Psychology Today To Child Custody Divorce Courts, Father's Rights Groups: Dads Are Equal

Psychology Today To Child Custody Divorce Courts, Father's Rights Groups: Dads Are Equal

Jerusalem ----June 3 ...... It was not easy writing the above headline. But when Psychology Today, one of the most respected lay journals on clinical psychology releases research illustrating that fathers are empowered biologically no differently than women when it comes to nurturing children, all keywords are needed.

The Psychological Today story: The Making of a Modern Dad, by Douglas Carlton Abrams illustrates in vivid scientific detail how fathers are no different in their biological programming than mothers when raising children. That divorced dads who "feel" a need to be with their children, is not only an emotional reaction but a biological one as well.

This evidence hits hard at social workers, family court judges and elected legislators who abide by archaic research and outdated laws which state that it is in the best interest of the child to be with the divorced mother - not the divorced father.

"Here is the first hard evidence that men are biologically prepared for fatherhood," says Psychology Today. "In fact, this is the first evidence that to nurture is part of man's nature."

This medical evidence would explain why father's rights groups such as Fathers 4 Justice in England, the US, Italy and in Israel would risk getting arrested in their high profile protests to see their children with equal access.

The research, which clearly illustrates how a father biologically responds to the birth of his children, also explains why thousands of men become clinically depressed when separated from their children to the point of actually committing suicide.

Perhaps the 1979 Dustin Hoffman movie Kramer Vs. Kramer was society's first major wake up call that dads were no different in wanting to care and protect their children. Years passed since the making of that landmark film where hundreds of thousands of caring, loving and responsible dads were separated from their children by narcissistic mothers, social workers and family court judges.

These city appointed social workers and family court judges who believed that it was best for the children to be with their mothers were totally unaware of the devastating effects of their actions. Rather than encouraging the dads to be dads, they alienated an entire generation of fathers who simply gave up in trying to fight the system. Perverted governmental systems which supported the few moms (most mothers encourage unlimited or equal contact) who used their small children as potent emotional weapons against their former husbands as the national and local governments practiced gender bias discrimination.

The results of a survey based on pooled data from 80,000 adults suggest that parental divorce has an adverse effect on children's lives compared with those raised in intact two-parent families, adults who experienced a parental divorce had lower psychological well-being, more behavioral problems, less education, lower job status, a lower standard of living, lower marital satisfaction, a heightened risk of divorce, a heightened risk of being a single parent, and poorer physical health.

The view that children adapt readily to divorce and show no lingering negative consequences is clearly inconsistent with the cumulative research in this area.

Some studies show that children who experience the death of a parent exhibit problems similar to those of children who 'lose' a parent through divorce. These findings support the view that the absence of a parent for any reason is problematic for children.

Each year, over 1 million American children suffer the divorce of their parents; moreover, half of the children born this year to parents who are married will see their parents divorce before they turn 18. Mounting evidence in social science journals demonstrates that the devastating physical, emotional, and financial effects that divorce is having on these children will last well into adulthood and affect future generations. Among these broad and damaging effects are the following.

Children whose parents have divorced are increasingly the victims of abuse. They exhibit more health, behavioral, and emotional problems, are involved more frequently in crime and drug abuse, and have higher rates of suicide.

Children of divorced parents perform more poorly in reading, spelling, and math. They also are more likely to repeat a grade and to have higher drop-out rates and lower rates of college graduation.

Families with children that were not poor before the divorce see their income drop as much as 50 percent. Almost 50 percent of the parents with children that are going through a divorce move into poverty after the divorce.

Religious worship, which has been linked to better health, longer marriages, and better family life, drops after the parents divorce.

The divorce of parents, even if it is amicable, tears apart the fundamental unit of American society. Today, according to the US Federal Reserve Board's 1995 Survey of Consumer Finance, only 42 percent of children aged 14 to 18 live in a "first marriage" family--an intact two-parent married family. It should be no surprise to find that divorce is having such profound effects on society.

Restoring the importance of marriage to society and the welfare of children will require politicians and civic leaders to make this one of their most important tasks. It also will require a modest commitment of resources to pro-marriage programs.

A 2004 UK study confirmed that children who have contact with their fathers following a family break-up suffer fewer behavioral problems than those who don't have such contact.

The researchers found that children who have a close relationship with their natural father after their parents divorce "are likely to be less disorderly, anxious or aggressive," according to a summary published in the Manchester News. They also found that children who had infrequent or no contact with their non-resident fathers "were more likely to externalise and internalise problems".

