It wrote itself, thanks to this thread. You can’t make this stuff up.
For the past two or three pages of this thread I’ve had this strange feeling that we’ve gone on so long that we’ve looped back around to the beginning, like an ouroboros. With this recent talk about women in STEM, I think we’re about to reach the point where LinusK will again claim that there’s no way a woman could ever be an engineer.
If that happens, how will the rest of us react? Will it be different this time, or will it play out the same way again…and again? Will I still remember that I had already said this:
Are we all in the Twilight Zone now?
Yeah. The point I was making was that difficulty setting is a terrible metaphor; it makes predictions that the people making it are arguing against, and those predictions aren’t even accurate.
Thanks a lot. Now every time I open this thread I hear that theme song.
I wish Rod Serling would appear already to tell us what we learned.
Thanks for the cite. (I hate doing this: but because of the risk of being misunderstood, I’m being sincere. I appreciate it when people link to sources.)
The chart shows that, as of 2012, 29% of women with children didn’t work. The converse would be that 71% of women with children did work. 20% were married women with children (younger than 18) and 9% were unmarried women. Again, the converse would be that 91% of unmarried women with children work, compared to 80% of married women who were in the workforce.
Most mothers who don’t work are married: 20% of mothers who don’t work were married, vs. 9% of mothers who weren’t.
The cite doesn’t say how many fathers don’t work, but since the social pressure on fathers to work to support their families is higher than on mothers, I expect fewer fathers don’t work than mothers.
The share of mothers who don’t work has actually increased in recent years, and the study results were from 2012, or about 3 years ago.
I would argue that - to the extent working or is, or should be, a basis for awarding or not awarding custody - judges shouldn’t be looking backwards. In other words, they should look toward what’s going to happen after the divorce, rather than what was happening before. Since women who divorce are likely to join the 91% of mothers who work, judges should probably anticipate that even if a mother wasn’t working when she was married, she’s likely to start, afterwards.
So I’m making three arguments here:
1.) Working, in and of itself, shouldn’t be a reason to deprive someone of custody.
2.) Even if it was a valid reason, it still doesn’t explain the discrepancy: if 20% of married mothers are not working, that doesn’t justify awarding custody to mothers 80% of the time.
3.) Even if a mother isn’t working when she’s married, she’s likely to start working afterwards: which moots the whole point - if the point is that people who don’t work are better parents.
You’re arguments overlook a few salient points:
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The vast majority of child custody arrangements are a result of mutual agreement, and are not settled in court. The parties agree, the attorneys present it to the court, the judge reviews it, and that’s it. The parents are the ones deciding these outcomes. How can bias be involved if both parties agree?
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According to Pew Research, even working mothers devote more time to child care than fathers; average weekly hours spent are 12 for mothers and 7 for fathers. Women also devote more time to housework - 16 hours, compared to 9 hours for fathers.
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Non-working mothers are unarguably the primary caregivers, with fathers being the primary breadwinner. Financial consequences play a major role in custody arrangements in these cases. Should the children be removed from their primary caregiver? Will the father give up his career to become the primary caregiver? Can the mother who has been out of the workforce earn enough to replace the father’s income?
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The most contentious cases (a minority of overall custody agreements) involve history of violence or abuse, drug or alcohol problems, or long distance relocation. These should be decided on a case by case basis, in the best interests of the child.
It is not the “who’s working outside”, but the “even with working, who was the one who spent most of the time in child rearing/caring duties, outside of work”.
If both parents work, but only one is doing the lion’s share of household and child raising, while the other either does not as much or goes out or puts time in his/her own hobby, then chances the one doing the lion’s share is getting the primary custody. The courts may not be so keen in giving primary (or even 50/50 custody) to someone who doesn’t know how to cook, much less for their offspring, doesn’t have a record of taking time off work to attend the kids’ necessities (school, medical, extracurricular), and is not the one primarily helping the kids out, just in general.
