Divorced Dads The Forgotten Parent

							Divorced Dads: The
 Forgotten Parent
        Wendy A. Paterson, Ph.D.
Chair, Elementary Education and Reading
          Buffalo State College
           Experiencing Divorce
   “There are always three sides to the story: yours,
    mine and the truth.”
   “I wanted to be sure that these kids stayed with me
    because I knew that if I lost custody of these kids it
    would be the greatest heartbreak of my life…I just
    couldn‟t see my life without these kids.”
   “Mothers aren‟t necessarily nurturing and dads aren‟t
    necessarily not nurturing.”
   “There‟s a distinct difference between being a father
    and being a Dad.”
   “If it doesn‟t work out with your wife, that doesn‟t
    mean it doesn‟t work out with your kids!”
               Divorce Wars
   “In divorce, everybody loses.”
   “It was horrible. It was just unbelievably
    horrible.”
   “Women are much more vindictive than men.
    Some men are bastards, of course, but
    women…are gonna make you pay.”
   “I mean this woman despises me…I don‟t
    know if we‟re ever going to be able to be in
    the same room.”
   “The most painful part of the whole mess was
    when I thought I had just lost my kids.”
Why Can’t We Just Get Along?
Your marriage is over. Unfortunately, when
children are involved, that doesn‟t mean that
your relationship with your ex is over too. For
the sake of your children, the marital
relationship must now change and develop into
a parenting relationship. This change,
however, is often difficult…Among the things
that prevent us from seeing a need to change
are highly charged emotions like anger,
jealousy, and fear (Ross & Corcoran, 1996, p. 20)
Fathering through Divorce
    Guilt         Pride
 Frustration      Honor
                 Disbelief
   Anger
                 Sacrifice
   Relief         Love
   Shame         Poverty
    Pain        Loneliness
   Failure       Fatigue
  Change
      Pushing Dad Away: How Divorce
    Separates Fathers from their Children
   The sundering of relationships and the dissolution of
    families are unavoidable byproducts of divorce.
   Divorced men and women often maintain their anger,
    no matter how long past the divorce partly because
    the adversarial nature of divorce when processed
    through the legal system exacerbates such ill-will.
   “Those who have bitter divorces have a much harder
    time rebuilding their lives than those who have
    peaceful divorces. I am convinced that the anger
    generated by the divorce process itself is often more
    intense and lasts longer than the anger that arises
    from the failure of the marriage” (Margulies, 2004, pp. 1-2).
    What Divorce Costs Dad
Over the past thirty years, more and more
fathers are actively seeking at least joint
custody of their children, but only 10%
actually have residential custody. For over
80% of all divorces, it is the husband who
moves out of the family home and sets up a
new residence.
      What Fathers Give Up
The ownership of my son which I had signed
away, so casually, four years earlier, stuck like
a bone in my throat...I had not fought for
custody because I assumed it was best that the
children remain in their home, stay in the same
school. The fact that I had actually signed
away all rights as a father had not been
discussed. I was thinking in terms of living
arrangements, not legal rights (Stafford, 1978, p. 61)
     A Stranger in My Own Home
   It was uncomfortable to stand in a room that had once
    been our home and know that I was an outsider
    (Stafford, 1978)
   “That‟s the thing that kills you when that stuff
    happens in front of the kids, to be thrown out of a
    house that was your own. It‟s hard at first, having to
    ring the doorbell to go into the house…Now it‟s got
    to the point where I‟m basically not allowed into the
    house. It gets to be time for me to pick them up and
    the kids bags are packed on the front porch.”
Then, with little warning, disaster struck. I
found myself forced out of the house that had
been my home for fifteen years. I was
excluded from the lives of my children and
separated from my familiar surroundings and
the things I held dear. I had nowhere to turn. I
was totally discounted. No one seemed to be
aware of the depth of my pain. I became
embroiled in a vicious, uncaring and unfair
adversary system… (Silver & Silver,1981, xi).
Divorce is ultimately about change—in
parenting patterns, in residences, and in
economic and emotional security. And it is
more often the man upon whom most of the
change, particularly in the early stages of the
divorce, devolves. When all this change is
combined with a deep sense of rejection, the
total experience can be quite traumatic.
(Margulies 2004, p. x).
The Effects of Divorcing on Children
   Children‟s relationships with their fathers are more likely to
    undergo dramatic change from divorce than are their
    relationships with their mothers (Ahrons, 2004).
   For children, the loss of a relationship with their fathers is
    often the most distressful and damaging part of divorce. If
    mothers continue to be angry, bad-mouth their exes to their
    children or tie visitation to the receipt of child support, they set
    up barriers to their children‟s relationships with their fathers,
    with long-lasting, possible lifelong, effects (p. 116).
   Living with divorcing parents is one of the leading causes of
    depression in children. They feel the tension even if there are
    no outward displays of anger. And when there is overt hostility
    between the parents, children find it frightening. The situation
    prolongs the grieving and mourning that inevitably accompany
    divorce (Margulies, 2004, p. 180).
