Category: Blog

June 13, 2019 by Robert Franklin, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

Oregon has passed a bill that some may consider an “equal parenting” bill.  That may be a slight improvement over the status quo, but my guess is it’ll mean little-to-no change in parenting time orders.  Governor Katherine Brown signed it into law. 

Here’s the pertinent language of what is now the law in the Beaver State.

“In developing a parenting plan under this subsection, the court may order equal parenting time. If a parent requests that the court order equal parenting time in the parenting plan, the court may deny the request if the court determines, by written findings, that equal parenting time is not in the best interests of the child or endangers the safety of the parties.” 

In short, a court may order equal parenting time, but of course that was always true.  Oregon didn’t prohibit equal parenting time prior to the passage of this bill and so a judge could do so.  About the only difference comes in the following sentence that requires written findings if equal parenting isn’t ordered.  Family court judges are busy and they don’t like to spell out why they do what they do.  Still, any impediment to non-equal time is a blow, however weak, in favor of it.  The best interests of the child remain the primary focus of parenting time decisions.

Plus, there are no guidelines on which judges can determine what is in a child’s best interests and what isn’t.  So a judge can simply say that Dad spent too much time at work for it to be in the child’s interest to see much of him post-divorce.

Meanwhile, here’s the language of SB 318 the legislature refused to pass:

In determining parenting time rights under this section, there is a rebuttable presumption that equal parenting time is in the best interests of the child. In determining whether the presumption under this subparagraph has been rebutted, the court shall consider all relevant factors, including, but not limited to, the factors listed in ORS 107.137 (1). The burden of rebutting the presumption is on the parent challenging the presumption. The presumption must be rebutted by clear and convincing evidence that equal parenting time is not in the best interests of the child and the other parent’s lack or inability with respect to the child will cause substantial risk of harm to the child’s health or safety.

In other words, the Oregon legislature traded a good bill for a lousy one.  The original bill would have gone a long way toward keeping children united with both parents when the adults split up.  In the process, it would have helped ameliorate a host of social issues – crime, drug and alcohol abuse, mental health problems, educational problems – in the state.  Instead, lawmakers elected to put the smallest and most fragile of band-aids on the gaping wound of fatherlessness.  The opportunity was there, and they blew it.

But those of us who know and value the truth about child custody, parenting time and children’s well-being will be back.  We’ll always be back.  We’ll be back because reforming how judges make their orders and educating them about equal parenting are societal “musts.”  We’ll be back because we have right and justice on our side and those who oppose children’s rights to both parents have zip.

Thanks to Brian for the heads-up.

June 11, 2019 by Don Hubin, Ph.D., Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

As any involved parent knows, parenting is both a great joy, and a burden. Fortunately, the joys outweigh the burdens but the burdens are real.

I am reminded of that when I see the commercial now airing for the University of Phoenix titled “Discover Your Wings.” It’s about an apparently single mother who finds it difficult to pursue her education in traditional ways because of her responsibilities to her child. It’s hard to watch this commercial without thinking, “wouldn’t it be good if she had help in raising her child—help that would allow her some time to get the education she needs to advance her career?”

The commercial doesn’t even hint that there is a father in the picture somewhere. But why not? Maybe the father is dead. Maybe he’s a ne’er-do-well who is shirking his responsibility to his child. These are possibilities. But a much more likely possibility is that he’s a sidelined dad, confined to seeing his children only every other weekend by a family court system that seems stuck in the 1950s.

It’s hard for a parent to pursue an education—even an on-line education—or advance in their career, when the only break they get from hands-on childcare is every other weekend. Wouldn’t it be great if the child care responsibilities of separated parents were typically shared much more equally? Wouldn’t it help mothers advance their education and careers—not to mention developing their adult relationships—if they had more time to do so?

It would! And it does!

Shared parenting, where separated parents divide the hands-on caretaking of their children equally benefits children. We know that; the evidence is now clear. And it’s good for fathers. But what about mothers? Do they benefit from shared parenting?

