do you htink its a BAD thing that fathers 4 Justice has been disbanded or not

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What proportion of SAHP are men?

Is the more appropriate question not:

What proportion of mothers are full time WOTH.

In those circs where men and women both work full time, then I would expect care to be shared!

No, I don't think so. I think the appropriate question is "to what degree, statistically and culturally, do men as a whole share the burden of parenting and childcare with women?"

I'll think you'll find they have a very long way to go before they achieve an equal footing. In my opinion, it won't happen, nor is it meant to. Obviously "shared parenting" in a secure and loving two-parent family is best for children. But in the vast majority of cases where the parents split up the child's best interests are served by custody being awarded to the mother and access being awarded to the father on as generous a basis as possible.

Why is it best for the mother to have the child 12 days out of 14?

Most men who go to court, go there because they want to see their child more often than that!

Many mothers are crap too you know! Feckless parenting isn;t just reserved for men!

Of course there are poor mothers. But in the vast majority of cases the mother is still the parent more familiar with the child's needs, routines and care. And in a situation in which the children's lives are going to be blighted by divorce, their needs are best served by having one stable home from which they go to school and maintain what stability they can. Awarding joint custody in order to be "fair to the father" is an irresponsible and cruel policy.

Awarding joint custody is actually trying to be fair to the child!

You keep making hte statement that a mother is the best place for the child, but without any justification as to why you think that!

What is this essence of mothering that you allude to that a father is unable to provide?

IMO there are a great many reasons why mothers are usually much better primary carers than men, although I agree there are marginally more exceptions to this rule than there have been in previous generations. Men do not as a rule have the instincts and nurturing abilities of women. Their bond and relationship with their children is entirely different. I think you would find it difficult to get away from the statistical reality that the vast majority of the childcare and parenting in this country is still done by mothers. In my view this is a completely natural and desirable state of affairs. A father is an entirely different phenomenon from a mother. Most fathers do not want to be mothers, they want to be good fathers. And shuttling children between two different homes, robbing their lives of what stability could have been maintained following a separation simply adds to the damage inflicted upon them, and is done for the benefit of the father, not the children. Most decent loving fathers would agree for the sake of the children that their main place of residence should be with their mother. I know my dh would, should we ever find ourselves in that position, because he cares about his children's welfare and recognises that they need their mother more.

Well I think we will have to disagree about the importance of fathering to children.

I feel very strongly that children need fathering just as much as they need mothering.

The system at teh moment works to alienate children from their fathers and I think that is lamentable. I think divorce is a terribly destabilising time for children but that hte effects could be minimised far more effectively by fathers continuing to have a proactive role in their children's lives.

I know that in my situation I would want my husband to share equally in the children's lives were anything to go wrong. He is a wonderful parent to them and it would be extremely important to them to share in his life as well as mine.

I think too often we fail to challenge the current system because it benefits women. I think if the tables were turned a bit more often and women subjected to the overnight loss of access to much loved children then they might start to understand the pain that this causes men and hte resentments it brings to the divorcing parents.

I think the pain it must cause to children is unbelievable. It seems callous to me to strip away one half of their parents and consign them to a once a fortnight relationship!

Thanks batters - I was beginning to feel very lonely

I can confirm from experience that parental divorce and the loss of the everyday relationship with the father causes immense pain. It is not my aim to portray fathers as spare parts. However I believe that the most important thing for children is stability and security. Joint custody between separated parents denies them that. And in my view mothers and fathers are not, in the main, on an equal footing in terms of their practical and emotional importance in their children's lives, and nor will they ever be.

I think we will have to disagree, because fundamental to my view is the conviction that if a child can't live with both parents all of the time, the best option is usually for the mother to be awarded custody. I do believe that there is a natural imperative there and that mothers are not primary carers in the majority of families because of some accident of society but because they are designed to be. I am not a man-hating bitter woman and I do not believe in denying access to loving and decent fathers. In fact I believe it is the duty of a mother who has custody of children to bend over backwards to facilitate that relationship (assuming of course that violence/alcoholism etc are not present). But I am firmly convinced that most children are still better off with their mothers rather than in joint custody. It's the lesser of two evils - divorce always causes pain and suffering, whatever decisions are made.

Do you not think that fathers too can offer a stable home?

What if the father lived close enough for hte child to stay at the same school and see the same friends after school. What would be wrong with that?

What is this mothering that you speak so much of, what is it exactly that a father cannot do or cannot give?

Shouldn;t hte parents work together to complement each other in terms of their childrens future lives - wouldn;t that actually be preferable?

