The comments about mothers being critical of a Dad attempting to
"parent" their own kids hit home with me.

My motto is I want to be "a Parent, not a Playdate" with my only son.

This stance has caused me much grief and I am now well aware of how
prejuiced the divorce system and many woman (even MY Mom) are in my
attempts to be the best parent I can be. I do believe the academic
studies that say more contact with a Dad does kids good.

My ex grills my son every time after I return him in an attempt to dig
up dirt about my parenting and is very controlling during my very
limited visitation time. She has critizied me and complained in court
about almost everything I do with my son. It is very unjust.

It has made me want to give up --- but I haven't and it's ruining me
financially.

I feel a divorce has two consequences for a father:

1) They give up and are seen as "See they did not care anyway."
Hence, the divorce was justified. Dead-beats and/or no support.
2) They fight and are seen as intruding/harrassing. Eventually after
much financial hardship, if successful, they are able to win
significant time with their kids. Hence, the ex will then say the
divorce made them better fathers -- to which I say, no way --- in most
cases, the manipulating/controlling Mom prevent the father/Dad from
being as involved as he wanted to be in the first place.

And people wonder why dads tend not to be enthused about paying child
support!!!

Thoughts?





"Bob Whiteside" wrote in message hlink.net...
"AZ Astrea" wrote in message
...

"Joy" wrote in message
...
Geez, just noticed the cross post on my earlier response. Before
anybody
gets all up in arms at the idea that I'd ask about kids whose fathers
are
less than sterling, I'd like to point out that this was intended as a
legitimate question (which would have been understood in the one group
on
this distribution list that I normally post to). There seem to be a lot
of
studies on the negative effect on kids of having less contact with a
parent
after a divorce - but this always seems to refer to kids who actually
had
a
significant relationship with both parents before the divorce. My "What
about those kids whose fathers didn't pay attention to them *before* the
divorce?" question was referring to those kids who, well, didn't have a
significant relationship with both parents before the divorce. I don't
think I've ever seen a study on the effect of divorce on those kids, and
wondered if there are any such studies.
--------------------
I don't know about any studies but in my case my dad was away from home a
lot and when he was home he had no idea what to do with two kids. He
never
wanted kids but followed the script and had them anyway. He was never
abusive to us he just didn't know how to act around us.
After the divorce, once or twice a year my mom would drive to his place,
(couple hours away), and drop us off. It put him on the spot but he tried
his best. When I was a teenager I spent a few days with him and while he
was still unsure about it we got along well mainly because I was able to
have 'adult' discourse with him.
He remarried to a very strong, family-oriented woman who was finally able
to
bring him out and he became a very loving grandad. As an adult I spent
more
time with him and we got to know each other and to like and love each
other.
He just had no use for kids.
So I think a lot of the time dads don't pay as much attention to the kids
is
because they are working long hours or they have no idea what to do with
them.

I don't want to dilute anything you said about your personal situation and
relationship with your dad. However, there is another factor that comes
into play many times. Mothers can be very critical of dads trying to parent
children. They resent intrusion by fathers into an area they consider a
woman's protected domain. In fact, some mothers are threatened emotionally
by fathers trying to parent. The end result is the mothers drive fathers
away and are extremely critical of everything fathers attempt to do, until
the fathers give up.