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April 22, 2005
New Article Up!
Thanks to the blogosphere, I have been discovered by Alternet. Alternet's blog, Peek, already links to me, and one of the editors asked me for an article. I wrote one about presumptive joint custody. To read it, go to the link below:
I hope to write more articles for Alternet.
Posted on April 22, 2005 at 03:26 PM | Permalink
Comments
This one here. I was amazed. Such sensible 'speak' coming from someone with so much dripping contempt for anything father's rightish (double-snark). Very well written.
I even posted it.
Posted by: Masculiste at Apr 22, 2005 3:45:40 PM
Triple-snark. I always write sensible stuff. I have nothing against fathers. I just think the fathers' rights movement causes more problems for everyone.
Posted by: Trish Wilson at Apr 22, 2005 4:33:35 PM
It was an excellent article...saying nothing different then you always do...that this sort of arrangment works BEST when the parents agree to it...forcing it however is a different story...
Thus it's probably not applicable to the very people who want to make it presumptive...as they wish to FORCE mothers to accept it...
YET, ultimately I think Joint Custody will become, if not presumptive, hard to NOT agree to as there will be great pressure on mothers to accept in UNLESS the childrens' father is practically ax murderer...AND it will be applicable to never married mothers as well...They will be forced to accept it too...many are forced already even having to send nursing infants off for long periods of time...
But the article was very good...
Congratulations...
Posted by: NYMOM at Apr 22, 2005 5:02:29 PM
Excellent stuff (as always!) - congratulations!
Posted by: Spicy at Apr 22, 2005 5:41:13 PM
" I just think the fathers' rights movement causes more problems for everyone."-That's what they said about feminism too.
As always, I agree with you that presumption doesn't work in any case where physical or psychological abuse exists. The way Tennessee just OK'd presumption, that's the way it was intended. That's the way it will work.
Posted by: Masculiste at Apr 22, 2005 7:09:11 PM
I'm aware of the Tennessee bill. It passed in the Senate, but it has to yet pass in the House. I'm sure it will, and I think it's a bad idea. Tennessee already allows for joint custody if both parents agree to it. Presumptive joint custody doesn't take children's needs into account. It has been problematic when couples don't agree between themselves to do it. It's been that way for twenty years. My article described some of those problems, even including the organization in Massachusetts that helps parents who have joint custody. Those are families where there is no physical or psychological abuse. Joint custody when both parents don't agree is a great stressor on children. It asks a lot of them, simply because dad wants 50/50 custody. Nevada had the right idea when it recently refused presumptive joint custody. It recognized that the children's needs and welfare need to come before adult demands.
Also, if it does pass in Tennessee, it remains to be seen if the courts will actually rule according to it. I've read posts by fathers' rights activists complaining that presumptive joint custody in Iowa is not being followed through.
Posted by: Trish Wilson at Apr 22, 2005 8:50:46 PM
"Presumptive joint custody doesn't take children's needs into account. It has been problematic when couples don't agree between themselves to do it. It's been that way for twenty years. My article described some of those problems."
These are all true points. And the Tenn.Bill says that all these points can be made if one or the other parent does not agree with the presumption.
YOUR way, the NCP has to immediately go to court in order to demonstrate he is a fit parent. Even then, there is no assurance that an angry ex will not sabetage any good the NCP attempts. As in mine and MANY cases...
The Tenn. Bill way, my ex would have had to ask for a hearing to show why I SHOULDN'T be granted joint custody.
Also, in my humble opinion, "Solomon's Solution" doesn't address joint LEGAL custody implications(which are AS important) inasmuch as it addresses potential problems with PHYSICAL custody (in a delightfully respectful way I might add)
If we as dads weren't repeatedly told by our ex's that-"when the kids are with you(dad) THAT'S ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THEM. When they're with me(mom), it's none of your fucking business WHAT I do with them!"-none of this would even be an issue.
