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Most divorced fathers are not "deadbeat dads." In 1987, the courts awarded child support to 59 percent of the women demanding it. Of these, 76 percent of their ex-husbands paid as best they could, and more than two thirds paid the full amount. (Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1991, p 374, table 616)
While this indicates most men are not deadbeats, when it comes to men, pop feminists see a half-empty glass every time: "60 percent of divorced fathers contribute nothing at all to the financial support of their children." (A Lesser Life: The Myth of Women's Liberation in America, Sylvia Ann Hewlett, p 62) In the state of Washington, at least half of this is because 30 percent of divorced fathers have custody of their children (while only 3 percent of non-custodial mothers pay child support!). But in their enthusiasm to portray all men as the evil oppressors of helpless female victims, pop feminists gloss over all mitigating factors, incriminating all men because fewer than fifteen out of 100 divorced fathers refuse to pay.
Some men are deadbeats. But many others have good reason to default on child support. After losing custody in a biased judicial system that would rather grant custody to abusive mothers than responsible and gainfully employed fathers, some simply give up. Still others balk when their ex-wives make it virtually impossible for them to enjoy such visitation rights as the prejudiced and often male-feminist judges allow them. To fault fathers for this is to blame the victim:
"Men get thrown in jail for failing to meet the financial obligations resulting from divorce," he wrote. "But judges will not even consider jailing a woman who does not keep up her end of the settlement, such as assuring the husband of his right to visit the children." -- Manhood Redux, C.H. Freedman, p 171
Should a man support a family his ex-wife has stolen from him? Most men play by rules of fairness, and being required to pay for something without benefit is grossly unfair. And so while some men go on strike, refusing to pay child support altogether, an increasing number of men are learning to stop listening to the propaganda and start examining the facts.
We need to support children. Their welfare must take high priority. This is a fact. But relying on the myth that mothers make the best parents, pop feminists use children as weapons against men. (The Hazards of Being Male: Surviving the Myth of Masculine Privilege, Herb Goldberg, Ph.D., p 169)
Men nurture children, too. In many ways, they care for them more than women do. A mother may bear children, nurse and rear them, feed and clothe them. But the homes, the food, the clothing and most of what makes life after birth possible usually come from their fathers.
Most men want the best for their children, and it is to this masculine will to nurture that pop feminists appeal when they use the issues of child support and child custody against men. They know most men are decent enough to let themselves be victimized for the sake of their children, and they rely on this masculine good will at every opportunity to obtain from men what Ayn Rand called "the sanction of the victim."
The sanction of the victim is the only weapon the morally weak have against the strong because it depends on the cooperation of the strong in their own destruction: "A father who sends his ex-wife child support money is subsidizing the destruction of his own family." (The Garbage Generation, Daniel Amneus, p 204)
They cannot use facts against most men because all the facts taken together do not support them. Nor can they use direct force, because that would expose the fundamentally violent nature of their anti-male agenda. So they rely on propaganda - the "big lie" - to loudly drown out what does not support them.
Most child abusers, for example, are women. (Handbook of Family Violence, Suzanne K. Steinmetz and Joseph S. Lucca, p 241)
Newspapers and television make it seem otherwise by sensationalizing abusive men, and the courts ignore it by awarding custody of children primarily to women. Pop feminists know this, and fear the truth will get out because, when the courts ignore the gender of the parents, they usually find men make better custodial parents. ( Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law , Catherine A. MacKinnon, p 35)
Most men are not deadbeat dads. In fact, as non-custodial mothers are far less likely to pay child-support than non-custodial fathers, it would be far more reasonable to castigate women for being miserly moms. What's more, were they so inclined, men could make a good argument against awarding child custody to women. Rather than fighting one another, however, we should encourage joint custody. Because children need two parents.
Rug rat under foot
In the national debate about divorce and children, who gets to keep them and who has to pay, one thing we may have forgotten is our need to care up close.
Although I spend a lot of time talking to fathers who, thanks to a legal system that often refuses to enforce visitation rights, have lost all contact with their children, being single, I never really understood how they feel.
Many have told me about their sense of loss, about the hurt of knowing their ex-wives are teaching their children to blame them. And that they may never again be allowed to see their own flesh and blood. Their own children.
Intellectually, I understood. But in the way that some feminists use the term, I just didn't "get it."
Then something happened. Not a big thing. It was very small. But now, in a small way, maybe I do understand.
It was something I never would have expected to see. There, beneath another car in the parking lot, a neighbor's cat stalked a baby squirrel.