Last year, The New York Times addressed father's and children's rights in it's Sunday Magazine cover story: The Rise of the Fathers' Custody Movement. The news story focused on the struggle of divorced dads in both the UK and the US to gain shared parenting, equal access and or joint custody with their children.

Divorced fathers and their children in Israel presently suffer from gender bias discrimination by the Israel Knesset, family courts, the police and local child welfare departments. Blatant discrimination and the forced separation of father from child stems from an outdated law passed by the Israel Knesset in 1962. The Family Custodian Act of 1962 clearly states that all children under the age of six will automatically have custody under their mother, unless the mother is violent, drug abuser or negligent.

Joint custody in Israel is rare. Most couples who divorce in Israel find it difficult to decide on anything together. Without the cooperation of both parents in Israel, their is no joint custody or shared parenting. Israel family courts will only accept joint custody arrangements when both sides agree. The father is cast away by the mother, the justice and child welfare systems in Israel as a second class citizen. The dad turns into a "cash machine" paying child support every month while being denied equal access to their children. As a result, children become alienated from their fathers suffering from Parental Child Alienation Syndrome, crying from the immediate and long term adverse behavioral effects of divorce and separation for years to come.

The Israel Fathers Rights Association, Horut Shava, Fathers 4 Justice Israel and the Israel Fathers Advocacy Council with the aid of several leading and respected child psychologists are now preparing material and expert testimony for the Knesset to change a law from 1962 which has destroyed the basic civil rights of both divorced fathers and children.

A final note from this writer before we review the findings of Psychology Today's latest research. I am at my computer writing this Internet news story about divorced fathers and their children. Your children and mine. I could be surfing Jdate or another online dating service. But I gather that my testosterone level is kind of low or simply that my biological love for my kids and seeing all parents with their children outweighs any other earthly concern.

When his wife gave birth, Hudnut arranged his practice so he could be home to take care of his son, Seamus, two days a week; he sees patients on the other three workdays. "It was a very natural transition," he reports. "I'm grateful to have the opportunity my father never had."

Part of a new generation of men who are redefining fatherhood and masculinity, Hudnut, who is 33, is unwilling to accept the role of absentee provider that his father's generation assumed. With mothers often being the breadwinners of the family, many young fathers are deciding that a man's place can also be in the home—part-time or even full-time.

According to census figures, one in four dads takes care of his preschooler during the time the mother is working. The number of children who are raised by a primary-care father is now more than 2 million and counting. By all measures, fathers, even those who work full-time, are more involved in their children's lives than ever before. According to the Families and Work Institute in New York City, fathers now provide three-fourths of the child care mothers do, up from one-half 30 years ago.

Many men and women wonder if all of this father care is really natural. According to popular perceptions, men are supposedly driven by their hormones (primarily testosterone) to compete for status, to seek out sex and even to be violent—conditions hardly conducive to raising kids. A recent article in Reader's Digest, "Why Men Act As They Do," is subtitled "It's the Testosterone, Stupid." Calling the hormone "a metaphor for masculinity," the article concludes, "...testosterone correlates with risk: physical, criminal, and personal." Don't men's testosterone-induced chest-beating and risk-taking limit their ability to cradle and comfort their children?

Two Canadian studies suggest that there is much more to masculinity than testosterone. While testosterone is certainly important in driving men to conceive a child, it takes an array of other hormones to turn men into fathers. And among the best fathers, it turns out, testosterone levels actually drop significantly after the birth of a child. If manhood includes fatherhood, which it does for a majority of men, then testosterone is hardly the ultimate measure of masculinity.

In fact, the second of the two studies, which was recently published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, suggests that fathers have higher levels of estrogen the well-known female sex hormone - than other men. The research shows that men go through significant hormonal changes alongside their pregnant partners changes most likely initiated by their partner's pregnancy and ones that even cause some men to experience pregnancylike symptoms such as nausea and weight gain. It seems increasingly clear that just as nature prepares women to be committed moms, it prepares men to be devoted dads.

"I have always suspected that fatherhood has biological effects in some, perhaps all, men," says biologist Sue Carter, distinguished professor at the University of Maryland. "Now here is the first hard evidence that men are biologically prepared for fatherhood."

The studies have the potential to profoundly change our understanding of families, of fatherhood and of masculinity itself. Being a devoted parent is not only important but also natural for men. Indeed, there is evidence that men are biologically involved in their children's lives from the beginning.