The good news is that this isn’t a zero-sum situation. The benefits for children and fathers don’t come at the expense of mothers. Shared parental responsibility frees mothers to get the education they need to pursue more challenging and rewarding careers and then to be successful in those careers. And, importantly, it allows them time to develop other adult relationships that can enhance their lives.

This isn’t just speculation. The latest evidence concerning the career benefits to women who share parenting responsibilities with the father of their children living apart comes from Spain. Professor Pilar Alvargonzalez Muñoz compared communities in Spain where shared physical custody of children was common with communities where it was rare. Professor Muñoz found that, in those communities “where legislation fostered shared parenting, [women] are more likely to be employed.”

This effect is not, of course, confined to Spain. And it’s an important lesson for those on this side of the Atlantic. Young American women have higher career ambitions than ever. In order for them to achieve those laudable ambitions, we need to change the cultural norm where, upon divorce, fathers are shuttled to the sidelines and mothers are overburdened with child care responsibilities. 

June 10, 2019 by Robert Franklin, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

Last time I discussed this article by attorney Nancy Shannon and academic researcher Jennifer Harman (Lincoln Journal Star, 6/6/19).  The two excoriate maternal gatekeeping as a danger to children who need both parents actively involved in their lives.

Extensive research shows the importance of fathers to their children’s well-being.

These studies indicate children in father-limited environments are almost four times more likely to live in poverty, more likely to use drugs and alcohol and twice as likely to commit suicide.

They also have significantly lower educational attainment, are more likely to engage in juvenile delinquency, have higher risk of being victimized by crime, have higher risk of physical and mental health issues and have lower life expectancies.

Having educated their readers about the vital importance of fathers and then about maternal gatekeeping, Shannon and Harman go on to say,

Nebraska judges are losing patience with gatekeeping parents.

They then go into four separate cases in the courts of appeals and the state Supreme Court that demonstrate judges awareness of and diminishing patience for gatekeeping and alienating behaviors.   For example, one Court of Appeals opinion stated,

“Given the strong history of discord between these two, the fact that [mother] has chosen to disregard the Court’s previous directions aimed at establishing a coparenting relationship between [the parents], and the parental alienation instigated by [mother] which is obvious from the record, the Court chooses to award legal custody of the minor children to [father]. 

In short, a sense among Nebraska’s judges that shared parenting is best for kids and any parent who unjustifiably interferes with the other’s parenting time should find her/himself in the judicial crosshairs. 

Of course, I’m ever the skeptic.  I’ll believe that judges, as a general rule, understand the need for equal parenting when I see a lot of in-depth data showing a consistent change in judicial behavior. 

Still, Shannon and Harman’s op-ed is much needed because it highlights important issues in family courts.  Their statement that judges no longer tolerate gatekeeping or alienating behavior is, among other things, a warning to parents who might be tempted to engage in those behaviors.  As such, it may just reduce the incidence of that behavior.

That’s even more likely when they turn to the financial aspects of gatekeeping and alienation.

Courts have also ordered gatekeeping parents to pay substantial attorneys’ fees. In one case, a mother was ordered to pay $9,000 in attorneys’ fees because her lack of cooperation unnecessarily increased conflict and expenses. In another case, a court ordered a mother to pay $20,000 in attorneys’ fees.

That looks like a warning to me.

Finally, Shannon and Harman point out that gatekeeping and alienation are not only child abuse, but domestic violence aimed at the other parent.  That latter is a particularly excellent point.

It’s also domestic violence directed at the other parent as a way to control them by damaging their relationships with their children.

Essentially every statute governing custody and parenting time requires a judge to consider whether domestic violence has occurred and issue orders accordingly.  If, as we’re told, DV is a matter of maintaining control over the other person, then Shannon and Harman are unquestionably correct that gatekeeping and parental alienation are, in addition to child abuse, domestic violence.  Family attorneys should be advised and assert the issue in the appropriate cases.