                Sophie’s Choice
   Fathers are faced with the choice of whether to stay in
    a volatile relationship that keeps their children in the
    firing range of a power struggle between their
    parents, or to risk being branded as “deserters and
    abandoners” if they decide to move out.
   When fathers move away from their children, it can
    look to the world like they are “no longer expected to
    care” but this is far from true for most divorced dads.
   Nonresident does not mean absent.
 What Would Dr. Laura Say?
“People like her make people like me feel very, very
guilty about it and I still feel guilty about it. It wasn‟t
my kids fault that their mother and I couldn‟t make it,
but it was probably the best I could do. When you
make a decision, and the moment of absolute
certainty is not there, you have to make the best
decision you can in that point in time and go forward
with it because you can‟t fix what‟s happened in the
past. You can only work on what‟s going to happen
in the future.”
   The greatest challenge to a father‟s parenting
    competence…[is] separation of his life from his
    child‟s…But divorce need not destroy fathering, ever.
    What terrifies children is what terrifies fathers: losing
    each other (Pruett, 2000, pp.11-12).
   Even when they understood that they had made the
    only choice possible to get on with their lives and
    normalize their families, the guilt they felt at what
    others perceived as their abandonment of their
    children was one of the most painful experiences of
    their lives.
   “I knew they were all in pain and hurtin‟ and I
    had done it. On the one hand I felt guilty. On
    the other, I knew I was doing the right thing. I
    was doing what for the rest of my life was a
    kind of necessary thing to do.”
   “ I never left [you]. I‟ve always been here. I
    always will be. There isn‟t a day that goes by
    when I don‟t think of you and miss you.”
 When Dad Becomes a Visitor
For many men there is a dramatic reduction in the
amount of time they are allowed to see their children.
In fact, their parental rights typically are terminated,
and they are reduced to a visitor role. Most children
from divorced families have more access to their
neighbors than to their fathers. And the courts
typically have created this situation…For fathers and
children who have been close, divorce can be
extremely cruel (Wedemeyer in Oakland, 1984, pp. 21-22).
          Frustrated Fathers
It is difficult for fathers to participate in the everyday
lives of their children when they are only with them
at most a few days a month. But it‟s not for lack of
trying. Many fathers in our study expressed deep
frustration and grief about their diminished contact
with their children. They miss the daily contact that
they took for granted when they were living in the
same household, and finding ways to compensate for
that is not always possible. (Ahrons, 2004, p. 98)
               Take the High Road
   “You have to find some even ground with your ex…for the
    sake of the children and even if the other side is not willing to
    do it, then you have to be willing to do it. If you both do it, all
    you‟re doing is destroying your children and they never asked
    for it and they don‟t need it .... In the long run, your kids will
    understand.”
   “It‟s real easy to get angry and get petty, but do that in private,
    do that with your friends. In front of the kids, always positive.
   “Maybe someday my kids can have good relationships with
    both of us and it doesn‟t have to be damaged. That‟s what I
    hope for. But I don‟t need to influence their choice or their
    feelings in a negative way.”
Ahrons’ Study of Adult Children
    from Divorced Families
Twenty years post-divorce, half of the adult children
Ahrons interviewed “felt that their relationships with
their fathers actually improved after divorce” (2004, p.
101). Some even commented that as adults they
realized that they had “adopted their mothers‟ view of
their father, and as they got to know him separately
they realized he was not the person their mother said
he was” (p. 108). Others maintained that the separation
of their parents allowed them to get to know their
fathers as individuals.
     What Children Need from
       Divorcing Parents
They need for both of you to care for them and love
them and for both of you to be involved, at least to
some extent, with their activities. But what children
need most of all is for the two of you to be able to
cooperate around issues affecting them. They need
you to cooperate around financial matters so they
don‟t end up in the middle when you disagree about
money. They need you to be pleasant to each other
when they move between households and they need
you to be reasonable with each other in
accommodating to changing schedules. They need
encouragement to be comfortable in both households
                             (Margulies, 2004, p. 210).
           The Alienation of Fathers
                  in America
   Father-child alienation remains a defining
    characteristic of American family life” (Griswold, 1993, p. 3).
   Industrialization changed the economic base from
    home industries to factory-centered industries, fathers
    began to lose the daily contact with their children that
    they had once enjoyed.
   Since a gendered division of labor benefited the
    growing capitalist economy, so it was romanticized to
    maintain a balance of power where the ideal family
    was composed of “man the earner, woman the
    nurturer…” (p.14)
           A Homosocial Culture
   Men paid a high price for their economic power by
    losing ground as direct caretakers of their children,
    and soon father absence became normalized in family
    life.
   Mothers, by contrast, were brought together through
    childbirth, visiting, friendships, church and other
    women-only social activities and “created a world in
    which men, fathers included, „made but a shadowy
    appearance,‟” and parenting became more and more
    of a “homosocial culture” developed by and for
    supporting mothers (Griswold, 1993, pp. 16-17).
