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  • #61
    I don't mean want to stir this pot again, but I am feeling seriously pissed off by the comments above of two Senior Members (I guess that means you've been around a while). Talk about reaching harsh judgements in lightning speed!

    Mess says: "She just up and refused to work so you caved in and became the wallet. That's not my quick judgement on your marriage, it's your oversimplified description."

    No sorry, that is a quick judgment. And a flawed one, in my opinion. He didn't 'cave in', he decided that putting food on the table and trying to keep the marriage alive (probably for the sake of the kids) was more important than either brinkmanship or walking away as you suggest. I'd call it exercising maturity responsibility.

    You are right that he might have chosen better in whom he married; that would be true for me too. I suspect that might be the case for you too (else why are you here)?

    dadtotheend says: "It burns my ass when Dads (and I'm not saying this is you) give up or use gender bias as a crutch to excuse their own unwillingness to get down and do the work required to be successful at court." Oh come on. I spent hundreds of hours on preparing and attending multiple excursions to court, and thousands on being a good dad to my kids, but I custody anyway. And I'm a former lawyer. Her rich daddy hired a senior female family law lawyer who deployed all sorts of malicious strategies before I finally (exhausted and approaching bankruptcy) capitulated.

    I'm glad it worked out for you. But the fact that there is a significant gender bias in family law by definition means that many men walk out of court with few rights and/or greater responsibilities than either justice or the best interests of the children would dictate.

    It's bad enough to be on the losing end on an uneven playing field; it really sucks to be put down by those who think they could have and would have done better. I think we need to support each other.

    Comment


    • #62
      "our initial intention was, we'd stay financially equally responsible after the child birth, but suddenly she started to play the victim and refused to work. "

      This is what I was responding to. "Suddenly she refused to work". This isn't bias in the courts or preferential treatment for women. This was his choice to go along with what she wanted. Unfortunately she backed him into a corner. Let's say he put his foot down, and she still said no, I'm not working. So he should realize that she is a deadbeat, end the relationship, and the status quo that the courts are looking at is that she worked, she suddenly refused to work.

      But instead he went along, and became the sole breadwinner and she became primary caregiver. That was the status quo that the courts ended up seeing, because he chose to play along with her.

      So now, claim that he's a victim of the courts, when in reality he is a victim of his ex's attitude, and his own choice to stay with her for too long.

      And I say I'm reacting to his own "oversimplified" version of events, because it is oversimplified. What personality issues made her not want to work? What other choices were there? What counselling was available? What made him take a passive response the situation and live a life he did not want? What eventually ended the marriage? We don't know any of this. What we have is an oversimplified picture. So I state again, I am not commenting on his life, I am commenting on a few sentences he used to describe it.

      Comment


      • #63
        Originally posted by bayleaf View Post
        Her rich daddy hired a senior female family law lawyer who deployed all sorts of malicious strategies before I finally (exhausted and approaching bankruptcy) capitulated.

        It's bad enough to be on the losing end on an uneven playing field; it really sucks to be put down by those who think they could have and would have done better. I think we need to support each other.
        So her deep pockets sunk you. That's not gender bias.

        Did you go to trial? If you did, and presented your evidence well, and had a good case then I would like to hear about it.

        I'll support you. Just stop being a patsy to gender bias.
        Last edited by dadtotheend; 05-16-2010, 10:00 PM.

        Comment


        • #64
          "So I state again, I am not commenting on his life, I am commenting on a few sentences he used to describe it."
          You sound like a guy who likes to call a spade a spade -- and the above are weasel words. You made a hasty and harsh judgment about the choice he made. I invite you to own it.

          As for the substance, I don't buy your arguments, although if we had all of the facts, I might reach the same judgment. But it's the kind of thing that neither of us can really comment on. Often we make sacrifices for those we love and perhaps he thought that making this concession was best for his family in the long run. Maybe she was breastfeeding and that made her the logical one to stay at home. How can we judge him without knowing all the facts?

          My point is simply that we ought not be so quick to criticize others who make choices that we might not have. This thread was about gender bias in family law and process anyway -- a subject that does warrant both comment and action. What was the need to slam him?

          Comment


          • #65
            Careful Junior Member,

            The Senior Members may not like dissension in the ranks. ; )

            Comment


            • #66
              Originally posted by dadtotheend View Post
              So her deep pockets sunk you. That's not gender bias.

              Did you go to trial? If you did, and presented your evidence well, and had a good case then I would like to hear about it.

              I'll support you. Just stop being a patsy to gender bias.
              You're right, the fact that her pockets were much deeper than mine had nothing to do with gender bias. It's just another significant defect of the family 'justice' system.

              As for gender bias, I'm interested in your comments on these two facts?

              1. I dont' know the current stats, but the vast majority of contested custody decisions go in favour of the mother, where sole custody is awarded.

              2. The state (government) will do everything to enforce child support orders on behalf of custodial parents (mostly women, see #1), but will do virtually nothing to help access parents (mostly men, see #1) enforce access.