June 8, 2019 by Robert Franklin, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

The ever-excellent Jennifer Harman co-wrote this piece with Nebraska family lawyer Nancy Shannon (Lincoln Journal Star, 6/7/19).  It’s an excellent article about maternal gatekeeping and recent responses to it by Nebraska’s courts.

Maternal gatekeeping is a common occurrence in one form or another.  Much of it consists of barely noticeable but still effective behaviors that serve to block Dad’s everyday access to his child.  “That’s not the way to diaper the baby, John; here, let me do it,” illustrates the phenomenon.  Many mothers report having to check their instincts to avoid coming between the child and its father.  Failure to do that can, over time, sideline fathers in the lives of their children.

But Shannon and Harman are concerned with more serious forms of gatekeeping.  They cite a 2016 report by the Administration for Children and Families.

According to this report, “more than half of nonresident fathers offered accounts of gatekeeping behavior, ranging from refusing to grant physical access to making frequent last-minute schedule changes. Gatekeeping also came in more indirect forms, such as refusal to communicate in person or by phone, withholding information from the father about the child or berating the father.”

Now, let’s be clear.  The report cited in no way claimed that half of mothers engage in gatekeeping behavior.  Half of mothers in the study were reported by fathers to have done so.  And those fathers were part of certain Responsible Fatherhood programs that were studied by the ACF.  That means the population studied bore no relationship to the population generally.  The men there were far more likely to be poor, black or of Hispanic origin and poorly educated than men in the U.S. generally.  Shannon and Harmon should have mentioned the fact.  Here’s my piece from 2016 about that report.

Motives for gatekeeping vary. Sometimes, it’s used to control the other parent. Other times, it’s used for financial gain. According to the Federal report, “mothers would sometimes restrict access when a father failed to provide ‘extras’ over and above the required child support.”

Those are some of the motives, but we shouldn’t confuse motives with causes.  Maternal gatekeeping is caused by the biologically based ancient role of women as the primary caregivers to children.  Interfere with that role and you come between not only a mother and her child, but between her and the role she’s played in human (and pre-human) societies from far, far back into pre-history.  Few cast aside a role so deeply ingrained.

Plus, since the biology of the paternal role urges him to be the secondary parent (see, the work of Ruth Feldman at Bar Elan University), it’s easy to see how (a) mothers tend to assert themselves as the primary parent and (b) fathers tend to acquiesce in their doing so.

For a good while now, particularly affluent Western societies have said that we want to abandon gender-based roles.  We’ve shouted that to the heavens for decades now, but when it comes to actually doing so, we tend hesitate.  However many women have embraced paid work outside the home and however many men have embraced the paternal role, the fact remains that men still tend strongly to be the chief earners and women the chief caregivers to children.  And, when asked about their preferences, working women tend to say they’d prefer to work less than they do and men to say they want to work more.  Getting people to ignore their age-old roles isn’t an easy task.

I’ll have more to say on this next time.

June 7, 2019 by Robert Franklin, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

Eleven months ago, an Arizona court terminated the parental rights of a California father who, known to the AZ Department of Children and Families, the AZ Attorney General’s Office and at least one judge in the case, had been described by California authorities this way:

California’s child-welfare investigators, asked by DCS to check him out, gave the man a glowing report. His ex-wife called him “a good father, who cares and provides for his children.”  A California social worker wrote that it “is obvious that (the children) feel loved and cared for by their father and that he is very involved in their lives.” (AZ Central, 5/29/19)

The child’s mother didn’t want the father to have custody of her and neither did the state Department of Child Safety.  The scheme nearly worked.  It may yet.  For now though, an Arizona appellate court has overturned the termination of rights and excoriated caseworkers, the Attorney General’s Office and the judge.

The father and the mother of the little girl named Melody had a brief affair in Sacramento.  While pregnant, the mother moved back to her native Arizona.  That was in 2014.  The man told her that he wanted to play an active paternal role.  Mom was apparently unfit to care for the child who was taken from her by DCS immediately after birth.

