Snarkbait Runehawk: here's a few choice quotes in support of my point. I hope I didn't clip too much!
Here's a weak one - a book review on a book I haven't even read, but it refers to what I've half-remebered:
Amazon Review: Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myths
<REF> Moreover, Braver overturns one of the most important pieces of data on divorce in the past quarter-century: the belief that divorced women suffer a steep decline in their standard of living. This widely embraced notion was the result of misread data, but was transformed into "fact" by the media and the courts, and accepted by divorced families and their advocates. No other book has revealed the deep flaws in today's research on divorce. One-sided studies of divorced men and women, misused census data, and poor research have skewed many of the assumptions around which parents and courts have shaped divorce settlements, parenting responsibilities, and child-rearing decisions
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<REF>: www.fatherville.com
Six major myths fell to actual research.
Deadbeat dads: Divorced fathers pay 90 percent of the child support they have been ordered to pay. Fully employed divorced fathers pay all that is due. In addition, they pay visitation expenses. [Depending on the extent of the research providing the result, fathers (all fathers including never married) pay 70-80 percent of what they have been ordered to pay. The low end – 70 percent – relies on recipient surveys that do not account for money that is paid but withheld as repayment for welfare, and possible bias. In all cases, the primary cause of non-payment is that the person ordered to pay is unable to pay.">
The No-Show Dad: The rate of contact between fathers and their children following divorce shows "paternal devotion and tenacity [that"> is entirely at odds with the more popular image of the runaways, absentee, or disappearing dad."
Standards of Living: Women with children are, as a group, better off financially following divorce than men. That's right, it's not the other way around.
Terms of Divorce: Far from being docile, easily manipulated victims of a male dominated divorce system, women have always fared well in negotiations and settlements. Men are far more likely to be the biggest losers in the process.
Emotional Issues of Divorce: Women are happier after divorce than men. Given the results related to the other myths, this is likely to cause the least surprise. They have the children, they are better off financially, they drive better cars, their situation is less likely to interfere with new relationships and remarriage ....
Who leaves the marriage ... and why it matters: " ... women initiate the preponderance (63 - 75%) of modern divorces ..." It matters because it vindicates the finding that men do less well then women after divorce, because the blame heaped on men for divorce should be addressed, and because the myth serves to further unlevel the playing field of domestic relations law and politics on which fathers are already disadvantaged
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<REF>: http://www.fatherville.com/newsproarc/viewnews.cgi?newsid1034434312,73982
Some studies claim that women as a group make only two thirds as much as men. But that does not include child support (child care costs are typically added to basic child support), alimony, property division, tax benefits nor any other financial arrangements specifically related to divorce. Following divorce, women as a group are financially better off than men. Some women, especially those who remarry are far better off than the husbands and fathers they left behind.
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Re:Snarkbait Runehawk: <REF>: http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?issueID=13&articleID=35
In the largest federally funded study ever undertaken on the subject, Arizona State University psychologist Sanford Braver demonstrated that few married fathers voluntarily leave their children. Braver found that overwhelmingly it is mothers, not fathers, who are walking away from marriages. Moreover, most of these women do so not with legal grounds such as abuse or adultery but for reasons such as “not feeling loved or appreciated.” The forcibly divorced fathers were also found to pay virtually all child support when they are employed and when they are permitted to see the children they have allegedly abandoned (1998, chap. 7).
Other studies have reached similar conclusions. Margaret Brinig and Douglas Allen found that women file for divorce in some 70 percent of cases. “Not only do they file more often, but . . . they are more likely to instigate separation.” Most significantly, the principal incentive is not grounds such as desertion, adultery, or violence, but control of the children. “We have found that who gets the children is by far the most important component in deciding who files for divorce” (2000, 126–27, 129, 158, emphasis in original). One might interpret this statistic to mean that what we call divorce has become in effect a kind of legalized parental kidnapping.
Moreover, the vast machinery devoted to divorce and custody litigation now has the power not only to seize children whose parents have done nothing legally wrong, but also to turn forcibly divorced parents into outlaws without any wrong action on their part and in ways they are powerless to avoid. What we are seeing today is nothing less than the criminalization of parents, most often the fathers. A father who is legally unimpeachable can be turned into a criminal by the regime of involuntary divorce.
Partly responsible is “no-fault” divorce, or what marriage advocate Maggie Gallagher terms “unilateral” divorce, which allows one spouse to abrogate the marriage contract without incurring any liability for the consequences (1996, 143–52). “In all other areas of contract law those who break a contract are expected to compensate their partner or partners,” writes researcher Robert Whelan, “but under a system of ‘no fault’ divorce, this essential element of contract law is abrogated” (1995, 3). When children are involved, their separation from one parent is then enforced by the state, with criminal penalties against that parent for literally “no fault” of his own.
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Re:Snarkbait Runehawk: <REF>
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).
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Re:Snarkbait caringmom: >:( So what is your point because you are really beginning to pi** me off. That doesn't happen to me too often. I'm usually very nice and understanding to the people here. You are on a site with people looking for help. There are alot of people here in a lot of pain and anguish over what they are going through.....males and females..... So if you aren't here for help, then maybe you are in the wrong place. If you are just here to bi*ch about how females have it so great in a divorce, maybe you should go elsewhere. Make up your mind what your here for, because I'm so sick of hearing about how great I supposedly have it (according to all your statistics).
Yes you did strike a cord, because me and my kids have done alot of suffering because of what we have been put through. There father isn't around them because he chose not to be and he chose not to pay for his kids support too. Not that he couldn't afford it because he could. He chose to have a place of his own so he could cheat as much as he wanted. He wanted to have his cake and eat it too, but that wasn't going to happen. So enough is enough. If you want help from us fine, if not, I think you've done enough damage. >:(
Re:Snarkbait lifechange: DITTO >:( Well said CM!
lc
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