to one parent with visitation to the other was pretty much the default. Joint custody is a supreme hassle. In the case of my parents my father was the presumed (presumed by my parents not necessarily the law) custodial parent simply because he was the one with the stable job and house. I don’t really remember too much about it as I was old enough to not be involved, but my younger siblings were.
“Custody” involves two parts: physical and legal.
Joint physical custody is an impractical nightmare, unless it really means that one parent is the physical custodian, and the other gets liberal visitation. That’s why joint physical custody is almost never ordered. What, does the kid attend two different schools, depending on which day of the week it is?
Joint legal custody is pretty normal, but can be a nightmare if one party or the other is going to be uncooperative. You wind up with the judge deciding the kid’s bedtime, after an evidentiary hearing.
With all due respect to the commentor above, when I see somebody calling for presumptive joint physical and legal custody, I can conclude that either that person (a) doesn’t know what he is talking about, or (b) has an unstated agenda that involves using the threat of tying everyone up in interminable litigation as a tool of control.
I just wanted to say that my father was never the primary caregiver while my mother was around. As soon as she left, he really stepped up to the plate. Some things fell through the cracks in the first year, being a single parent isn’t easy. Eventually he got very good at running a household himself and taking care of the kids as well as keeping his career going. That was really eye opening to me.
It’s what makes me agree with the commenter above who said work on the patriarchy if you want a fair shake in custody.
Thanks Rea for clarification on legal vs physical custody.
Okay, I’ve displayed my ignorance of feminist issues enough. I’ll stop derailing the thread now.
After reading all of this, I’m very confused as to what my brother and his ex-wife’s arrangements are. I think it’s only joint legal custody, though I think there may be a physical custody part to it, too, since he has the kids three weekends out of four. They will also swap around the kids as necessary, like when my nephew had the flu, so my niece stayed with her dad for a few extra days.
It can be tough on the kids — my five-year-old nephew got homesick for his mom over the long Thanksgiving weekend — but I do think it’s better for them in the long run. Not to mention that my brother and his ex are both sufficiently devoted to the kids that when his ex moved to another area, my brother packed up and moved to within about 10 miles of her new place. And they didn’t even have to be forced to do it by the state.
I felt bad for my dad, and all, but childrearing isn’t the sweet reward for betrayal, it’s FUCKING CHILDREARING.
WORD.
mnemosyne,
Sometimes the distinction between “joint physical custody” and “visitation” is merely academic. I saw a 70/30 split that was “joint physical custody” and another 70/30 split that was characterized as visitation. Go figure.
You know what else is correlated with higher spending on “welfare, health care, criminal justice and education”? Living in racially segregated communities with low per-capita income. So I’m going to set up a program to encourage everyone who lives in a ghetto or a depressed rural area to move to a high-income suburb.
I wonder, though, how long it will be before the feds start collecting data on partnered vs unpartnered rather than “do you have a marriage license”, which has become pretty much irrelevant for most family-defining purposes.
How are they determining who is married and who isn’t, anyway? In California, supposedly one of the most liberal states in the nation, a woman whose name differs from that of her child on the birth certificate is counted as unmarried by the state. It was decided at some point that this was less likely to cast the shadow of the term “bastard” over the kids than having a check box for “married”. I would imagine that California has a comparatively high percentage of married women keeping their names, thus a higher number of “single” parents.
In California, supposedly one of the most liberal states in the nation, a woman whose name differs from that of her child on the birth certificate is counted as unmarried by the state….I would imagine that California has a comparatively high percentage of married women keeping their names, thus a higher number of “single” parents.
Not to mention all the women who had children in their first marriages, divorced, remarried, and took the name of the second husband, while the kids kept their original surname. Meanwhile, I have never married and gave my daughter my own last name, so I would be counted as married under this rule.
Oh, er, on second look, I suppose in the first case, the women’s names on the children’s birth certificates would be the same, although their current names would not match. So just ignore what I said on that count.
But my second point still stands.
Unsurprisingly, this is unadulterated bullshit. Divorce has always been a lawsuit (aka an “adversarial proceeding”). It has ALWAYS been the case, even in the bad old days before no-fault, that one party could get a divorce when the other party didn’t want it.
McManus’s comment is a dogwhistle for MRAs, who are convinced that the fact that women file for divorce more often means the bitches are treating men as walking wallets and then ditching their families to go run off and be dykes.
Kris, where did you get that information? I can’t get onto the CA site, but most states ask about marital status rather than assuming it.
I think the assumption is that kids from single parent households aren’t getting as much educational support at home and may have more behavior issues — making it necessary for schools to divert more money into educating those kids.
Whether the latter is true, I’m not completely certain, but I wouldn’t be surprised if, when one parent is trying to hold it all together his or herself, he or she is not going to have much time to read to the kids, help them with homework, check to make sure that they’ve done their homework, or meet with teachers. And the single most important factor in a kid’s success in school is parental involvement.
Exactly.
