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Shriver Report Does Hatchet Job on Fathers,
Family Court Reform Movement
October 27, 2009
Top Stories
Shriver Report Does Hatchet Job on Fathers, Family Court Reform Movement
Eagles
Eagles
Maria Shriver, California's First Lady, has issued the new report "A Woman's Nation Changes Everything." The Shriver Report, which was written for the think-tank the Center for American Progress, begins:
This report describes how a woman's nation changes everything about how we live and work today. Now for the first time in our nation's history, women are half of all U.S. workers and mothers are the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of American families. This is a dramatic shift…It fundamentally changes how we all work and live, not just women but also their families, their co-workers, their bosses, their faith institutions, and their communities.
The Shriver Report has a section about men and fathers called "Has a Man's World Become a Woman's Nation?" written by feminist sociologist Michael Kimmel (pictured).

I've interacted with Kimmel a few times over the past several years and he's seemed like a sincere individual, albeit misguided. I had hoped that Kimmel's perspectives had broadened a bit over the years, but if they have, there's no sign of it in his chapter. "Has a Man's World Become a Woman's Nation?" is a hatchet job on fathers and the fatherhood movement.

Kimmel ignores altogether the many legal, social and cultural barriers between fathers and children. For Kimmel, the separation of children from fathers is all about men's "irresponsibility." If men just cared about their children, so the story goes, all would be well. There are some men who avoid their parental responsibilities. Some women do, too. But Kimmel never mentions the crucial issues today's fathers face. These include: maternal gatekeeping; visitation interference; the use of fraudulent restraining orders as a tool to separate fathers from their children in divorce/custody; unrealistic child support orders; and parental alienation.

In discussing fathers' complaints about being separated from their children after divorce, Kimmel actually writes "In reality, the fathers' rights groups are tapping into a problem that very few men report having."

"Very few"? A wealth of research shows how common these problems are, including the largest federally-funded study of divorced fathers ever done. And speaking personally, it never fails to amaze me just how many fathers have these problems.

Kimmel writes:
For other men, mostly white and middle class, the stroke of the pen finalizing divorce turns hordes of doting daddies into furious fathers who feel aggrieved by a process they believe denies them the access to their children to which they feel entitled.
Here are several sleights of hand often used by opponents of the fatherhood/family court reform movement. These include:
1) Portray fathers wanting more time with their children as patriarchs demanding what they are (not) "entitled to." This comes on the heels of Kimmel criticizing fathers for allegedly not spending enough time with their kids. So in Kimmel's view, dads are wrong for wanting to spend time with their kids and also for not wanting to–is it any surprise that in his world men always seem to be wrong?

2) Kimmel wraps divorced dads' grievances around being white–aka the privileged white male. Yet all of these problems affect black and Latino fathers too, often worse, since they on average have fewer resources to defend themselves against the forces that stand between them and their children.

3) Kimmel plays on the anti-dad stereotype of the divorced dad as "furious" or "angry." Well, Michael, I've never been divorced nor had any family law problems of any sort but I think many divorced dads have damn good reason to be angry. I certainly would be if I were unwillingly separated from my children–wouldn't you be, too? And if we're unwillingly separated from our children,shouldn't we be angry?

I don't know how many times while reading my email in the evenings I've been horrified by what fathers endure and have gone over to my son or daughter as they sleep and hugged them, just to remind myself that they're here with me, and to remember how lucky I am.
Kimmel writes:

In one nationally representative sample of 11-to-16-year-old children living with their mothers, almost half had not seen their fathers in the previous 12 months. Indeed, we see a widespread "masculinization of irresponsibility"—the refusal of fathers to provide economically for their children, which has led to the "feminization of poverty," with excruciatingly high poverty among single-mother families.

Re: the study, a couple points:
1) To pretend that simply not seeing one's children is the same as paternal abandonment and "irresponsibility" is contradicted by a wealth of research, as well as the personal experiences of millions of divorced and separated fathers. There's no doubt that there are fathers who voluntarily withdraw from their children's lives, but there can be no doubt that there are many fathers who are driven out of the children's lives. Linking this study to male irresponsibility is meaningless without seriously examining why the kids haven't seen their fathers.

2) The multi-billion dollar divorce industry is funded more than anything by custody battles. Arguments over  division of assets, alimony, etc. are a significant part of it, but the industry is driven by fathers wanting to see their kids and mothers trying to limit their role in their children's lives. If most fathers didn't want to see their kids, how could this exist?
Kimmel blames men for single mothers living in poverty, but again this is a huge oversimplification:
1) When a couple breaks up, both the mother's and the father's standard of living inevitably declines, because the incomes that once supported one home is now supporting two. Much of this drop in living standard has been mistakenly blamed on fathers, when it has nothing to do with them.

