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When it comes to access to children, divorced men haven't a chance,
writes Bob Geldof. In a world of dual-career couples, the law needs
to recognise the hands-on parenting role played by many fathers
Family law as it currently stands does not work. It is rarely of
benefit to the child and promotes injustice, conflict and unhappiness
on a massive scale. Most custody rulings show no understanding of
contemporary society.
The contention that women are inherently better nurturers is wrong.
Custody rulings appear to be based on the "sugar and spice
and all things nice" school of biological determination rather
than on anything more significant. If a woman "mothers"
a child, a warm universe of nurturing is conjured. If a man "fathers"
a child it simply implies nothing more than the swift biological
function involved in the procreative act.
If the later 20th century saw the transformation of women's lives,
then the 21st century is seeing the transformation of men's lives,
and by definition the lives of their children. Nearly half the workforce
is female and men now hold a different view of parenting. There
are no studies which suggest that a child brought up by a man (as
I was) displays any psychological or emotional characteristics different
to one raised by a woman.
My complaints are not the moans of the unsuccessful litigant at
the hands of family law. I, in fact, was "successful".
This is someone dismayed by the inappropriateness of the law to
the everyday. Nor is this the complaint of the proto-misogynist
- indeed the law is so inept that it produces misandrists in equal
measure - but rather the irritation and anger of someone who sees
exact parallels with women's struggle against bias and prejudice.
What's sauce for the goose, as they say, is sauce for the gander
-- except, of course, in the eyes of family law, where the man ceases
to be an equal partner in anything but name. A husband had better
hang on to his marriage or risk losing everything he has had and
be forced under pain of pursuit, prosecution and imprisonment to
be a wage slave for life. There is grave injustice here.
Many may read Bob the embittered, abandoned husband in this. They
would be quite wrong. My personal response to my situation was shock
and dismay, pain, emptiness and loss. I was embittered only with
the law and my consequent lack of rights as a man.
I am only too aware of the pain that women suffer in divorce, but
it is equally true that it is as nothing compared with the financial
and emotional loss suffered by men. She may lose her man, he loses
the lot.
If he is the offending party, people believe that it's right that
he should leave the house and kids and pay for them. He even half-thinks
this in his guilt. But rarely does he think: I've got a new woman,
I'm happier, so I'll just take the kids and go off to this new life.
Indeed, society would view it askance if he took the kids. Why?
We don't if she does precisely the same. Why?
It is this type of confused thinking, lying at the heart of family
law, that allows it to be unjustly weighted in favour of women.
This is acknowledged by most commentators and lawyers when they
are being honest.
I can accept that this was not the intent. The intent is that the
law should always act in the best interests of the child. We all
agree with that. But the unspoken assumption is that the interests
of the child are nearly always best served by the presence of the
mother.
This is simply wrong. Only in exceptional circumstances will a
man be allowed to raise his children something that outside the
justice system and within society is assumed to be inalienable upon
his child's birth.
The law is creating vast wells of misery, massive discontent, an
unstable society of feral children and feckless adolescents who
have no understanding of authority, no knowledge of a man's love
and how different but equal it is to a woman's.
It also creates irresponsible mothers, drifting, hopeless fathers,
problem, violent and ill-educated sons and daughters, a disconnection
from the extended family and society at large. So many of us are
hurting and yet the law will treat the man in court (if my case
is typical) with contempt, suspicion, disdain and hostility.
He is a father who has already lost his wife, his children, his
home and, of course, his money, often his health and frequently
his job. Good, eh? No doubt professionals will decry this view.
But it is a commonly held one.
Everything can be tolerable until the children are taken from you.
I cannot begin to describe the awful pain of being handed a note,
sanctioned by your (still) wife with whom you had made these little
things and had felt them grow and kick and felt intense pride and
profound love for before they were even born.
You had changed their nappies, taught them to talk and read, wrestled
and played with them, walked them to school, picked them up, made
tea with them, bathed and dressed them, put them to bed, cuddled
them and lain with them in your arms and sung them to sleep. You
have felt them and smelt them around you at all times, alert even
in sleep to the slightest shift in their breathing. And then you're
handed a note that will "allow" you "access"
to these things who are the best of you.
