I wonder why it's flagged, the article is clearly trying the best to be reasonable impartial.
It's also well known that sometimes, in some countries maybe more then others, decisions wrt. children are biased toward mother's.
I have seen one such case in my environment myself.
I belive it is important that such Curt decisions are based on the combination of the situation both parents are in and guidelines in a impartial non gender specific way.
Through just to be clear while I have seen one such case myself I also have seen many cases with very reasonable decisions (in Germany).
Did you read that comic at the start and get the impression the judge ruling in favour of the mother to get money from a webdeveloper was a impartial account of events?
Unjustified flagging. This is NO misogynist article: there is A CLEAR reason why judges are biased towards mothers (I'm speaking for Italy) and this has NOTHING TO DO WITH GENDER. Read it all before flagging (unless you're an italian magistrate, in that case I definitely know why you did it).
Every single point is verifiable actually. Take a look at the sentences on https://www.altalex.com/ (Italian knowledge required). You'll find that this is no 'partial' report, it's just stating the reality and trying to find a logical reason other than "the judges are just racist against men", which of course sounds a bit silly.
I did, thank you very much, and I thought it was tendentiously-argued and bitter. There was some interesting info in there but it's hard to tell when it's peppered with comments like "in spite of other idiots" ...
It's flagged because some liberal yoyo took one look at the title and assumes it's some men's rights advocacy bullshit. It's attitudes like this that are the reason these issues are never brought up in the media.
Hey, a similar situation of fathers after splitting or divorce in Poland also.
In my 20s I was like "hell, people starts families, I could make it!". Now in my 30s knowing how awfully things can go south, having went through numerous within-EU emigrations and knowing the struggles... I don't know anymore what kind of partner would be even suitable to start a family with.
Not limited to developed countries either. Urban India has laws that are utterly stacked against men, a woman can easily destroy your life if she wants to and does happen. Trying to undo historical injustice does not mean skewing the system against an entire gender but that is where we are.
Men's weak standing in child custody cases is tied to the societal norms and practices that make men take less interest in their own children overall.
Ironically, this widespread disinterest in child care is what have allowed women to get these rights in the first place, because the late 1800's was certainly not a period of feminist dominion.
The 1800s were not a period of domination for either gender -- by any measure. Pretty much every era has been a period of domination for the wealthy and ruling class. Within that wealthy and ruling class (which accounts for less than 1% of the population) you may be able to have a discussion about gender, but the fact remains that the vast majority of men and women -- for all of history -- have been subjugated by the ruling class.
A solution to a lot of these problems that I quite like is "birdnesting," where the child(ren) keep the home they live in, and the divorcing parents take turns moving in.
That seems to be clearly best for the child (removes the instability of moving back and forth between homes) and while it's inconvenient for the parents, at least it's equally inconvenient.
I tried that for a little while with my ex while we were working things out. You really need your own place that is away from the other person all the time. You are constantly reminded of your ex while you’re there.
Presumably your children constantly remind you of your ex as well, so I'm not sure "set things up in a way where I'm not reminded of my ex" is an achievable goal in the first place.
The main problem I see with this is finances. It will cost more for two people living separately than together.
I strongly believe that most divorces would logically and financially require the existing house to be sold so that two smaller/cheaper residences can be bought or rented. This is espesially important to financial stability in instances where child support is dictated by an arbitrary formula (which tends to produce an unrealilistic amount) rather than the actual needs of the children, or where finances were already somewhat tight (most cases?).
We live in a democracy and clearly, no, this isn't what people want. They want people to not lose any living standard over something "they can't help" like a divorce, and of course all animals are equal but some are more equal (kids and women). This money is not allowed to come from the state or justice system so it must come from the only source it can come from: whoever actually earns money.
So if you divorce, you should immediately become a total deadbeat, be broke and unemployed, ideally well on the way to homeless, by the time the trial happens. In contact with social services. Because men ALSO can't lose living standard. You won't get as much, because of course the justice system is sexist, but they're forced to give you something. Obviously the justice system cannot prevent this from happening. They may respond by placing the kid in foster care.
