As many of you know I am a single mom. I have one son by my ex-husband and one son by my ex-fiancé. I love them both equally.
The relationship I have with my ex-husband couldn't be a better situation for a divorced couple. We get along well, we communicate, I even communicate with my sons step mother and I work hard to keep my ex-husband involved in my sons life, we all go to his football games and choir concerts together, and my oldest son has lots of extra blended family members who love him.
My youngest sons father, as some of you know, is not the best person in the world. We split up 5 days before our wedding, after I caught him cheating on me yet again and for calling off the wedding, I got beat and still have the scars to show for it today. However, this man is still my son's father. He does not pay his child support regularly, and has never filed for any sort of custody or visitation of our son. But, my son needs to know his father and my son still sees his dad every other weekend. Why? Because it's important, and my son needs to know his father. I understand the importance of it, and even though I don't HAVE to send him there, there is no order making me do it, I send him because it is the RIGHT thing to do.
But what about other fathers, what are their rights? Shouldn't their rights be as equal as a woman's rights? I think so. I work very hard to make sure the fathers of my children stay involved. But why doesn't the system, courts, government and society see it the same? Especially when equal rights for those of color and of women are in the forefront every day, what about men's rights as fathers?
Here is my issue. I have a dear friend of mine, who lives in the Bloomfield, New York area and he is unfortunately getting a divorce. He has 3 children; he worked teaching at his children's school previously until last year when he didn't renew his contract. You see his wife, who is a anesthesiologist at a local Canandaigua hospital and himself were going to build their dream home, and my friend was taking time off to be the general contractor on the new home and finish his masters degree and care for the children, but that summer, on their wedding anniversary, he was served with divorce papers instead. No good reason for the divorce, she just didn't want to be married anymore, he didn't fit into her lifestyle.
Now you have to realize, since she is a doctor, and is on call, this whole families life has been managed around her schedule. My friend, lets call him “John” has been the main caregiver of the children since they were born. Since, let's call his wife “Jane” or “Dr. Mom” is constantly on call at the hospital, most of her time is spent there. Johns whole work and life schedule has been managed around caring and picking up the kids from school, bringing them to their piano lessons, and cub scout meetings (he is even a pack leader) etc. He drives the families mini-van with over 100K miles on it. If he were a woman, he would be your stereotypical soccer mom, married to a doctor. But he is a man, who is involved with every part of his children's lives and for some reason he is looked down on because of it.
Now here comes the real injustice. Since the divorce, he had taken a low paying mechanics job so he would be available to leave early to go pick up his kids before and after school. Due to the fact that they are sent to a private school, the bus does not pick them up at home, they have to be brought to the bus and picked up etc. Well, because of his wife's schedule and short notice because of it, he had to constantly leave even this low paying job at a moments notice to get his children and because of that eventually he lost even that job. But that is ok, because he was then back to being the typical stay at home dad taking care of the house and the children just like a mom would do.
They agreed in the divorce they would split custody even though the time with Dr. Mom would be time mostly spent with the housekeeper/Nanny and Dad would have them the other half. Well that was fine until Dr. Mom saw how much she was going to have to pay in support and maintenance. Then suddenly, she started asking for full custody, Full custody of children whose time would be spent, mostly day and night in the custody of a nanny.