But DCS wasn’t interested in doing either the right thing or the simple thing.  That would have meant ascertaining whether the father, who’d called the agency and told them he wanted to care for his child, was fit and willing to do so and, if he was, handing her over to him.  Case closed.

But the agency that has routinely (and rightly) complained in the past about having too little money and too few caseworkers wasted both in its headlong effort to deprive a child of her father and a father of his daughter.  If that meant lying to multiple courts, the caseworkers were happy to do so.  If it meant placing obstacles between the father and Melody, they were willing.  If it meant going to court to swear that Dad’s failure to clear those obstacles indicated his unfitness and abandonment of his child, that too was acceptable.  DCS did all that and more.

The AG’s Office pitched in too as did juvenile court judges.

[Appellate Judge Paul] McMurdie also questioned the ethics of the Attorney General’s Office, which represents DCS, for even filing the dependency petition given that there was no evidence that the father was unfit.

“The lack of factual support for the allegations in the petition relating to Father’s unfitness creates significant concerns about the ethical propriety of filing the dependency petition claiming Father abused or neglected and abandoned Melody,” he wrote.

He also dinged the judges for rubber stamping a “baseless dependency petition” and severing a father’s rights with no evidence to support DCS’s claims.

“The petition’s generic assertions failed to support the conclusion that an out-of-state parent – seeking to establish paternity of a less than one-month-old child, who has been in DCS custody since birth – abused, neglected, or abandoned the child… ,” he wrote. “Moreover, the record is devoid of any evidence supporting the unfitness allegations in the petition, a fact DCS acknowledged at oral argument before this court.”

The case and the child are now over four years old.  Melody has been with her foster parents for almost all that time.  She doubtless thinks of them as her parents but, solely because of DCS’s determination to wrongfully keep her father out of her life, will be forced at this late date to forget them and look to her father for her care. 

In short, a child welfare agency is guilty of gross child abuse.  By doing everything in their power to thwart a fit father in his quest to assert his rights and his daughter’s welfare, DCS and the rest have damaged an innocent child, quite possibly permanently.

Antipathy for fathers is a well-known phenomenon among CPS caseworkers nationwide.  Back in 2006, the Urban Institute studied caseworker behavior and found that, in barely half of cases in which a child was taken from its mother was any attempt made to even contact the father.  One Ninth Circuit opinion held that the failure to do so is a violation of the father’s civil rights.

Of course the Maricopa County caseworkers couldn’t very well avoid contacting Melody’s father.  He’d made that impossible by contacting them and following their every instruction.  Still, it took over four years for him to overcome their recalcitrance in court.

The case is far from over.  Just because a court has overturned the order terminating the father’s rights doesn’t end things.  After all, the lower court will likely order a transition period during which Melody spends more and more time with her dad and less with her foster parents.  How long that will go on is anyone’s guess as well as whatever new impediments will be dreamed up by DCS authorities who will be none too pleased to have been shamed by the appellate court.

June 6, 2019 by Robert Franklin, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

I’ve reported before that the State of Texas seems bent on privatizing all or much of its child welfare services.  If Miami-Dade and Monroe counties in south Florida are any indication, Texas officials might want to think again (Miami New Times, 6/5/19).

The last two contracts let by those counties to a private provider of child welfare services have gone to a non-profit organization called Our Kids.  Things haven’t gone well.  The linked-to article cites the organization’s “record of poor service and rocky relationships with subcontractors, detailed in an examination conducted by DCF in 2017.”  That, combined with the recent suicides of two youths, apparently in Our Kids’ foster care, set officials seeking alternatives.

They didn’t have far to look.  Enter Citrus Health that was first chosen to replace Our Kids last summer, only to have the decision derailed by serious allegations of conflicts of interest.  Some eight months later, Citrus was chosen again, having presumably jettisoned its conflicts.  That process seems to suggest that, whoever makes the decision about awarding the contract to provide services to abused and neglected kids had simply decided on Citrus regardless.

Why Citrus Health?  Good question.  That’s because it has no experience providing foster care or in children’s welfare generally.  Due to its loss of the state contract, Our Kids is shutting up shop.  Apparently, that contract was its life blood, so it’s getting out of the child welfare business altogether, albeit involuntarily.