The net result of these laws: whoever is willing to most seriously damage the kid will have a decisive advantage.
My wife's father got divorced and had a high paying job, so he was required to pay a lot of child support. He was in a car accident which resulted in him being in a coma for months. Since he wasn't making money during that time in the hospital, his bank account was emptied and the court issued an arrest warrant since the child support was not being paid. He lost his job and was never able to get a new one. He's now living on food stamps and waiting to reach the social security age. The family court system ruined his life.
It didn't just ruin his life, odds are pretty good it will have seriously damaged the life of the child and other parent as well by suddenly taking away that income, and by damaging the whole family further by taking slow, violent action. All of which impose extra costs on the person that was supposed to care for others. Actions that did not just destroy that person, but also the money and the care it bought for the child ...
In this case money and the child's living condition wasn't an issue since her mother started a high paying job too. But yes, there's added stress to this day because he's constantly in need of something, including housing.
Seems like a really good solution for amicable divorces. When there is a lot of conflict in the relationship, it's unlikely to work well. And really the latter describes most divorces I've seen. It seems like there is almost always one spouse who doesn't want to play well at the end.
It also requires the people involved be making a good bit of money, or having previously lived well below their means. Whoever is not staying with the child at that time needs a place to live, which generally costs a significant amount, even for a small apartment.
Indeed, basically you need 3 residences or 2 shared residences and people who are tolerable to live in the same place with you (even if not at the same time). All of this takes money and the ability to tolerate someone you couldn't live with previously.
I don't have any strong opinions about the fairness or unfairness of divorce laws around parenting, not in the US and certainly not in Italy.
However, I was recently a very close witness to some divorce proceedings involving my girlfriend and the end of her polyamorous marriage, and boy, oh boy. The husband made the decision to make the divorce as painful as possible (falsifying evidence, perjuring himself) to try to get her to give up and let him keep all of the money (he keeps the $400k house, she keeps the $5k SUV), and ultimately, it largely worked. Would you pay $50k to avoid having a miserable year? I would've kept fighting on principle, but she's wiser than I am.
Whether or not any of this was fair, eh. The mistake she made was to enter into a binding legal contract with someone that didn't have a clearly defined, equitable exit path. She misjudged her husband, but no one's immune to that. Honest people will want to write everything down and be bound to their word.
Don't make agreements based on mutual trust and assumed cooperation into perpetuity. It's only once people's incentives shift away from cooperation that you get to see their true character, for better and worse.
The problem is that marriage is one of those very few relationships that's design to be all-in or not exist at all. Even signing something like a prenup is seen as incredibly suspicious. All your financial decisions have to be based on the fact that you and your partner are going to stay together til death do you part.
Hm, in my environment prenup is the standard if one or both of the person's involved are wealthy, people kinda accepted that marriage tries to be forever but often isn't.
(Germany, Berlin, neither poor nor rich through sometimes slightly wealth family social circle)
The difference is that a few people people pay to have a custom one drafted for them, and everyone else just accepts whatever default one their jurisdiction provides.
I think part of the problem is that many people aren't making agreements based on trust and are actually signing pre-nups, but those never seem as binding when it comes to actual court proceedings.
I feel bad for this guy, unfortunately he is just at the beginning of the world of hurt and pain he most likely is goin to experience.
Having gone through an ugly family breakup, I can attest to how painful and stressful it is for everyone. Especially once the courts get involved.
From my experience the courts are very unsympathetic to any arguments outside the general consensus, almost to the point of being obtuse or jaded.
I know people think that children are better off having both parents involved in their lives but I beg to differ when selfish vendictictive parents are involved.
Childhood is important but it is not a lifetime, in some ways it is better to check ones ego and just step back and wait. Support the child as ordered by the courts and then when the child is an adult they can decide whether or not to have a relationship with the estranged parent. If they choose not to.. Accept that and live your best life, after all You don't own the child. (eventhough your ex may believe they do!)