But it is and here we are. And Presumptive Joint Custody DOES take kids into consideration in the same manner as expressed above. If any family member thinks it won't work, they can ask for a hearing on the matter.
I could say more on this but I won't. Shine on and congrats again.
Posted by: Masculiste at Apr 22, 2005 9:26:14 PM
"The Tenn. Bill way, my ex would have had to ask for a hearing to show why I SHOULDN'T be granted joint custody."
That's exactly my point. How many women, young women especially, are going to have the money and/or the foresight to request a hearing and dispute this automatic Joint Custody designation. Especially when you frequently hear of age range difference like 17 for a woman and 37 for a man...
AND it will probably be like New York, where even though it's not supposed to happen unless BOTH parents agree, many young women are intimidated into it and then can't change it later... as you are NOT allowed for a year or two to go back to court unless abuse or neglect is involved...and it includes never married mothers as well...
Why should they have to send a newborn for half a week OR MORE, depending upon what they agreed on, into someone else's care...Most mothers want their babies with THEM, where they should BE, not being tossed around like an old shoe between differing household or caretakers (as many of these men dump these kids off with others even g/f they barely know)...I would NOT have wanted my babies anywhere else either...
This is NOT good for children...but for men...that's who it favors...no one else...
Posted by: NYMOM at Apr 22, 2005 10:18:36 PM
Trish, very well-written, interesting, and informative article. I agree with your conclusion, that joint custody is a fine idea if the divorcing couple have what it takes to make it work, but laws requiring a one-size-fits-all presumption in favor of joint custody are truly wrong-headed. My ex-husband and I do have joint custody of our daughter, now 15. For us, it has worked extremely well, and I was struck quite forcefully by what your article said about the characteristics of families in which joint custody is successful. My ex-husband and I fit that list almost completely. The only one we don't match with is being financially well-off. But all the others apply. We have a cooperative relationship; there was a minimal amount of conflict at the time of divorce; we live near each other and have a commitment to keep it that way; we have only one child; and I have not remarried. My ex-husband HAS remarried, but even there, things were done well. His wife was not previously married, has no children of her own, has a very low-key, pleasant personality; and my daughter likes her.
So, joint custody was definitely the best solution for us, but I can totally agree that the only reason it HAS been the best solution is because both of us were willing and able to make it work. It doesn't just work by default. You have to make it work.
Posted by: Kathy at Apr 22, 2005 11:33:27 PM
Great job, Trish!
Posted by: silverside at Apr 23, 2005 8:09:53 AM
"...we have only one child; and I have not remarried."
You didn't say how long you've been in this Joint Custody situation now. Do you feel your life has been put on hold in anyway because of it....since it also seems like the situations where it works best are the ones where neither of the participants ever remarries again, has other children, has to move due to career changes, has to re-arrange their schedule in anyway for night classes, job responsibillities like deployments, etc.,
So it actually almost seems like you have to keep a 'bastardized' form of the original marriage you were in going, in order to be a successful Joint Custodian...and since women have such a shorter shelf life then men for finding new relationships, I'm wondering if there is other damage being done to women's lives that we are not even aware of yet...
Posted by: NYMOM at Apr 23, 2005 9:06:09 AM
That's not true NYMOM. Sure some things get put on hold, but there is nothing stopping either partner from getting seriously involved down the road or moving on to do whatever they want to do. Of course, whoever has the physical custody of the kids has more work to do, but that is just the nature of raising kids. It's all in how you choose to handle it.
The Tenn Bill puts you at the table to work that kind of stuff out in the beginning. Step families can and do work very well when the extended (step) family members work at it.
Marriage takes work. Not all of it fun. Parenthood takes work. Same principle applies. Hell, I HATE the dentist ("Is is safe?" SLO from MM)
So to must divorce and child custody take work. And sure, it ain't no party, but the ultimate goal is the kid's happiness and well-being. Eliminating one parent or the other can screw a kid up for the rest of their lives. Discouraging that makes everyone better for having WORKED at it.