It’s easy to see why Our Kids fought so hard to retain its contract with Miami-Dade and Monroe counties.

At stake was a five-year, half-billion-dollar deal with the Florida Department of Children and Families to administer foster-care services for 3,000 children in need.  

Wait, say what?  Half a billion dollars for just 3,000 kids?  That’s a whopping $167,000 per child over five years or $33,400 per child per year.  If they pay foster parents about $650 per child per month, that leaves $25,600 per child to do what with?  I understand that caseworkers, supervisors, etc. cost money, but from here, that looks like a very hefty administrative cost.  Privatization is supposed to do the same job the state does only better and cheaper.  $33,400 per child per year doesn’t look cheap to me.

But if Our Kids did a poor job, perhaps Citrus Health can do better despite its entire lack of experience in the field. Perhaps not.

Citrus, meanwhile, is new to the world of foster care but has a long history of negligence at its mental-health facilities. In recent years, the nonprofit has faced allegations of sexual assault, as well as accusations of physically abusing teens by using restraints and injecting them with sedatives against their will.

That’s not what I’d call a promising prognosis.  The fact is made all the clearer since, of the 162 employees laid off by Our Kids, 144 of them are hiring on with Citrus.  The good news is that, unlike everyone else at Citrus, they have experience in child welfare cases.  The bad news is that their performance on the job at Our Kids (a) looks to have been deficient and (b) possibly lost the company its contract with Miami-Dade and Monroe counties.

From here it looks like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  Texas child welfare officials, beware.

June 4, 2019 by Patrick Bailey

Today’s post was written by a guest blogger, Patrick Bailey.

In many jurisdictions, drug or alcohol addiction can have a significant impact on parental rights during or after divorce proceedings. Courts have denied both physical and legal custody, and even visitation rights, to individuals suffering from alcoholism or drug abuse. Some courts also take the history of drug abuse into account, impacting the parent’s ability to have custody years into recovery.


Restoring Visitation or Custody Rights

Addiction is considered a disease, rather than a choice or indication of moral failing. Unlike other diseases, however, parents facing addiction can lose custody of their children. This might come after Child Protective Services deems the living situation unsafe for the child due to neglect or abuse. Likewise, in a shared parenting situation, one parent can go to the court and accuse the other parent of being unfit due to substance use.

A court can also decide to revoke custody under three circumstances:

• failing a drug test during custody hearings
• being arrested on drug or alcohol-related charges
• failing a drug test following a report of neglect or abuse made to CPS

For many parents with a substance abuse disorder, the possibility of losing custody can add a significant level of stress to the already-stressful recovery process. It can be helpful to both the parent and the child to have the courts outline the process necessary to restore visitation rights. In some jurisdictions, it might mean attending inpatient rehab, attending support groups or counseling, and passing drug tests before supervised visitation or regaining custody.

Regardless of the requirements, parents should insist on having them in writing, along with ways they can prove to the court that they are in compliance. Without having a plan legally documented, it can be difficult to prove that the steps necessary to demonstrate the ability to parent have been taken.

Reconnecting and Bonding

Following treatment and once custody or visitation has been restored, the long process of reconnecting and bonding with your child begins. It can be a difficult process. After all, you and your children have been through a lot. Your children have faced life-altering changes, from your addiction to the divorce to your absence due to rehab. They might have a lot of questions and will certainly test boundaries and try to find ways to express their strong emotions.

During recovery, you have an opportunity to rebuild your relationship with your children and to start your new life together, as both someone in recovery and as a coparent. The following are ways to make bonding with your children easier.

Be Honest about your Addiction

Your children, regardless of their ages, probably have some level of understanding regarding what you went through. Even if you attempted to hide your substance use, they likely noticed that you were less connected as a parent or that there were significant upheavals happening.

