 Saw this from Glenn Sacks. NOW is absolutely amazing. How is it that fathers simply trying the best they can to remain a part of their children’s lives are money-grubbing, but a mother who seeks to eliminate the father is acting in a child’s best interest?
Background: California Lawyer magazine covered the Fathers’ Rights Movement in the #2 story in its March issue–The Dad-Vocates by Bill Blum. The article quotes family law attorney David C. Stone, men’s advocate Warren Farrell, Craig Candelore of the Men’s Legal Center, myself, and others.
In the article, Helen Grieco, executive director of the California chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) says, “The fathers’ rights movement is both dishonest and dangerous.” According to Blum:
“She views the rise of fathers’ rights organizations in the 1980s-and the accompanying increase in custody disputes as bargaining tools-as a direct response to ‘the demand of the women’s movement for greater child support, which ended up costing fathers more money.’ Under California law (Cal. Fam. Code 4055), Grieco points out, child-support payments are determined by a formula tying support both to the income of the parents and, most important, to the percentage of time children spend in the physical custody of each parent. Generally, the more time a child spends with a mother having primary physical custody, the more support a father must pay.
“‘There are definitely financial reasons why some men seek child custody,’ says USC Law School professor Scott Altman, who studied divorce-negotiation tactics by polling the members of the family law section of the California Bar. Altman found that over a one-year period more than 60 percent of divorce attorneys reported receiving threats of custody litigation from their opponents to extract more favorable child-support arrangements. Altman further found that attorneys who represented women exclusively or predominantly received such threats three times as often as their counterparts. (Lurking in the Shadow, 68 USC L. Rev. 493 (1995).)”
This is a common and misleading feminist argument. I discussed it in my co-authored column Louisiana’s HB 315 Says One Parent is Better Than Two (Shreveport Times, 5/20/06):
“In Louisiana, like most states, how much time each parent spends with his or her children helps determine how much child support is ordered. Rep. Shirley Bowler (R-River Ridge), who authored the bill, asserts that dads seek shared custody as a way to decrease their child support obligations. She promotes HB 315 as a way to ‘remove this angle’ in the current law, which she claims divorced dads are exploiting.
“While it is true that there are fathers who put their pocketbooks above their children’s best interests, Bowler and the bill’s supporters ignore the obvious converse. If a dad may seek 50% physical time with his children simply to lower his child support obligation, doesn’t it also hold that a mother may seek 85% physical time in order to increase it?
“Similarly, critics charge that the child support provisions of current law amount to paying men to spend time with their children. In reality, the provisions simply acknowledge that both moms and dads have child-related expenses.”
3 responses so far ↓
1 TracieFrendo@yahoo.com // Apr 4, 2008 at 5:47 pm
As a woman, I’m very disturbed by how women act in these situtations. So what if a father seeks 50% to reduce his expenses, it’s a benefit if the children are spending equal times with both parents. It’s hard not to take care of a child that is in your care. First of all these women need to quit being greedy. There are many benefits to this. You’ll have free time to yourself and you’ll save money on utilities, transportation, childcare, food, laundry, etc if the other parent is taking the child. Yes child support is needed but what’s weird is women don’t recognize that the other parent has to have a roof over their head as well. I’ve even had women tell me if a man can’t afford it, then they need a 2nd job. I said sure only to have his support increased for making more money and if he’s working two jobs when will he see the kids. Women complain when a man doesn’t spend time with the child but if they try to they run you off. Sounds like these women want their cake and to eat it to. Maybe if they recognize that the reason it’s easy for the men who don’t pay to do so because out of site is out of mind. It’s harder to deny a child when you spend time with them. If I say that they come back with statements like a man should own up to his responsibility it’s the right thing to do. Well I’ll say that once women recognize that it’s always the right thing to allow a man to see the child at least 50% of the time and not alienate the child from the other parent. When they do that, then we can talk about right or wrong. Women are by nature full of drama, we are louder and more verbal, that’s the root of the problem. Leave it to us to play victim in every situation. Well as a woman, I believe it’s about what is fair to both parties and I can say this because I filed my own divorce by myself without a lawyer and had to fight the court to not make my exhusband pay child support. The 50% rule really helped, but let me tell you, when I need things for my kids, I ask that he pays half. I have no problems getting the assistance and my children have come through our divorce with flying colors because we didn’t put them in the middle. I want my kids to have time with their father so they don’t have the emotional problems later on. Their father isn’t a bad person, we just were not meant to be together. Did he do things that made me angry at times, “yes” but that doesn’t make him evil. If I made him pay what the support formula asked, he’d lose his home and my kids would have no where to visit him at. This would hurt them which would in turn hurt me. I don’t understand the greed other than just that, greed and no care for the other person’s well being. My favorite thing is if a woman brings a child into the world and has no job, they give her welfare, if she has a job she gets all types of assitance like medical insurance through the state, etc. If a man has no job, or makes a small income and he can’t afford to pay he goes to jail. It’s a double standard in my opinion. Especially when these women keep brining children into the world that they cannot afford to take care of. It’s called neglect.
2 arbcqueen // May 5, 2008 at 2:10 pm
VERY well stated, Tracie!!!
3 tsmyth // May 9, 2008 at 11:19 am
Tracie, that is the best statement I’ve read on this subject all year! You’ve stated the simple honest truth that most people refuse to acknowledge.
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