ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 3, 1997 TAG: 9701030023
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KERRY ARMENTROUT
THUMBS UP to Barry Carter for the Dec. 13 letter to the editor, "Use common sense with custody of kids.'' His statistics seemed staggering, I'm sure, to some who read the letter, but parents frequently come across articles that will back up or even expand on these numbers.
Drugs, teen pregnancy and violence are not the greatest problems facing our society today. Rather they are the product of the greatest problem: fatherlessness.
U.S. News and World Report published an article titled ``Why fathers count'' (Feb. 27, 1995), which outlined the problem. Some of the frightening facts included links between a father's absence and his child's likelihood of becoming a school dropout, jobless, a drug addict, a suicide victim, mentally ill, and a target of sexual abuse.
Wade Horne, director of the National Fatherhood Initiative, added to this information with his article, "Why we need fathers'' (Better Homes and Gardens, June 1996). He wrote: "When compared to children raised by both parents, those raised by one parent (9 times out of 10 it's the mother) were twice as likely to drop out of high school and 2.5 times as likely to be teen mothers.''
And The Roanoke Times, on March 20, 1995, printed an article titled ``Dad's role in lifelong success is significant'' by Lynn Smith of the Los Angeles Times. It included statistics such as this: ``Children who exhibited violent misbehavior is school were 11 times as likely not to live with their fathers.''
The list goes on, and, while one may dispute the numbers, the underlying theme remains: The most significant problem facing our children today is fatherlessness.
How we arrived at this crossroads is not merely a biological problem. True, there are many fathers who don't feel the attachment or bond to their children in the same way the mother does. However, I believe the majority of detached fathers are put in this position by the courts.
Virginia law requires a judge to rule in the best interest of the children, and in 97 percent of Virginia cases custody is given to the mother.
Being a divorced father myself, I believe this number represents not what is best for the children, but what is easiest and safest for the judicial system. With 50 percent of the marriages ending in divorce today, the judges are swamped with custody battles. They are forced by time, as well as precedent, to give custody to the mother and visitation to the father, along with inflated child-support payments.
The father, feeling helpless as well as a victim, resorts to working extra hours to make his child-support payments and thus falls prey to what's known as "parentectomy." It becomes easier for him to make his payments and occasionally see his child while allotting the basic child-rearing principles to the mother.
The mother, while caring for the child in the best possible manner, still lacks the child-rearing attributes of the father. In the same way, the father lacks what the mother has to give, and so the child is pushed closer to the dangers of growing up fatherless. To say that the mother or father is to blame for this antiquated cycle is to spend needless energy trying to disperse the responsibility.
Unlike many other problems of today, an option is available to us. In 1996 the General Assembly considered a "presumptive custody" bill that states: ``There shall be a rebuttable presumption that joint legal and physical custody is in the best interests of the minor child or children."
If passed, this would require divorcing parents to show why joint custody is not in the best interests of the child. The bill is still being considered by the legislature, and it is to be hoped Virginia will follow the lead of others states that have had presumptive custody for years.
Having joint legal and physical custody of my own daughter has taken the bitterness out of me and has replaced it with a strong sense of fatherhood. I have a very well-adjusted child who functions normally and is very secure with the fact that she has two parents who love her. She is a fine example of what parents can do when they put their differences aside and focus on what is best for the child.
Joint custody takes the child out of the middle of the divorce and allows parents to deal with their problems without using the child as a leverage point.
Only by breaking away from the past can we make a change for our future.
Kerry Armentrout is an air-medical specialist with Life-Guard 10.
LENGTH: Medium: 82 linesby CNB