Thanks to journalist Vicki Larson for this imminently sensible piece on shared parenting and some of the many ways in which society conspires to thwart it (Huffington Post, 11/26/10). I read so much that is so at odds with the truth, so contrary to known facts, so opposed to justice and what was once called common decency. I tell you, it’s a breath of fresh air when a piece like Larson’s comes along.
She’s a mother and she’s divorced. Larson pulls no punches when writing about her 14-year marriage. It wound up on the rocks and she’s glad to be rid of it. But she and her ex, partly because they couldn’t afford pricey lawyers, opted for mediation of their divorce and custody issues and, perhaps not surprisingly, ended up with a 50-50 split of parenting time.
Good for them. But it didn’t take long for things to head south. Their equal arrangement became difficult, not because of anything either of them did or didn’t do, but because society isn’t set up to accept it.
The first thing was their children’s back-to-school packet that asked for the children’s “primary residence.” What to do? The kids had two primary residences, not just one. But the school had no concept of equally shared parenting and therefore, made no accomodation for two parents, each with equal authority, interest, love, caring, etc.
As far as the school was concerned, only one parent was to be contacted in case of emergency, only one parent would be expected at the parent-teacher meeting, only one parent would be consulted in case little Andy or Jenny had a disciplinary or academic problem.
And, as Larson points out, whoever that parent was would get all the communications from the school and the other would get none. That would mean that whoever the primary parent was would get the full burden of child care. Every email, every telephone call would go to that parent. It would be the primary parent’s time, energy and attention that would be taken.
So, on one side of the coin, the primary parent gets the full load and that cuts into work and leisure time. The other parent, by contrast, gets nothing – no information, no problems to solve, no games or plays to attend, no parent-teacher conferences to take part in. In short, the secondary parent is kicked to the curb; he/she can only learn what’s going on in their child’s life second-hand.
And, as Larson points out, it’s not just schools that assume that there’s only one parent who’s important in a child’s life.
It isn’t just school forms and notices, of course. It’s almost anything the touches our kids’ lives, from permission slips for gymnastics competitions to schedules for post-Little League game snacks to postcard reminders from the pediatrician of an upcoming appointment to birthday party invitations.
I’ve written plenty about the frank inequalities perpetrated by family laws and family courts. Those are the main things standing between fathers and their children. But what Larson is writing about is another, subtler form of anti-dad discrimination. It’s the soft bias of the countless institutions that touch everyone’s life that take it as an article of faith that fathers are unimportant to and uninterested in their children.
Courts seldom give dads primary custody and even more seldom grant equal parenting time. They follow that indignity by refusing to enforce the visitation orders they themselves issue. We know that.
But then there are the schools that refuse to inform non-custodial parents (84% of whom are dads) about various important things in their children’s lives. Those same schools often refuse to allow a dad to see his child during school hours or to take little Andy or Jenny out of school to a special event. Doctors offices often refuse to release information to dads.
So it goes. Fathers have to fight every day just to keep a semblance of contact with their children. And that’s with equable moms. Those who are hell-bent on excluding dad place yet another obstacle between him and his child. That leaves Larson asking – and answering – the obvious question:
By continuing to think in terms that diss dads — and sometimes moms — what are we really saying about marital and post-marital equality? The subtle message is that dads are second-class, that they doesn’t (sic) care — or care enough. I know lots of divorced dads who would disagree.
Larson gets the obvious. There’s a lot of divorce in this culture. Placing the lion’s share of the child care burden on mothers virtually ensures that they will be more stressed and earn less than men.
(And sure enough, that’s exactly what happens as much data from many sources confirm. The single greatest cause of the gap between men’s and women’s earnings is the fact that women work less than men. And the reason for that is child care. Go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics American Time Use Survey and see for yourself.)
In the process, men lose out on their children and children lose out on their dads.
It’s not sensible. The system we’ve developed is bad for everyone concerned. Vicki Larson is starting to see that and helping us to see it too.