This can be much easier on the child than witnessing constant bickering, accusations and pettiness between the parents. Possibly resulting in self harm or violence.
Just my point of view, might be wrong but nevertheless how I see it.
> the courts are very unsympathetic to any arguments outside the general consensus, almost to the point of being obtuse or jaded.
What you said after this is not any more sympathetic.
> Childhood is important but it is not a lifetime, in some ways it is better to check ones ego and just step back and wait.
This is an astonishing display of lack of empathy for the unfairly estranged parent. Not having your child in your life is one of the worst forms of torture a person should not be forced to endure.
> Support the child as ordered by the courts
The courts are, as you said, obtuse and jaded. Not to mention very often biased.
> Accept that and live your best life
You can't, when you're a good parent, you can't "live your best life" if your child was torn away from you.
> after all You don't own the child
I'm trying to be charitable here, because the HN guidelines encourage steelmanning, but comparing "wanting to have your child in your life" with "thinking you own your child" is appalling, to put it mildly. I hope this is just very, very, unfortunate phrasing, because I could find no other way to read it.
> This can be much easier on the child than witnessing constant bickering, accusations and pettiness between the parents.
Being separated from a parent can have even more dire consequences on the child. And there actually are studies on that.
> might be wrong
You argued in favor of the extremely unfair status quo of the courts and tried to suggest it could be better for the child.
I have gone through this have You? If so how did it work out for You? I hope much better than me and my son.
But if You haven't gone through the courts, maybe be a bit less ritcheous.
Edit
>>> "This is an astonishing display of lack of empathy for the unfairly estranged parent. Not having your child in your life is one of the worst forms of torture a person should not be forced to endure."
What is astonishing is I am that parent, maybe all the torture made me less empathetic to myself.
Also I was not arguing in favor of the courts unfairness. Infact, I am well aware of how hard the courts can cone down on anyone who doesn't toe the line. So don't be spinning my comnent, and keep your charity, thanks.
I could go into my particular situation, My ex was an opiod addict who ended up consuming my mother who was dying of lung cancer's medication. She constantly verbally and occasionally physically abused be, infront of our son. Then in court she had the nerve to accuse me of hitting her, which I never did. But because I was honest and admitted to using canabis (which is now legal) the courts believed her.
So yeah, I lost contact, as well as being hammered with a 100K+ maintenance bill until he turned 25, including losing my passport and drivers license when I lost my job and fell behind. Of course his mother OD'd a couple years later when I paid off what was due and he ended up being raised by the state....I guess the studies didn't include the kids like that, huh?
I read that other guts comment history and it's all aguments and belittling so what ever.
Good news I'm more upset, triggered about this than the election now!
I doubt this is limited to Italy.
It has become a meme that a guy is likely to suffer more during a separation if she is motivated and gets herself a good lawyer. If she insists to get the kids, she will. If she doesnt want him to see them very often, she will get her will.
I am sure there are examples where it was the other way around. No question. However, the way how the mother is treated as more of a parent then the father is pretty weird.
The mother being treated/expected to be more of a parent does not start at divorce. That's simply the continuation of a societal expectation that women will do the 'mothering.'
Because that social expectation is there, it is far more often true that in a hetro marriage the wife will be the one who gives up their career path to take care of a child. Thus the court systems has standardized on an expectation that the mother will need spousal support, and child support in a divorce, because she is the one who'll need to retool and rejoin the workforce, while still _doing_ the parenting she did while in the marriage.
What does that look like in this situation? I agree, in theory, but _how_ is it applied to a divorce? How does it apply to the financial power imbalance of 'breadwinner' and 'active parent?'
I'm also curious, what is the 'vice' in this statement?
The "vice" is society's expectations for women. The court can empower that vice by giving women preferential custodial rights. Or it can temper that vice by analyzing the attributes of a specific relationship and recognizing custodial rights accordingly.
