Another view of Male Activism

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He calls himself a MRA, but he fits more with what I usually call a Men's Activist or a Masculinist.
http://www.langcultcog.com/traumatized/?p=944

I would be more inclined to this if the issue of child custody were framed, as it should be, from the perspective of the best interests of the child.

I am fed up to the teeth with arguments that view child custody as a dispute between two parents. Custody of children is not a prize to be won in a contest with the other parent. If courts are skewed in favour of women then the proper response is not to reverse the skew to a more balanced approach, but to get rid of the skew altogether and focus on the only relevant question that should be answered: where do the best interests of each child lie?

My interpretation of the article must have been very different from yours.

He seemed to be concentrating on the behaviour, opinions, and statements of those who are external to custody battles: Those who assume that women should always get custody (which he thinks is wrong); those who assume that giving him full custody was a grave mistake on the part of the family court (which he obviously thinks is wrong). The emphasis was not on who should get custody in a particular instance (I don't doubt he would agree that the child belongs in the environment that is best for the child). Rather, it was on the impact of pre-conceived notions regarding gender affecting such decisions and how they are viewed after the fact.

I think the first comment from his readers had it spot on: To be egalitarian, you have to be a feminist and male-rights activist in equal measure.

The best interest of the child is exactly what I am talking about, because it isn't always in the best interest of the child to be with the mother. I have no desire to reverse anything. I want to see all preconceived assumptions about who should have the child/ren after a split thrown out. I want the paradigm to be such that if parents have to deal with the courts for custody conflicts, the courts baseline is to assume that both parents should have an equal claim, unless, or until one parent proves the other should not.

My framing was, as cave_canem suggests, about the problems inherent to the system. And to be clear, I accept that it's likely that in most cases it would be in the best interest of the kids to primarily be with their mother, if not an even split. The problem is that when those who are not directly involved in the relationships have engaged the bulk of their decision making processes before even meeting the families, it is *never* in the best interest of the child.

LKL -

I specifically refer to myself as an MRA, because I am tired of spiteful misogynists claiming that term. The very notion that equality is somehow at odds with the rights of men isn't just absurd, it's repugnant.

As a person who has directly been involved in the "family" courts first as a foster parent and then in my own divorce/custody
issues can say judges are prolly the worst people to make these decisions drawing lots would work better.

not sure whereabouts you are, but i can confirm that in the uk, family law is something of a joke. that's coming from experience in several contexts. not directly (i don't have children) but observing from the point of view of close personal acquaintances and in a professional context.

personally, i think judges are probably the worst people to make decisions on a fair number of different issues...

My personal take: it's probably an ok assumption that the 'primary care provider' is the best person to take the children in the event of a split, but it's not an ok assumption that the primary care provider is the female partner in a male/female partnership, especially if both parties work. Most of the time it will be the woman (though less so with younger couples), but often not.
Best of all for the kids, of course, is if both parties can agree between themselves without taking the whole thing to court. I'm very glad that my parents didn't involve me and my brother in the struggle when they split up.

^^^

Primary caregiver is not a particularly good assumption. My Mum's job was to take care of me. Dad simply did not have the time, as he was always working. The best person raise a child in the event of a split is the person who is most dedicated and capable. As a result when my parents split my Dad and I were not particularly close. My mother proved unable to take care of me, even with my father providing financial support once the split occurred she was fundamentally lax in her duty of care towards me. If the court had simply asked me, then it would have been a simple fix. The court eventually did ask, but not before placing me with my mum and her abusive boyfriend for the better part of a year. My Dad had to fight the system tooth and nail with everything he had just to keep me from a dangerous situation. The assumption that the primary caregiver is the person best equipped was a major impediment to the situation resolving itself.

I therefor have zero patience for those who support the status-quo. The portrayal of men who are against the status-quo as misogynistic idiots is just something we ought to outright reject.

My issue is that this argument should never enter the family law context, whether from external observers or from interested parties (other than the children, themselves).

I don't disagree with the view that judges are poorly placed to make these decisions, not because of the nature of judges--but because in many jurisdictions we have created a legislative and jurisprudential framework that impedes rational decisions making.

If I learned one thing in law school it was this: the best resolution of a dispute is the resolution reached by the parties themselves.
If I learned one thing in medical school it was this: sometimes the best thing to do is nothing at all.

So rather than continuing to tie ourselves in knots about "fathers' rights," perhaps the very best thing to do is to get out of the way. The vast majority of divorcing parents are perfectly capable of coming up with a workable scheme for the custody and guardianship of their children. Of the minority that can't, perhaps the best thing to do is allow the courts the time and resources to facilitate meaningful custody and access arrangements that serve the interests of children, rather than the litigiousness of their parents.

James -

While it would definitely be preferable for things to work out outside the context of the courts (and it often does), sometimes the courts are necessary. In my situation, I am trying to protect my children from a relatively unlikely eventuality. What I want from the courts is something that my children's mother wouldn't have to go to court over in the first place. And this isn't a matter of petty aggression over our splitting up - it is a matter of securing my children's safety and stability. I have had full custody of my children for just over a year now - after their mother had run off with them for two years. The upshot of the situation is that she essentially ignored my three year old. My nine year old will likely be dealing with the scars she inflicted on his self-esteem and psychological stability for much of his life. Between everything being done for his mental health, I have averaged about twenty hours a week *specifically* dealing with treatment that we hope will get him up to what his grade level should be and able to manage his behavior well enough to go to a regular public school.

