Equal custody and parental rights are important, Ken Solin writes, especially for the children.
I generally write about men and relationships, but when my article, “Divorced Dads Deserve Better,” received impassioned comments, I was reminded that divorced parents are still in a relationship, frequently lasting many years. But just because a couple didn’t get it right while married, they can still have a respectful parenting relationship after divorce, right? Not very often. With all the bitterness and anger surrounding divorce, children frequently become POWs in the civil war of a custody battle.
Child custody is a grievously contentious divorce issue. The differences and animosities that drive a husband and wife apart don’t necessarily reflect their parenting abilities, though, and shouldn’t be projected onto their children or figure at all into their custody rights. Moving on emotionally after divorce is difficult for everyone, but a critical aspect of healing the pain is letting go of the underlying anger. Unfortunately, many men and women fail to let go, and drag their unwitting children through the swamp that is a custody battle.
I believe that mothers and fathers play equally important roles in childrearing, and that a father’s time with his children is equally critical for their development. In fact, I consider the level of a man’s level of involvement with his children to be a measure of his manhood. A father’s rights to his children are as sacred as a mother’s.
However, women frequently are awarded majority custody, sometimes because the law mandates it, and sometimes because men don’t ask for their fair share. Women have a pivotal role to play in righting this inequity, and both women and men have to be willing to put aside their personal animosities and do what’s best for their children. And what’s best for their children is equal shared custody.
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Too often, though, the battle over child custody becomes about revenge, and women shouldn’t be allowed to use custody as a tool to punish their ex-husbands or for financial gain. Those vindictive women and the cowardly, selfish men who don’t care a whit about their children and ignore them won’t be able to get past their own issues to focus on their children. But those misguided parents are a small minority, and it’s the majority of divorced parents I’m talking to.
And if you think children aren’t affected by how men and women treat each other after divorce, think again. Children are permanently scarred, no matter what, and the degree to which they suffer long-term emotional damage depends to a large degree on the way divorced parents treat each other. Mutual respect between mothers and fathers requires the courage to put your children’s feeling ahead of your own. And if you can’t get past your anger for your own sake, then do it for your children’s.
An attorney recently suggested to me that one way to address the issue of unequal custody would be for the courts to treat it and child support as two separate issues. And I agree. That way, granting their ex-husbands equal custody wouldn’t affect the child support women received or had to pay. And it would give each parent equal time to care for their children and to rebuild their own lives as individuals. The myth of ex-wives being able to sit home and eat bonbons on their child-support is patently false. In fact, nearly all divorced mothers are out working to help pay for their children’s needs. If it took two incomes to support a family when you were married, it’s going to take two once you’re divorced.
It’s critical to stop the legal carnage of custody wars for our children’s sakes. One of the benefits of agreeing to equal, shared custody would be eliminating the need for divorce attorneys who feed on the carrion of failed marriages and stir the pot of discontent to keep our money flowing into their bank accounts. Sending our own children to college should be more important to us than sending a lawyer’s children to college. It’s time to stop feeding the beast, and feed our children instead.
So I appeal to women to voluntarily share equal custody with their ex-husbands, and to men to stand up for their parental rights. Put your children first.
Originally appeared at Huffington Post.
—Photo Bes Z/Flickr
About Ken Solin
You bring up some excellent points in this article.
For many years I have years countless articles on Custody and Child support and how they are linked. The story usually goes though that “The only reason he wants custody is so that he won’t have to pay CS”. I am 100% certain there are men out there who are doing this, what has always fascinated me though is that I am also 100% sure there are just as many women who are against custody because they will lose CS.
I think your solution is a step in the right direction for solving this issue. The only problem that I see with it is people in the higher income brackets. Though they are not as common, you will get into a situation as income goes up where both parents have equal time, yet one parent is paying ALL the expenses for the child and the other parent is paying nothing. I am not sure at what income level this occurs but it will occur and after having raised 2 daughters to adulthood and fully understanding the extra expenses associated with children, I can tell you that in terms of real dollars, that income level isn’t that high.
We do have to change something though, the current system is simply to adverserial and in the end the child get hurt.
It is also my belief that the calcs for CS are wrong. In Canada where I live, when they came up with the tables the math they used was out to lunch. Here is an example of what I mean.
They used a family of 4, 2 parents + 2 children. They would calc the average mortgage and I believe when they did it they used $1500 for it. They assigned $750 to the parents and $750 to the kids. In other words every expense was assigned half to parents and half to kids. This is plain crazy, but that is what they did.
