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The Women's Freedom Network Newsletter
November/December, Vol. 5, Number 6.
Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myths. by Sanford L. Braver with Diane O'Connell Reviewed by Stephen Baskerville |
I n just the last two years, several groundbreaking books from Jeffery Leving's Fathers' Rights (Basic Books, 1997) to Cynthia Daniels' Lost Fathers: The Politics of Fatherlessness in America (St. Martin's, 1998) have come off the presses which herald a new public awareness of the greatest civil rights abuse of our time. Now comes Sanford Braver's Divorced Dads, in its demystification and mass appeal perhaps the most explosive of all.
One by one, Braver demolishes the myths surrounding divorce: the "deadbeat dad," the "no-show dad," the child-molesting father, the violent husband, the alleged bias against women in family courts, and above all, the father who dumps his wife and abandons his children.
These myths are among the most pernicious and destructive of our time. They have been used to justify the greatest denial of civil rights since segregation: the arbitrary and groundless stealing of children from their fathers. They are behind a massive institutionalized witch hunt perpetrated by some of the highest officeholders in the land, including the President, the Attorney General, and leading members of Congress from both parties: the pursuit of private citizens who have been convicted of nothing under the label of "deadbeat dads." And they have contributed to the most destructive social trend of our time: the enormous growth of fatherless homes and the increase in fatherless children -- a problem which has in turn been directly linked to virtually every major social problem of our age, including violent crime, drug and alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, and truancy. Therefore, in three major areas of public policy -- civil rights, civil liberties, and social policy -- the appearance of this book is a major event.
Especially noteworthy is Braver's direct challenge to such advocates of "responsible fatherhood" as David Popenoe and David Blankenhorn. These writers, while sounding the alarm on father absence, insist against all evidence that father absence is something that fathers "choose." Braver shows that it is wives who initiate divorce in two out of three cases (usually not because of abuse or infidelity but for such reasons as "growing apart" or "not feeling loved or appreciated"), and it is courts that routinely throw fathers out of their families without any grounds whatever.
Perhaps the most eloquent testimony to the ease by which involuntary separation from his children can strike any father at any time is provided by a father whose wife "had an affair with some guy from her office": "She left me for him and the two of them now live with my kid, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. My lawyer laughed when I said, 'But she's the one who did wrong!'" His testimony could come from any one of millions of fathers: "I want to tell all the smug dads out there: This could happen to you. You have no rights -- none that will be enforced, anyway. Your kid who you love so much can be ripped away from you, and nothing you did in the past can protect that. People think that if you're basically a good dad, it can't happen to you. But I am proof that it can." It can and it does, now in epidemic proportions.
One significant reservation has less to do with the power and importance of this book's findings than with some conclusions that might be drawn from Braver's disproportionately weak prescriptions for reform.
The dust jacket states that "millions of well-intentioned parents, judges, lawyers, educators, and other caregivers have been repeatedly and tragically misled" by the myths of the evil father. But here one does have to wonder who precisely has been doing the misleading. It does not require a cynic to believe that these groups, however "well-intentioned", are precisely the ones who are profiting handsomely from the current system. This is not to suggest that these myths were originally and intentionally created for this purpose; clearly they have a number of sources, as Braver recounts. But they now protect an enormous machine whose operatives have a very concrete financial and political interest in perpetuating them. The "matrimonial lawyer" whose "fondest hope is...to force myself and others like me out of business" may be sincere, but the prediction of a "professional custody evaluator" that "almost all" of his business would be lost by a presumption of joint custody leaves little doubt as to which side the bread of family law practitioners is buttered on.
Against this huge power bloc, Braver's proposed reforms are little more than a series of socially engineered gadgets: mediation, premarital and pre-divorce counseling, "education" of parents and judges, and of course "joint custody". The assumption seems to be that by simply spreading the truth that Braver has discovered, justice will prevail and the players in the system will see the light and agree to these sensible changes that are obviously for the good of children.
Yet with the perhaps partial exception of the last, there is little indication that any of these, even if implemented, would make more than a marginal impact so long as the gross imbalance of power against fathers continues. Mediation, to take one example, is now widely touted as an alternative to litigation. But as Robert Seidenberg observes sensibly in his 1997 book The Father's Emergency Guide to Divorce-Custody Battle, "With the playing field slanted overwhelmingly in favor of the mother" mediation is probably "a waste of time and money".
