Real reasons behind the "Fatherhood Crises"...

RE: erm, yes, divorce is primarily the fault of women, men play little to no part in it whatsoever.

Almost all divorces are initiated by women - and most of them are for "well, I'm just not content" reasons as opposed to real ones, like being beaten, cheated on, guy's got a drug problem etc.

 

Maybe in your case, but statistics don't lie.



The overwhelming majority of divorces are filed by wives against husbands, are unilateral, and abuse or adultery are not cited as the main reason.



Tell a son who sees his father every other weekend that it's better than having parents who argue.



What happened to the third option?



Parents who take their vows seriously and try to make it work.



Did you know that child abuse is most likley to be caused by a single mother or step father than a single father?

 

According to this particular article, men don't even have constitutional rights in family court.

Example:

"A punitive quality seems to pervade the treatment of fathers in general throughout divorce court, but the presumption of guilt becomes explicit with accusations of spousal or child abuse. Fathers accused of abuse during divorce are seldom formally charged, tried, or convicted because there is usually no evidence against them; hence, they never receive due process of law or the opportunity to clear their names, let alone recover their children. Yet the accusation alone prohibits a father’s contact with his children and causes his name to be entered into a national database of sex offenders (Parke and Brott 1999, 49–50).

Although initial accusations do not necessarily result in the father’s arrest, they do confirm his status as a quasi-criminal whose movements are controlled by the court. This control takes the form of an ex parte restraining order, whose violation results in imprisonment. Orders separating fathers from their children for months, years, and even life are issued without the presentation of any evidence of wrongdoing. They are often issued at a hearing at which the father is not present and about which he may not even know, or they may be issued over the telephone or by fax with no hearing at all. A father receiving an order must vacate his residence immediately and make no further contact with his children.

Boston attorney Elaine Epstein, former president of the Massachusetts Women’s Bar Association, has written that “allegations of abuse are now used for tactical advantage” in custody cases and that restraining orders are doled out “like candy.” “Restraining orders and orders to vacate are granted to virtually all who apply,” and “the facts have become irrelevant,” she writes. “In virtually all cases, no notice, meaningful hearing, or impartial weighing of evidence is to be had.” Massachusetts judges alone issue some sixty thousand orders each year (1993, 1).

Arresting fathers for attending public events such as their children’s musical recitals or sports activities—events any stranger may attend—is common. In 1997, National Public Radio reported on a father arrested in church for attending his daughter’s first communion. During the segment, an eight-year-old girl wails and begs to know when her father will be able to see or call her. The answer, because of a lifetime restraining order, is never. Even accidental contact in public places is punished with arrest. New Jersey municipal court judge Richard Russell captured the rationale in a 1994 judges’ training seminar: “Your job is not to become concerned about the constitutional rights of the man that you’re violating as you grant a restraining order. Throw [the man] out on the street, give him the clothes on his back and tell him, see ya around. . . . They have declared domestic violence to be an evil in our society. So we don’t have to worry about the rights” (qtd. in Bleemer 1995, 1).

Some argue that judges must “balance” the rights of accused men with the genuine need of women for protection, yet we do not normally restrain citizens from their basic constitutional rights, including the right of free movement and free association (especially with their own children) merely because someone asks us to do so. We assume that all citizens are innocent until proven guilty, that they have a right to due process of law, that they should enjoy basic freedom until evidence of an infraction is presented against them, and that knowingly false accusations will be punished.

Some suggest that protective orders are issued on the principle of “better safe than sorry,” yet this suggestion begs the most telling question of how protective orders can prevent violence, inasmuch as violence is already illegal. A father whose wife obtained a restraining order against him was, according to the St. Petersburg Times, “enjoined and restrained from committing any domestic violence upon her” (Schroeder and Sharp 1992, 2). Was he, along with the rest of us, not so restrained to begin with? The orders seem designed not so much to prevent wrongdoing as to eliminate and criminalize fathers. Forcing a father to stay away from his children even though he has done no wrong may provoke precisely the kind of violent response it ostensibly intends to prevent. “Few lives, if any, have been saved, but much harm, and possibly loss of lives, has come from the issuance of restraining orders and the arrests and conflicts ensuing therefrom,” retired judge Milton Raphaelson of the Dudley, Massachusetts, District Court writes. “This is not only my opinion; it is the opinion of many who remain quiet due to the political climate. Innocent men and their children are deprived of each other” (2001, 4)."

