1. Millions of children suffer when fathers are lulled into a false sense of security by impossible and unfulfilled promises of joint custody.
2. Agreeing to joint custody after divorce brings the courts into family matters where they aren’t otherwise involved.
3. This involvement by the courts in the lives of our children has been powerfully destructive, socially, economically, and physically.
4. The States which implemented various forms of joint custody laws have experienced even more rapidly rising divorce, illegitimacy, and fatherlessness rates than States without them.
5. No society is known to have fluorished or even survived with such a social policy.
6. Fighting for joint custody laws has cost $Billions, per Jim Cook “In the various petition drives that we have witnessed, and upon quizzing various Secretaries of State, somewhere between 94% and 95% of the petition proposals fail to achieve enough signatures for the ballot and, 97% to 98% of all proposition proposals fail”, and even where implemented have been followed by more rapidly rising divorce and fatherlessness rates.
7. Joint custody laws require “equality” in family affairs, which requires a third party (a judge) to break ties in important family decisions.
8. Feminists have convincing research which politicians use to accept their claim that joint custody is harmful to children. [See Appendix A]
9. Judges have openly and publicly proclaimed that they "won’t enforce 50% joint custody”, and have proven this by awarding custody to mothers 92% of the time even in states with joint custody laws.
10. Basing the fatherhood movement on the false hope that joint custody laws can be implemented, can work, or can benefit our children has diverted vital energy from the proven, workable, well-founded solution to our social pathology -- father custody.
11. Continuing to fight for joint custody laws while failing to implement proven solutions will prevent us from resolving the crisis of fatherlessness.

The following from Liz@gate.net illustrates the futility of pursuing joint custody legislation. Fathers worldwide probably agree with her conclusions, with one exception -- fathers, and not mothers, should be the sole custodial parents of children. Liz asks fathers worldwide to accept her statement at face value, while she prefers that they ignore the vast evidence that single-mother households have been disastrous to society and that single-father households have proven to be even better environments for children than two-parent households.

Fathers can't, shouldn't, and won't accept that premise. Fathers will take control of their children and resolve the social crisis, because politicians, legislatures, judges, and feminists have proven by example that they will NOT be a part of the solution.

APPENDIX A

To: <familylaw-l@lawlib.wuacc.edu> Subject: Re: JOURNAL review article

Joint physical custody has been recognized as logistically impractical and psychologically detrimental for years now.

And joint legal custody, or shared custody, with one parent remaining as the primary physical custodian does little to alter the amount of time a child spends with the noncustodial parent, and does a lot to create control conflicts between parents who continue to harbor resentment stemming from the failure of the marriage.

