Posted on 09/30/2003 7:09:27 PM PDT by WillowyDame
Clara Harris, a Texas woman who was convicted of murdering her husband in March, was just granted joint custody of her twin five year-old boys. The ruling validates what fathers' and children's advocates have been saying for years -- when it comes to children, many courts believe that mothers can do no wrong.
While Clara Harris' murder conviction was not enough to deprive her of equal rights to her children, hundreds of thousands of fathers have been thrown out of their homes and driven out of their children's lives by unfounded accusations of domestic violence. According to Washington family law attorney Lisa Scott, most courts grant restraining orders to practically any woman who applies, and domestic violence accusations are very effective at depriving fathers of custody and visitation rights after divorce. She says:
Most restraining orders do not even involve an allegation of physical violence. For most judges, the woman saying she ‘feels afraid' of her husband is enough. Men have no way to defend themselves against these accusations. How do you argue against a feeling?
While both the judge and the attorney appointed by the court to represent Harris' two sons saw value in preserving the bond between the children and a mother who is a convicted murderer, many courts are unable to see the value of the bonds between children and decent, law-abiding fathers. Studies show that visitation interference and move-aways are a major problem for divorced fathers, yet courts are indifferent at best to enforcing fathers' visitation rights, and generally permit divorced mothers to move children hundreds or thousands of miles away from their fathers. This is despite the fact that the rates of school dropouts, teenage pregnancy, juvenile crime, and teen drug abuse are more tightly correlated with fatherlessness than with any other major socioeconomic factor, including income and race.
While in the Harris case a mother was able to win joint custody from a prison cell, decent fathers who have never had any brush with the law beyond a traffic ticket often cannot. Studies show that in contested cases mothers are granted sole custody over fathers by a margin of eight to one. According to research conducted by Sanford Braver, author of Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myths, divorced mothers are five times as likely to be satisfied with their post-divorce child custody arrangements as divorced fathers are. In Braver's study, three-quarters of divorced men and one in four divorced women believed that the system is slanted in favor of mothers, while only one in ten women and none of the men surveyed thought it favors fathers.
The "woman good/man bad" mentality of our family courts often hurts children by blindly favoring mothers and placing barriers between fathers and the children who love them and need them. The Harris ruling -- where even a mother who is a convicted murderer is still not seen as being an unfit parent -- demonstrates just how deep-seated and destructive this mentality is.
equal justice!! man or woman!!!
that man-killing frog is no better than any male killer!
Question #2 - if she's so rotten then why did you have kids with her?
Well, okay. But what if she's a serial adultress? What if she becomes addicted to drugs? Becomes abusive herself? These things happen, and more than you might be inclined to think. People always change, and sometimes it's for the worse.
Question #3 - if you love your kids so much then why did you break up?
See above. There are occasions (though they're not THAT common) where it's actually healthier for the parents to be separated.
Question #4 - did you decide to go for custody *before or after* you found out how much child support will cost?
Because that's the only reason men ever go for custody, right?
Question #5 - is it possible for you to realize how hard custody battles are on the KIDS and do your best to act like a mensch for a change?
I suppose your definition of being a mensch is for men to just roll over and take whatever screwing might be planned for them?
Question #6 - did you ever realize that normal people don't have knock-down, drag-out custody ordeals? Even when they get divorced, they treat each other with respect and work out a cooperative arrangement with the kids' best interests at heart
Eh, you might be surprised at what a small percentage of divorces actually work out this way. Oftentimes, one spouse or the other is a whack-job or just plain vindictive. Sometimes both. I dunno what's worse - a divorce where one or both parties try to screw the other over, or one where one parent just doesn't care.
Snidely
I fart in your general direction Jerk
Except I'm not. Happily married, couple kids. Thanks for playing, Skippy.
Really, I can't see that it matters in any event - the issue here is custodial parents, no? If Mom is a whackjob, or a crankhead, or a whore, she really shouldn't have custody, should she?
And are you seriously gonna say that the divorce and custody laws aren't skewed just a wee bit unfairly towards women in this country? The "fathers' rights" crowd might be off base, but you seem to be as well.
Snidely
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