 

Careful - start talking like that and yellowbellyhippy might start thinking you're a closet gay woman-hater, too.

 

I hated teachers in school making me feel less than because i'm not female.



I'm male.

I'm was born in America.

I have white complexion.



None of which I have control over, and so refuse to apologize for.

I'm all for women's rights, but lets make sure it's equal rights we're advocating.

 

Shane : be prepared for a LOT of illogal personal attacks.

I remember being denied the right to apply for jobs based on my gender (male) and race (white) and told that this was NOT racist or sexist. But, that somehow I had "white male privilege" even though everyone was practically telling me that white males were not welcome.

I remember being personally blamed for everything from the slave trade in the Sudan to date rape, though I've participated in neither. The fact that I am the children of white people makes me complicit for their guilt somehow - what's more ludicrous is when a white woman (who has the same ancestors) thinks that by virtue of her plumbing her "original sin" isn't carried over to her (it's apparently on the Y chromosome)

You'll find out that more women cheat than men, that they pretty much don't care about it - that women beat and kill children more often than men do and are capable of tremendous evil but a few bats of the eyelids in a courtroom and she MIGHT see a month of jail time out of it. But if you protest this, you're clearly a sexist.

You're not allowed to use certain words because the mere mention of them is fundamentally a condemnation - but there's no problem with "Boys are stupid. Kill them" on a T-shirt.

 

So why confine yourself to their ignorant assumption of what is? It has no meaning or power but that which you give it. No reason to live by the rules of any but yourself Well, you're right about the first part for sure.. What the fuck advantage do I have by being a white male? But then.. Well I'm not going to get into that, but as for the rest, see my previous remaks

 

I'm not even white, I'm biracial and still get screwed by the "white male privilege" crap.

I'm just sick of Fathers being seen as irrational, violent, stupid, potential child molesters. guilty until proven innocent.

Want to see how much America respects a father's role?

Watch 5 min of:

Family Guy
Simpsons
Listen Up
War at Home
Sopranos
Third Watch
Bernie Mac Show

List goes on.

Fat, Balding, Lazy, close minded, selfish and Neglectful morons with tempers who need an attractive, intelligent calm and open minded female to show them the error of their ways.

makes me wanna puke...

 

Or, in the Cosby show, a domineering castrating bitch.

RE: What the fuck advantage do I have by being a white male?

Go to the wimmyn's forum and ask that question. For a real hoot find the local women's studies department at the university. Ask them. Prepare for an earful.

 

filing for divorce represents a problem between the two people though. So what if one gender files something more often, it doesn't mean that they're the only unhappy one there, the only one who wants a divorce. I don't think that's something I'll get convinced out of I'm sorry to say

will do.

I've lived with both. Hell, I have to take a highway bus two hours up and two hours back to visit my father, but I still do every chance I get. I still book time off of work to see him. My mom and stepdad screamed at each other... it's a hell of a lot easier to deal with them seperately now that they're much happier, than when they were together, angry, controlling and all around hateful towards almost everyone they knew. So yeah, if it's not going to get fixed, get divorced. Staying together for the kids is more damaging than spending quality time one on one with 'em, even if it's in two different households.

and shotgun weddings are supposed to be taken seriously. Marrying the girl just because you got her pregnant is supposed to be forced into working. I know there are differen treasosn behind every divorce and every marriage, but, well my folks should never have gotten married in the first place. they only did because I exist

child abuse is shitty and awful no matter who does it. worst if it's a family member (or step-member) but it's still really really awful. I aint gonna deny that one, I wasn't even trying to debate about it


(I'm not trying to attack you or anything, just trying to debate... just wanted to make sure that was clear)

 

Funny how you avoided that.

