Child Custody for Fathers - Divorce: Fighting for, about, and around kids

Child Custody for Fathers - Divorce: Fighting for, about, and around kids

Times Bulletin - Sunday, August 24, 2008

Actions for divorce are like any other civil suit wherein the rights and duties of parties are decided and judgment is rendered. That is, aside from the fact that at the end of the case, both sides are still really mad.

There are exceptions, but the general rule is that if a judge or magistrates decides the outcome of who gets custody of the kids and on what days, everyone feels cheated. Dissolutions, which are simply divorces where the parties agree how to divide everything prior to filing in court, are always preferable but often impossible in the emotionally charged time of separation.

The legal issues of property settlement in a divorce, apart from alimony, are fairly cut and dry - everything acquired during the marriage that is not a gift or devise directly to one of the spouses gets divided in half. Problems deal mainly in valuations. For the calculation of alimony, it seems to matter more where you are getting a divorce than to whom you were married - it varies county to county.

Dividing a child is obviously more difficult. The wisdom of King Solomon is often needed and absolutely inadmissible in divorce court. (Solomon's proposal to halve the child really wasn't all that clever - what kind of hooligan would actually agree to cut the child in half in front of someone who was in the process of writing a book of the Bible? I think everyone already knew the likely outcome of it all when the retrobate showed up to the hearing with her face all exposed wearing a worn-out Ravi Shankar concert T-shirt.)

I always encourage parties who are considering a divorce to try to get separated before they file. Usually, issues surrounding children (and property) will settle into what they ought to be and, a month or so later, the parties are often cordial (numb) enough to negotiate the stray issues. Parents should be aware, however, that denying visitation during this separation period will not bode well for the custody portion of their divorce should a dissolution be unworkable.

The written law is that child custody will be decided in the best interests of the minor child. The unwritten law seems to be that a mother will get custody of the children until there is a reason not to give it to her. This is bad for fathers, sure, but we are the gender more prone to mindlessly watch the game than to spend hours pondering which side of the family the baby more resembles, and that capacity to administer suffocating attention should, and does, count for something.

The father's best bet is to show he is the child's primary caregiver. This involves a demonstration of who actually takes care of the kid: feeding, bathing, taking to school, attending parent-teacher meetings, etc.. When a father first calls me about getting custody or shared parenting, my advice is start giving baths and fixing meals - you're going to have to learn how to do that anyway.

There is no set age, but around ten, it becomes possible for the child to have some say in where they live through a direct discussion with a judge or magistrate. By age fifteen, if the kid can put ten words together to explain why, they will likely stay with whoever they want. By age seventeen, the child is usually floating back and forth negotiating curfew and the parents are counting down days to graduation.

Child support guidelines attempt to answer the age old question - How much would it cost you to have this kid growing up in your house anyway? Several factors alter these calculations and it is sometimes hard to explain to a client why they are paying more for one child than their co-worker who makes the same money is paying for three. It would take three or four columns to explain all the details of why this can happen.

An easy explanation is that the other parent doesn't make much money or is alleging to pay their sister fifty dollars a day to baby-sit. Other factors include who pays for health insurance, other children being supported and the nonresidential parent's extra time with the child.


Child custody for fathers Child custody laws for dads and husbands. Custody Warriors is a members only site for fathers that want to fight and win equal rights to raise their children. Learn child custody laws, share your child custody experiences with other fathers across the United States & around the World. Learn to prepare for the child custody battle ahead and receive feedback from dads who have shared your experiences. There are hundreds of private members only sites devoted to women and mothers seeking child support and custody. Child custody laws and courts around the world discriminate against fathers in child custody cases. It is time for fathers to unite. There is strength in numbers.