              Comment


              • #67
                Originally posted by bayleaf View Post
                You sound like a guy who likes to call a spade a spade -- and the above are weasel words. You made a hasty and harsh judgment about the choice he made. I invite you to own it.
                You think he calls a spade a spade? Well so do I and he's one wise opinion. Listen to him. He's not being nasty or harsh. Unlike yourself, he certainly isn't attacking anyone's character.

                Please don't call him a weasel or maybe I will start calling you bitter.

                And by the way, for someone who "didn't mean to stir the pot again", you're doing a bang up job.
                Last edited by dadtotheend; 05-16-2010, 10:20 PM.

                Comment


                • #68
                  Originally posted by bayleaf View Post
                  As for gender bias, I'm interested in your comments on these two facts?

                  1. I dont' know the current stats, but the vast majority of contested custody decisions go in favour of the mother, where sole custody is awarded.

                  2. The state (government) will do everything to enforce child support orders on behalf of custodial parents (mostly women, see #1), but will do virtually nothing to help access parents (mostly men, see #1) enforce access.
                  1.See my views already expressed near the beginning of this thread and in numerous others on this forum. Mothers are primary caregivers most of the time, therefore they get custody most of the time.

                  2.WRONG.

                  Comment


                  • #69
                    Originally posted by bayleaf View Post
                    "So I state again, I am not commenting on his life, I am commenting on a few sentences he used to describe it."
                    You sound like a guy who likes to call a spade a spade -- and the above are weasel words. You made a hasty and harsh judgment about the choice he made. I invite you to own it.
                    You know what? Bugger off.

                    In my time here I've owned everything I said. If I'd thought that guy was a total jerk I would have told him so. What I said was that I wasn't commenting on his life because it wasn't my intention to rip him apart. I was commenting on his few sentences. If he'd presented a different story I would have had a different opinion, but I don't assume that any amount of paragraphs anyone writes here describes their whole life.

                    I will comment on you. You're being a prick, and if you don't like what I post, you're free to disagree with the message. But if you're going to comment on who I am personally, or what you somehow think you know about my thoughts and motives, you're just being an asshole.

                    Comment


                    • #70
                      I'm not sure if the best defence is a good offence, but your words are certainly offensive. Please lay off the name-calling.

                      Your words: "She just up and refused to work so you caved in and became the wallet. That's not my quick judgement on your marriage, it's your oversimplified description. You're a born victim, with no control over your life, and it's all what she did to you and what the corrupt legal system did to you."

                      Sounds like a harsh judgment to me. Judging by Helpless Dad's responses, it did to him to. If you don't like criticism, don't dish it out.

                      Comment


                      • #71
                        I'm happy to hear criticism. I don't hear any criticism from you, you just keep quoting my post and telling me I'm harsh. There's no content there, just opinion. I'm sure you're just going to obsessively quote my post again and tell me I'm harsh. I'm still waiting for you to show me how I'm wrong.

                        Comment


                        • #72
                          Mess, I did that in my first message and again in my second.

                          Dadtotheend, I don't understand your response to #2. Re #1, yes I know women get sole custody far more often than men becuase they are far more commonly the primary caregiver. But that just begs two questions.

                          The first is not a gender question, but simply this: why should the primary caregiver get sole custody? My income paid for far more of the matrimonial home than did hers but that didn't stop the law from giving her half. In my view, sole custody should never be awarded. Children are not property and neither parent should have 'custody and control' -- as if the kid was a car or something. Children need both parents and the law should start from the presumption that mothers and fathers are of equal importance to children and thus should be equally accessible by them.

                          The second question is the gender one. Women are usually the primary caregiver because they are typically closer to, and spend more time with, the child during infancy. They carry the unborn child, they give birth to it and they alone can breastfeed. As a result, mothers start from a much closer point than does a father in their relationship with the child. They are genetically more likely to be the primary caregiver than are men.

                          Similarly, men are bigger, stronger and have more testosterone. They are thus, prima facie, more suitable as firefighters, police officers and combat soldiers. Feminism however correctly pointed out that women can overcome those disadvantages if given a chance, and were successful at bringing in affirmative action programs to achieve just that.

                          As a society, we can't have it both ways without being gender biased. Men too can be just as capable 'caregivers' as can women if the genetic disadvantage is not held against them. Awarding custody to the 'primary' caregiver maintains the gender bias in the same way as did firefighter competitions that required applicants to be able to run while carrying 150 pounds. If the latter is wrong, so is the former.

                          I'm no longer sure which way is right. But after spending most of my youth being a radical feminist, I'm becoming more conservative. Let the women have the kids and let the men be the firefighters. Sometimes nature is smarter than we are. But please, let's figure it out and let everyone know. At this point, thousands of men are feeling seriously misled and mistreated.

