How to create a parent-sized hole

Missing -- our dad

Are you finding that the other parent to your children is becoming insufferable?

It may comfort you to know that you are not alone. But it does rather lead one to ask what has changed so much given that you did, at some time, "lie with" that other parent. You have offspring to prove it.

No matter, you don't have to put up with it. So, here's a plan by which you can create a parent-sized hole.

Step 1: make allegations that the other parent has been violent, and seek a restraining order or aggravated or domestic violence order that legally locks the other parent out of the house and keeps them at a distance from you and the children.

You don't have any evidence of such an incident? It doesn't matter: make it up. No-one is going to check or challenge you -- or at least, not for a long time... which leads to the next step.

Step 2: in court (multiple years later), highlight the time the estranged parent has been absent from the lives of the children and that therefore, this parent is no longer relevant.

Voila - one parent-sized hole.

There are however, a few caveats.

First, this is a messy operation. It will very likely rip the heart out of the other parent in a manner akin to surgery conducted with a wood saw, without anesthesia and very likely leave the patient breathing, but only just and simultaneously wishing it were otherwise. (It might have been more merciful to simply dig a hole and bury the offending parent).

Second, it is a scorched earth policy destroying that which is precious to human life, the very life that we create. That is, it will almost definitely burn the children - although the legal system will argue that this in the best interests of the children.

And this then leads to the final rather more legal caveat. Existing laws really only allow this strategy to mums, not to dads.

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(The illustration is by Gaye Dell and appears in the book, The Other Glass Ceiling.
For more detail on how this strategy is executed, see this person's expanded account.)

Carrots and sticks for training parents

Carrots and sticks can be used to train animals, children, and even parents!

Skinner and a bunch of rats in cages helped psychology and the world understand that there are two approaches to shaping people's behaviour.

Reinforcement encourages people to repeat a particular behaviour. So reinforcement is the carrot.

Punishment discourages repetition of a particular behaviour. This is the stick.

The approach (which psychologists call instrumental or operant conditioning) is used to train circus animals and kindergarteners.

However, when separating parents haggle over the children, the Family Law Court will step in and offer their own version of training using carrots and sticks.

Two recent court cases give great examples:

Step up Dad.

In one recent decision, a family court judge awarded Mum 52.5% of the family's net assets valued at $2.2m.

It seems that Dad thought it was important to socialise down at the pub in order to maintain his profile within the community!

Mum on the other hand was at home looking after the two kids, one with Aspergers.

Move over Mum.

In another family court decision, the judge took the "drastic step" of making Dad the primary caregiver of his eight year old daughter.

Separating when the child was 13 months, the court found that Mum had limited the daughter's access to Dad, and harmed the formation of a relationship with him.

The court deemed it to be in the best interests of the child that primary custody should be transferred to Dad, with Mum given regular access to the child.

Of course, the training offered by Family Law Courts is outrageously expensive. So maybe we can encourage people to learn by these examples which psychologists consider to be a form of social learning theory.

Both cases remind us that children need a village to raise them, and the heart of that village is two parents.

The cases also remind us that there are rewards for Dads that step up, for Mums that let go (as we explore in the last chapter of our book).

And rewards for the kids too.

So maybe we could avoid all the hideously expensive training sessions offered by the Family Court if parents were to simply remember one of the basic lessons from kindergarten: "share nicely."

Adoption : what’s yours is mine

What if the child is born and the mother doesn't want the child? Where does the child go next?

It is not obvious – but it should be.

Perhaps we can hint at the obvious.

We do not make an unwilling mother raise a child. Equally, we do not make an unwilling father raise the child either.

That seems fair so far.

Well not quite. We are quite happy to make an unwilling father contribute financially to the child's upbringing as noted earlier.

The obvious bit that is missed is that while we generously allow unwilling parents off the hook of raising the child, her vote trumps his. Specifically, we do not even allow a willing father to raise the child. Why not?

The father is the other parent, the first one who should be considered if the mother decides to abandon the children to adoption. But it doesn't work like that.

In the rather frightening and media-worthy case of Baby Richard, the father knew that his estranged girlfriend was pregnant. When he contacted her after hearing that the baby was born, he was informed that the child had died in childbirth.

However, 57 days after the child had been born, he heard that the child was still alive – and had been given up for adoption by the mother.

He then proceeded to contest – through the legal system in the US – for the right to custody of the child. After four years, he won. But the media circus turned his win into a loss.

The return of the child to the father was a televised event. As can be well imagined, the young boy of four was in tears as he was torn from the only people that he had ever known as caregivers. The image and story was emotionally wrenching. And the father was clearly identified as the villain.

A father fighting for his own flesh and blood.

The media was doing its job and selling a newsworthy story. But in so doing, they overlooked the real crime. The real crime was that the father had to fight to win custody of his own child for so long when the mother did not want the child.