An important step in reconnecting is to be honest, yet age-appropriate, with your children. Use your experiences as a stepping stone for discussions on making good choices or overcoming adversity. Being honest allows them to see that mistakes don’t define you and that you can overcome obstacles with hard work and perseverance.

Allow Your Children to Express their Feelings

Your children likely have powerful emotions to work through after your addiction, divorce, and recovery. Young children especially might not have the vocabulary to express their hurt or anger and older children and teens might not feel comfortable expressing those feelings to you. They may instead push boundaries, rebel, or express their feelings in destructive ways.

To prevent that, it can be helpful to find counseling or support groups for your children. This allows them to identify their emotions and work through them so that they can begin to reconnect with you.

It might also be helpful to attend family therapy with your child, and even your co-parent. Many rehab facilities have family programs available that specialize in helping children and their parents heal following addiction.

Develop a Schedule and Routines

It is likely that your life has been unpredictable before and during your recovery process and divorce. Having structure is an important part of your recovery, and it can also give children a sense of predictability, safety, and security.

Especially in the early days of reconnecting with your children, develop a daily and weekly schedule and post it where everyone can see. This allows you to be accountable, lowering the risk of a relapse, while also giving your children information they need to feel more secure.

Having a schedule that everyone can see also helps your children regain their trust in you. Each time you bring your children to an event on the schedule, pick your child up on time and attend play dates and special events, your children see that you are prioritizing them and are a reliable and safe person.

Be Present in the Now

It’s likely that with the recent upheaval in your life, the everyday routine things in life got tossed aside. Now is the time to enjoy time together doing the simple things – work on homework with your child after school, develop a soothing bedtime routine that you and your child do every night, and sit down to read books each day. While it is often the big things in life – vacations, holidays, special occasions, etc. – that capture our attention, it is the simple routine things that help with bonding and become lifelong memories.

While the road to regaining custody after your substance abuse disorder is long and difficult, being able to reconnect and bond with your child in recovery makes it all worth it. If you are currently facing custody issues due to a substance abuse disorder, the best thing you can do to regain custody is to get treatment from a qualified rehab facility and in particular, one that offers family-centered programs designed to help your whole family heal and take the first step towards your new future together.

June 3, 2019 by Robert Franklin, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

Just four days ago, I reported that the Commissioner of the Texas Department of Families and Protective Services, Hank Whitman, was retiring after just three years on the job.  Yes, Whitman had done much-needed things for the agency, principally, greatly increased funding for CPS that’s overseen by DFPS.

But with all that extra funding, isn’t now Whitman’s chance to use that money to make needed improvements to how the state treats kids at risk of abuse or neglect?  Why obtain the money and then walk away before you have a real opportunity to use it?

My somewhat cynical guess was this:

[M]aybe he sees that Texas has done all it’s going to do for the time about cleaning up the horrendous mess that was CPS.  Do lawmakers figure that the crisis has been averted and plan to scale back funding again?

Now this article tells us that I wasn’t far wrong (Texas Standard, 5/31/19).

Child advocates say [this year’s legislative] session was marked by little action on foster care.

Let’s back up two years to the 2017 Texas legislative session.

That year, Gov. Greg Abbott made overhauling the state’s struggling child welfare system a top priority during his State of the State Address.

“We need more workers, better training, smarter strategies, and real accountability in order to safeguard our children,” Abbott said.

Abbott’s call to action came after a federal judge declared the Texas foster care system “unconstitutional” and “broken.” There had also been a spike in the number of kids sleeping in state offices and hotels due to a lack of placements. The agency was also facing high staff turnover rates.

As a result, state lawmakers pumped an extra $500 million into the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

Cut to the 2019 Texas legislative session, and well, it just wasn’t the same.

Kate Murphy is the senior child welfare policy associate at Texans Care for Children. She had hoped lawmakers would prioritize more foster care reforms this session.

“And there were a number of pretty big ticket items things like expanding trauma informed care, and taking care of our older youth in foster care that they were hoping to work on last session, that just didn’t get the kind of attention we were expecting at all,” Murphy says.