Likewise, the book's main prescription, joint custody, does have some potential to keep fathers involved with their children and may have a significant deterrent effect on divorce. Yet in practice, any father with only joint "legal" custody (which seems to be what Braver is mostly recommending) will tell you it is hardly worth the paper it is written on. As one father is quoted in this book: "Joint legal custody only means my ex-wife has to consult me before doing whatever the hell she wants with my child!"
What all Braver's prescriptions (including joint custody) have in common is that they would preserve the power of the courts and police to separate children from a parent who has done nothing wrong. So long as this wedge is allowed in, the essentially unlimited power of the courts to run a family by fiat will continue. Mandated mediation, counseling, and parental "education" may sound sensible and benign as alternatives to litigation (though the last has something of an Orwellian tone), but they are really alternative forms of patronage to be dispensed by judges to favored court hangers-on: mediators, counselors, and therapists.
The hard truth that must be confronted is that this is not just a sociological or a psychological or a legal problem: it is above all a political problem, which is to say it is a problem of power. No number of social scientific studies can substitute for that grim reality, and denying it may create harmful illusions.
At only one point does Braver broach what may be the only truly effective remedy -- as well as the only morally and constitutionally defensible position that respects both family integrity and the Bill of Rights: to deny custody to a parent who deserts the spouse and takes the children without grounds.
Braver does not push this idea (and he deserves credit for even mentioning it). Yet it is hardly extreme. As indicated by the parents he quotes, it is what most people seem to assume to be the current law. The only counter-argument he can come up with is that this might result in "miserable mothers" caught in "unhappy and unfulfilling marriages." Much more sensible, apparently, to destroy the homes of innocent children, throw their fathers in jail, and create a coercive bureaucracy to force disenfranchised fathers to support their children.
Braver's most eloquent chapter is on the "disenfranchised dad" who has been "disempowered": the father who feels he has no role, no authority, no say, no place in the lives of his children, and so drops out altogether. The last words in the book envision "a future in which fathers are empowered by the courts, mothers, and society to remain positive forces in their children's lives."
But fathers cannot and will not be "empowered" by others. By definition, the only way to be empowered is to empower oneself. And this means political action. If fathers wait for legal tinkering to restore their place in the family, they will wait forever and will continue to lose the respect of everyone, including their own children.
To say all this in no wise compromises the importance of this book, and it would hardly be fair to expect Braver to say it. And not just because as a psychologist he does not have the perspective of a political activist: on the contrary, the realities of getting a book like this published may well dictate certain silences.
But the rest of us must not remain silent or expect hand-outs from the holders of power, however enlightened by social science. We must speak truth to power by insisting that taking a child away from any parent (even an imperfect one) who has done nothing legally actionable is both morally repulsive and a violation of the child's and the parent's constitutional rights. We can sit back and hope for this massive machine to see the light and voluntarily relinquish its stranglehold on our families, or we-- fathers and other men and women concerned about the consequences of fatherlessness -- can organize politically to demand the just rights of fathers and children. There is no other choice.
Findings from Divorced Dads (based on Sanford Braver's pioneering study of divorced couples, the largest federally funded study of issues confronting divorced fathers):
+++ Contrary to popular perception, as much as 90% of what divorced fathers owe in child support is paid. Commonly used statistics on the high rates of child support non-payment lump divorced fathers together with never-married ones and rely solely on reports by custodial mothers. The best research shows that the problem of child support non-compliance is primarily not a problem of wilful shirking of responsibilities but of financial hardship.
+++ The "vanishing dad" is a minority; most divorced fathers maintain close contact with their children. Those who disengage do so primarily because of obstacles set by custodial mothers (many of whom freely admit denying the father access to children) and by the courts.
+++ In two out of three cases, it is the mother who not only initiates the divorce legally but wants to end the marriage.
+++ The economic effect of divorce on fathers and mothers is fairly similar when the impact of taxes and of the father's direct spending on the children during visitation is taken into account. After remarriage, mothers fare better.
+++ Men are more emotionally devastated by divorce than women.
+++ Despite complaints about male bias in the courts, women are far more satisfied with their divorce settlements than men and feel more in control of the settlement process. 75 percent of fathers felt the legal system was slanted toward mothers; about a quarter of mothers agreed, while only 8 percent of mothers felt the system was slanted toward fathers.
Stephen Baskerville teaches political science at Howard University.