I thought this was interesting, too. It’s from This American Life. It was originally a radio show. I’m quoting from the transcript, but the audio is here. As usual, I won’t be quoting the whole thing. But please listen to it, or read it, if you find it interesting.
There’s a lot more interesting stuff, but I’ll stop there. Again, the audio and transcript are linked above, so if you’re interested read it. Or listen.
I want to add two more things:
1.) Griffin was taking roughly twice the amount of testosterone that’s found in high-testosterone men. So while his experience is familiar to some of us who remember puberty, it’s not the same.
2.) While accurate numbers are hard to come by, it’s estimated that more than twice as many men switch to women, as women switch to men. There are, of course, a number of theories about why that is. And, of course, no one really knows for sure.
That would be kind of interesting, because I’m still curious about whether LinusK still thinks human beings are inherently inclined to see men as less valuable and more expendable than women. And whether he has noticed that his Titanic argument was sunk several pages back.
Failing that, I’d also like you to unpack your latest post, LinusK. I assume you’re not saying feminism is bad because men get turned on by Xerox machines, but I’m not sure what you’re saying.
No, I’m not overlooking anything.
What you’re overlooking - or just don’t know - is that the vast majority of all legal cases are settled without a trial. I wasn’t able to find a reliable number for family cases, but in criminal cases 90 - 95% of cases are settled without a trial. This article says that 1.2% of civil federal cases are settled without a trial, as of 2002. The fact that the vast majority of all cases are settled “out of court” is a fact every lawyer knows. Just find one and ask her.
There are a number of reasons why cases are settled without a trial.
One is that we simply lack the judicial infrastructure to try more than a small percentage of cases, We (meaning society/taxpayers) would need to invest in something like 100x - 1000x in additional money for more courthouses, courtrooms, and all the additional resources that are necessary to try even a majority of cases. It takes a judge approximate 5 minutes to adjudicate a plea-bargained felony case. That same felony case - if it went to trial - could take weeks of the court’s time. Multiply that out by the thousands of cases on any particular judge’s docket at any particular time, and you’re looking at an impossibility: a judge simply cannot try all the cases on her docket. Again: there are simply not enough judges and courtrooms to try all the cases that get filed every day. The result is that the vast majority of cases must end in some sort of settlement, or the system doesn’t work.
A second reason is that trials are expensive. It takes far more time, effort and skill for a lawyer to take a case to trial, than it does to settle it. The result is that - especially in civil cases, where there’s no such thing as a court-appointed divorce lawyer - finding any lawyer at all - much less one who’s ready, willing, and able to take a case to trial - is exorbitantly expensive. I don’t usually do this, but in one case I personally know about, the cost of taking the divorce case to trial went above $600,000.
Obviously, that’s not an amount of money that most people have. Plus, frankly, that’s money that could have gone to pay for the child’s college education. Instead, it went to pay for lawyers. Taking a case to trial is usually not in the child’s best interests.
Thirdly, settlements are driven by anticipated outcomes. In other words, the relevant consideration is: “is this deal better or worse than what I’d likely get if I went to trial?”. I used this example before, but I’m going to use it again. If you’re arrested in a conservative, prosecution-friendly county, for a serious charge, you need to think hard and long about turning down a plea-bargain for probation, even if you’re innocent. If there’s a non-negligle possibility of being wrongly convicted, the cost-benefit analysis just doesn’t work out.
Fourth, when you’re looking at “negotiations” you have to look at the relative power and leverage of the parties involved. The fact that an outcome was negotiated, doesn’t automatically mean it was negotiated fairly. A father may agree to every-other-weekend, even if that’s not what he wants, because he figures that’s what he’s likely to get anyway, even if he spends thousands of dollars on lawyers (resources he might well rather see go to his children, in any case).
Finally, you have to look at knowledge and expectations. I hate to go all anecdotal, but around here, the every-other-weekend model seems to be just what happens when you get divorced. Few people seem to even consider there might be an alternative. (And as a matter of law, they’re not far from wrong.)
