Subscribe in a reader
In the emotional turmoil of divorce there is often a struggle for child custody and my bias without even thinking about it was that women would get primary custody of the children and fathers would play the secondary role as care giver.
My bias is based on societal conditioning that the mother is the primary care giver and children are best with the mother. Societal conditioning is so deeply entrenched sometimes we don’t even realize it is there. This is much like the fairy tale that when we get married we will live happily ever after, given the 50% divorce rate this obviously isn’t true. My thinking on the dynamics of fathers in child custody was challenged when I read the article Fathers: Equal in Marriage but Not in Divorce .
Gender Roles
Three major changes have occurred with regard to the role of men and parenting as outlined in the above article:
- Fathers take a more active part in their children’s lives than what they did 30 years ago. Marriages are becoming more equal when it comes to raising children.
- Many women have pursued executive careers and the husband has been the stay at home Dad. Plus difficult and changing economic trends have kept more men at home, “in 2010 approximately 154,000 men were stay at home Dad’s.” Brookings reports the median full time employment rate for men has decreased by “14% since 1970, and their inflation adjusted median net earnings have decreased by $13,000 compared to women’s median earnings which have increased by $20,000.” The result is more men are working part time and many Dad’s are consultants working from home; hence more men are becoming primary care givers for their children as more women become primary income earners.
- The number of single fathers has “grown by 27% to 1.8 million in the United States over the past decade.”
These trends suggest that we need to change our mental images about the role of men as primary care givers for their children. Plus we should expect to see more fathers taking their daughter’s to the swimming pool for lessons and other activities. When we enter into divorce we also need to expect that men will want to play a primary role in being a caregiver to their children.
Divorce and Child Custody
I know for some women this strikes fear in their heart that they will loose full time contact with their children when they get divorced. This fear however is likely what men have been feeling for years. If we can achieve an amicable divorce and agreement for child custody then no one has to loose contact with their children.
To do this we need to come to terms with the idea that the family dynamics will be different than the mental model that we may have envisioned would happen if we were to split up. Second we need to accept that men can do just as good of a job raising children as women. Third we need to resolve the fear of loosing our children when we get divorced. This fear often creates major conflict in child custody proceedings.
Resolving Fear
This fear often comes from a negative story that our mind makes up about the future. First we can ask ourselves the following questions to overcome this fear: What causes me to have this fear? What is another story I could write that would have a more desirable outcome? What do I need to do to bring this more desirable story to life?
Second we can resolve the emotional energy of fear that fuels these stories. By feeling into the physical sensation of fear in our body we can dissolve the emotional energy of fear leaving us in a more centered and grounded position from which to make decisions and negotiate a divorce.
By changing our preconceived ideas about the role of fathers after divorce and resolving the fear of mothers loosing their children we could possible achieve better outcomes in child custody hearings.
Perhaps the time has come for us to change our perceptions f Dad’s, not