“In California, supposedly one of the most liberal states in the nation, a woman whose name differs from that of her child on the birth certificate is counted as unmarried by the state.”
Seriously? My older son was born in Texas, my younger in Maryland, and in both cases, my maiden name is on their birth certificates thought I was married and had changed my name to their father’s name (same guy!) in both cases. So I assumed that all states did that. Guess not…you learn something new every day…
Two children born at the same hospital, two different fathers. I was not married to either.
One birth certificate says “UNKNOWN” for the father (even though he sees her biweekly) and she has my last name. The other child has his father named and has his father’s patronymic.
According to California, I’m married and unmarried at the same time!
wow, scarletA, that’s like unbigamy or something, right?
Woman goes on YouTube to air divorce grievances
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/16/woman-goes-on-youtub.html
my maiden name is on their birth certificates … I assumed that all states did that.
I was born in Illinois and my birth certificate has my mother listed by her maiden name, too, of course that was 1973, so it could have changed.
Totally OT, but does any one else hate “maiden name” as much as I do. I hate, hate, hate when people say, “Oh, so you kept your maiden name?” No, it’s not a maiden name, it’s my name (and I didn’t “keep it,” I just didn’t partake in the tradition of changing it). Besides, I have never been anything resembling a “maiden.” Why don’t we use “previous” or “prior” instead? It would encompass more than just women who married once and took their husband’s name.
Besides, I have never been anything resembling a “maiden.”
Oh, surely when you were 10?
(”Maiden,” particularly in traditional usage, = “virgin”)
Mythago–In my California family law class. Granted, that was 10 years ago, but I’ve checked back periodically since and haven’t seen a change in policy. If someone knows of one, I’d love updated info.
The idea was that asking women whether they were married and marking it on the birth certificate was discrimination against unmarried mothers and their children. But it did create a little problem for the folks who collect info on things like out of wedlock births. Most states ask for marital status.
NYT did a piece on it back in 1995. I think it’s still available on their site.
Kris, it’s true that California doesn’t ask a question about marital status, which is a little weird–but the birth certificate form also says “father/parent” and “mother/parent” because same-sex couples can be legal parents. Not sure if they are still able to handle it that way anymore.
Of course this is a dogwhistle, just like “abortion on demand”. I can imagine in the old days that men complained about being unable to divorce their wives without the wife’s consent…
Re: 62 (someday I’ll get the html down), that’s a cool update. I’m hoping that the California Bureau of Vital Statistics has come up with another way to calculate the number of births to unpartnered women, but I’m not betting on it. After all, it’s only been 12 years since they figured out it was a problem.
Stupid patriarchy…
That’s why joint physical custody is almost never ordered. What, does the kid attend two different schools, depending on which day of the week it is?
Well, no. It can be done, my parents did it 30 years ago…but it’s not popular. Joint custody is never going to be most divorcing couples’ cup of tea.
That’s because leaving the preschoolers in the family home and moving the parents in and out of the nearby rental apartment until the kids are school age? It’s emotionally challenging for the adults, who want nothing more than to be separated from each other.
But if you want to be divorced from someone you had kids with, and the reason is not the other party’s documented dangerous incompetence at parenting, it’s the adult way to do it.
My parents had many imperfections. However, if for some unpredictable reason I were facing divorce, I would advocate strongly for a similar approach in which the adults take the consequences of their choices rather than the kids taking them.
ShelbyWoo, I’m in total agreement — I didn’t change my name either (felt very strongly about it) and also dislike the “maiden” term applied to it. Like, “way to make inappropriate assumptions about my sex life, people!” levels of dislike.
Oh, and in answer to another part of the thread: I was born in California, to married parents. My mother’s “maiden” name appears on my birth certificate. But there’s also a “married” check box if I remember correctly (haven’t seen the thing in a while; maybe I need to dig that out.)
My spouse was born in Illinois to unmarried parents, and his mother’s “maiden” name is, perhaps, obvious. But we never did find a married or unmarried indicator on it. Maybe Illinois didn’t care in the 60’s, and California did?
Sorry, I was away for most of the day. For a group that knows for certain that you’re against joint shared custody, well, with due respect, you folks are actually terribly ignorant about custody in general. And actually, I hope you always remain that way, custody battles are horrible for everyone involved (except the lawyers.)
But it is quite possible, and typical for two parents to disagree on custody issues in court, and in general, and actually get along quite well on 99% of issues involving the kids. And still typical for those two parents to not be able to share custody without a court order and share it quite fine when the court does so order.
For instance, without the court order it’s quite common for one parent to deny the other parent custody on various holidays, birthdays, etc., and yet, as soon as the court steps in and “makes it so”, it all resolves.
So your belief that it won’t work when its needed and when its not needed its not needed is simply belief without evidence.
Courts determine parenting plans ALL of the time, and the parents follow those plans. And the reason the courts step in and do so is that without the court, the parents will “abuse” each other’s custody.
