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March 27, 2005
Oh my mama loves me, she loves me, she get down on her knees and hug me
This post may make me very unpopular with a lot of women. It might in fact make me unpopular with most of them.
The very well written blog run by Trish Wilson has been doing a series of posts on custody issues. Specifically the rights of men and women to have custody of the children in the event of a divorce.
The main thrust of Trish's latest post is interesting. According to Trish, statistics showing that fathers are a key element in keeping kids stable have largely been debunked.
Much of Trish's writings on this issue seem an effort to expose a father's group in Australia, who are using a vigilante style of justice to bring attention to men's rights for custody.
A couple of commentors on the blog have made statements that to me, are troublesome. This is the most egregious, in my opinion:
Well I consider ANY father that attempts to get custody from a child's mother as abusive, by definition, UNLESS he does it because abuse or neglect is involved...
I strongly disagree with this statement.
There are many fathers out there who are wonderful. Some of them are arguably better parents that the mothers. Yet unless there's a situation of rampant abuse, the father is expected to give up custody?
This sort of statements sets feminism back 200 years as far as I'm concerned. Why should any men consider women their equals when women won't do the same?
From a different commentor:
If you are like a lot of mothers, you have also lost out on promotional opportunities, got mommy-tracked, freelanced, or went part-time for a while-- that is if you didn't leave the work force altogether for a time. (And if in fact you didn't do any of these things, you can be painted as an unfeeling monster at court.) The income of married fathers tends to increase, while the income of married mothers decreases. As Ann Crittendon has pointed out, our income sacrifices accumulate over a lifetime and affect what we recieve in retirement and social security. As a culture, we seem to vaguely accept this as the price we women pay to have more family time, whether you considered this right or not. And yet all of this will be swept under the rug and ignored when consideration is weighed as to custody?
A married couple makes choices when they have children. Sometimes one of those choices is for the mother (and sometimes it's the father) to work fewer hours and take lessor outside-the-home jobs in order to parent the children. If it's the woman, this therefore entitles them to custody? Even if they agreed together on the roles? I find that incredibly unfair.
Sacrifices are a part of parenting for BOTH genders. Both sides tend to work very hard. Both sides tend toward specific, agreed upon roles. Sometimes the father has the breadwinner role. Sometimes the father has the nurturer role (admittedly not as often). This means to me that both are doing the job of parenting, but in different ways.
Custody issues should be decided on a family to family basis. It shouldn't be part of a larger gender war where embittered individuals attempt to one-up the opposite gender because they didn't get to buck for a promotion at work. Custody isn't a "reward" for taking on the role of nurturer while the spouse brings home the check. Custody is the situation that's best for the children. Sometimes it's with the woman, sometimes it's with the man.
I was accused on Trish's blog of being a father's rights advocate by making these sorts of statements. I'm not advocating for mother's or father's rights per se. I'm advocating for equality.
Some of these commentors appear to be pushing for an all out gender nuclear style war. The truely injured in that situation will be the children.
And right after that will be feminism. Seeing men as some sort of enemy for wanting to take custody of their children is no different than seeing women as the enemy for wanting to fly F-16s.
Posted by Carla at March 27, 2005 01:14 AM