But Soapbox, MoM isn't saying that fathering isn't vitally important. What she's saying is that it is in the best interests of the children to have a consistent and stable hub, especially at a time of separation and divorce and because statistically women are by far the one to be primary carer (that's a fact not an opinion) the child is better off being based with the mother in their own home and in familiar surroundings. The parents then have to deal with the reasons for the seperation, which realistically can take time. What people shouldn't loose sight of is that a day will come when the bitterness will fade and relations will be better, but until then the injured party (whichever it may be) is perfectly justified in being a bit fragile, but not destructive and spiteful. But crucially space is needed. Understanding this, the vast majority of fathers and mothers come to perfectly amicable agreements about access issues, without needing mediation from the family courts. Like Edam said, the thread isn't about caring fathers, there is no problem with those.

But MT - the space is needed between the PARENTS not the children!

Why in god;s name would the children benefit from space from one of their parents?

Benefits women my backside. Courts, and the CSA, are still happy to expect women and children to live on a pittance. I'm bloody sure ds couldn't be adequately fed and housed on 20 per cent of the breadwinner's income in this family (and, as it happens, the breadwinner is me, the mother). As people have already said, residence merely reflects the facts. The vast majority of childcare is done by women, hence children overwhelmingly stay with their mothers. That's not a benefit - in fact in many ways it works to women's disadvantage, certainly in the workplace.

In the vast majority of cases, no, I don't think the father could provide the same level and quality of care as the mother. And as to where they live...it's preferable if at all possible that whichever parent is keeping the children to maintain the marital home. If this isn't possible I don't think the geographical location of the father's house is enough to compensate the children for the disastrous loss of their mother. Changing school is traumatic but in my view not quite as traumatic as losing your mother. As I said, there are no nice easy options after divorce.

I have acknowledged that there is a small minority of cases in which the father should be awarded custody. But IMO this remains a tiny minority and it always will.

As to what "mothering" is, as opposed to "fathering", I think I've answered that in a previous post. Men do not have the same instincts, nurturing qualities, ability to do 58 things at once, protective intuition, capacity for gentle, patient loving and unconditional bond with their children as women. I know this is an unfashionable view but it is my view nonetheless. And I know there are exceptions to it, but IMO not nearly enough to call for a change in social policy. Fatherhood is an entirely different thing from motherhood. A great many men accept that, and would not wish to take their children away from their mothers and add to the damage, however much pain it causes for their own relationship with them to be compromised.

Statistically women are still the primary caregivers. But to the extent that the father is a stay-at-home-dad (and this is becoming increasingly common), should the courts still automatically award sole custody to the mother? Or would joint custody then be more appropriate in this situation so that the child does not lose contact with the mother? I might even go so far as to say that sole custody should go to the father to avoid disruption to the child(ren)'s lives. I think there is merit to soapbox's argument that courts should take a more case-by-case approach to custody.

My dh does not provide the same sort of care to dd that I do, but when I see the patience and kindness that he shows to dd (often displaying a higher level of tolerance than I), I question whether it would be fair for the courts to deem me the better parent.

Blueshoes, I absolutely agree. I know I'd get custody of DS and DD if DH and I were ever to seperate, purely on the basis on my being their mother - but I'm not always the best parent. Very often DH shows far more patience and tolerance towards them than I do, and is absolutely devoted to both of them.
I know that if we ever were to divorce, he would be absolutely devastated at not being with them daily. I don't think there should be a blanket law that basically awards custody to the mother unless there are extreme circumstances, but would like to see each case being considered individually instead.

Soapbox, becasue we don't live in an ideal world and very often it's impossible to be civil to one another.

I'm not saying it's not very very difficult to sort out, nigh on impossible for some, but then you have to weigh up what you think, or on evidence, what is deemed to be more traumatic to the child - seeing the parents either abject or at each others throats for a very long time, or having a temporary period of resettleing, while based in their own homes, until things die down.

I don't know. A child can't be split equally between two homes, that would be too stressful. I'm not saying it's not a tragic situation, but like marriage and partnership itself, people have to be prepered to compromise (often these days though, that's precicely why the relationship is failing).

And how many men do you honestly think would give up their careers to take 50% of domestic and childcare responsiblities? Realistically? There are some, but they are generally the exception that proves the rule.

The courts DO take it as a case by case approach - we're arguing a false premise but forward by groups like F4J saying otherwise. They are trying to present a fact of life (based on the cultural, political and economic repression of women's equal rights) as a social injustice. It's a complete hypocrisy. It just doesn't add up. Really, we need to know the enemy when we see it - it will always try to turn us on ourselves.

..as a social injustice to men, I should have added

"They are trying to present a fact of life (based on the cultural, political and economic repression of women's equal rights) as a social injustice."

Well put

Thankyou Mom. I am honoured

Don't get too used to it

MT - I have a very good friend who is a barrister in family law - and the courts do not take anything like an even handed view of the situation - far from it!

And of course you are working from the premise that whoever cares for the child cannot be a working parent!

I suspect that is why we will never see eye to eye on this. As I know from my own experience it is perfectly possible to be a WOTH parent and be a good parent, mother or father!