Child Custody Laws and Dads

The recent roundup of parents who are delinquent in their child support payments should make us all aware of the failure of the child custody and support system in California.

As it presently exists, this system discriminates against men and fathers in two key areas. First, in more than 80% of divorce cases custody of the children is routinely awarded to the mother. This is the result of a common belief in this country that only mothers can parent. Many men who voluntarily give up custody of their children do so because they have been conditioned with this doctrine by society. In recent years, the courts have tried to correct inequities in the system by awarding what has come to be called “joint custody.” But joint custody has proved to be an ephemeral idea at best. In reality, mothers retain actual physical custody in these arrangements.

Second, enforcement of divorce agreements by the district attorney’s office is limited strictly to the part of such agreements that deals with monetary child support. Since the vast majority of child support recipients are mothers, women become beneficiaries of this selective enforcement while fathers are left to hire attorneys and slog through the court system to enforce visitation and other rights granted to them and their children. A more blatant violation of the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law does not exist.

The real victim of all this is the American family whose numbered participants will continue to dwindle as more men remain single rather than risk divorce, the loss of their children, unemployment, arrest and the wrath of every district attorney in the country.

GEORGE MORGAN

Santa Paula