Noncustodial Mothers' Organizations

Red State Feminist has contributed an article, also published on her blog, that makes many valid points, and offers much fodder for thought about noncustodial mothers' organizations whose members unwittingly support counterproductive family law policies. We've commented on this problem in earlier posts, and felt that her comments were worth archiving here.

Why I Don't Support NANCM

NANCM is a large organization for non-custodial mothers. It’s the largest one I know of. It has a message board and a lot of local meet-up groups. But I don’t trust them, and I would never recommend them to a non-custodial mother. Here’s why: NANCM state on their web site that they do not give legal advice to mothers nor do they adhere to any particular political ideologies. That’s inaccurate, and at worst, it’s blatantly dishonest. They’re affiliated with the Children’s Rights Council, one of the oldest Father’s Rights groups in existence. And NANCM links to and supports Glenn Sacks, and the legislation both he and the CRC promote.

In doing so, they’re supporting the misogynist rhetoric that Fathers’ Rights groups advance. This rhetoric is the underpinning of the arguments that frame public-friendly sound bites like “Shared parenting” and “Friendly parent”. If you look at the actual reasoning that lies underneath these devices, there lies antipathy towards divorcing mothers, and specifically, divorcing mothers who ask courts to hold men accountable for abusive or otherwise unacceptable behaviors towards mothers and children.

Father’s rights groups began working aggressively on various forms of family court “reform” after child support laws were strengthened in the early 90’s. Those laws were strengthened to relieve mothers abandoned by their husbands and living in poverty, and to reduce the strain on the states that were having to pay out enormous amounts of welfare to those same impoverished, abandoned mothers. Some men became very angry that they were being forced to pay child support with heavy penalties for not doing so.

Custody battles were the direct backlash of men who had once, upon getting divorced, been able to drift from supporting the children of the marriage without much accountability. Men angered by being forced to continue to support these children discovered that there was a weakness in the family court system, and decided to exploit it by fighting for custody to get out of paying child support.

Father’s Rights organizations also realized that there was another inherent weakness in the system: they could turn a potential criminal complaint against them into a custody suit. This served twofold: it kept them out of criminal court, and it threatened mothers with the possibility of losing custody of their children if they did not keep silent to authorities about various forms of abuse that may have gone on in the home.

In general, smart people already know that Father’s Rights organizations are about just that - the rights of fathers, not the rights of children. And they are certainly not about the rights of mothers, non-custodial or otherwise. Many non-custodial mothers fall prey to the rhetoric put forward by Fathers Rights groups after they lose custody. The logic goes something like this: “if this legislation had been the law here when I went to court, this wouldn’t have happened to me” This is a flawed and short-sighted rationale, at best. I think many traumatized and confused non-custodial mothers believe such laws would protect them: but they’re wrong.

Glenn Sacks and other FR groups have aggressively pushed “shared-parenting” legislation, (mandatory joint custody in all situations) . Fathers Rights organizations have also been partly responsible for geographic restrictions, friendly-parent statutes and the elimination of the Tender Years Doctrine for "gender-neutral" custody decisions in the court room. They have certainly pushed these ideas and supported them. But these are notions that hurt primary caregivers (usually mother custody) in the first place in a number of ways:

Shared-parenting legislation, or joint custody enforcement won’t help mothers retain custody in court. Shared-parenting takes time away children spend being directly cared for by primary caregivers. Recent studies demonstrate that even working mothers still spend more time caring for children than fathers. Putting children in “equal time” slots with parents who don’t spend equal amounts of their time with the children means less parenting time for children overall.

Shared parenting has been put on many state ballots, and it fails. It fails from a legal standpoint because it focuses on a parent’s rights standard, not a best-interest of the child standard. Dr. Bruce Perry’s studies of child trauma also indicate that children who are separated from primary caregivers can and do have serious adjustment problems and emotional problems.

Forced shared parenting also puts mothers in untenable positions with regard to their personal autonomy, and therefore their ability to make a wider and better variety of choices about the upbringing of the children. Forced shared parenting, lastly, is a way for batterers and men with other serious issues to continue to abuse their ex-spouse. Children witnessing constant abuse of a parent are at high risk for a variety of problems including becoming abusive or becoming a victim of abuse. Parents who are willing and able to agree on shared custody already do make such decisions outside the courtroom, when it’s a viable solution. It’s only when shared parenting isn’t a workable solution in the first place that such legislation would force it on families to whom it isn’t suited. This can’t be good for children. Trish Wilson has more on forced shared parenting at her blog.

Geographic restrictions hurt the autonomy of divorced mothers who are primary caregivers. Since we’ve already established that mothers are still more likely to spend more caregiving time with children, even when they’re working, I’m going to refer to primary caregivers as mothers from this point on, with the caveat that a small percentage of men are primary caregivers and they can infer as much going forward. Geographic restrictions hurt mothers because if mothers are forced to remain in one particular location to suit the whim of the father, they may have to make economic sacrifices, such as better career opportunities or better education opportunities. Mothers already make less than fathers in general, and more often have to achieve additional degrees to live comfortably as a single parent unit or move to less expensive areas. Or, a geographic restriction may force mothers to stay in a region that’s far from the support of their family of origin. They may be forced to live within a small community where there’s little hope of finding a new mate. They may be forced to live in close proximity to an abusive ex-spouse, which is hardly safe for her or her children.

Lastly and most importantly I don’t support NANCM because by supporting Father’s Rights groups like Glenn Sacks and the CRC, they are supporting Richard Gardner's bogus Parental Alienation theory, which has been repeatedly used as the basis for abusive men to get custody of children in response to a mother's bringing concerns about that abuse to authorities. The "Friendly Parent" statute, awarding custody to whichever parent seems the most "willing" to share custody with the other parent, is a legislated bit of PAS theory.

If NANCM feel OK about supporting organizations that support PAS theory, which has been the MOST destructive to abused mothers and children, then they are not supporting protective mothers, battered women (the majority of noncustodial mothers) or abused children. If NANCM members feel OK about supporting organizations that care more for the convenience of fathers than they do for the rights of children, then they are not supporting either mothers OR children.

If that's the case, who, then, are they supporting? I'm curious.

All in all, potential NANCM members need to look deeper at the myths of Fathers Rights groups that are used to destroy the custody of fit, loving primary caregiver mothers in the first place:

* Women lie about abuse to get custody;
* Children lie in great detail about abuses done to themselves;
* Women can and do, by some kind of mysterious intangible transmission, “brainwash” a child into being afraid of their father and into believing their father hurt them when he did not;
* Women are hysterical, vindictive liars who are only out to “get” their ex when the marriage ends;
* Women are less credible than men;
* Children can be arbitrarily subject to sudden, extreme reversals of primary parent roles in custody suits without severe emotional damage; and
*Children who live with single mothers suffer from a variety of social ills only cured by father influence

If they are willing to incorporate this canon, directly or indirectly, into their own mission, then they have become a part of the belief system that has destroyed the lives of the mothers and children they are claiming to support, and I want nothing to do with them.