While courts have an orientation based on social expectations, they definitely do "analyze the attributes of a specific relationship and recognize custodial rights accordingly".
IANAL, but I do have familiarity with the subject, and if you read a common law book, you'll see how the courts think.
Now, to be fair, in a way, we could say that courts don't give precedence to a parent based on the sex (this is made explicit in the law of a certain country I've examined)... but they could give it based on the hair count :-)
But again, courts definitely take into account many factor in the cases.
What if that's both? What if it's neither? What if is the higher earner that sacrificed an even higher position - do you make the lower earner pay them?
Then the court doesn't need to show a particular bias towards either party on this subject. As you have very astutely pointed out, there exist other circumstances which may compel a court to apply a bias one way or another. That's what courts are for.
> What if is the higher earner that sacrificed an even higher position - do you make the lower earner pay them?
If a decade of childcare materially and demonstrably damaged their future career, they should take that into account. If not, no.
Please pay attention to the words I'm using - 'bias'. This means putting some weight on the scales, not dropping a bag of bricks on one of them.
This assumes that everyone caring for children is automatically "sacrificing their career". That is not true. There are still women who are not really interested in persuing a career they'd need to sacrifice to care for a child. So simply observing the "career status" of both parties is definitely not enough for a fair ruling.
Sure, but the 'fix,' if there is one, likely needs to start with the social pressures on women to give up their lives to parent, with more equitable parenting expectations overall, and let that bubble up to the court baselines.
No, the courts should impose their will on society in situations where equality needs to be enforced. Just imagine if the process you're describing had been used to stop segregation in the United States.
but the courts enforcing desegregation did work at the societal pressure level.
What I'm saying is that denying the fact that a partner gave up career growth to parent does not change that they did, and does not stop the pressure upon women to do so. It should not be tied to gender, it should be tied to who gave up paying work to do the child rearing labor.
Spousal and child support _are_ where divorce courts are influencing equity, by having the parent who's career was not impacted by parental duties provide monetary support to the parent who was.
That becomes somewhat circular. It is impossible to reduce the social pressures on women to parent without simultaneously reducing the social pressures on men not to parent.
Clearly in this case, the man wanted to parent. The thing stopping him was the power of the court’s decision.
In the presence of a legal framework like this the only reasonable choice for a man is to assume he is expected not to parent, since that is what the courts will enforce.
The legislature acts to change other kinds of discriminatory legal framework, and this is no different.
A question I have here, is _was_ he parenting before the divorce? The court has only the testimony and financial state of the two people on which to go with. If he was the one making the money, and she was home with the child, what does that say about _who_ was doing what work?
And yes, it would be good for there to be more pressure on men to parent, and on there being more acceptable models of parenting partnerships than breadwinner and child rearer.
I don't like the idea of court standards being tied to gender (or gendered roles), but it does have to take into account who was doing what work and how to ensure the safety of children while the parents disentangle their marital and financial bonds.
> That's simply the continuation of a societal expectation that women will do the 'mothering.'
You are ignoring biological reality. The reason why this happens in 'hetero' couples is that the woman has an obvious physical relationship with the child. This doesn't happen in gay male couples because neither of the fathers can have this relationship. In lesbian couples, it's common for the non-bio mother to not only feel alienated, and even to do less childcare than the biological one (https://www.thespermbankofca.org/sites/default/files/1998_Ch...). Lesbian adoptive couples are more likely to share childcare equally, just like gay male ones of any kind, or heterosexual adoptive families.
