ROUND TWO

MND Roundtable Discussion on
Fathers' Rights and the Marriage Movement

There are two sides to every story.  For a moment, put yourself on this side:

You are a married father of two.  Your marriage isn’t ecstatic, but you know that occasional problems are a part of every marriage, and you’re in it for the long haul.  You work hard in order to provide for your wife and children.  Because of your job, you don’t get to spend as much time as you’d like with your kids, but you love being a father.  The best part of your day is when you get home after work and play with your kids.  Life isn’t blissful, but, all things considered, things are okay.

Then, one day, your wife tells you that she wants a divorce.

She refuses your pleas for marital counseling; she’s already made up her mind.  You don’t want the divorce, but you’re powerless to do anything about it.  The next thing you know you’re in family court.  The judge gives her the kids, the house, and the car.  You are ordered to pay a significant portion of your salary in child support.  You fall into debt.

Your ex-wife doesn’t want you to be involved in your children’s lives.  All she wants is your money.  She gets a new boyfriend, who moves in with her and your kids.  Finally, they all move away to another state.  You haven’t been able to see your kids in over a year.

Meanwhile, in the public sphere, politicians from both parties beat up on “deadbeat dads” and preach about “responsible” fatherhood.  Single moms are sainted.  On television, public service announcements exhort you to spend time with your kids, because “It takes a man to be a dad.”  What, so now you’re not a man anymore?  Even though most divorces are initiated by women, absent fathers are universally depicted as the bad guys. 

What happened to you was unfair and unjust.  But other than fellow dads in similar situations, few in the broader public seem to care.  Pro-marriage writers who should be on your side dismiss fathers’ rights activists as a “small but vocal” group.  So darn right you’re angry.

That, of course, is just one side of the story.  But, more or less, that seems to be where many fathers’ rights activists are coming from.  They (understandably) feel a burning sense of injustice and anger.  They bring this fervor to their advocacy.  And that, perhaps, is the biggest problem.  With their strident tone and sweeping allegations of conspiracy or bias, they often end up being their own worst enemies.  After all, the tale told above is only one side of the story.  Why should a skeptic (i.e., me) accept one side of the story at face value?

Yes, fathers’ rights advocates have anecdotal evidence aplenty.  But there’s anecdotal evidence aplenty for the other side, too. 

Yes, not all fathers’ rights advocacy adopts such an abrasive tone.  But most of it does. 

Here I’d like to add a preemptive rejoinder to the response that I’m engaging in a baseless bit of psychoanalysis.  Shouldn’t I stick to facts and substantive arguments? 

That’s the thing: the substantive arguments of fathers’ rights activists strike me as so implausible that I can’t help but ask myself, “How can anyone believe this stuff?”  Stuff like:

• “We are living in the anti-male age, where men are the new scapegoats for all of society's evils.”
• “[T]he hysteria over domestic violence is largely geared toward one aim: removing children from their fathers.”
• “[A]ny serious young guy knows: Western women are sabotaging the [courtship] game. They have become indifferent towards men and scathing towards good men.”

Or, from the first round of this discussion:

• “Tens of millions of US citizens [have] lost their fundamental rights.  The ‘public-private partnership’ in child support became one of the largest examples of political corruption in US history. The financial and political interests are so well entrenched that it's still going on today, years after they've been caught.”

• “[G]overnment no longer maintains public order by enforcing contracts. Now government regulates private life by assuming control of children while trying to save their parents' marriages. But government still performs its inescapably coercive role; it still incarcerates and kills. Only now it incarcerates and, on occasion, kills the parents whose children it has seized and whose marriages it cannot save.”

What “fundamental rights” have been wiped out?  Government, on occasion, kills parents whose children it has seized?

Tom Sylvester