For all intents and purposes they are saying that the cost of raising two children is equal to two adults living without kids. After having raised 2 kids, I can tell you this is wrong.
i was reading the huff post thread. that ‘Annie MadMom’ was a real trip wasnt she,
This article is poorly researched, biased, and full of nonsensical crowd stirring[snip]The statistics are overwhelmingly clear that family court biases, in every jurisdiction that has been studied, are highly biased against mothers. The outcome statistics bear this out as well. Most men who seek custody of their children do so because they are controlling, abusive, and are motivated to punish their wives for leaving them. It is those men who use the family court system to continue his reign of terror that she is trying to escape.
Your appeal Ken, is worth a go though. No harm in asking
i forgot the permalink to the snipped quote
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Annie_MadMom/divorce-custody_b_1205236_129332123.html
Honestly, I believe that in the event of a divorce, the children should be awarded the house and the parents get equal custody of the children, arranging time to spend in the home with the children. Then the children aren’t completely torn apart loosing both their parents and their home, and both parents are responsible for paying the bills and taking care of the children.
I realize that this in unrealistic, but it would truly be ideal for the children.
I love this idea. Kids suffer the most in cases like this. entirely unfair to them.
However, women frequently are awarded majority custody, sometimes because the law mandates it, and sometimes because men don’t ask for their fair share.
I see people bring this up a lot as a way to shut down questioning about dada and custody. “Well if he wanted he should have fought for it!” So I have a question.
Based on that logic does that mean that girls who don’t take up engineering, women that don’t go for management jobs, etc… didn’t do so solely because they didn’t want to?
To begin with, if the couple had such cordial relations as to share the child custody why would they divorce? Divorce is like dissolution of a partnership firm in which each partner wants to corner maximum assets and leave the liabilities for the other partner. In this whole game, children are partly an asset and partly a liability Parents are emotionally financially and genetically invested in their children making them an asset. On the other hand raising kids require time, labour and money making them a liability. The partner getting the physical custody of the child should be responsible for all the associated expenses and there should be no legally mandated transfer of money from one party to another. It will probably bring the parties concerned to their senses to make a suitable compromise. Fairness implies “No Say, No Pay.”
In my jurisdiction (in a Canadian province) spousal support, custody, marital property, and child support are all separate issues and governed under separate but related legislation.
Having survived the system and gotten screwed (my wife earns more but still got 60% of marital assets) I can say it still sucks, but it works better than the systems where all the issues are interwoven.
Automatic joint custody – one party has to prove the other unfit before joint custody is changed.
Automatic (theoretically) 50/50 split of marital assets (not all assets)
Automatic equal split of time with children, and theoretically “maximum access” allowed for both parties.
Spousal support only if one spouse cannot support themselves (and can prove it – no layabouts).
Child support based on agreement and income – if joint custody and joint residency then costs while at each household is absorbed by that parent, other costs 50/50. If one parent makes way more money than the other they theoretically will pay a higher precentage of child costs…
In my case i signed off for less assets and a 50/50 split (even though i was the one who stayed home with the kids and had my career and earnings affected) of costs just to get my ex and her lawyer out of stall mode on the asset split – they were able to use the system to stall me for 4 years while my ex lived in the house and and didn’t have to settle debts… blah, blah, blah – I digress in a moment of pain vomitting.
Just talking about how it works here for the sake of the discussion.
“An attorney recently suggested to me that one way to address the issue of unequal custody would be for the courts to treat it and child support as two separate issues. And I agree. That way, granting their ex-husbands equal custody wouldn’t affect the child support women received or had to pay. And it would give each parent equal time to care for their children and to rebuild their own lives as individuals. The myth of ex-wives being able to sit home and eat bonbons on their child-support is patently false. In fact, nearly all divorced mothers are out working to help pay for their children’s needs. If it took two incomes to support a family when you were married, it’s going to take two once you’re divorced.”
The suggestion here, to me, seems to be that mothers that share equal custody with the father are still entitled to financial support from the father. Why? If he takes care of the child, is he not already fulfilling that obligation TO THE CHILD? What rights does the mother have to the fruits of his labour? The same goes for men (and I wonder how many women pay child support to men)
What about an abusive ex? Is it better to let a child spend time with an abuser? I don’t know why the courts let this happen.
You’re absolutely right. Dad’s have a huge problem trying to get kids away from abusive moms.
It’s not fair. Positive outcomes for kids shouldn’t depend on their abusers genitals.
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Brilliant article. Thanks!