My wife and I used to be really into this idea of parental equality in all things until we had a baby biologically. Now I obviously love my daughter, but there are some things only a mother can do, like nurse her, and this forms a special bond between mother and child. The fact of the matter is that men have to work harder to get that close of a relationship with their child that the mother is predisposed to. However, even then, the most devoted father would likely still see their child want to nurse when they get hurt or feel scared, until the child reaches 2-3 years of age. This is normal. Nursing is meant to do this, and although it's a physical act, it has real emotional consequence in both mother and child. My heart breaks hearing my daughter cry, but my nipples do not leak milk. It's not even that I couldn't calm her when she's mad, but the fact is that it would take significantly longer. Meanwhile, the child will be screaming and upset, and I should be willing to do this in the name of equality? On the other hand, handing her off to nurse with mom calms her instantly, as nature dictates.
To me it seems cruel to force my view of equality on the child by forcing them to remain terrified, frightened, anxious, and sad all because I want to feel as important as their mother, even while mom is right there. Is this unequal? Certainly. But it is the only humane decision in our opinions.
That is not to say we should think less of paternal love or the paternal relationship (especially since research shows that dads play a very important role in socializing their children into larger society), but rather that we should not see the inequality between mom and dad especially with young children and attribute it to some nefarious social force, instead of millenia of biological reality.
I'm in a hetro marriage, my kids come to me for 'mothering,' in about equal measure as they do to my wife.
And they did that when they were infants as well. My wife did not do well without a solid nights sleep, and I was used to oncall work, all night nursing was me. This was equitable, as well as playing to our strengths and weaknesses.
There is no reason to have iron rules of we must each do every parenting action in equal amounts, but to find equitable split of the work that needs to be done.
That's great, but sharing my experience was not a call for others to add their own experience or to critique mine. If you want to share, please share on the top-level comment.
You commented on my comment, using your experience to support a claim that societal pressure about who parents (and how) is biologically driven.
I countered with my own experience that it is not.
Ancedata all around.
I'm glad your system works for your family. Similarly, I'm glad ours works for our family. But from both stories we can see that what you claim as a biological fact is not so clear.
The standardization that you mention is the problem. The court is supposed to evaluate each case separately, not on a misguided one-size-fits-all policy.
And it is also nothing new. Personally, I had it 25 years ago in Germany. Same patterns than and now in virtually all western societies. Problem is and was, the topic owns some extraordinary tabu traits and prejudices from people not affected. Ironically, it is not uncommon for them to come three years later and ask when their own lives fall apart.
As a child of divorced parents in Italy, I can confirm. The divorce in in the case was dramatic, repercussions are still around, 27 years later. My father messed up in multiple ways, heavy ones too, but the unilateral vision of the system also forced my easily influenced vision of kid in a certain way for a long time, until I was way older (about 20 years old, my parents divorced when I was 3 and a half).
Up to this day, I'm really conflicted about everything surrounding it. This article says the truth, but it does overlook how painful it is for a 3 years old to have 2 bedrooms and 2 different places to stay. I can confirm that, it's one of the things I suffered the most for. And it goes on until you are much older (14-16-18) when it becomes alienating.
My uncle went through a divorce and things went exactly how described on the article. The mother had no job, she was renting an owned place as income, so she took over their family house and the kids and she got also paid. My uncle was able to fix some of the situation, not sure how, it seems like he got in a better relationship with the ex wife.
It's a nightmare I'd never recommend to anyone and the psychological support I received as a child was not closely enough. I repeatedly had to "choose" between my parents throughout my life, even though it was clearly stated to me by the child support that it should never have happened. That money should have never been between me, my father and my mother, while it was repeatedly and continuously one of the key points. I blame both parents for that, but today I ask myself if the government shouldn't provide a lot more support to me, the kid (and my sister).
Anyway, it's a big mess, I can't help but seeing a lot of truth in what's written.
Tl;dr ... A disproportionate share of seriously troubled boys share an alienated, minimized or absent father in common. The worthwhile and well intentioned effort to right the wrongs of past discrimination of women has traveled a bridge too far. Tragic unintended consequences plague children of divorce, working men, and stay-at-home fathers. This cause-effect is an inconvenient truth, ignored because its not politically correct or advantageous to raise the issue.