All of these things also take patience, restraint, money and sometimes even therapy. And they take these things from both sides EQUALLY. Sorry, that's the "price" part of equality ladies.
The best interests of a child in the "where should a kid live?" department can always be worked out under the joint custody presumption. And it will become a much more efficient and less time consuming affair because it will become standardized. Sometimes it may go to women, and sometimes it may go to men. And customized agreements can still always be made at the table and enforced down the road if necessary. And again, the presumption is exempted in the event of a history of demonstrated abuse.
But the on-going involvement with a child's health, school, religious and therapuetic needs can and should still be encouraged and maintained. It should be a 'given.' Exempt again, in the event of a history of demonstrated abuse.
So the Tenn Bill also insures and standardizes a presumption regarding legal issues. And at the table, all the particulars can be worked out.
No matter where the kids ultimately live, ALL adults intimately connected with these kids 'have a duty' to work together to maintain civility, access, and normalcy for those kids. Anybody who CAN'T or WON'T get along for the sake of the kids shouldn't "SOLELY" have the kids.
Posted by: Masculiste at Apr 23, 2005 11:14:01 AM
"And it will become a much more efficient and less time consuming affair because it will become standardized. Sometimes it may go to women, and sometimes it may go to men."
Well I'm sorry but that's just not good enough.
Women are NOT going to go through all the inconvenience, disfigurement, stress and sheer bloodiness of birthing kids just to hand them over to whoever at the end of it...
It's NOT going to happen...
For some reason MRAs and feminist, gender-neutralized, social engineers cannot get it throught their thick heads that women are NOT going to go for this, so men can pay less childs support and some gender-neutralized idiot can have more fodder for her next book project...
The reality is just the opposite as anyone can see who honestly assesses the current chaos in our family court system, the sheer magnitude of the increase in parental abductions, custody fights and the tremendous drop in women even having children. I mean almost 49% of professional women aren't even having kids and that will eventually filter down to other classes of women as well...Actually it already has as black teenagers' birthrates have dropped tremendously, probably leading to a steep drop overall in African-Americans birth rates as the next census will show, since those teenagers were the engines of growth for their community...
What you are doing now is exactly what men did in the 60s when you all decided you wanted to be Hugh Hefner and not get married anymore, just experiment...and look what happened then...within a generation women just got used to it and had kids w/o the benefit of marriage and those kids are doing just fine in spite of the bs stats you MRAs like to cite all the time...
So your actions then just backfired on you as the game went on w/o skipping a beat...you made yourselves irrelevant...and if you continue with your current nonsense, that's where you'll be heading again...as women will just start using other avenues to have children and NOT give you any legal inroad into their families right from the beginning...but many of you are aware of that already I think which is why you all spend so much time trying to make it difficult for single mothers to be successful...as they signal the beginning of the end of man's ability to manipulate women by holding her kids hostage...
Posted by: NYMOM at Apr 23, 2005 12:22:07 PM
"Hmmmm," I said while chuckling to myself.
Posted by: Masculiste at Apr 23, 2005 1:48:34 PM
I might have to ignore you for a while as my blood pressure has been consistently high for over a week now...I'm not saying you're the sole cause of it but I think you MRAs and other gender neutralized social engineers COULD be aggravating me to death...
No big deal...
...but you appear to have a very snide way of negating issues that I and I think many other mothers consider important...
Posted by: NYMOM at Apr 23, 2005 2:04:47 PM
First of all, congrats on the article! That's really great (and well-deserved).
Second of all: "'My ex does give my son his asthma medications,' she says." Should the "does" in that sentence be "doesn't"?
Posted by: Ampersand at Apr 25, 2005 12:03:24 PM
Yeah, that should be "My ex does not give my son his asthma medications." Apparently, that one got past the proofreader.
Posted by: Trish Wilson at Apr 25, 2005 12:09:08 PM
