Why the hate for Dads?

The current case of Sean Goldman reminds me a lot of the Elian Gonzalez case from 9 years ago. In both cases, you have divorced parents who end up living (or trying to) in different countries. In both cases, the mother took the child with her. In both cases, the father fought for custody of the child, and in both cases, ultimately won.

Despite the laws broken by the mothers in both cases, I can find people who, in each case, side with the mother, while villifying the father. The underlying assumption seems to be, that if they were divorced, surely that reflects more poorly on the father than the mother. It must have meant there was some abuse going on at home. Never mind if no evidence was presented to prove such an accusation; the fact that they were divorced seemed to say it all, and therefore the mother's actions were immediately justified.

In the former case, the fact that the father lived in a Communist country seemed to make a difference in a lot of people's minds, when it shouldn't have: a father's custody rights are based on being the child's legal father with no legal judgments against his paternal rights, not whether the country his ex-wife fled to approves of their government.

In the latter case, there was no concern of returning a boy to a Communist country. It was a struggle between the father's family, the wife's family, and her new step-family of divorce attorneys. It strikes me as a clear case of kidnapping, that would have been recognized as such much earlier had the stepfather not been a prominent attorney. But the argument on their side seems to be: 1. If the mother fled to Brazil and then asked for a divorce, suspicion must fall on the father, not the mother. 2. Returning him to his father would rip him away from his Brazilian family, never mind that he was ripped away from his American family when they refused to let him return to the U.S. 3. It would be traumatic to take him away from a family he has bonded with, as if to say if you keep someone kidnapped long enough to form an emotional bond, then that matters more than the injury done to the bonds between the boy and his father.

 

A mother's actions are considered justified because, in general, mothers care for their kids more than fathers in the eyes of the people who side with them.

 

Is there any tangible evidence of abuse by the father in this case?

With the mother out of the picture, and no judgments from an American divorce court against him, is there any solid reason to assume that his divorce attorney stepfather was mroe concerned about the boy's best interests than his natural father?

And given the fact that the mother divorced the father and then married a divorce attorney, should the mother not be suspected of anything?

Once again, it sounds like an abduction that went on for so long, that the abductors decided they were more in the child's best interests than the family they abducted him from. Imagine if Philip Garrido had made that argument in the Jaycee Duggard case.

 

I don't recall mentioning anything about abuse.

 

This. People side with the mother precisely because their worldview already causes them to conclude that the mother can't be at fault, regardless of the reality of the situation.

 

In the Elian case, a lot of people in Miami felt the mother had sacrificed her life to get the child out of Cuba, and that he ought not be returned, I suppose.

 

This is what I remember from the case. The mother escaped Cuba with Elian on a raft. When she fell off, knowing that she would most likely drown, she gave Elian instructions along the lines of "Stay with the raft until it reaches America." He stayed with it for about three days before the Coast Guard found him and brought him to his mother's relatives in Miami. I suppose he either had ID on him or could tell them who his mother's cousins in Florida were? People felt that returning Elian to his father in Cuba would be an insult to his mother's sacrifice. I don't remember this case having much to do with the father himself; there were allegations that he worked for Castro but no allegations of abuse that I recall. There was talk that Elian would be sent to a work camp of some sort if he were returned to Cuba, not as punishment but because that's what is done with kids in Cuba.

Regardless of where anyone stands on the Elian Gonzalez case, the INS raid was pretty horrific. A 5 a.m. raid with agents pointing guns at the father as he was holding Elian.

 

I think that mothers tend to be favored because they are the ones who are obligated to the child if the father walks out. Women tend to get the short end of the stick when it comes to the legal responsibilities for children compared to the father, so custody battles should also tend to favor the mother.

 

I think that mothers tend to be favored because they are the ones who are obligated to the child if the father walks out.

In this case, it appears it was the mother was the one who walked out to shack up with her divorce attorney. The father was the one who wanted to excercise his rights and responsibilities.

Women tend to get the short end of the stick when it comes to the legal responsibilities for children compared to the father, so custody battles should also tend to favor the mother.

Once again, a mother doing the same thing she would despise the father for, is somehow seen to be more justified in doing it than the father would have been. If the mother had been holding the short end of the stick when the father divorced her to marry his mistress, then yes, he should pay a price. People should recognize in this case, though, that the roles have been almost perfectly reversed: it was the mother who ran off under false pretenses, then used her new divorce-attorney boyfriend to steal the child away. In this case, it is the father who ended up with the short end of the stick.

And in the Gonzales case, people accused the father of being under the control of the Cuban governement. The fact is, as the surviving next of kin, he has paternal authority. That the mother wanted her child to come to America doesn't change the fact that his rights as a father would have been violated if it were used as a pretense to separate them. Or that she would have been an illegal immigrant. Paternal rights don't end simply because you're Cuban, especially when Cuba was a child's home country.

If a father absconded with his child to a foreign country, the mother would raise holy hell. When the mother does it, surely we should look at it the same way.

 

I was sure to include the word 'tended,' as it clearly isn't always the case. I don't have much of an opinion of the cases used as examples, but I would agree with the logic.

Justice is far from perfect. Sometimes people are judged unfairly because a judge or jury made the case based on personal feelings instead of the facts presented to them. Many times, women get treated unfairly because the male parent got away and didn't have to pay anything that was expected of him. Sometimes, the woman can take advantage of the divorced husband when she's more interested in his checkbook than in the welfare of the child.

There are many Law and Order episodes which show how greatly the law can be distorted with when it comes to using artificial methods to have children. So there is a remarkable level of conflict which goes on with divorced spouses and their legal custody. The problems are mostly due to the law and not as much with judge/jury bias, I think.

 

I agree that kidnapping is unacceptable, no matter who does it.