What have you done? Why are you being punished? When did she assume
control? She wants to leave. What's that got to do with the kids
and me? Were I to issue her a similar note, what would happen? I
still ask these questions.
Why is the language that of the prison visit? Why is the person
(and I'm being restrained because it is nearly always the woman,
but we're actually not meant to say that for fear of being labelled
misogynist) who has taken the children, or been left with them,
given immense emotional, legal and financial power over the other
party?
It is at this juncture that things spiral into acrimony, bitterness
and hate. Losing control of one's life is a desperate experience
-- having someone else being able to exert control over it is worse.
Some readers will know better than I the incidence of serious illness
and alcoholism in men arising from divorce. Isn't this serious enough
to insist on change?
Count the economic and social cost if that means more to you than
the human. What more is required to make men the same in the eyes
of the law as they are in the eyes of their children? Both parents
must have equal status after separation. There must be an immediate
presumption, as there has been in Denmark since January 2002, that
the children, where possible, will live with the father 50% of the
time. Isn't that eminently civilised?
The principle of 50% of everything must pertain. Children are genetically
50% of the man and that selfish gene which drove him to express
genetic infinity with his partner through their children cannot
just conveniently disappear in some legalistic, Stalinist coup de
théâtre.
We have seen the rise of dual-career couples; now we need dual-carer
couples. An equal child-sharing arrangement would be advantageous
in many ways, not least because it would help both parents to be
free to earn a living and pursue their independent lives, and thereby
achieve and maintain greater amicability between them, which will
in turn benefit their children. As to those who can't or won't participate
in this arrangement, then the parties can work out something of
mutual convenience and benefit to the children.
The implication of any order determining the father's allotted
time with his children is that he was always of secondary importance.
Reasonable contact is an oxymoron. The fact that as a father you
are forbidden from seeing your children except at state-appointed
moments is by definition unreasonable. The fact that you must visit
your family as opposed to live with them is unreasonable. "Contact"
with your children should not be infrequent and odd. In public parks
on Sundays you can watch the single men with children drag themselves
through the false hours in a frantic panic of activity, every second
measured and weighed in a moment of state-sanctioned time.
I know that what I have written spills from coherent thought into
pain and anger. The problem is that this issue is bound up with
pain. The law is profoundly flawed. Its laughable pretext of gender
neutrality and impartiality must be removed and the true face of
bias, discrimination and prejudice fully displayed. There is no
harm in being radical when the status quo breeds injustice. I am
suggesting:
Education in schools that would lead to an understanding of relationships
and "familial responsibility".
Marriage classes which outline the consequences of having children
and their impact upon that contractual agreement.
At separation, and before divorce can be contemplated, a mandatory
arbitrator who could insist on a staged withdrawal or conciliation
before the dispute may be permitted to go to court. And should proceedings
move to divorce, a presumption of equal parenting, implying shared
responsibility and equal residency.
My "50%" proposition has already begun to be assimilated
into the mainstream in Denmark and frequently in the United States.
I fought for it myself. I had always worked from home. I had money.
I took care of the children. I had ample accommodation and a stable
relationship with a woman they knew and liked. My former wife worked.
Why couldn't the children be with me for 50% of the time? I could
not and still don't understand why there was so much opposition.
Eventually I succeeded, but I had nearly to bankrupt myself in
the process simply to be able to live with my children. How is that
in their interests? Finally I was granted full custody. But I never
wanted or asked for that. My former wife was not a criminal, so
why this punitive measure of taking our children from her?
If I disagree with it happening to men, equally so with women.
I was given full custody because the professionals involved would
not agree that split residence was acceptable, despite the urging
of the judge in the case who had sat on international benches making
those judgments daily.
As I entered court on my first day someone leant over who felt
he was doing me a favour. "Whatever you do," he said,
"for Chrissakes never say you love your children."
Bewildered, I asked: "Why not?"
"The court thinks you're being unhealthily extreme if, being
a man, you express your love for a child."
For two years I shut up while I heard the presumptions in favour
of a mother's love. Finally I began articulating the real love that
dare not speak its name -- that of a father for his child. No law
should stand that serves to stifle this.
Sir Bob Geldof
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