Speaking for myself as someone who spent 8 years and about $300,000 to have an equal role in my children's lives... you can watch the damage this has on your children change them over time. Resignation, external locus of control, etc. are all divorce-induced impacts on kids who must endure the back and forth.
I can relate to this. I have spent the better part of two years in court proceedings.
In terms of child support, New York State is one of the few states that doesn't take into account parenting time when setting child support. Custody is solely determined by who earns $1 less than the other parent.
And NY courts have thrown up their hands saying "the legislature chose not to include it, it's not our problem". Sigh... The moment you (re-)discover that legal =! right.
This freaks me out as someone who briefly thought about getting married but largely talked myself out of it after a close relative (who's much more social and better at relationships) ended up in a horrible divorce with a kid involved.
To date, I don't really see the advantages of being married - seems like a whole lot of risk to take on someone who will likely change in 3-5 years.
This is astonishingly paranoid, even conspiracy-theory promoting. The writer claims at several points that divorce law in Italy is (allegedly) unfair because judges know that fathers typically have more resources to engage in litigation appealing bad judgments, and hence more lawyers and domestic violence clinics will get paid. Where is the evidence for such an over-the-top accusation?
The fact of the matter is that divorce is terrible, and there's no good way to allocate resources after the fact. Of course there isn't---divorce is fundamentally the destruction of all kinds of financial assets (all the economies of scale in the marriage) and the upsetting of huge social, financial, and geographic commitments, even without children being involved. Of course everyone is going to be dissatisfied with however the courts divide that poisoned pie.
I'm italian and I live in Italy. My wife's parents divorced when she was 8. My cousin divorced.
I can totally confirm what's written in this post.
99% of the times it's not even in question with which parent children should stay.
Anecdotally, but it is well known that divorced fathers are the new poors (sorry, couldn't find english article): https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/padri-separati-quando-l-asse...
Anecdotally, you should really live in Italy to understand its terrible legal system.
You can look at case law and common law for the roots of this, even in the US. The entire point of child support (especially in cases where there was no marriage) is so that the state does not have to pay to raise the child.
I can't speak for the 3rd party institutions like lawyers being paid.
> Amicable out of court settlement seems to be best.
This was my approach, and ultimately I got what I wanted because it was fair and because the courts here are generally fair. Although we didn't go to court, knowing how the court would rule was hugely supportive in me offering a fair deal and standing my ground.
It's almost impossible to amicably settle out of court, though. There are too many people on both sides trying to stir the pot to get the most for their client. If you're in this situation, you, as a client, need to be very clear about what you are trying to achieve with your lawyer. Their default is to go in guns blazing. I did this with my lawyer, and he only unleashed the nukes when necessary. My ex did not (and for reasons, it was very obvious to me that her lawyer was in charge, not her). It ended up costing both of us quite a bit. Just as one example, we spent five hours paying a private judge, two lawyers, and two accountants to ultimately reach a final agreement. The agreement we reached? The one my side offered in the first five minutes.
Then, even when it's over, maybe it's not. My ex's new husband convinced her to sue me over child support. More thousands in lawyers fees later, and nothing changed because it didn't have a chance in hell.
In more than 15 years of expérience in cross border divorces I have seen that the current complaints by fathers are often linked to the tentative by judges to redress open or hidden biases penalizing mothers. The route to equality is still very long, in both ways. Every case is different and the reason why a marriage ended with a divorce do matter in assessing the child’s best interest. Statistics on violence against women are far too high for invoking in the present moment the neutralization of maternal preference. Hopefully the moment will come for the next generation
No fault divorce needs to go away when there are children involved. That is basically the end of it. Marriage is ultimately about creating family. You can't undo your marriage once you have a child anymore than you can undo your parentage or undo your relationship with a cousin. If mom and dad want to screw around with other people, their rights to do so obviously should not be restricted, but there should be no out from the marriage itself, except for cases of abuse or endangerment.
