One of the most noxious things about American family law and the dialogue that surrounds it is that on the one hand men are implored to be good, attentive fathers, but the system is set up in such a manner to discourage involved fatherhood. Although courts are rarely explicit about it (except behind closed doors), the only role that is unconditionally endorsed is what is known as “obligor,” i.e. someone who pays in child support cases. As long as you pay those checks, you are a perfectly sufficient father, no matter whether you care about your kids or not. It goes even farther — if you pay child support you have no other responsibility to your kids at all under the law. You can refuse to see them at all, ignore every aspect of their lives, and even tell them you hate them and wish they’d been aborted, and you are A-OK with the courts.
However, a man who contests custody or tries to see his children more can face a great deal of scrutiny if the mother does not like the idea, and the truth is that most women, after divorce, would prefer to shut the ex out of their lives entirely, and that includes shutting him out of his children’s lives. In fact, feminists are some of the most vocal supporters of the idea that fathers who try to obtain custody of their children, or simply more time with them, are perpetrating some kind of “abuse.” Therefore, in the feminist universe, being a caring father who actually wants to participate in bringing up children, which is a very hard and sometimes thankless job, makes a man an enemy. Unfortunately, this line of thinking has a great deal of influence in family court. The social workers assigned to evaluate parents for custody are very often feminists themselves, and judges do listen to them. Also, since mother custody is all but a given unless the mother has an extraordinarily dysfunctional life (e.g. heroin addiction, prostitution, felony convictions), litigation is an uphill battle for fathers dealing with an obstinate, uncaring ex-wife, which is unfortunately the norm.
For a man involved in divorce, the path of least resistance is to avoid contesting custody, and use what little legal leverage he has to come to an agreement over child support and a reasonable “visitation” schedule, which will generally include seeing the kids a few days a month. In short, if you want an easy divorce, you really ought to give up on the idea of being a father, and instead simply settle for being a twice-a-month dad, perhaps using the threat of custody litigation only to keep child support reasonable. It may seem counterintuitive, but many women will happily forgo some amount of child support and a great deal of help with parenting simply to keep their ex as far away as possible. People tend to misread this, and women often misrepresent it. Those unfamiliar with the tendency assume that the man must be a horrible father and an all-around disagreeable person if a mother keeps his children away from him even at her own expense. This is sometimes the case, but there’s usually another explanation. When a woman leaves a man, she does so in most cases because she wants another man. Having the ex around does not in any way help her fulfill this biological imperative to seek out a new mate. Actually, the farther away he is the better, and because cuckolding men seems to be a natural female tendency, the fact that the man in question is her children’s father doesn’t matter in her mind at all. She tends to think of the children’s father as replaceable; another man will do fine in that role.
Family law in the US has come to reflect women’s desires in this regard, far more so than the former institution of marriage ever reflected men’s desires, so women’s instincts are generally indulged and vigorously defended by feminists, who will often assert with some force that biological fathers are entirely unnecessary to children’s well-being, except for the monthly check, of course. This is clearly wrong, and all one has to do is look at statistics regarding convicted felons to see that the most dysfunctional people in our society usually grew up without a father present, but because the primary objective of American-style family law is indulging women and removing money from fathers, it is ignored (fleecing men is big business, as we all know, and all those officers of the court have to make a living somehow).
Because of this reality, there is some merit in the MGTOW philosophy of simply walking away from it all. It is, after all, the easiest thing to do, and if enough men simply let women have what they want, eventually the system would collapse upon itself. However, not all of us are that psychologically tough. Most men care a great deal about their children, and it is extraordinarily difficult to simply let go of that. This feeling is perhaps most keen for men who grew up without fathers themselves, an increasingly large proportion of our population. Hence the custody battles that are the bread and butter for family law attorneys across the country. Most men go into these battles knowing in the back of their minds that they will probably lose, but feel they owe it to their children. They aren’t fighting to be with their kids because of a desire for “control” – this is a disgusting, inhuman feminist lie – but because they love them and care about them.
Yet still we hear women complaining that their baby daddy isn’t paying enough child support and won’t even see his children. Know this: in four out of five cases these women have made it so difficult for the father to see his kids that he’s simply given up. They are simply fishing for sympathy from ignorant folks who have no clue what really goes on after divorce. A lot of people look at guys who do this and say “how could a man abandon his children like that?” Well, in most cases he didn’t. He was pushed away from his kids, usually with the overwhelming force of the law that lies at the disposal of mothers who want a new lover.
This is why I don’t hold it against these men, nor should anyone else. I think of what I’ve been put through in trying to be a father to my children, including multiple investigations and a SWAT incident, and I wouldn’t blame a guy for giving up and moving on. In fact, if I had a strong self-preservation instinct, I never would have tried in the first place. For fathers, fighting for custody of one’s children is like taking on a helicopter gunship with an AK-47, and most of us are not John Rambo. Additionally, the payoff for custody is impossible to quantify, because it certainly does not result in material gain. Women are far less likely to pay child support, and when they do the obligations are generally low. A man who cooperates with his ex as she holds the gun of family law to his head is less likely to be destroyed, and he is far more likely to find another woman should he so desire. As Single Dad has often pointed out in comments, women are even less likely to want a relationship with a single father than men with a single mother. A guy who gives up on his kids therefore has a better chance of having a decent life and getting laid. The way the system is set up, there’s a sort of measly carrot for dropping the kids, and a big stick with a nail in it for trying to keep them.
Nevertheless, millions of men still fight for their children. What does this say about men? Obviously, that they love and care about their children, in some ways probably more than women. Every day men are sacrificing themselves for their kids with no expectation of reward. They are giving up their careers, their sex lives and their savings simply for an extra few days a month with the people they care about most.
If there is anything that discredits feminism utterly, it is these millions of men who, despite the obstacles and threats they face, keep trying against all odds to be fathers to their children. It is small wonder feminists have resorted to such base lies to cover up this crime — they profit from the greatest injustice of our time.
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