Author: Lianna

October 16, 2020 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

Our friends at Active Dads of Greece send us this story:

Alexander is the father of two young children. His ex-wife and mother of his children is Greek. The children were born in Sweden where they lived as a family at the time. The couple decided to divorce by consensus and the divorce was granted in Sweden, where the institution of joint and indivisible parental custody applies even after a divorce, which they successfully practiced for two consecutive years. In Sweden, the institution of alternating residence and equal time of children in two homes, mom’s and dad’s, also applies, with a weekly rotation in each home, maintaining the child’s permanent residence at the same municipality where the family used to live before the divorce; which also happened in the case of Alexander. That is, the parents, even after a divorce, are legally presumed to continue co-deciding on all issues relating to the upbringing of their children, such as health, education, place of residence. The well-being of children growing up in this context as well as their emotional balance, are at very high levels.

By mutual agreement, the ex-spouses and their children went back to Greece. The mother, knowing that in Greece the custody of the children is traditionally awarded solely to one of the two parents, and more usually the mother, made a fresh application to the Greek courts.  After the involvement of the Greek Justice, the joint physical custody (shared parenting) arrangement was overturned, and custody was awarded solely to the mother of the children, who now makes all the decisions that concern the daily life of the children. In this way, the father no longer has any say in the upbringing, education and health of his children. In addition, the children’s contact with their father became problematic due to the institutional framework and the said decision of the Greek judge. It has become impossible for the father to access information about his children’s daily lives. He [is refused] information about his children regarding health, education, behavior, sociability, reactions, school, etc. He is often forced to ask for a prosecutor’s order, in order to be informed about his children’s health issues! The parents now live in different cities, and while the father has explored the possibilities of moving to the city where his children live, the Greek courts will not give him a substantial role in their upbringing, nor more time with them.

In short, children who were doing well under a shared parenting arrangement in Sweden had that arrangement destroyed by a Greek court and replaced with one that is less prone to promote their well-being.  Why?  Because Greek family courts very plainly know nothing of the science on parenting arrangements that are best for kids and have a pronounced pro-mother/anti-father bias.  Active Dads of Greece wants that to change.

They have a good point.  Not only does shared parenting promote the best interests of children except in unusual circumstances, it’s the plain intention of the European Parliament that, in 2015 passed Resolution 2079 that states, among other things,

Within families, equality between parents must be guaranteed and promoted from the moment the child arrives. The involvement of both parents in their child’s upbringing is beneficial for his or her development. The role of fathers with regard to their children, including very young children, needs to be better recognised and properly valued.

And,

Shared parental responsibility implies that parents have rights, duties and responsibilities with regard to their children. The fact is, however, that fathers are sometimes faced with laws, practices and prejudices which can cause them to be deprived of sustained relationships with their children. In its Resolution 1921 (2013) on gender equality, reconciliation of private and working life and co-responsibility, the Assembly called on the authorities of the member States to respect the right of fathers to enjoy shared responsibility by ensuring that family law foresees, in case of separation or divorce, the possibility of joint custody of children, in their best interests, based on mutual agreement between the parents.  

And,

The Assembly wishes to point out that respect for family life is a fundamental right enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ETS No. 5) and numerous international legal instruments. For a parent and child, being together is an essential part of family life. Parent–child separation has irremediable effects on their relationship. Such separation should only be ordered by a court and only in exceptional circumstances entailing grave risks to the interest of the child.

And,

Furthermore, the Assembly firmly believes that developing shared parental responsibility helps to transcend gender stereotypes about the roles supposedly assigned to women and men within the family and is simply a reflection of the sociological changes that have taken place over the past fifty years in terms of how the private and family sphere is organised.

Despite its membership in the European Union, Greece, through its family courts, almost uniformly ignores all of those aspects of Resolution 2079 and the others it sites.

The parallels to the United States are hard to miss.  In Europe, as here, a child’s chances of maintaining real relationships with both parents post-divorce are fairly good in, say, Sweden and Belgium and terrible in Greece and Spain.  Here, states like Kentucky, Arizona and Utah tend to respect the child’s rights far better than they do in, say, Texas and North Dakota.