What does it say to a child to unmake the very thing that made them? How awful. The wisdom of the past says that the old way was simply superior, and we see that when we look at things like the mental health crisis, the lack of grit, the prevalence of anxiety disordes. Generations past would look at our current system and say the obvious -- which was said at the time no-fault divorce became a thing as well, just forgotten by this day -- that the prevalence of family dissolution causes severe, apparently unrelated social ills. We need to put the brake on really.
A study would require us to run an experiment that takes two groups of families that are equivalent along some metrics, and then forcibly separates one subgroup, while letting the other remain intact. Obviously this is extremely unethical.
So no, there are no studies directly on this, just as there are no studies on how divorce has no effect on children. The fact is that when the first decision was made to allow no-fault divorce, such a system had never existed in the Western world and it eschewed thousands of years of practice. This demanding of scientific study for every little social detail is a major problem. Previous generations would have resorted to philosophy, rather than demand empirical data. CS Lewis's book 'The Abolition of Man' goes into why demanding empirical data for every little social policy, rather than listening more to tradition, is both self-contradictory as well as dangerous. So I'll refer you to that as the best 'study'.
In the grand scheme of history, the burden of proof is still on the people promoting no-fault divorce to produce a valid study showing that society is better off with no-fault divorce.
My viewpoint does not require as much proof since it is -- still today -- the typical state of western society.
At this point, no-fault divorce has been a thing for about 50 years in the USA, which is barely a blip in the grand scheme of history. In many parts of Europe, it is still not a thing, or much younger.
Suppose today I decided to raise my daughter without looking at her in the eye anymore. I made this decision without any data to either validate or invalidate my claim that raising her in such a way would make her a better person (how could there be such a study today?). However, since it's more comfortable for me to not make eye contact, it seems that this is my right as her father.
Now obviously, most people would say that that sounds cruel and inhuman. But really, it must appear no different to us than the idea of no-fault divorce would have appeared to our forerunners.
Now imagine that if a large subset of society made the same choice I did with my daughter, but many kept the normal view such that it was still normal to look children in the eye. Still, a large enough group of people didn't. Now suppose that 50 years later, after mental health and attachment problems appear in greater numbers in the populace, someone who questions why some no longer look our children in the eye is asked for a 'study' to show that looking them in the eye would fix things? Certainly such a demand should be met with incredulity.
So that's my response to you. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and society is still waiting for the extraordinary evidence that no-fault divorce does not increase mental health problems in children. Otherwise, the original claim deserves to be prevented -- at least temporarily -- from influencing our social policy.
EDIT: downvotes should explain why, otherwise I interpret it as someone who disagrees but cannot formulate a cohesive argument to critique mine, which is rather sad really.
I am a child of the first ever no-fault divorce in a western European country I won't name.
It was a while ago, mid 80's.
I estimate it stole 10 years of my life, led me to have to learn quite early a lot more psychology than I ever should have had to.
My brother is a social write-off, unable to work.
On the upside I am better at gauging mental health issues than several practicing medical doctors, nurses that I know.
...
To everyone out there:
- Getting someone to drink alcohol is a way to sort out narcissist psychopaths (avoid/destroy) from sociopaths (hug/fix).
- Anyone with some brains will have some schizoid traits at tine, watch carefully, get help early.
- Illnesses (Lyme, thyroid, many others) that affect behaviour will be gladly ignored by profiteering psychologists and pill- peddling quacks.
- Having a child is a wonderful thing, and don't worry too much, whatever happens nature (DNA, luck) beats nurture (divorce, sick societies) as long as nutrition and germs allow for it.
Yep, they are a tad bit on the "extreme", but not that much off, if you asked me, I would have answered, from personal knowledge (these are "net" income, i.e. with income tax already paid):
shop assistant: 1,000-1,100 Euro/month but for 13 months of wage[0]
web designer[1]: 1,800-2,200 Euro/month but for 11 months of work only
[0] the 13th month wage is only part of the full month wage, but for low pays, like 1,000-1,100 it is a large part, probably 850-950 Euro
[1] maybe you are misguided on the definition of web designer, here in Italy that generally (but not always) means "a self-educated programmer that makes a somewhat basic living doing a few very small company sites at 500-2,000 Euro each and, if he/she is good, maybe has a handful of yearly contracts to maintain them, at 100-200 each per month".