This:
is just a flat-out NOW perpetrated lie. Obviously, I can’t prove it, but I think they know it too.
Ok. Your link is to a chart. It’d be nice if you provided the whole article, but I won’t be picky.
Your chart also shows that men spend an extra 11 hours a week doing paid work, compared to their wives. You’re not saying those extra 11 hours of work count for nothing, right?
Anyway, rather than guess, I’m just going to ask outright. What is it you think the chart proves, as far as custody is concerned?
As an aside, the most striking thing about the chart, to me, is how little time parents are spending with their children.
Those are a lot of questions. I’m going to restate my position: 50/50 custody should be the default, unless there’s some reason things should be otherwise. One perfectly good reason should be that the parents agree otherwise. If that doesn’t answer your questions, let me know.
One of the not-so-secret secrets of divorce, is that falsely accusing the person you’re divorcing of crimes, violence or abuse gives you the upper hand. An accusation is just an accusation. Evidence, on the other hand, would obviously be a perfectly valid reason to depart from a 50/50 standard. Similarly, false accusations would also be a good reason to depart from the standard. Someone who’s willing to commit perjury in order to hurt the mother or father of the children is obviously not someone who is genuinely concerned about the best interests of the children. You’re right, of course, that it is exactly the most contentious divorces, where accusations of abuse or other crimes are most likely to arise.
I think you’re giving him too much credit.
Yeah. He will come in to clarify, no doubt, but I suspect that he IS saying that feminism is bad because men get turned on by Xerox machines. Or, to put it another way: Anatomy is Destiny, and women need to get busy making me a sandwich.
So you admit that the vast majority of cases are resolved by mutual agreement, but then you say it’s a flat out NOW perpetrated lie. Even though you can’t prove it.
You’re past the point of pretending to debate this. I think you have been for some time, but now you’re outright admitting it. Every time you repeat yourself about this is only witnessing on your part. Let’s be clear about that so anyone just wandering into this thread doesn’t waste time showing you evidence that won’t matter to your beliefs.
It’s easy enough to get to the article from the link I provided - the main page is in the address. Sorry, thought you’d know that.
It proves just what I went on to say it proved. Women spend more time as caregivers than men, even when they are working. Do you think these men are being prevented from spending more time with their children before the divorce? You say you have a child, but you seem to spend a lot of time on the internet. Isn’t that your choice?
It doesn’t say anything like that, anywhere in that article. The expression “1.2%” or “1.2 percent” doesn’t even occur anywhere in that article.
What it does say is that only 1.8 % are settled with a trial, in 2002.
Just so I got this right: Dribble’s contribution is ignore everything else I said, in order to point out I made a 0.6% mistake.
And camille’s claims I’m “past the point of pretending to debate,” before immediately going on to try to debate me.
Sorry, camille. You’re past the point of debate.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think feminism was a social club that had a rule about excluding smart members.
Should we tell him, or wait for him to figure it out himself?
No, you missed the subtle difference between the word “with” and the word “without.”
The point wasn’t a difference of 0.6%. The point was that you changed “with” to “without.”
You said 1.2% are settled without a trial.
But in fact, what your source said is that 1.8% are settled with a trial.
Please acknowledge this by typing, not quoting, the words: “The article I posted actually implies that 98.2% are settled without a trial, not 1.2%.”
Pretty sure it was a 96% mistake, not a .6% mistake.
LinusK, that actually seems to be going to your point, anyway–you started out saying the vast majority of cases are settled without a trial. So in that sense, what I just said should be good news to you.
That still leaves everyone very confused about your point though, because even as you insisted that the vast majority of cases are settled without a trial, you also insist that it’s a lie to say that the great majority of child custody cases are settled without a trial. Why are you insisting that most cases (in general) are settled without a trial then? It’s not clear at all why you’re insisting on that, if you are then going to go on to say that child custody cases are a major exception to that general idea.
Right, I’m getting tired of this. Any more snark by anyone and it’s warnings and s closed thread.