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Most dads not deadbeats

http://www.canada.com/halifax/dailynews/columnists/story.asp?id=DBD95626-AAD0-44C2-944F-60B82A5FB658

Halifax Daily News
Sunday, July 14, 2002

Most dads not deadbeats
Data suggests after divorce, they meet their obligations
by TERRI MCCORMICK

The divorce case of Benjamin Hoffman and his ex-wife Carolyn Lamb has
been featured in the headlines of local newspapers recently. Lamb, who
is trying to get him to honour a $13.4-million divorce settlement, has
successfully had Hoffman's assests frozen and is living with her daughter
in the family's oceanfront farm near Pictou. Hoffman himself - who is
pleading poverty in the case - is in Guam, working at a hospital there.

I had actually come to believe that once divorced, all men - no matter how
loving and attentive they had been as fathers during the marriage -
eventually disappear from their children's lives, becoming nothing more
than a cheque in the mail.

So, I was surprised to learn that - according to what little data is
available - the majority of men do meet their obligations when it comes to
support payments, and want to remain active fathers. Most men ask for
joint custody of their children, while women ask for sole custody. And in
the majority of cases, women win two-thirds of the time.

But it's not because the men are psychopaths. It's because men have been
pegged as no-good snakes in divorces for so long, judges are often
predisposed to give the woman what she wants, regardless of the best
interests of the children.

According to Edward Kruk, a professor of social work at the University of
British Columbia, despite the more active role many contemporary fathers
take in their children's lives, fathers today are less likely to obtain
custody if they contest it in court than they were in the '70s.

It is also worth noting that statistics show two out of three divorces -
not based on abusive partners, but on simply "growing apart" from each
other - are sought by women.

Scads of money

Since Canada has the third-highest divorce rate in the world, the
stereotype of the divorced father with scads of money persists, when the
reality is most divorced fathers do the best they can and often receive
little or no sympathy from the media or the courts.

In some Canadian provinces, men who religiously pay support every two
weeks on payday are classified as being in arrears for half of each month
because of the enforcement agencies' bookkeeping.

That's not to say single women have it easy, because they don't. The
female poverty rate in Nova Scotia is the highest in Atlantic Canada, and
a child living with a single mother is nearly four times as likely to be
poor as a child living with both parents.

Perhaps Canada should look at Sweden's system. More than 80 per cent of
divorces there end in joint custody, with child-support payments and
squabbles almost non-existent. Why? Because children are cared for by both
parents - providing they are fit - on an equal basis. Both parents are required
to provide for those children when they are in their homes. One parent isn't
doing more than the other, so there is no need to ask for payments.

Canadian courts should take a cue from a system that works, because the
importance and worth of both parents are recognized and encouraged, and
the best interests of the child are paramount. North Americans seem to
feel a father's most important duty after a divorce is to send the support
payments out on time and little else.

The lack of a father's role in a child's life has almost become a given
now by all involved (including the father) - an expected disappointment
which comes with a parental breakup. It's sad, and its effects are far
reaching.

© Copyright  2002 The Daily News
Halifax Daily News Home:  http://www.canada.com/halifax/dailynews/

 

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