Earlier I had noticed the absence of the large gray squirrel in our yard, and assumed the coyotes from the nearby green belt got her. And here was the little one she had left behind, his eyes not even open yet, driven out of the nest by hunger.
Scarcely able to walk, nevertheless his will to survive was strong. Admirable, I thought. The kid's got pluck. So I shooed the cat away and took him in.
There were some fresh blackberries in the refrigerator. Squeezing their juice into a small dish, I set it down before him. Leaning over, he promptly fell over and stuck his nose in the juice. Huffing and whistling with indignation, he got back up on his wobbly legs and went at it again.
His hunger abated, he curled up on some rags in a small box and went to sleep.
Knowing nothing about how to care for him, I called the city office to get the number of the local wild animal shelter. But when I dialed the number the city clerk gave me, all I got was a recorded message with instructions to leave my number and the nature of my call. Which I did. (Later, they called back and said that for $48 they would "euthanize" him.)
Next, I called a wild animal shelter several miles to the north. The volunteer who answered told me to feed him puppy milk replacement formula, and call PAWS. At PAWS, unfortunately, all roads on their voice mail system led to an automatic hang-up, and I had no money to buy milk. Swell, I thought. Like I really have time for this.
The next day was Saturday and after sucking on some more blackberries he looked at me through barely open eyes and I swear I could almost hear him thinking, "mama?" And for the rest of the day he wouldn't leave me alone, but squeaked a whistling plaint if I spent too much time at my computer.
Finally relenting to his constant scold, I took him outside where he crawled with his proud bushy tail held high. When he was done, he whistled and cried until I offered my hand for him to climb up onto. And when he tried to suckle again, I offered more blackberry juice. But he huffed and sneezed that "mama" should know that a growing boy needs his milk. Nonplused, I ground up some puppy chow in water, but he rejected that, too, pressing his nose to my fingers in an insistent demand for milk.
In rapid succession he rejected a strip of bacon, a spoonful of molasses-soaked oatmeal, and rice.
"What shall I do with you?" I grumbled, placing him in his nest of dried grass. He didn't answer, but only scrambled up the sides of the box, balancing precariously before jumping onto my arm, his little claws not even breaking my skin as he slid down onto my outstretched hand.
Frustrated, I cut a door in the box, placed him inside and covered it with a lid. Promptly, he wobbled out and started chewing on my shoe.
"Resistance is futile," I chuckled, scooping him up and putting him back in the box. Before he could escape, I opened the screen door and placed the box outside on the patio. This time, when he crawled out the little door, it wasn't my shoe he found, but the neighbor's cat. Back inside he went, and there he stayed.
The next morning I went out to check on him, to see if he had eaten any of the berries, but he was all curled up and scarcely breathing.
"Hey there little fella," I coaxed, scratching the back of his neck. He didn't move. Alarmed, I brought him inside, filled an eyedropper with water and squirted some into his mouth. Swallowing, he promptly relieved himself in my hand. After washing, I found out he liked to have his chest scratched, so I spent the rest of the day alternating between writing and tickling his tummy. But something was wrong. He wasn't interested in eating, and if I didn't stay with him, he would curl up and sleep.
That night he slept inside.
Monday morning after going to the bank, I went to the local pet shop and got some puppy milk for him. "Here you go, little fella, drink this up." He pushed the eye dropper away. And when I managed to squirt some in his mouth, he spit it out.
All afternoon I fussed over him, but it was evident he wasn't going to make it. That evening as I held him on my chest where he could feel my heart beating, he curled close and whistled. After a while, he stretched and yawned, looked at me one last time, and died.
Maybe he died from too much of the wrong food. Maybe the cat scared him, or the Saturday night air was too cold. But I think what killed him was being alone. His pluck was no substitute for the comforting presence of another's warmth.
For the first time in many years I felt truly alone, and I cried.
After four days of grumbling about having a demanding, complaining, completely dependent rodent underfoot, I missed him. I missed how he would raise his arm so I could scratch his chest, and how when I pursed my lips and chirped at him, he would climb onto my hand. And most of all, I missed having a young one to care for, and being trusted so completely.
Now, when divorced fathers tell me about how much it hurts to be shut out of their children's lives, what I hear them saying is that, no less than mothers, they need to care up close. Take that away, and what's left?
Among other things, that means discarding the demeaning myths about men and accepting that both women and men are accountable for their own actions, which is what real feminists have been promoting all along.
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