'Kate wrote:

Why is it that whenever you talk to men about these emotional things,
they use personal experience? It's as if the rest of the world does
not exist.

Boggle

I think *people* tend to go right to personal experience when discussing
emotional things. I mean it's not like women, by comparision, are more
likely to head right for the objective data when discussing emotional
issues. Come on.


Take a look at child access interference. Were that prosecuted to the
same extent that child maintenance is prosecuted, heck we'd have kids
growing up without parents, because both Mom and Dad would be in jail.


Hmm... man cheats on woman. Woman runs him down in the parking lot of
the hotel where he was having sex with his mistress. Woman pleads "but
you can't put me in jail, the children will be without a parent."

I'm not sure what the relevance of this little vignette is.


So... let me ask you... are you responding the way that you are
because you're a man in that situation or because you think it's fair
for everyone to be put in jail for not supporting children? Do you
really think that this is "either/or" or is there another option
wherein people actually support their own children and don't run out
on payments *OR* children?

I think almost everyone here will agree that both parents should support
their children financially and emotionally. The Devil is in the details.

I don't beleive the OP was actually advocating that both parents should
be thrown in jail.

But you already know that, I think. The logic presented is pretty basic
stuff, and the only way I can see someone misreading it is if they are
being deliberately obfuscatory in an effort to confound other readers.


Because being male is the be all end all as far as being top of the
food chain.

That depends entirely on which "food chain" you are talking about. To
use a metaphor, a great white shark is not at the top of the food chain
in the middle of the Gobi desert. He's more of a sitting duck.
Environment plays a very significant factor.

In family court, men are most certainly not at "the top of the food
chain". To suggest otherwise is... well... nonsensical because it
flies in the face of so much data indicating the opposite.


Take the women who leave their children or are not "given" custody of
their children.... aren't they treated more harshly by society? They
are automatically seen as bad mothers or crazy or drunks or drug
abusers. We immediatly think, "What's wrong with her?" because it is
not the norm.

You're right. Non-Custodial Moms are generally assumed to have done
something "wrong" in order to have "lost" custody. But what does that
say about the reality of the family court system? Is there
statistically anything behind it? What kind of women lose custody
cases? If I were a gambling man, I'd bet that there were would be a
significantly higher percentage who were "bad mothers", "crazy",
"drunks", and "drug abusers" than the equivalent for men who lost
custody disputes. Of course I *could* be wrong, but I don't think so.


Take the men who have custody or are widowed. They are
treated like idiots who don't know how to parent their own children.

Eh? I have my son half of the time and I don't recall ever being
treated like an idiot who didn't know how to parent. Are you citing a
study here, or just going on personal experience?


They are offered far more help than single women.

How?


Single women are
called welfare moms and treated like "you made your bed.
I don't
declare "I'm a widow" immediately. . . you would be surprised at how
many are ready to tell me how if I had been a good wife and mother, I
wouldn't be in this situation.... even among fellow family therapist
students the assumption is that I'm divorced or never married. And
you know... what's it matter? The stiuation is the same.

So you are upset that just because you are a single mother, people
assume you are freeloading off the system and feel animosity towards you
because of that. I guess I can see that. I certainly wouldn't like
that attitude directed at me either, if it weren't true of me (and
probably even if it were).

But where do you think the prejudice comes from?


Ah, we all have our pet peeves don't we?

Sure do. And to be fair, is it really reasonable to expect anyone to
have as much of a conniption about a societal prejudice that hasn't and
isn't ever going to affect *them*, personally?


it is a gender thing only because a small part of one gender has made it
a gender thing.


I can go either way as far as fairness but here's another side:

It is a gender thing because judges, who were by and large male, had
something called the tender years doctrine. The rise in the divorce
rate is, in part, because of economic stress in the marriage. Money.
Lack thereof. This trend became more pronounced in the late 1970's
with the formation of OPEC and the drastic, almost overnight increase
in crude oil prices. The rise in oil prices increased the price of
commodities immediately - milk, bread, and other perishable goods.
This, in turn, caused more and more mothers to need to work to help
provide for the family. The middle class nearly perished. I believe
that men were caught short trying to adjust to a family structure that
was anything but the ideal Ozzie and Harriet home life. They grew
angry and resentful.... probably for a good reason. Their fathers
didn't exactly model the behaviors that they'd have to adopt to
compensate for working mothers.

Well now I've never heard the connection between oil and divorce before.
Where'd you hear that one?

You work to explain the rise in divorce but the explanation has little
to do with the aforementioned "tender years" doctrine.


I also think that wives would sacrifice their lives for their children
before they would sacrifice their lives for their husbands. I believe
that husbands would save their wives before their children. I don't
know why that is but maybe it works survival-wise. Perhaps this,
alone, accounts for the tender years doctrine. What's that famous
painting of the mother whose baby was stolen and, when the judge said
that they'd simply cut the baby in half, chose to give the child up to
spare its life? Similar... but different.

It's a story of the wisdom of King Solomon. And for the record, I'm
sure I'd save my child before my spouse -- even my current one. That
just feels natural as a parent. Maybe I'm just a freak, who knows? :^/
Seems like we're both just talking "belief" here though.


One can either evolve back to the centre which takes
time and pain, or revolt back to the centre. That's why you get people
making it into a *huge* gender thing, to push it back to the centre.
The problem with that is that a 'revolution' has an amazing tendancy of
pushing too far in the opposite direction.

Just my two kopeks worth.


It's an interesting two kopecks, comrade. :-)
I agree that the immediate reaction is often revolutionary and, over
time, the pendulum swings until a liveable agreement is reached.

Well we're certainly not there at the moment.


I
don't agree that anyone is going to be happy about the result. If
they were, we wouldn't need divorce and custody law.

No matter the system, some people are going to be unhappy about the
results. But there's a difference between "unhappy" and "abused".
Black slaves in the deep Southern USA were undoubtedly "unhappy" about
their situation, and I don't think an explanation of "Well, no matter
how we work things out, SOMEONE will be unhappy..." could ever have
smoothed over their grievances. I'll tell you, as a victim of this
system, that kind of palliative talk only infuriates me.

- Ron ^*^