And then there’s the zinger:

[B]ecause [legislators] put so much attention and in their case, renewed and increased resources into CPS last session, many of them thought that problem was solved and didn’t want to come back to it,” [lobbyist Will Frances] says.

So did Whitman leave the agency because he knew from legislative inaction this term that Texas has paid all the special attention to CPS it intends to for the time?  That’s what it looks like from here, but needless to say, the problems, while greatly ameliorated by the extra funds, haven’t gone away and won’t.

The class action lawsuit that found long-term foster care unconstitutional will be reaching its final conclusion. Plus, a federal measure that revamps how the U.S. government pays states for foster care goes into effect after the 2021 session ends. It’s called the Family First Prevention Services Act. That leaves little time for the state to comply with new federal standards to keep qualifying for those taxpayer dollars.

Texas lawmakers may have a limited attention span when it comes to abused and neglected kids.  They of course can spend an entire session ignoring them.  But that doesn’t mean children in the state no longer suffer at the hands of parents, foster parents, caregivers and others.  It doesn’t mean that taking kids into foster care is necessarily the right thing for them.  And it doesn’t mean that acting in violation of the Constitution in order to shanghai children away from their homes – a distressingly common practice by CPS caseworkers – is the right mode of action.

Those things and more continue, whether the legislature is paying attention or not.

June 1, 2019 by Robert Franklin,  Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization 

Are married adults happier than unmarried adults?  Yes (IF Studies, 5/28/19).  The Guardian newspaper doesn’t like the fact, but it’s true nevertheless (The Guardian, 5/25/19).

Sociologists have for decades understood that married people report much higher rates of overall happiness than do never married or separated/divorced people.  But not much recent research had been conducted on the matter.  So W. Brad Wilcox and Nicholas Wolfinger decided to see if things had changed since Jesse Bernard did the original research 47 years ago. 

Not much has.

The linked-to article shows 40% of married people with kids and 41% without kids calling themselves “very happy.”  That’s almost double the rate of never married and separated/divorced people.  The same holds true when only women are asked.

By contrast, just 6% of married childless people and 7% of those married with kids call themselves “not too happy.”

In short, there’s a hefty benefit in terms of overall happiness to be had from marriage.

Now, when health and men’s earnings are considered, marriage is also associated with a benefit.  Married people tend to be healthier and married men earn more than their unmarried peers, but that appears to be at least in part a function of selection bias. 

Studies have shown that the benefits of marriage for health and men’s wages are a product of selection, not causation: healthier men and men with greater earning capacity are more likely to get married in the first place.

That of course looks very much like a basic component of evolutionary biology, i.e. sexual selection.  Women tend to want as mates men who are healthy and seem to be good providers.  Reach back into hominid evolution as far as you like and the same holds true.  Why not now?

In short, the Wilcox/Wolfinger study is new, but its results aren’t.  We’ve known them for a long time, but it’s educational to establish that the benefits of marriage to people’s happiness is still very much intact.

That of course raises an obvious question: why do federal and state governments discourage marriage and encourage divorce?  It’s a question I’ve asked before in different contexts, but the same holds true for people’s happiness. 

Alimony and child support provide financial incentives for women to divorce and for men to avoid marriage.  Child support enforcement mechanisms do the same.  No-fault divorce eases the process.  Community property laws tend to make divorce attractive for the lower earner and marriage unattractive for the spouse who earns more.  Pro-mother/anti-father child custody outcomes are more of the same and, as we know, that’s why 70% of divorces are filed by women.

All that and more add up to a public policy that announces loudly and clearly to men “Don’t marry!” and to women “Divorce!”  It’s as if our governments want us to be unhappy.

Meanwhile, The Guardian gets the matter wrong.  The good news is that it admitted as much after the fact.  Here’s what The Guardian reported economist Paul Dolan saying:

Married people are happier than other population subgroups, but only when their spouse is in the room when they’re asked how happy they are. When the spouse is not present: f***ing miserable.

Apparently he either didn’t say that or didn’t mean it because it’s been removed from the article with this rather craven apology.