 

Since roughly 60% of marriages end in divorce and roughly 70% of them are unilaterally the wife's decision (meaning not that she filed first but that she was the only invested party seeking a divorce) and the negative consequences of divorce are adversly against the husband (limited visitation, child support, alimony)... I can't see how you can generalize and say most are the fault of both parties involved.

It seems obvious to me that husbands and more specifically fathers are getting shafted.

 

"... Further—given the undeniable correlation that the fatherhood advocates have established between fatherlessness and today’s larger social pathologies, such as poverty, crime, and substance abuse—it allows officials to ignore the simplest and safest solution to these ills, which is to stop eliminating fathers. Instead, governments devise elaborate schemes, invariably extending their reach and power, to deal with the problems that their removal of the fathers has created: not only fatherhood promotion and marriage therapy, but larger antipoverty programs beloved of the left and law enforcement measures dear to the right. By concocting a fatherhood crisis where none previously existed, government across the spectrum has neutered the principal rival to its power and created an unlimited supply of problems for itself to solve."

 

Well, that means more bureaucracy and government control.

 

B-I-N-G-O!

Divorce will continue to climb, families will continue to fall apart, and fathers will continue to be demonized, criminalized and downsized because it is in the establishments interest that they do.

 

Hitler realized once the Hitler Youth replaced parenting he'd have his own army of unquestioning minions.

 

The book 1984 echoes the same thing.

Why?

Because the family unit is one of the most powerful instituions inherit to mankind and those who seek power and control covet this and misuse that power for their own personal or professional advancement.

Whole parts of state and federal government would not exsist if there was a significant drop in divorce rates in this country.

"Revolving doors and other channels connect family courts with executive branch enforcement bureaucracies. David Ross, head of federal child-support enforcement in the Clinton administration, began his career as a family-court judge before moving on to higher courts and a stint in a state legislature. The 2001 web page of the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) said he was honored as “Judge of the Year of America” by the National Reciprocal Family Support Enforcement Association in 1983 and as “Family Court Judge of the Nation” by the National Child Support Enforcement Association [NCSEA] in 1989.” The fact that enforcement agents are bestowing honors on supposedly impartial and apolitical judges indicates the agents’ interest in family-court decisions, primarily the decisions to remove children from their fathers and then to award the punitive child support that necessitates their services. That a government Internet page would boast about awards given to its officials by pressure groups indicates how little ethical scrutiny these connections receive. The NCSEA web page describes its members as “state and local agencies, judges, court masters, hearing officers, district attorneys, government and private attorneys, social workers, caseworkers, advocates, and other child support professionals,” as well as “corporations that partner with government to enforce child support” (NCSEA 2001). In other words, it includes officials from at least two branches of government and members of the private sector who have a financial interest in separating children from their fathers."

 

so, if that's the problem and the details of the problem that you guys believe is true (and I agree to an extent, just not necessarily as much), What is the Solution? How can it be fixed? What can -you- and -I- do to fix it?

 

RE: so, if that's the problem and the details of the problem that you guys believe is true (and I agree to an extent, just not necessarily as much), What is the Solution? How can it be fixed? What can -you- and -I- do to fix it?

Well, pretty much nothing.

Anyone who mentions this gets tarred with the "you're wrong and a grotesquely ugly freak, closet gay woman hating asshole who needs to get help" brush.

 

Get rid of no-fault divorces, marriage is a legally binding contract brokered by the state and should be treated as such when broken.

Mandatory councling(sp) before a marriage license is issued. Some states have already adopted this.

Revamp of Family court, child support in particular. This is a state by state issue of course.

Promote and congatulate responsible mothers and fathers.

Finally, lets step up and campaign for strong families. Divorce should be a last resort and more often than not i don't believe it currently is.