It's well known that hormonal changes caused by pregnancy encourage a mother to love and nurture her child. But it has long been assumed that a father's attachment to his child is the result of a more uncertain process, a purely optional emotional bonding that develops over time, often years. Male animals in some species undergo hormonal changes that prime them for parenting. But do human dads? The two studies, conducted at Memorial University and Queens University in Canada, suggest that human dads do.

In the original study, published in Evolution and Human Behavior, psychologist Anne Storey and her colleagues took blood samples from 34 couples at different times during pregnancy and shortly after birth. The researchers chose to monitor three specific hormones because of their links to nurturing behavior in human mothers and in animal fathers.

The first hormone, prolactin, gets its name from the role it plays in promoting lactation in women, but it also instigates parental behavior in a number of birds and mammals. Male doves who are given prolactin start brooding and feeding their young, Storey found that in human fathers, prolactin levels rise by approximately 20 percent during the three weeks before their partners give birth.

The second hormone, cortisol, is well known as a stress hormone, but it is also a good indicator of a mother's attachment to her baby. New mothers who have high cortisol levels can detect their own infant by odor more easily than mothers with lower cortisol levels. The mothers also respond more sympathetically to their baby's cries and describe their relationship with their baby in more positive terms. Storey and her colleagues found that for expectant fathers, cortisol was twice as high in the three weeks before birth than earlier in the pregnancy.

Biologist Katherine Wynne-Edwards, who conducted the research with Storey, explains that while cortisol is seen as the "fight or flight" hormone, it might more accurately be described as the "heads-up-eyes-forward-something-really-important-is-happening" hormone. It may help prepare parents for approaching birth. Cortisol levels normally increase in women as pregnancy advances; indeed, a cumulative rise in stress-hormone levels sets off labor and delivery.

The third hormone, testosterone, is abundant in male animals during mating but decreases during nurturing. If bird fathers are given testosterone, they spend more time defending their territory and mating than taking care of existing offspring. Research has shown that human males experience a surge in testosterone when they win sporting events and other competitions.

In Storey's study, testosterone levels plunged 33 percent in fathers during the first three weeks after birth. Levels then returned to normal by the time the babies were four to seven weeks old. However brief the dip in testosterone, it may have effects that endure for the life of the child. According to University of California at Riverside psychologist Ross Parke, it may "let the nurturing side of men come to center stage." The dip may set in motion the more-cooperative, less-competitive enterprise of parenting. By encouraging fathers to interact with their kids, this brief hormonal change might actually induce the bonding process.

Wynne-Edwards and graduate student Sandra Berg designed another study to test Storey and Wynne-Edwards' earlier findings, They measured the hormone levels of the fathers over a longer period of time and incorporated into the study a control group of men who had never had children. The control group was matched by age, season and time of day tested—all of which can affect hormone levels. Finally, by using saliva samples instead of blood draws, they were able to test the fathers and the men in the control group much more frequently.

In addition to confirming the earlier findings for testosterone reduction and cortisol change, the researchers also found that the fathers had elevated levels of estrogen. The increase started 30 days before birth and continued during all 12 weeks of testing after birth. Although estrogen is best known as a female sex hormone, it exists in small quantities in men, too. Animal studies show that estrogen can induce nurturing behavior in males.

Acting in the brain as well as in other parts of the body, estrogen in men, and testosterone in women, makes humans extremely versatile behaviorally. "We spend an awful lot of time looking for differences between the sexes and trumpeting them when we find them," observes Wynne-Edwards, "but our brains are remarkably similar, built from the same DNA."

In fact, going into the study, Wynne-Edwards predicted that the "daddy brain" would use the same nerve circuits, triggered by many of the same hormones, as the "mommy brain." "If Mother Nature wanted to turn on parental behavior in a male," she reasoned, "the easiest thing would be to turn on pathways already there for maternal behavior."

The studies also found that a father's hormonal changes closely paralleled those of his pregnant partner.

The researchers believe that intimate contact and communication between partners may induce the hormonal changes that encourage a father to nurture his children. Storey explains, "My best guess is that women's hormone levels are timed to the birth—and men's hormone levels are tied to their partners."

Exactly how this occurs is unknown. There may be actual physiological signals exchanged between partners in close contact, such as the transmission of pheromones. Similar to odors, pheromones are volatile chemical substances that animals constantly give off through their skin or sweat but that are undetectable. Pheromones can stimulate specific reactions—especially mating—in other animals. Think of a female dog in heat attracting all those barking mate dogs in the neighborhood.

Classic studies show that menstruation is communicated, and synchronized, through pheromones among dorm mates in college. If women in dorms respond to one another's pheromones, then a man and a woman who share intimate space could certainly communicate chemical messages. These pheromones could biologically cue a man that his partner is pregnant and kick off the hormonal changes that prompt him to be a dad in deed as well as in seed. Pregnancy certainly could, in fact, be signaled.