Due process takes its time, and it is undoubtedly difficult to allow a child to be removed from an adoptive family. But it is equally difficult to allow that father has to fight for four years for the right to raise his own son as in the case of Baby Richard.

In Connecticut, a child was given up by an 18 year old mother who six months changed her mind and wanted the baby back. She won her case within two more years even though she was living in a homeless shelter.

Baby Jessica was adopted out without her father's knowledge. The father initiated proceedings to block the adoption. After he repartnered with the birth mother, they won back their baby within two years.

Baby Emily's Dad however lost his case. He never succeeded in his desire to block the adoption. Perhaps appropriately because he had made some serious mistakes. He was a convicted rapist and had shown no interest in the child initially.

Nonetheless, this does much to undermine the UN Charter of the rights of the child : the right to know, and to be cared for by her parents. She can make mistakes in giving up a child, but a father cannot.

Undoubtedly the rights of the woman and the man can come into conflict as revealed in efforts for father's rights to be considered in Florida in the wake of the Baby Emily. But how do women's rights come to dominate father's rights?

Roe v Wade : either way, the man is up Shit Creek

Roe vs. Wade is a remarkable case as much for the lack of interest of Roe (real name Norma McCorvey) in the case itself. She was an unreliable witness first claiming her pregnancy was the result of rape, and later recanting the claim. By the time the case came to the Supreme Court, Norma McCorvey had already had the child. Nevertheless, she became a cause célèbre for the issue of abortion on demand.

It is even more remarkable although rarely acknowledged, that the power women won through this case was granted through those who are so often seen as limiting women's rights. This case and the judgment emerged through the male-dominated legal institution. The ruling opinion was delivered by a set of male judges.

Despite the judgment which gave women the right to abortion on demand, the issue is one that is debated on an ongoing basis, even among women. On one hand are those who defend the fetus' 'right-to-life' and on the other are those who defend the mother's 'right-to-choice.'

So, the battle lines are clearly drawn. Except that one stakeholder, the individual that is essential for this circumstance to arise is not even invited to the battle. Where is the father?

The rights of the father are simply non-existent. Even if he wants to defend the rights of the fetus over the mother as noted by a (male) Supreme Court justice:

"A father's interest in having a child – perhaps his only child – may be unmatched by any other interest in his life… It is truly surprising that… the State must assign a greater value to a mother's decision to cut off a potential human life by abortion than to a father's decision to let it mature into a live child."

The issue is particularly perplexing when it is realized that the woman decides whether or not to carry the fetus. The man who has no role in the decision can be required to pay for support of that child.

The pro-choice view is one that quite clearly provides considerable rights to women. To do otherwise, to force her to carry a child against her wishes, is viewed as subjecting the mother to 'involuntary servitude' or 'forced labor.' This is in violation of the thirteenth amendment.

However, the pro-choice view is limited to a choice by the mother. She can, if she chooses, decide to carry the child. And should she do so, she can claim child support from the alleged father of the child. And the courts will defend her in her right to do this.

It is intriguing then, that while even if he does not want the child, the father can be effectively set to 18 or so years of 'involuntary servitude' or 'forced labor.' As the fetus has no voice, the only one that really has the power to make that happen is the mother.

It is not my desire to argue that men or women get a rougher deal than the other in general. In this case however, it must be acknowledged that a woman's claims to having fewer rights are unreasonable. Nonetheless, she will have to physically carry the child for nine months.

Despite the uneven degree of involvement, her commitment and his involvement are mutually required. If she makes the decision to carry the child, this gives her the right to demand support from the man. So her decision has consequences on him – economic rather than physical, but consequences nonetheless.

Once the baby exits her body, modern technology allows for the involvement of the mother and the father to be virtually identical. However, the courts don't see it that way. The man can be asked to pay for the child, and the mother can choose to be an at-home mother. The women's rights continue, and she can require the unwitting father to shoulder his financial responsibility in raising a child even when she has deliberately deceived him. Yes, it has happened. And on at least one occasion, the man contested her right to do this. And he lost.

Matt Dubay is the man's name. Lauren Wells, his girlfriend told him that she was not able to have a child, and told him that in any case, she was taking contraceptives. After they separated, she informed him that she was pregnant. They reportedly discussed adoption. However, she chose not to follow this course of action and kept the baby at birth.

Despite Dubay's being deceived in the first instance, and unable to have his wishes met in the second instance, the judge ruled that he had to pay $475 a month and half of the child's health costs until the child reached maturity.

Look, abortion is undoubtedly a difficult issue. There are a number of lives involved. First and foremost, an unborn child who cannot speak for themselves.. And then there's the mother. There's no doubt that her wishes are vitally important.

However, there is also a father.