                Blame the Monkeys
   Bowlby‟s WWII orphan deprivation studies
    and Harlow‟s experiments with monkeys
    provided a scientific rationale for preserving
    the mother-child bond, especially for infants,
    going so far as to claim that chemical or
    hormonal bonding was communicated through
    the mother‟s milk. The father was now fully
    disconnected, biologically and chemically as
    well as physically and emotionally (Lupton &
    Barclay, 1997).
           No Parent Left Behind
   In almost every book that examines father/mother
    roles in childrearing, the historical evidence is clear
    from 100 years of child and family psychology.
    Neither parent does it right! Mothers are criticized
    for too much contact, and fathers are criticized for too
    little.
    What men may have gained as a gender, fathers lost
    as parents. The structure of the parent education
    movement—the fact that mothers, not fathers, were
    its targets—only confirmed and gave the imprimatur
    of science to men‟s secondary place in the world of
    their children (Griswold, 1993, p. 130).
            Jerks and Deadbeats
   “People assume that wherever there‟s a single mom,
    there must be a jerk dad.”
   “There are a lot of deadbeat dads out there! I know a
    lot of guys that aren‟t worth 25 cents. I‟m sure there
    are a lot of women who aren‟t wonderful people
    either. I think anytime you come up with a quick and
    easy blame to explain a problem, you‟re probably not
    being very smart. Blaming a messed up kid on an
    absent father or deadbeat dad is just one more
    example of people not really wanting to go find out
    what made this kid have problems. This is an easy
    convenient target.”
          Deadbeat Moms
“That‟s all you hear, „deadbeat dad! deadbeat
dad!’ Maybe deadbeat mom doesn‟t roll off
your tongue, but people would shut off their
TVs if someone said, „deadbeat mom.” How
can you have a deadbeat mom?...They‟re not
surprised when some guy goes off the handle
and kills his kids and kills himself over a
broken relationship…but when a mom does
that, it‟s „Oh! How can that be!‟”
           We Are Not Deadbeats!
   “When I see „deadbeat dads,‟ I can‟t believe that they could
    ever do that. It‟s just inconceivable to me that you could just
    walk away from your children…If they are deadbeat dads, I
    have no respect for them whatsoever.”
   I get very irritated because not all fathers are deadbeat fathers.
    I know I was not. I was never late in the entire time I was
    paying child support and alimony—never. And to be painted
    into that picture is not right. The fathers that don‟t pay their
    bills, I‟m ticked off at them—it‟s not right. Just don‟t put me
    in the same group with all those guys because I fulfilled my
    financial obligation and then some.
              Dad the Caregiver
   “I raised them as much as she did if not more from
    that aspect of it. I was very into my kids and involved
    with my kids. I think that‟s why a lot of this hurts the
    way it does.”
   “I just knew that I could be a better parent to my kids
    than my ex-wife even on my worst day.”
   “I did everything for the kids from the time they were
    infants. It was me that was doing the changing, the
    laundry, taking them everywhere.”
    Joint Custody isn’t Really Joint
   Ask 10 people to define joint custody and you‟ll get
    10 different answers. (Warshak, 1992, p. 177)
   Joint custody does not necessarily mean that both
    parents will be equally involved in their child‟s
    upbringing. (p. 179)
   Whatever the actual living arrangements, the great
    majority of children with divorced parents…must
    learn how to manage not only the physical, but also
    the psychological aspects of these crossings. (Ahrons,
    2004, p. 79)
     Schools Forget about Fathers
   Teachers‟ assumptions about homes are inconsistent
    with real people‟s lives.
   American cultural expectations of mother the
    homemaker and father the breadwinner contribute to
    schools‟ mother-centered practices.
   Divorced parents do not communicate well with each
    other! Expecting the residential parent to “inform” the
    nonresidential parent is unrealistic and naïve.
   Mothers and fathers are invited to school events, but
    only mothers are expected.
“When they graduate and they go across the
 stage, they announce that so-and-so is going to
 whatever college and who are their parents.
 My daughter walks across the stage and
 apparently she only has one parent. You don‟t
 even get mentioned! That is so wrong! There
 were other ones walking across the stage who
 had only one parent in their life, parents you
 know damn well are divorced.”
    Including Fathers as Partners in
       their Children’s Education
   Know the family configurations represented in
    your class and do not judge them!
   Address all important communications to both
    parents (and/or caregivers).
   Design activities that can be done by weekend
    fathers.
   Follow up communications to be sure both
    parents are aware of important school
    functions.
               Strive for Equity
   Examine school practices carefully to see if times,
    customs or expectations inadvertently favor mothers
    and exclude fathers.
   Do not “feel sorry” for divorced parents or children
    from “broken homes.” Understand their needs and
    treat them fairly.
   Do not assume that because dad doesn‟t show up, he
    isn‟t interested.
   Don‟t take sides! Help parents understand that the
    welfare of the child is your focus.