I would love to have the luxury of an amicable agreement with my ex. Unfortunately that is not likely to ever work. She unilaterally decided to take off with the boys. She decided to go on again and then abruptly off her psych meds - again. She then unilaterally decided I should take the boys* and disappeared to homelessness in Portland, OR. My youngest misses her some, but has mostly decided that *I* am momma now. My eldest sways back and forth between hating her for several reasons and missing her terribly. But even though this has been documented by different people who have been working with him, even though the logistical issues can be proven and in spite of my having a signed affidavit relinquishing custody of the boys to me - the courts in my state will assume she has primary custody until I can prove she should not. It has been over a year and I am still waiting for the point when I can go to court without her present to get legal primary custody.

This isn't about petty crap, it is about nothing less than the survival of my children and the quality of their lives. I don't want to prevent their mother from seeing them, I want to ensure that she cannot do anything to jeopardize the progress that has been made in their healing - or their stability. It is as likely as not that we will never see her again. She has called three times and written three times in over a year. She has promised to come see them and hasn't. When last I communicated with her, I tried to offer her a line to communicate with them - but she would need to speak with me and possibly my eldest's therapist before that would even be considered. I offered to send her a phone card so she would have the minutes that would require, without costing her. There has been nothing. But I need to ensure that in the unlikely event she comes remotely close to getting herself together, that she can't just drop back into our lives on a whim and at her pleasure.

If the system worked the way it should, the baseline assumption of the court would be that neither of us should have primacy of custody over the other - and I would be able to go to court with the information I have and get primary custody, without waiting for the prosecuting attorney's office to officially declare their inability to find her. And mind you, the only reason they are looking is for child support I don't even want. But I have to have a legal entity trying to find her, before I can apply for an ex parte custody hearing. While I wouldn't argue it should be easy to get such a hearing, I have enough documentation to prove it unreasonable for me to be required to find her to serve her with papers. As it stands - absent as she has been and in spite of everything that has happened, she *still* holds most of the cards. That is the problem with the system and an example of why the system needs to be changed, even as we need to work towards that system needing to be used far less.

* I wasn't aware of her abuse of my eldest until he started opening up about what had happened - the sorts of things she said to him - including calling him a dumbass, F***ing stupid and worse. She even told him that if his behavior didn't improve she would leave - which she subsequently did.

I think that we can all agree that a parent of either gender who refuses to take prescribed psych meds, is homeless, is abusive, is a dead-beat, defies court orders, etc. is probably not the best caretaker for the children.

@ 91: in your case it didn't work, but statistically the parent who stays home with the specific goal of looking after the children is going to be the parent who spends the most time looking after the children.

The 1998 introduction to the older book "The Manipulated Man" by Esther Vilar, is still very relevant, as is much in the entire book, such as the chapter "Children as Hostages" in the first edition (1972), (preview often at books-dot-google, and/or amazon-dot-com for new intro).

No, we don't agree "that a parent of either gender who refuses to take prescribed psych meds, is homeless, is abusive, is a dead-beat, defies court orders, etc. is probably not the best caretaker for the children." The word "probably" doesn't weight much. With my web-browser, a Google search for "MMPI divorce" returns many contentious issues, and add the "FBS" (Fake Bad Scale) to further undermine the notion of any real psych "science" being involved. Being successful with Capitalism also doesn't seem to be a good measure of "family" measures, despite various labels as "homeless", "dead-beat", "court orders", etc. The word "abusive" has a very obtuse usage too, especially when involving "discipline". For example, the court ordered programs from "tough love" to "authoritarian military tortures": http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2 ... -camp.html
http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_19353747


Some parents have been required, by courts, to pay thousands of dollars to have their children tortured to death for the child's psychological benefit.

Tadzio

Ok, I should have said 'the vast majority of us,' instead of 'all' (even though I meant those of us reading this thread, not the world at large).
Also: while the terms I used are not quantitative, I don't think that it invalidates their usage in describing what can be labeled by most people as 'bad parenting.'

Is this "vast majority of us" like Nixon's "silent majority"? Come to think of it, President Nixon was abusive, defied court orders, and was somewhat of a "dead-beat". Then, Martha Mitchell, involving Nixon, had the "Martha Mitchell effect" named after her involving her spouse's, and Nixon's, exploiting conduct with psych issues and medicines. Her being "incarcerated" over bogus psych issues, implied not being "home" in the "household". If children were involved, then, those are all elements of "bad parenting"?

Compared to usage of the MMPI regarding "bad parenting" potentials, "non-quantitative" terms are rather more subjective, and subjectiveness precludes most all satisfaction of concepts of any validity. Now when quantitated rankings are converted to qualitative rankings and interpretations with any psych "cookbook", that's when bizarre issues in any open argument reveals that an affirmative answer to things such as "Do you like red sports cars?" weights which spouse gets the children.

Much as in E. Fuller Torrey's "The Mind Game: Witchdoctors and Psychiatrists", these used ranking scales and cookbooks in each individual case, must be kept "Top-Secret", or everybody might start wondering why self-righteous and careless social-psych witchdoctors are allowed the weighting for the allotting of peoples' children.

Then also, as if assumptions about "those people" weren't bad enough, the problems of assumptions about "those most of us" are here too.

Tadzio

in denmark the word of the child counts for far more than the parents,
problem is they require a whole army of psychologists and other specialists to make sure the child says what it means.

then comes the consideration for the ability of parents afterwards and finally the phase where they try various sharing plans, in denmark full on forced custody is relatively rare.

I freely admit that I probably wouldn't be the best parent. I'd do better as a breadwinner than as a primary caretaker, and I accept that it would mean losing primary custody if I were ever to split with the hypothetical other parent of my hypothetical children.