Child Custody

The battle over child custody

In the United States today more than one-half of all marriages end in divorce. The purpose of this paper is to examine the reason why women have typically received custody of the children far more often than the fathers. In order to better understand child custody one must first examine how fathers have often times been left out of the picture, and conversely why mothers have had such hard times raising children on their own. This paper will first examine the perspective of a father who has lost custody of his children.

A Fathers Perspective

According to many the custody of a child should be determined with the best interest of the child in mind. However, it is not easy for a judge to make such an important decision in such a short amount of time with limited information. Smith (2004) stated that, the simple fact of being a mother does not indicate a willingness or capacity to render a quality of care different than that which a father can provide. Some might argue that what Reynolds (2004) calls deadbeat dads, or in other words fathers who refuse to pay their child support, are often times confused with Turnips, who are ex-spouses who can not afford to pay child support. One example of a turnip is a father who is in prison; he is obviously not making money while he is on the inside. Now an example of a deadbeat dad is when the father is enjoying all the finer things in life and he cannot reach far enough into his pocket to make sure that his children are taken care of. As Bergo (2004) has pointed out, the government has gotten much better at collecting from deadbeat parents through payroll deductions, and seizures of tax refunds, they were not very good at getting that money to those for whom it was intended.

A Mothers Perspective

Reynolds (2004) stated that five out of every six custodial parents are mothers, and he goes on to say that one out of three of those custodial parents receives a full payment averaging about five thousand dollars. Often times a judge makes the decision to grant custody to the mother based on the idea that a mother has a closer relationship with the child because of giving birth. However, it is important to remember as Smith (2003) reminds us that fathers love their children just as much as mothers, and to call them non-custodial