And oh yeah, here is Glenn Sacks arguing that a lesbian “social” partner, married to the biological mother, should get to share custody of the child they brought up together. The biological mother used many of the same tactics against her former lesbian partner that many mothers use against men today.
If you folks could read Glenn Sacks without all the baggage and smears laden on him by Amanda Marcotte, you would actually find he is a liberal, progressive, and often very feminist oriented.
In this case, he is championing as he always does, the rights of a member of the GLBT society, in a case, where as shown above, you women would move to disempower this individual.
Shocking isn’t it, to find that you feminists are trying to disempower the GLBT as well as the fathers in the name of someone you share little in common with apart from a vagina. How essentialist.
That’s why joint physical custody is almost never ordered. What, does the kid attend two different schools, depending on which day of the week it is?
No. That would never happen.
I happen to live in the same school district as my ex does. (I actually live closer to the school than she.)
And for parents that live farther away, they need to live close enough so that they can take the kids to the school they are enrolled in.
This is why I say that for a group of people so against joint custody, your lack of actual knowledge of how custody works is truly disappointing.
most,
My parents had joint custody. Dad asked for it not because he wanted more time with us, but to maximize the amount of time we were away from Mom. Despite his total lack of involvement in our lives before the divorce, he got it, because he was wealthy, despite the fact that he was cheating a lot, draining the joint accounts, and becoming increasingly emotionally abusive and physically threatening to my mother. I spent 50% of my childhood at my father’s house. Alone. With no food, no supervision, no money, no transportation. If one of my siblings took me to Mom’s house to get food while Dad was at work (usually until at least midnight) Dad would flip out at us for daring to leave his house when it was “his” time with us.
So please don’t tell me I don’t know how joint custody works out. I have tons of friends who grew up with the same story.
Most,
Court orders don’t make everything sunshine and roses. If they were unconditionally obeyed, they might. But usually they are not. The “bad” parent (who in the case I was most familiar with was a man) would change little things, like pickup times, and leave his ex-wife waiting in a parking lot for a couple of hours. He did this just often enough to make her life hell, and infrequently enough that the judge scolded him to be more responsible (he claimed his behavior was accidental) but did nothing to punish him. For that man, and for other women and men, court ordered joint-custody was just a way for them to get back at their partner. Did this man love his child? He certainly seemed to. But his behavior was deeply damaging to her and her mother.
I read Glenn Sacks before I ever read what Marcotte had to say about him. And I was not impressed. If someone wants joint custody to parent and raise the child, fine and dandy. If they want it to do what was done to Esme, that is wrong and should be stopped. Plus, what if the child wants to stay in one home most of the time, and see their non-custodial parent only some of the time? When does your little presumptive scheme start caring about their wishes?
If they want it to do what was done to Esme, that is wrong and should be stopped.
Yes, of course that was wrong, and of course it should be stopped.
That’s why no one is calling for a PRESUMPTION of joint shared custody, but for a REBUTTABLE presumption of joint shared custody.
To avoid playing who is worse games, I stipulate that parents of either sex can be vicious in terms of allowing the other parent access to the children.
But I suspect that happens far more frequently in sole custody disputes where it is far harder for the “visiting parent” to dispute the behavior. I suspect it occurs far less often in joint shared physical custody cases because a) the divorced couples have had a lot of stress removed and b) it’s far too easy to have that joint shared custody removed than to achieve it in the first place.
If someone wants joint custody to parent and raise the child, fine and dandy.
It’s not “if someone” it’s that both parents have to agree to this when placed in the voluntary mode. And one parent for reasons of their own can fight it, and abuse it, unfairly, and in the current situation that primarily affects men that have done nothing to deserve that. And it’s encouraged by lawyers who see nothing unethical about suggesting that.
But it’s not just men. If you read Glenn Sacks, you will see it occurs to women as well, and currently it is in the newspapers as it is occurring within a married, lesbian family, where the social mother is receiving the same bad behavior from the biological mother as Glenn and others point to the fathers and others getting.
So yeah, most court orders do in fact work, and when they don’t there is a remedy. So the court orders should be based on fairness to both parties and the children and not on an assumption that one party or one gender is somehow a better provider.
What about the kids? Well apparently in family court, the kids are not considered as able to testify to this until their teens. But many kids WANT to be with both parents and that has been discussed too at Glenn’s blog where he shows postcard artwork made by kids in divorce.
My kids made it clear to me and the court psychologist when I was not in the room that they wanted to be with me equally. So what did mom do? She challenged the original court order that she had fought for that ordered the court psychologist in the first place. And oddly she won, because in the meantime she had moved from one state to another.
most - some of us are LGBT folks, so your faux outrage on behalf of the Gay Agenda is almost as risible as your belief that if you scold everyone about how they should read Glenn Sacks, they’ll all hang their heads and do as you say.
We get that you’re pissed off at your ex-wife. The subject of this thread is not the horrors of custody battles or what bitches ex-wives are. It’s about how conservatives are shitting themselves that no-fault divorce exists, and how they’re lying that returning to a fault-based system will “preserve families”.