The level of intimacy within a couple seems to be a factor in how a mother's body chemically signals approaching birth to a father. All of the men tested were living with their pregnant partners. Emotional closeness may also generate hormonal changes, although this possibility was not examined in detail. Still, couples reported feeling closer to their partner if they were taking about the baby and sharing details about the pregnancy.

Whether this is the cause or the result of hormonal changes remains unknown for now. But the intimacy effect and the subsequent hormonal shifts may also be the reason many men experience pregnancylike symptoms.

When he is not taking care of Seamus, Hudnut treats both men and women in his practice. He recalls several patients who came to him complaining of such typical pregnancy symptoms as weight gain and nausea—all of whom were men. He remembers one second-time father who knew that his wife was pregnant even before she told him. He started having morning sickness, just as he had during her first pregnancy.

Pregnancy symptoms in men are actually more common than most people believe. Two studies found that approximately 90 percent of men experience at least one pregnancy-related symptom, sometimes severe enough to prompt an expectant father to seek medical help.

According to a study reported in Annals of External Medicine, more than 20 percent of men with pregnant wives sought care for symptoms related to pregnancy "that could not otherwise be objectively explained." Unfortunately, like pregnancy symptoms in women, there is little that can be done to make the symptoms go away—except wait.

Pregnancy symptoms in men, however well documented, are generally dismissed as being all in the father-to-be's head. Now it seems they may also be in his hormones. Storey and her colleagues found that the men who experienced more pregnancy symptoms actually had higher levels of prolactin. They also had a greater reduction in testosterone after exposure to sounds of crying and other "infant cues" that simulated the experience of being with an actual baby.

For men who feel nauseated or gain weight, no one yet knows for sure whether the changes in hormones are to blame. Surging hormones, however, have long been blamed for women's morning sickness and other pregnancy side effects. The fact that men also experience hormone changes suggests it is more than empathy that causes many of them to feel their partner's pain.

While it now seems a father may accompany his wife on her hormonal roller coaster during pregnancy, interacting with the baby may keep his hormones spinning even after the birth.

It's no secret that hormone levels can change in response to behavior. Sex, sports and work success can all send testosterone production spiraling upward. Might not nurturing a child -- or conversely, the sight, sound and smell of a newborn -- also change fathers' levels of testosterone?

In the original study, the researchers asked couples to hold dolls that had been wrapped in receiving blankets worn by a newborn within the preceding 24 hours. (After their wives gave birth, fathers held their actual baby.) They listened to a six-minute tape of a real newborn crying and then watched a video of a baby struggling to breast-feed. The investigators took blood from the men and women before the test and 30 minutes later.

What they found is startling: Men who expressed the greatest desire to comfort the crying baby had the highest prolactin levels and the greatest reduction in testosterone. And testosterone levels plummeted in those men who held the doll for the full half-hour.

Even though scientists have long observed changes in animal and human behavior as a result of shifting hormone levels, they do not yet understand exactly how hormones accomplish such change. The hormone-behavior link remains one of the great mysteries of the brain. Perhaps hormones stimulate more neuron connections in the part of the brain responsible for nurturing. Or perhaps hormones encourage neurons in nurturing pathways to fire more quickly.

Wynne-Edwards thinks hormones might turn a two-lane pathway in the father's brain into a four-lane superhighway. A neural road expansion might make fathers better able to recognize the smell or sound of their baby. It might even act on smell receptors in the nose to mitigate the smell of a baby's dirty diaper. Countless are the ways in which hormones could influence a father's brain to be more responsive to his baby.

Although testosterone may be the "primary" male sex hormone, research makes it clear that other hormones are also significant, especially during the transition into fatherhood Wynne-Edwards believes the research is "a validation of the experiences that men know they have had. It also goes a long way to bumping testosterone off its pedestal as the only hormone that is important to men."

Parke believes that the research suggests something even more radical: "Men are much more androgynous than we think. We have the capability to be aggressive and nurturing. The traditional view of men as predominantly aggressive really sells men short and denies their capability to experience the range of human emotions.

The research suggests that a man's hormones may play an important role in helping him experience this full range of emotions especially in becoming a loving and devoted dad. In fact, it offers the first evidence that to nurture is part of man's nature.

...hundreds of thousands of caring, loving and responsible dads were separated from their children by narcissistic mothers, social workers and family court judges.