                          In my case, I thought that I was an equal parent and tried very hard to be one -- I certainly changed a hell of a lot of diapers. After separation, my community made it clear that I'm not and that my proper role is more like a visitor in my children's lives, much like that of a grandparent. By order of the court, I am permitted only to see them every other weekend. Within that limited amount of time, I simply cannot know and understand them well enough to be an effective parent.

                          I had an emotional reaction to this thread because I made the same unhappy choice that Helpless Dad did. I agreed to let my ex stay home with the children when they were infants. I thought -- and still think -- that it is better for the children if at least one parent is at home and she was not only breast feeding but she was a wonderful mother. I knew, only because of my legal training, that that would give her primary caregiver status and that that would be a problem should we ever separate.

                          Yeah, maybe I should have said 'fuck you, if you're not going to work, neither am I'. But that somehow seems immature and irresponsible. I loved her and the kids and like almost everyone in a relationship, I made a concession in the belief that it was the best decision for all. I'd probably make the same choice today but this time I wouldn't make quite the same investment in being a great father that I did then. In much the same way, it seems to me now, as my father did.

                          Comment


                          • #73
                            Originally posted by bayleaf View Post
                            The first is not a gender question, but simply this: why should the primary caregiver get sole custody?
                            Because if two parents are unable to come to a consensus as to how to care for the children in the aftermath of a family breakdown, the court's best solution is to look at who cared for the kids prior to separation and to continue that.

                            The court understands that it is in a position of weakness vs the parents in understanding what's best for the kids. But if the two parents cannot agree and force the court to decide for them, the court's best solution is to keep the routines for the kids as best as possible in the face of all the other changes the children are being required to deal with.

                            That doesn't necessarily mean sole custody, but it does mean primary residence stays the same. And that's why it's cardinal sin #1 in family law to leave the home without a separation agreement and without the kids.

                            Comment


                            • #74
                              I think that is good tactical advice if you're willing to keep the kids in a home that is fraught with hostility, emotional warfare and potential violence. So the responsible father should just up and take the kids? Which transition house might be available to him?

                              Speaking of gender bias, I'm interested in your comments on the second question I posed.

                              Comment


                              • #75
                                Bayleaf - Well said. The following is an article that was written on Glenn Sacks, a fathers/mens rights site. Canada is completely going against the current research that shows children do better with presumed shared parenting (50/50) after divorce (where both parents are fit). Add to that that 80% of polled Canadians believe shared parenting should be the norm after divorce, and you realize that only a small number of people actually like the system the way it currently is. And that is certainly not the fathers or the children. Of course the shrill reply will be that children need one stable home, and it hurts children to be shuffled back and forth. But this common reply is shown to be completely false and 2 parents can work out shared parenting in a way that benefit the children far more than the common "sole physical custody at moms and dads money to support this scenario".

                                Kruk maintains equal shared parenting is the key to preventing parental alienation and “preserving the integrity of the child’s relationship with both parents.” He says the time has come to “get rid entirely of this dominant, full custody regime that we have where one parent is removed from the child’s life via a sole custody order.”

                                That's Edward Kruk, sociologist and "Canada's foremost expert on custody issues" quoted in this article (The Epoch Times, 4/1/09). One of his most important points is that equally shared parenting can go a long way toward eliminating the animosity of custody battles. A system in which custody of children is "awarded" to the parent deemed by the court to have been the dominant caregiver, children easily become prizes given to the winner of the dispute. Kruk's simple point is that that is not a healthy environment for anyone, particularly children.

                                And beyond that, the fact that one parent tends to do more childcare than the other is, by itself, no reason whatsoever for the child to lose contact with the other parent. If, as is usually the case, the father spends more time at work and less time in childcare than the mother, that doesn't mean the child doesn't have a significant relationship with the father that needs to be maintained. On the contrary, mountains of sociology point to the fact that children need greater contact with fathers post-divorce. As things stand now, paternal contact with children drops sharply after divorce. That's bad for children.

                                It is reasonable to assume that the same holds true for mothers when fathers are the primary caregiver. There's less social science on that because mothers make up 84% of custodial parents. But there's no good reason I'm aware of to displace mothers from children's lives post-divorce the way fathers so frequently are now.

                                Speaking of animosity in divorce cases, the same article discusses a book about divorce written by Canadian Justice Harvey Brownstone. It details some of the hateful, childish things parents do during divorce. Brownstone has had parents tell him that they would rather see their children dead than with the other parent. Unsurprisingly, sentiments like those do deep harm to children.

                                The process that Brownstone describes exacerbates the conflicts between parents at the expense of children's wellbeing. It is that process that Kruk wants to change by removing the "winner-take-all" character from divorce. Once children cease being trophies awarded to the "good" parent and denied to the "bad" one, maybe parents will pay more attention to their children's welfare and less to one-upping the other parent.

                                I've argued before that reducing the adversarial nature of divorce is necessary to improving children's outcomes following marriage dissolution. Establishing in law the presumption that, absent egregious neglect or harm, parents share equally the time and expense of childcare will go a long way toward that goal.

                                Comment

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