Fathers have rights, too. (Civil Liberties Watch)

Many people who are concerned about social justice for women and children seem to be morally blind when it comes to the rights--if not the humanity--of divorced and separated fathers.

In today's social and political climate, it is not considered appropriate to speak in defense of divorcing and divorced men, or even of divorced fathers. This prevailing anti-male, anti-father attitude, employed in tandem with a lot of misinformation, flawed data, and sexist stereotypes, has succeeded in convincing most divorcing fathers that they are less than human. In the era of the "deadbeat dad," most believe that they cannot continue to be a father to their children after divorce and that they certainly couldn't perform adequately as a single parent. When contemplating the possibility of a separation or divorce, most involved fathers assume that they would forfeit their active parental role and become an every-other-weekend "visitor" in their children' s lives. Beginning very early in the divorce process, fathers begin to receive consistent confirmation of this assumption. Certainly some fathers voluntarily abdicate their parental responsibilities even in the absence of the many extenuating circumstances discussed below. Here, I address the tragic crisis faced by fathers who want very much to continue to parent their children after divorce'

Under current conditions, there are several reasons (other than the welfare of the children) for a wife to battle strenuously to obtain sole custody. The more custody the mother has of the child, the more financial support the courts will award her. Often, however, the main reason is totally unrecognized by the courts: the bitterness and need for revenge which attends so many marital breakups. Instead of recognizing the devastating effects this can have on everyone and attempting to minimize them, the legal system encourages the use of the children as weapons in divorce court.

Attorney Ronald K. Henry summed it up in testimony before a U.S. House subcommittee on June 30, 1992:

We know that children are born
with two parents. We know that
children want, love, and need two
parents. Still, we take two loving
parents, we walk them into court
at their most emotionally distraught
and weak moment, and
we say to them, "Here are your
weapons. Fight it out and the last
one standing owns the child."

The court system begins with the presumption that women are better suited to care for younger children than are men. Lawyers routinely tell divorcing fathers that they have very little chance of getting custody and that making the attempt will require thousands of dollars and a bitter court battle that will be very hard on all concerned, including the children.

Just as many men have resisted giving up the economic advantages they have enjoyed, many women cling to their traditional domain of power. Various attempts are made to rationalize this behavior, such as the pervasive belief that men don't really want custody or continued involvement with their children. This is reminiscent of the arguments given for denying women full participation in economic life--and just as sexist.

When a marriage breaks up, regard, less of the couple's financial and child, care arrangements, the courts presume that the wife has an equal right to the money and property her husband's and/ or her labor has produced. Why isn't it also presumed that the father has equal rights to the children they have produced? If a father has participated in parenting--that is, child care and decisions regarding the children- -why doesn't the father still have at least an equal right to continue parenting his children?

Instead, the system turns fathers into visitors with the every-other- week, end "privilege"--when mother sees fit to cooperate--to see his children. (In more than 20 states, visitation is legally defined as a "privilege" rather than a "right") The mother makes all decisions about the children's education, health, religion, appearance, rules of behavior, and discipline. Only the mother is expected--or permitted- -to participate in the daily development of the children.

Yet this system still demands his money. He becomes an economic object rather than a father. Like mothers, fathers accept the burdens of parenting so they can share in its rewards. But the system takes the rewards of parenthood from a divorcing father and leaves him with nothing but the burdens.

We know that there are three principal predictors of child-support compliance: the fairness of the original court order, access to the children, and employment stability. Regardless, the divorced father is expected to maintain his children's standard of living and support a separate life for himself. Some, times this is genuinely impossible, because support payments are set with no provisions for economic realities such as unemployment, underemployment, or serious accident or illness. And second families are not taken into account.

Child-support enforcement is the most punitive form of debt connection in America. A billion-dollar collection bureaucracy has been created that exists for no other form of private debt collection. Tax refunds are intercepted, liens are imposed, credit is ruined, professional licenses and drivers' licenses are revoked, and people are thrown in jail. (Debtors' prisons live.) These gross violations of civil liberties, which would not be tolerated in any other situation, are also self-defeating methods of collection. Nevertheless, "enforcement" continues.

We hear much about the Bureau of Census statistics, which allegedly reveal that only 50 percent of support is paid in full and that 25 percent is paid only in part. Despite the fact that these numbers have been questioned by several independent researchers over the years, they are still accepted as accurate. One researcher and analyst, Professor Sanford Braver, has exposed incredible methodological errors in the gathering of this data.

There is no verification of amounts (women were asked simply how much they receive; noncustodial parents were not asked for corroboration, nor were court records checked); nothing is done to correct obvious sources of false data (for example, the known tendency of welfare recipients to underreport outside income); no data is gathered on how many nonpaying or underpaying noncustodial parents are unemployed, underemployed, disabled, supporting second families, or withholding payment because they are not permitted to see their children.

Incredibly, no distinction is made between child support ordered after divorce and support for children whose fathers are unknown to their mothers. In other words, in many cases these "deadbeat dads" don't even know they are fathers, and many more are under 18 years of age. These statistics even fail to exclude obligors who are dead!

Professor Braver points out:

Buried in the data is a very interesting
fact which received no publicity
from special interest groups
or from the federal enforcement
program. Sixty-six percent of non,
compliance was reported by the
custodial mothers themselves as
"father unable to pay."

And even with all its methodological flaws, the Census Bureau data show that access to the children makes the biggest difference. Over 90 percent of support was paid in joint-custody situations where both parents were permitted to continue to be parents.

If we are really concerned about the welfare of children, we must start working on a system that encourages the continued involvement of both parents after divorce. We must abandon distorted stereotypes and the band-aid policies which treat only the symptoms of theproblem.

A friend whose work I much ad, mire, Professor Ferrel Christensen, founder of the Canadian Movement to Establish Real Gender Equality, writes with simple eloquence:

Justice is not an intellectual exercise.
It is still being denied all
around us, causing vast amounts
of human misery. Sexism in parenting
must be brought to an end.

Barbara Dority is the permit of Humanists of Washington, the executive director of the Washington Coalition Against Censorship, and cochair, , of the Northwest Feminist Anti-Censorship Taskforce.

COPYRIGHT 1994 American Humanist Association

Dority, Barbara, Fathers have rights, too. (Civil Liberties Watch)., Vol. 54, The Humanist, 03-01-1994, pp 35(2).

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