It is entirely possible that many of the mothers were not narcissistic, but rather had been abused, neglected or morally affronted by their husbands and wished to preserve a family atmosphere for the children without having to "normalize" socialist relations between the father and and share the children with their father's mistress who participated in breaking up the marriage. But such conservative thinking falls outside the scope of Marxist abstractions.

There's at a least a one in fifty chance.

My Dad was very masculine, yet was caring and gentle with all his kids.

I cannot speak for men, but I have read about men who claim that when they first laid eyes upon their first child, a surge of emotion flooded them such as they had never known before. This was true regardless of the gender of the child. Usually they described it as a feeling of such love, tenderless and a feeling of responsibility to defend the child. So, it is highly likely that this type of bonding has a hormonal aspect to it. The question is which come first? The emotion or the hormones? It must be partly instinct.

Funny you should mention that. Mine was just taken to the ER by the police. We were supposed to be having a lunch to discuss the divorce and finances and he started threatening suicide. Details, where, how, etc. I called 911 from the restaurant and they got him to go. I have NO doubt he’ll claim all sorts of wild things, probably including that i keep him from the 2 teens still at home (who don’t want anything to do with him anymore)
I know there are many stories, but it’s not all evil mommy keeping the kiddies from the poor maligned daddy.

I’m going to have to move. I know I will.

Dads can be great parents, but there’s nothing like a mom. Ask any kid, or ask any mom.

You sound like a divorce court judge. Mom trumps Dad, who gets his two weekends a month and is expected to shut up and accept it.

Your way of thinking is heading (thankfully) for the ashheap of history.

About “Equal Parenting”......it’s NOT always that easy.....I have a book to write about having tried it 25 + years ago with my ex for my son.....I even made sure he did not have to pay child support..... I should not have done it....he was not a very good father....although, thankfully, my son has turned out to be a pretty darned good one.

I disagree. Equal parenting 50/50 custody only works when that is what both parents want, they get along, and it works for the child. Making it law for all is rediculous if the parents don’t want 50/50. My sons father doesn’t want joint physical custody and to make it law that he has to have my son 50% of the time would rip my child to shreds. His dad puts him in day care on his time, is gone most of the time on business trips and left with his SM, and my son wants to just come home. ON my time he is home with his brother and a stay at home mother. If he had to go 50% of the time to his dads it would be worse for my child and he would be torn apart. Joint physical custody is not right for every divorced family.

I think you need to realize each case is different and should never be treated the same.

Hi Halls, re your:"Equal parenting 50/50 custody only works when that is what both parents want, they get along, and it works for the child. Making it law for all is rediculous if the parents don’t want 50/50."

Whatever they might negotiate as their preferred arrangement, it's important that the equal parental rights of both Father and Mother be explicit in law, and not subject to the whims and biases of public employees in robes.

If a Father agrees temporarily to less than 50/50 child custody, it should be with the clear understanding that his RIGHT to equal custody would be upheld by our legal system if his wishes were otherwise. Otherwise parents and their lawyers negotiate in a context of unfair coercion.

Justice is Conservative.

I still think making 50/50 physical custody law is wrong! Each case needs to be decided on what is best for the child. My sons father didn’t come into his life legally till he 4 years old. You think the standard would have been to take a 4 year old who hardly ever saw his father and make him go stay at his dads 50% of the time? Sorry, I disagree and again I will say each case needs to be handled differently and not ruled the same or the result could be disastrous for the child.

Hi Halls,re your:"Each case needs to be decided on what is best for the child. My sons father didn’t come into his life legally till he 4 years old. You think the standard would have been to take a 4 year old who hardly ever saw his father and make him go stay at his dads 50% of the time?..."

Unless either or both parents are demonstrably unfit, 'the best parent is both parents' and that upholds the 'best interests of the child' as well as the rights of both parents. Equal protection of the law is required by our Constitution (14th Amendment?) and objective Justice. As judicial public employees have long erred about this in family law, statutory guidelines upholding Fathers'Rights are the right remedy. Equal parental standing of Fathers and Mothers should be the rebuttable presumption of statutory Family Law, not subject to judicial whim.

Hypothetically, while your husband might not think it best that you have equal or any association with your child (and through the techniques of 'parental alienation syndrome' might persuade your child to say likewise) should that really be allowed to destroy your relationship with your kid? If you'd uphold your own parental rights of association with your child, why derogate the rights of others?

About 20 states now have Shared Parenting Guidelines in law. Yours should be one of them. If a state's Family Law isn't fair and pro-family, it's fundamentally destructive to most everything else in the state.

Justice is Conservative.

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