Really is a shame to see this common thread of most Western family court systems not caught up with the times; despite the workforce effectively doubling in the past 60 years, the financial burden is still unnecessarily placed on the man, many times to the point of their financial ruin. Yet this is never covered in any media ever. It's no different here in the US. And then some states like CA have truly bizarre things like "no-fault" (I think that's the term) marriages where after 10 years of marriage, the woman can initiate divorce for whatever reason and it always results in their receiving 50% of the husband's assets, and alimony, and the husband has no recourse at all (you can see many examples of this in celebrity marriages throughout the years).
The crux of the argument here seems to be that the author doesn't want to pay 650euros a month in child support for his kid. I have very little sympathy. The important person in all of this is the child, not him. His life is going to suck and he'll have no money. That's unfortunate but if the choice is between his life being rubbish and the child's life being rubbish it's a bit of a no-brainer.
650 a month is neccessary for a life not to be rubbish? Don't forget he's paying half the existing mortgage and needs to find a new place to live and support himself. It alludes to those costs adding up to be greater than the 1600 per month he makes...
Yeah, I've heard of similar things in the US. I think it requires going to court to have the amount reduced or eliminated. I think it usually requires that the change in occupation be involuntarily (like being fired or laid off) so that people can't game the system that way.
And sometimes the system fails the other direction too. My wife's father got divorced and had a high paying job, so he was required to pay a lot of child support. He was in a car accident which resulted in him being in a coma for months. Since he wasn't making money during that time in the hospital, his bank account was emptied and the court issued an arrest warrant since the child support was not being paid. He lost his job and was never able to get a new one. He's now living on food stamps and waiting to reach the social security age. The family court system ruined his life.
there's no guaranty made in place that a cent of that money will go to the child. I've heard of plenty cases where children in these situations don't get to benefit from it.
It's funny how moral systems work. Obviously what you say is the system we have democratically chosen to use, and yet you get downvoted seriously ...
So people want this system, even to the point they're willing to destroy people's lives over it (mostly, but not exclusively, men's lives), and yet they consider it offensive if one points out the nature and consequences of this choice.
There are other consequences too: obviously it is easy for the man to avoid this responsibility: simply lose your job. There's a legal saying "you can't force blood from a stone". In other words, if this man wants out from under his responsibility, he is guaranteed to achieve that, laws or no laws. And yet that, too, people are unwilling to consider and I'm sure is offensive to bring up too.
If you think it through, you'll realise that this system gives the power to the person willing to do the most damage to the other and the child and because of the preexisting conflict encourages exactly that. This guy can cause repossession of the house, take away 2/3rds of the woman's income, and have child services take the child away. And there is absolutely nothing any additional laws or judgements can do to prevent this, in other words, the judge, any social help and/or the police are totally powerless to do anything about it. Obviously if this guy plays hardball negotiation, if he is willing to use the child to get what he wants (just like the woman was using the child in the court case), he will obviously win such a negotiation, especially if he can fall back on his parents for living expenses. He is threatening, after all, to damage himself, and her only recourse ... is to damage him. In other words, she has no recourse. The judge has no recourse. Social services have no recourse. They will lose if he presses through.
You don't believe this will be the result? Ask child protection services for their "most common problem". This is it.
It's also well known that sometimes, in some countries maybe more then others, decisions wrt. children are biased toward mother's.
I have seen one such case in my environment myself.
I belive it is important that such Curt decisions are based on the combination of the situation both parents are in and guidelines in a impartial non gender specific way.
Through just to be clear while I have seen one such case myself I also have seen many cases with very reasonable decisions (in Germany).