As a man who writes about fathers' issues, I often
receive e-mail asking for advice regarding the
e-mailer's case. It's often a man seeking advice
about his own divorce, but it's just as often his
mother.
What really mucks up the feminist plan of a polarized
society with men on one side and women and children
on the other is moms with sons. It turns out a lot
of moms actually love their sons and are angry at
how their sons are treated by family courts.
It's relatively easy for the feminists to take a
college woman and teach her to hate her father and
her boyfriend and all things masculine. But give
that same woman a son and she'll turn back into a
real human being with a heart, a mother who loves
her boy.
So, too, as a father of daughters, I can rant about
the feminists and the otherwise decent women who
listen to them, but that does not affect my love for
my daughters. I want them to be happy, to be treated
fairly, and to have the right to my presence in
their lives. They seem to want the same thing.
The advice I usually give those who write amounts to
the following:
Do the best you can in your situation, but
understand the deck is stacked against you.
Work to change the current system of family law.
And yet that advice is really the essence of the
problem: the individual man can rarely win the game
of family law because the deck is stacked against
him. Current family law, by design, gives the man
few cards he can play. Using the power of the state,
his wife can take away his children and his income
simply because she wants to. If the man fails to
deliver up his children and his income, he can be
jailed by the state, all without finding him guilty
of any crime except failing to give up his property
and his children as ordered.
The means the current system of family law must be
changed, but that's difficult for the individual to
do.
The most problematic issue for fathers is the custody
decision. A custody decision is not a decision that
grants rights to the winner (usually mom); it's a
decision that takes away the rights of the loser
(usually dad). The basis of that decision is the
judge's determination of who is the better
parent–mom or dad. A dad doesn't lose custody of his
children because he's a bad parent; he loses custody
because the judge believes he's not as good a parent
as mom.
The custody decision, biased in favor of the mother,
is the decision that allows judges and other
government officials to ignore a father's basic
Constitutional rights. If the father actually had
any rights, the system of sole mother custody could
not function. The "best interests of the child"
becomes the primary legal tool for denying fathers
their legal rights.
The system of sole mother custody would also
collapse if child support were not paid. Child
support is the oil that fuels the engine of divorce.
And the powers that be know this, which is one
reason so much effort is expended in collecting
child support.
The truth is that children need financial support.
The other truth is that if the government can simply
seize a man's income he has no way to resist the
government's power to seize his children. It's a
no-win situation for a divorced dad: pay your child
support, and the unfair system continues as is.
Don't pay your child support, and your children
suffer.
Giving mom sole custody means society has most of
its eggs in one basket. If mom doesn't make it,
neither does society. That pits the survival needs
of the society against the rights of the father. If
fathers actually had rights, they would threaten
society's survival.
Individual men have tried to resist the system, but
the machinery of the system is so vast it's usually
a futile effort. It's difficult for a man to take
his children and simply disappear. And child support
payment is enforced by both the federal and state
governments, using sophisticated data bases that
allow tracking of virtually everyone, though the
target is dads. It's Big Brother–or rather, Big
Sister–in action.
In other words, it's very difficult for the
individual man to win on his own for he has few
cards to play. The system makes sure of that. That
means his primary hope is to change the system.
Sure, a man can sometimes win, just as the gambler
can sometimes win the jackpot in Las Vegas, but the
odds are still in the casino's favor.
So what can men do? They have a few options.
One is to simply not play the game. If men don't
want the problems associated with divorce, they
should not get married. Modern family law gives men
little reason to get married and gives women little
reason to stay married.
Not playing the game also means avoiding sexual
relations with women, since even unmarried fathers
are now part of the system. In short, not playing
the game means a life with a good job, a good dog,
and a lifelong subscription to Playboy.
There are others: leaving the country or turning
gay. Some countries still believe men are human
beings, not just serfs to finance the divorce state.
Gay men don't have to worry about their partners
getting pregnant. Of course, a lot of gay men think
having the right to marry will give them the same
rights as straight men; that may be true, but it
also gives the government the same power over them
as it has over straight men.
Finally, men can work to change the system.
The most likely venue for change is the state
legislature. Courts have become a power unto
themselves, defining and redefining family law in
ways that define fathers out of existence. The state
legislatures gave the courts this power and the
legislatures can take it away.
That means fathers, the mighty patriarchs, must go,
hat in hand, to their local legislator and ask,
"Please, sir, can I have some more rights?"
And what rights should fathers ask for? The right to
presumptive shared custody, the right to have their
divorce heard by a jury, the right to define the
marriage contract in advance, the right to
reasonable support payments, and the elimination of
felony penalties, including jail, for failure to pay
child support.
Of course, most legislators won't listen, as I know
from experience. The state benefits too much from
divorce and child support to change the system. As
it is, the legislators can simply blame the courts;
if the legislators change the system, they can get
blamed.
Currently, the US government claims, rightly or
wrongly, that some $94 billion in child support is
owed. About 30% of that, or around $30 billion, is
actually owed to the states as reimbursement for
welfare costs. In addition, the states receive
federal reimbursements for their collection efforts
and incentive payments for increasing the amount of
support they collect. Child support supports the
states as much as it does children.
There are also state governors. But while some
governors are willing to sign pro-father
legislation, most know they will not get elected if
they push too hard for fathers' rights. Most
politicians know, as Bill Clinton knew, that they
can't afford to rile up the feminists.
Still, some politicians do. Ron Paul, a Republican
congressman from central Texas, has voted against
federal child support legislation because he
believes the federal government lacks the power to
govern domestic issues.
But if the judges and the legislators and the
governors won't listen, that leaves the final
solution.
I'm not yet ready to take that solution, but I know
from my e-mail that some men are.
Modern family law has destroyed more than marriage.
It has also destroyed the fundamental rights of
fathers and men to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness.
At one time a few men began a revolution because
their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness was denied by a distant king.
If we do not learn from history, we are doomed to
repeat it.
In the meantime, support your local fathers' rights
activists, from Fathers 4 Justice to the American
Coalition for Fathers and Children.
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Ron Jagannathan,
As a man who writes about fathers' issues, I often
receive e-mail asking for advice regarding the
e-mailer's case. It's often a man seeking advice
about his own divorce, but it's just as often his
mother. 
So, too, as a father of daughters, I can rant about
the feminists and the otherwise decent women who
listen to them, but that does not affect my love for
my daughters. I want them to be happy, to be treated
fairly, and to have the right to my presence in
their lives. They seem to want the same thing.