Why should a child’s well-being (that’s so closely related to his/her parenting arrangement) depend on the vicissitudes of their state of residence that plainly have no bearing, except in the laws and practices of state courts?  Substitute the word “country” for the word “state” and you’re asking the same question about Europe.  The science on shared parenting isn’t state- or country-specific.  But the practices of judges are very much so.  It’s the kids who suffer.

October 15, 2020 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

One of the few silver linings to an otherwise dismal 2020 has been our ever-increasing willingness to ignore Hollywood personalities who are ever-ready to look down from their Olympian heights and inform us, the great unwashed, of what we need to do and think.  Particularly during the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, movie and recording stars seemed to be more than usually moved to opine and with more than their usual cluelessness.

Still, opine they do (SimpleMost, 10/8/20).  In this case, Keira Knightly deigns to provide a few words on what “we” do regarding fathers and the workplace and what “we” should be doing.  Thank goodness.  I was waiting with bated breath.

Interestingly, the article’s writer, Claire Gillespie, clearly believes that Knightly is saying something she’s actually not.  Here’s Gillespie’s set-up.

It’s not easy to balance motherhood and work. Millions of moms can attest to that, and nobody has any easy answers. But what about fatherhood and work? Generally, dads aren’t asked about the juggling act, and actress Keira Knightley thinks it’s about time they were.

Gillespie’s right that fathers are rarely asked about how they juggle work and family.  That’s probably because, overwhelmingly, the answer is already known.  How dads handle their obligations to their children is generally to work more hours, provide more resources and have personal time with their children when they can.

But whatever the reason “we” don’t ask fathers about how they juggle work and childcare, Knightly’s point is quite different.

“Why do we not expect a working man to be looking after their children as much as their partner is?” Knightley asked.

She doesn’t wonder why we don’t ask fathers, she’s demanding that fathers do more hands-on care, a different matter altogether.

And, if she knew the basics of her chosen topic, she’d know the answer to her question.  But she doesn’t.  She’s absorbed the decades-old public narrative about fathers not doing their share of childcare, mothers working a “second shift,” and related nonsense.  But what she hasn’t done is consult the known facts of the matter.  Yes, they’re just a couple of mouse clicks away, but Knightly, like so many others, hasn’t taken the trouble to, literally, lift a finger.  After all, it’s so much easier to have an opinion if you don’t let facts get in the way.  And, since the press always seems to want to know what actors and actresses have to say about matters about which they’re ignorant, why make the effort?

Those pesky facts of course are that someone has to bring home the bacon and that someone tends very strongly to be fathers.  Countless studies over several decades demonstrate that, even the best educated and most highly motivated women tend to cut their hours at paid work when their first child arrives.  If their family finances permit, they tend to drop out of the rat race entirely.

They do that because they’re powerfully motivated by parenting hormones to devote their full energies to nurturing and caring for their offspring.  Hominin females have been doing that for hundreds of thousands of years, and yet people like Knightly convince themselves that the only reason women don’t do more paid work is their male partners’ lack of interest in their children.

How many studies and surveys do people like Knightly need before they notice the obvious – that mothers’ preference for childcare over paid work is what’s calling the shots about who does what when mothers and fathers allocate their time.  Dr. Catherine Hakim has plenty of information from women and men who live in the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.  Overwhelmingly, those women prefer childcare and home duties to paid work and men prefer the converse.  And that of course makes for a nice meshing of roles and always has, should Knightly care to notice.

Nor does she notice information from, say, the Department of Labor’s American Time Use Survey that, for many years, has shown men doing more and more childcare and that, when hours spent in childcare and paid work are combined, men and women do statistically equal amounts.

Finally, Knightly has no clue about the single factor that most predicts a man’s getting divorced – the loss of his job.  Why might that be?  Why should income provision play such an important role in a woman’s attachment to a man?  Because that too is how we’ve evolved.  For eons, females looked to the dominant male hierarchy for individuals with whom to mate.  Over all that time, some 60% of males didn’t get to mate because they hadn’t attained high enough status.  And membership in the male hierarchy tended strongly to be a matter of territory protection and resource provision.  And what is today’s earning but resource provision?

All this is news to Knightly and her ilk.  As is so often the case, toney Hollywood celebs feel entitled to opine on subjects about which they haven’t the most basic information.  They’re good people to ignore.  It’s a beneficial trend that more and more people are doing so.