No Winners in Custody Wars

What were they planning to do to me? Yell until I recanted? Threaten to boycott the newspaper? Pelt me with precision spitballs?

Two dozen divorced fathers sat at a long table. White collar, blue collar, old and young--battle-scarred veterans of the Great Custody Wars. I sat at the head of the table, certain that I held a spot in their affections somewhere near the one occupied by their ex-wives.

They had extended an invitation after reading my column about move-away custody cases. I wrote that the state Legislature ought to create a standard for courts to use when considering whether to allow custodial parents to move. The idea is that if parents could show a compelling, non-punitive reason for the move, they should not have to face protracted custody battles with their exes. I wrote that the best interest of the child may sometimes be inextricable from the best interest of the custodial parent.

Mothers are more likely to be custodial parents, so a lot of divorced dads were displeased: Some accused me of man-hating. Some accused me of garden-variety stupidity. Others suggested that my logic was the intellectual equivalent of Swiss cheese.

But one group of divorced dads invited me for a visit. And this really made me nervous.

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I entered their lair one evening last week, expecting the worst. But the men were gracious and kind. All had been deeply wounded by asset-draining court fights. They were not out to get me. They came armed with nothing but stories.

And what stories: This one locked up his children’s passports to prevent his wife from absconding with the kids to Ireland, that one drives 10 hours a week to see his child because his ex-wife decided to move. This one has chased his ex-wife and twin daughters to Washington state and back, and has gotten no help from authorities; that one was accused of sexual molestation of his daughters after trying to stop his ex-wife from moving to Idaho with her new husband.

Some men described the extraordinary pain of being “amputated” from their children’s lives. They spoke of being “erased” by ex-wives who remarry and illegally change their children’s last names, monogramming the wrong initials on clothing, sending out Christmas cards with the new family name.

When my column came along and asserted that a custodial parent (read: Mother) should have a qualified right to move away, they cringed.

“If the mother wants to get her doctorate degree or pursue better job prospects elsewhere, then go,” one father said. “I strongly support equal opportunity. . . . But if there is a loving father who wants and is capable of taking care of the children, then the children should remain with the father.”

It usually isn’t that simple. A custodial parent or her spouse may be transferred to a new job, or she may be living in a city far from her family and support system because her ex-husband’s job took her there. There are many variables. And since appellate court decisions have been all over the map, a law would give judges guidelines about when a move is permissible.

Some fathers, however, see this as nothing more than an attempt to erode their hard-won efforts to remain in their children’s lives.

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The dads who invited me for a visit are students in a class called “Fathers and Custody,” which meets every Thursday night for three hours at a West Los Angeles restaurant. Some of them remembered me from a couple of years ago when I first wrote about the class. They come because they want to better their parenting skills and they want to prove--usually to a judge--that despite an acrimonious divorce, they are good parents--willing to become even better.

Ex-wife-bashing is not unfamiliar territory here and feminism can be a dirty word, but the person responsible for this gathering is hardly hostile to the experiences of women. After all, she is one.

Jayne Majors, to whom these men are fiercely devoted, is a supportive and pragmatic parenting educator who has taught courses for a dozen years. “My big issue is not helping men get custody,” Majors says. “It is helping kids get their fathers in their lives.”

Her L.A.-based nonprofit agency, the Parent Connection, serves parents of both persuasions.

To spend some time with Majors and her dads is to get a real appreciation of the emotional carnage wreaked by divorce.

But it is also to appreciate an often unsung group of men: divorced fathers who want to be better parents, who want to resolve conflict, who want--finally and simply--to do right by their kids.

I came girded for a fight. But I left overwhelmed and impressed.

These men tell stories that aren’t pretty. Some are grotesque. But they are coping in a way that should change the minds of anyone who thinks post-divorce fathers have less of a stake in their children’s lives than post-divorce mothers.

For that, they should be applauded.