2) According to US Census data, noncustodial mothers are 20% more likely to default on their child support obligations than noncustodial fathers. This is despite the fact that noncustodial mothers are less likely to be required to pay child support, and those with support obligations are asked to pay a smaller percentage of their income in child support than noncustodial fathers.

3) The vast majority of divorces are initiated by women, not by men. Research shows that most of these do not involve a serious transgression by the men, such as violence or adultery, but instead because the women feel unappreciated or emotionally unfulfilled.

From a man's perspective, this often means that his wife: ended the marriage against his will; took his children out of his everyday life; and harmed his kids by breaking up the stable, two-parent home they once enjoyed. Then she demanded that he dramatically lower his standard of living in order to finance her decision.

It's not hard to see why men who once worked hard to support their families may be too disheartened to make the same sacrifices under these new conditions. And while there certainly are women who are mistreated in marriage and for whom divorce is a liberation, most divorced women aren't victims.

4) What has always surprised me is not how many fathers don't pay child support but that so many do. The Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement's own data shows that the overwhelming majority of so-called "deadbeat dads" earn poverty level wages. Most dads who can pay their child support do so, despite often being unfairly cut off from their children.
I had Kimmel on my radio show several years ago and he made the point that both wives and husbands benefit when fathers are more involved in parenting. He's correct, yet seems to feel that this fact disappears as soon as a couple breaks up.

In reality, post-divorce father-involvement benefits not only fathers, but mothers, children and society generally. Social science overwhelmingly finds that children do better with actively involved fathers in their lives.

While many women's advocates have taken a misguided stand against shared parenting, there is a significant, outspoken minority which recognizes its benefits for women. For example, feminist attorney Karen DeCrow, president of the National Organization for Women from 1974 to 1977, says:
"If there is a divorce in the family, I urge a presumption of joint custody of the children…it is the best option for women. After observing women's rights and responsibilities for more than a quarter of a century of feminist activism, I conclude that shared parenting is great for women, giving time and opportunity for female parents to pursue education, training, jobs, careers, profession and leisure."

Martha Burk, the Chair of the National Council of Women's Organizations who led the effort to open the Augusta National Golf Club to women, concurs. Burk, who was named Ms. Magazine Woman of the Year in 2003, explains that shared parenting provides women with greater economic freedoms and opportunities. She calls the current child custody system "mother ownership of children" and says that under this "harmful societal norm" judges "mindlessly award [sole] custody to the mother," to the detriment of all parties.

Kimmel denigrates the importance of fathers, writing that the idea that fatherlessness harms children is based on "a catalog of specious correlations masquerading as causal arguments." This ignores a mountain of responsible research that shows beyond a doubt the value of fathers to children, including that of Sarah McLanahan, Rebekah Levine Coley, Irwin Garfinkel, Kathryn Edin, Ross Parke, Armin Brott, Ronald Mincey, and numerous others.

For Kimmel, the men and women who promote equal treatment of fathers by family laws and courts "use the language of equality to exact revenge against their ex-wives…demanding mandatory joint custody and an end to alimony and child support payments"...

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Women Who Share Parenting
‘My ex is a loving parent—our marriage was over but we will always be OUR son’s parents’

Rachel, a Fathers & Families supporter, shares parenting with her ex-husband. Below she describes her experiences:
Throughout my life I have seen so many single parents (mothers mostly) raising kids. I was raised by my mother and saw my father only a couple of times a year. This is not an easy life.

When my marriage failed, we decided to share custody of OUR son. I know that I could have had full custody but this was just not the best thing for any of us.

My ex is as fit and loving parent as am I. Our marriage was over but we will always be OUR son’s parents...
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Don Henley: ‘My dad taught me responsibility and the value of hard, physical work’

Eagles

Singer/songwriter Don Henley was a founding member of the Eagles and a seven time Grammy Award-winner in his solo career. In 2008, he was ranked one of the 100 greatest singers of all time by Rolling Stone magazine.

In my humble opinion, he wrote one of the greatest songs about divorce ever, "Heart of the Matter" (audio here). Another favorite of mine is the powerful, sad "New York Minute" (audio here).

Henley While in college in Texas in the late 1960s, Henley left to spend time with his father, who was dying from heart and arterial disease. Henley's father was a farmer in Texas. Of his father, Henley says:
My father was an avid gardener. On many a summer morning he rousted me out of bed well before sunup and handed me a hoe. We had more than an acre to tend, and the objective was to get as much as possible done before the sun rose too high in the sky and the temperature rose above 100.

The humidity in that region, while good for the skin and for growing vegetables, is oppressive, and heat exhaustion is always a possibility in the summer. On several occasions my thoughts turned patricidal.

But as the years have passed, I have grown to appreciate what my dad taught me, not only about growing things in the earth but also about responsibility and the value of hard, physical work.

I now derive physical and spiritual pleasure from gardening. All this galls me a little, because my dad always said it would turn out this way.
 
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