[burfog]

That's not how it works. We're so used to the status quo that most of us don't see what is going on. I'll try, but distancing yourself from that will be hard:

Suppose it was a car, not a kid. The woman gets the car. The man pays for repairs, fuel, oil changes, and so on. He is not better off.

Normally in law, if you take something away from a person, you'll have to pay restitution. You pay damages of some sort. You have caused a loss, and so you must pay. The fact that the loss is human is not terribly special in our law: people are frequently ordered to pay compensation for wrongful death.

Normal fathers are in deep agony over the loss of their children. These fathers are often driven to suicide. The mothers frequently train the children to dislike their fathers, completely breaking the relationship.

So if the mother gets the child, logically she should pay damages to compensate the father for his loss.

[watwut]

Actually, the employed women are the ones who divorce more. Unemployed women divorce less. Female employment affect primary divorces in unhappy marriages - in happy marriages it does not affect divorce. Women do pay for their portion of costs after divorce.

And of course, child is not about your needs. Funny how you don't count work in child-raising at all into expenses - the times when you have to go from work sooner daily (meaning forget about projecting passionate programmer image), the part where you are not free to do what you wish in the evenings, the part where you deal with school and what not.

For you it is all about money and parents own needs. Plenty of fathers do the above work tho, including divorced ones. Universally, they don't see the child as possession the way you talk about them.

Yes, women are on average happier after divorce and men are less happy (but have it easier to find new partner). I don't know about mothers who frequently train the children to dislike fathers, it does happen occasionally just like father who is not willing to take time away to spend it with child. However, I could see how the child that is treated as a possession by father would come to resent that.

[burfog]

Say what? How does my 4th paragraph mean I think "it is all about money and parents own needs"?

The man is suffering. Just as if his child had been wrongfully killed, we can't fix things with money but that is normally how our law would work. It's the best we can do for the loser.

Flipping things around from our legal norm, as is done with children, is simply pouring salt into his wounds.

If child-raising is such work and annoyance (your 2nd paragraph), then let the other parent (father normally) have the kid. Oh, but giving up that sweet child support money... it sounds like you are the one for whom "it is all about money and parents own needs".