1. In the Summer 1995 Family Law Quarterly, Joan Zorza summarizes the concensus of enlightened thinking about joint custody generally, although her article otherwise discusses the battered spouse situation "Joint custody awards do not improve the lot of children. In fact, most children in court-imposed joint custody (not just those with abusive fathers) do poorly. [ft.nt.60 Gina Kolata, "The Children of Divorce: Joint Custody is Found to Offer Little Benefit, N.Y. Times, Mar. 31, l988 at B13; Nancy D. Polikoff, "Joint Custody: Only by Agreement of the Parties," 8 Woman's Advoc. 1,3 (1987)]
2. and are more depressed and disturbed than children in sole custody, [ft.nt.61 Sheila J. Kuehl, "Against Joint Custody: A Dissent to the General Bullmoose Theory," 27 Fam. & Conciliation Courts Rev. 37 (1987)], even when the parents genuinely choose joint custody [ft.nt.62 Id.].
3. Furthermore, joint custody results in lower child support awards, which fathers are no more likely to pay than awards made when the mother has sole custody. [ft.nt.63 Polikoff, supra, note 60.]
4. Joint custody does not even result in the father spending any more time with his children. [ft.nt.64 Frank F. Furstenberg & Andrew J. Cherlin, "Divided Families: What Happens to Children When Parents Fail 33-38 (1991).]"
5. And, Zorza says "when the father is an abuser, joint custody awards frequently endanger both the abused parent and her children. [ft.nt.65 Polikoff, supra note 60.]
6. Professor Mary Ann Mason had this to say about joint custody in "Equality Trap" Simon and Shuster l988:
7. "There are many things wrong with this unthinking rush to joint custody, but the primary objection is that it changes the focus of custody away from the 'best interests of the child' to the best interests of the parents--or, more precisely, to the best interests of the father."
8. Joint custody *increases*, not decreases, covert resentment and conflict, because it permits the parent who is *not* spending the day-to-day time raising the children and operating the household to exercise veto power over decisions made by the CP and if so inclined, to meddle and interfere, creating stalemate, and power plays to attempt to break it between the two parents. Some of these "power plays" are: good parent/bad parent game, visitation conflicts, and withholding of support.
9. And, for a summary of the relationship found by one researcher between visitation denial claims and child support, and also debunking the popular myth that women increasingly use false sex abuse allegations as a weapon against fathers in divorce cases, see an article by J. Pearson, Ph.D., published Summer l993 FAMILY LAW QUARTERLY, Vol. 27 No.2 American Bar Association, Ten Myths About Family Law, a synopsis of research conducted by The Center for Policy Research.
10. A key factor in successful parenting in intact homes is the ability to parent in unison and provide a united front. (See, e.g. Penelope Leach, and other child development experts.)
11. Persons who are married have difficulty enough parenting in unison and doing a good job of it, but at least where they disagree, they share common goals, and have a relationship between themselves to preserve, which is incentive for compromise and respectful discourse. That's absent in a divorce situation, and strained even more when stepparents enter the picture with their own interests and agendas.
12. Psychological researchers who have expressed negative opinions about joint custody include, among others, Anna Freud and Judith Wallerstein. In short, a major problem is the child's, in Wallerstein's words, living a life in "no man's land." Children who routinely shift as a temporary resident between two households that have other permanent members who "really" live there presents a destructive outlook for a child, damaging of identity and self-esteem. Young children form a sense of identity from their family base, and, notwithstanding the fiction, joint custody does not give the child a whole family, nor does it approximate a two-parent intact home. The child, in fact, is central and permanent to no home, which only reinforces and trauma of the divorce split. It would be far better for the child to have one, stable one-parent "intact" home and for the other parent to visit in a complementary way, rather than create the conflict of a competing "home."
13. Professor David Chambers has written articles from the legal standpoint, recommending primary caretaker presumptions and the forbidding of physical joint custody over the objection of one parent. For another recent article exploring these issues and concluding that a primary caretaker, rather than joint custody presumption is preferable, see Phyllis T. Bookspan, "From a Tender Years Presumption to a Primary Parent Presumption: Has Anything Really Changed? ....Should It?" 8 B.Y.U.J. Pub.L. 75 (1994).
14. Finally, presumptions in divorce laws that purport to grant equal standing to parties with unequal power and differing position in real life, neither reflects reality nor administers justice.
15. Eliminating litigation is not the goal. Eliminating the conflict that causes the litigation without yielding injustice *is.* Presumptions of equality as to unequal parties yields inequitable results--injustice. For example, see Zorza, supra. Also see White, A.C., Family Law and Domestic Violence, Fla. Bar. J. Oct. 1994 ("Studies show that abusive fathers are far more likely than nonabusive parents to fight for child custody, not pay child support, and kidnap children.")
16. As to the best interests of the children: There simply is no need to choose between unacceptable evils: lack of relationship with a beloved noncustodial parent or denying a child the right to one intact home, regardless of the number of parents in that home. A primary parent presumption as to custody coupled with appropriate traditional visitation is what is in the child's best interests.

The politics of adult rights has no business injecting itself into this issue as a competing consideration to the best interests of the child.

Liz

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