ROUND THREE

MND Roundtable Discussion on
Fathers' Rights and the Marriage Movement

In Round One, I suggested that the marriage movement should steer clear of partnering with fathers’ rights advocates despite shared goals of promoting involved fatherhood and reducing unnecessary divorce.  Why?  As I mentioned last time, fathers’ rights activists are typically so angry that they alienate relatively objective outsiders.  But it also seems to me that the fathers’ rights argument--at least the one outlined by Stephen Baskerville and Roger F. Gay--is flawed.

Now I’m not disagreeing that courts tend to give custody to mothers following divorce (this may or may not be a bad thing), or that child support enforcement may be too unforgiving in some circumstances.  Nor would I disagree that some mothers wrongly try to keep fathers away from their children or poison father-child relationships by bashing the non-resident father in front of their kids. 

I’m not an expert on divorce and custody laws.  Studies do suggest that divorce is much rougher emotionally for men than for women.  And research by Margaret Brinig and Douglas Allen does suggest that custody laws may affect divorce rates more than is commonly assumed.

Yet the fathers’ rights position outlined in this discussion goes far beyond these concerns.  Stephen Baskerville posits that an informal “divorce industry” of family court judges, lawyers, and bureaucratic police destroys families by ripping fathers away from their children.  Roger F. Gay repeatedly asserts that fundamental family rights have been eliminated.

This seems a bit much.

Dr. Baskerville blames the “divorce industry” for high divorce rates.  At times, he seems to imply that the government essentially goes into homes and tears families apart.  But, as Baskerville well knows, it’s a spouse (indeed, often the wife) who goes to court to file for divorce.  Even though women are more likely to file for divorce than men, spouses are obviously leaving marriages for a reason.  So it’s difficult for me to see how courts—or the divorce industry—are the primarily problem.  I agree that it’s a good idea to re-analyze these laws and consider longer waiting periods, but it still seems to me that Baskerville overemphasizes the supposedly nefarious role of the courts.  Why is it that few, if any, scholars share Baskerville’s perspective?

My main problem with Roger F. Gay’s argument is that I don’t understand it.  I just don’t know what he is talking about regarding the supposed elimination of fundamental family rights.  I don’t think most people would know what he’s talking about.  Exactly what fundamental rights have been scrapped?  How?  If this is indeed the case, why are so few people aware of it?  A concrete example or two would be helpful here.

Most importantly, fathers’ rights proposals for presumptive joint custody seem unlikely to improve child well-being.  Joint custody may be preferable when divorced parents have a relatively conflict-free relationship.  However, the jury is still out regarding the best custody arrangement for kids.  It makes sense to me that, in a typical case, it’s better for children to be with their mothers, who have done the bulk of childrearing, than to bounce constantly back and forth between parents.  And if a split is messy and parental conflict continues post-divorce, it seems likely that joint custody (or “equal custody”) might be harmful to children by continuing to expose them to that conflict.

Now, it’s true that fathers’ rights advocates—as well as pro-marriage advocates—highlight the negative effects of father absence.  But fathers’ rights advocates fail to note that research is spotty on the impact of non-resident father involvement on child well-being.

In this roundtable, it doesn’t look like we’re making much progress toward consensus, or even a “hey, reasonable people can disagree” position.  Our assumptions are often so different that it’s taking a while to understand each other’s positions, and where the specific disagreements lie.  What is obvious to Baskerville and Gay (and probably many MND readers) is unclear to non-fathers-rights insiders like myself.

Tom Sylvester