Tag Archives: Divorce

Commentary

Why libertarians should care about the breakdown of the family

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Stephen Baskerville explains how the breakdown of marriage leads to bigger government and less liberty.

Excerpt:

Unmarried women and single mothers (the main abortion constituency) are more affluent and better-educated than two decades ago.  They are also more politicized and comprise Obama’s most committed and vocal supporters, having voted for him by 70%.

As with many measures designed to weaken the family, no general public clamor preceded the move to nationalize medicine, apart from a few vocal constituencies.  One of the biggest was single women.  “American voters in general may shy away from ‘radical’ steps such as importing a Canadian-style (health care) system,” the liberal polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner reported some years ago.  “Unmarried women, however, embrace such a powerful step.”

[…]Sadly, many unmarried women live — willingly or not — to some degree in dependency on the state. And for single, middle-class women whose incomes disqualify them for Medicaid, health care is the most expensive cost.

[…]Statistics now reveal that welfare has been a powerful force behind the break-up of the family in low-income families. Now, in the middle class, we see the breakdown coming largely through divorce and the “liberated” lifestyles to which much of it can be attributed. Yet our growing allegiance to an ever-increasing culture of divorce now demands ever-expanding “services,” such as government medicine.

So, public medicine, like all welfare, facilitates family dissolution. And the breakdown of the family in turn creates a constituency pushing for more welfare, fostering a vicious circle of government growth and social decay.  It just so happens that all of this also builds electoral support for the party that enacts it.

Libertarians need to be practical: you need social conservatives and you ought to be actively promoting traditional marriage.

News

Calgary dad mourns daughter murdered by her stepfather

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Story from the Calgary Sun.

Excerpt:

He barely knew his daughter Clare, having seen her only five times since the divorce.

James Shelswell said he was looking forward to Clare growing older, and the far-off day when he might finally bond with the child he surrendered when she was only four months old.

Instead, Shelswell will fly this week from Calgary to Abbotsford B.C., to attend Clare’s funeral.

On Sunday, Clare was murdered, her throat slashed open after an apparent domestic dispute between her mom and step-dad over how to discipline the kids.

Peter Wilson, 29, is charged with killing his step daughter.

And now, all that’s left for her biological dad is to say goodbye to the stranger who was once his baby girl.

“She didn’t really know me — I’d seen her maybe five time in five years,” said Shelswell.

If his daughter dying in pain and terror at the hands of the man she knew as her dad wasn’t devastating enough, Shelswell has been told [by his ex-wife] he’s not welcome at the funeral.

[…]“I asked if she was in the room when it happened and why she didn’t protect Clare — she said it happened in a different room, and I asked if my other daughter saw it. She said no.”

His ex, said Shelswell, then made it clear he is not welcome at Clare’s private funeral service.

“She said I shouldn’t go to the funeral, and I have no rights to my kids,” said Shelswell.

[…]In Calgary, Shelswell, who is re-married with two kids, is a man whose fury is mixed with remorse.He laments that he didn’t have enough money to fight back with a lawyer, back when his wife took their Calgary-born daughters away to B.C.

He says he settled into a pattern of paying child support, and looking forward to yearly visit with his girls — the last, a happy trip to Vancouver, included the aquarium and McDonald’s.

This is my worst nightmare, but it illustrates the general truth that biological dads are the least likely person to harm their own children, which I blogged about before. This paper from the Heritage Foundation cites a very interesting study that shows more about which who is really dangerous to children. Here’s another paper that explains why marriages are the safest arrangements for women and children. The very institution that is under attack by third-wave feminists who abhor the “unequal” gender roles that emerge in marriage.

Here’s a government report:

Mothers are almost twice as likely to be directly involved in child maltreatment as fathers.

[…]Generally speaking, the same characteristics that make a man a good father make him less likely to abuse or neglect his children. Fathers who nurture and take significant responsibility for basic childcare for their children (e.g., feeding, changing diapers) from an early age are significantly less likely to sexually abuse their children.35 These fathers typically develop such a strong connection with their children that it decreases the likelihood of any maltreatment.

The involvement of a father in the life of a family is also associated with lower levels of child neglect, even in families that may be facing other factors, such as unemployment and poverty, which could place the family at risk for maltreatment.36 Such involvement reduces the parenting and housework load a mother has to bear and increases the overall parental investments in family life, thereby minimizing the chances that either parent will neglect to care for or to supervise their children.

On average, fathers who live in a married household with their children are better able to create a family environment that is more conducive to the safety and necessary care of their children. Consequently, children who live with their biological father in a married household are significantly less likely to be physically abused, sexually abused, or neglected than children who do not live with their married biological parents.

When feminists make fathers out to be monsters, and lobby for extremely liberal divorce laws enforced by extremely anti-male divorce courts, the result is that more children are assaulted, sexually-abused and even murdered at the hands of live-in boyfriends and stepfathers.

Sorry to all of my male readers who are honorable stepfathers, but the fact is that stepfathers on average are not as safe for children as biological fathers. And that’s why we should not be encouraging the break-up of marriages with no-fault divorce laws and anti-male divorce courts. Women also need to be more careful about who they choose to have children with!

By the way, if you guys are looking for a great movie to watch that is extremely pro-fatherhood, watch “Taken” with Liam Neeson. Be warned, it is very mature subject matter. Definitely, definitely for grown-ups only. If you are a man, you will ADORE this movie. Oh, and it’s not PC, so don’t watch it if you are all multicultural and moral relativistic.

News

Divorced father kept from seeing his own child for 15 months

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This news story is from the government-run CBC in Canada.

Excerpt:

A divorced B.C. father who hasn’t seen his young daughter for several months blames the family court system and is joining others in a call for change.

“Before all this happened, my daughter had a great relationship with me,” said Dieter Geesing. “I feel really helpless. This is not right.”

Geesing said his ex-wife has been allowed to bar him from his daughter because a court order requiring her to co-operate is unenforceable.

“I love my child. It’s not fair to her. You are cheating her of her childhood,” he said tearfully. “This child has a right to interact with her father.”

Geesing is a forestry specialist and his daughter is his only child. He and his wife separated in 2008, when the girl was eight years old. Since then, he said, his wife has tried to shut him out of his daughter’s life completely.

[…]A court order in June 2009 gave the parents joint guardianship, with the child’s “primary residence” at her mother’s home.

[…]The court also instructed the mother to pay for and attend counselling to help establish a “healthier” relationship between father and daughter. A letter from the counsellor to the judge shows Geesing’s ex-wife has since failed to co-operate.

[…]Records show there have been no consequences for the child’s mother. Geesing has been told he has no legal recourse but to go back to court to ask the judge for help, which could take several months.

[…]When contacted, Geesing’s ex-wife refused comment. Her lawyer did not respond to messages.

I think that a lot of Christians are familiar with the pro-life view and the pro-marriage view, and maybe they could even defend them with arguments and evidence. But for some reason, these father’s rights issues have not really been viewed as the same kind of injustice. I’ll bet that the mother in this case knew that the laws would not be enforced against her – that she would not be held to account for acting selfishly and maliciously. This lack of enforcement undoubtedly encourages more women to divorce their husbands and destroy the lives of their children.

Here”s a video I found about the Canadian divorce industry:

I also note that my favorite Canadian MP Maurice Vellacott has introduced a bill at the federal level to fix this problem. He is a Conservative Party MP.