This article was amended on 30 May 2019 to remove remarks by Paul Dolan that contained a misunderstanding of an aspect of the American Time Use Survey data.

But the article is still fundamentally at odds with the facts.  For example, its headline reads “Women are happier without children or a spouse, says happiness expert.”

Hmm.  A casual glance at Wilcox and Wolfinger’s data calls those assertions into serious question.  Yes, 41% of married women with children call themselves “very happy” versus 45% of married women without kids.  But those 41% still far outnumber the 27% of divorced women without kids and the 24% of unmarried women without kids who say they’re “very happy.”  The point being that happiness for women has a lot more to do with whether they’re married or not than whether they have children.

But that of course didn’t keep The Guardian from joining state and federal governments in trying to convince women that marriage isn’t in their interests.

May 31, 2019 by Robert Franklin, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

JP Morgan Chase and Company has agreed to pay $5 million to settle a sex discrimination suit filed by a father who was denied parental leave (MSN, 5/30/19).

The payout resolves a 2017 complaint brought by the American Civil Liberties Union alleging bias against Derek Rotondo, who had applied unsuccessfully for the 16-week parental leave benefit available to employees who are the “primary caregiver” of a new kid.

Unsurprisingly, Rotondo was considered by the company to not be his child’s primary caregiver. 

In the complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Rotondo said the company told him it started from the presumption that a child’s birth mother was the primary caregiver. And because his wife, a teacher, wasn’t incapacitated and had the summer off, he couldn’t qualify.

Given that most primary caregivers to children are mothers, the company’s policy seems to have blatantly discriminated against fathers and in favor of mothers.  Indeed, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has ruled accordingly.

In 2015, the EEOC distinguished between postpartum medical leave, which the agency said could be “limited to women affected,” and leave for bonding with and caring for a new child, which had to be provided equally to men and women.

Does the EEOC’s distinction between “medical” and “bonding” leave include providing leave for mental health issues that frequently follow a child’s birth?  Physical recovery from childbirth is an obvious requirement for women, but significant numbers of mothers and fathers experience postpartum depression that can be quite debilitating.  Dr. Anna Machin reports that about 10% of new fathers and 14% of new mothers suffer Post Natal Depression (PND).  Interestingly, one factor that contributes to PND in fathers is their treatment as less important parents by the medical community and others, i.e. exactly what JPMorgan was doing.

The company of course disclaims any intention to discriminate, but multiple fathers joined Rotondo in his lawsuit and the resulting settlement.  That the company’s distinction between “primary” and “secondary” caregivers wasn’t understood by the company to discriminate against fathers taxes credulity.  That’s particularly true given that mothers are well-known to be primary caregivers most of the time.  Add to that the EEOC’s ruling referred to above, that was surely known to the company’s lawyers, and it’s hard not to conclude that JPMorgan was happy to encourage mothers to take on that role and fathers not to.

 Rotondo’s lawyer pointed out the obvious:

Companies would be better off just ditching the distinctions [between primary and other caregivers], said Peter Romer-Friedman, one of Rotondo’s lawyers. Providing all new parents the same amount of leave is a simpler and superior approach: “It’s easier to administer, and it doesn’t import the stereotypes or the distinctions that our society has artificially set.”

What a concept.  In fact, that concept is one other companies might want to seriously consider adopting.

 In 2018, 35% of companies said they gave new moms paid time off, up from 26% two years earlier, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management. The share of firms saying they offered paid paternity leave rose to 29% from 21%.

That’s a very strong indication that many companies are discriminating against fathers in the provision (or lack thereof) of parental leave.  Plus,

Some, like Facebook Inc., say they offer all their employees the same amount of paid parental leave. But many other companies, like Wells Fargo & Co. and Uber Technologies Inc., use a system akin to JPMorgan’s, with more leave for parents who will be the “primary” caregiver of a new child than to those who will be “secondary.”

In short, look forward to many more such lawsuits in the near future or – dare we hope? – a change in policies at those companies that now illegally distinguish between parents.