Because they are looking only at the versions of feminism which are simply anti-male. Not anything that calls for equality; which is a position that feminism long ago lost any reputation for. That’s why people say “I’m no feminist, but I do believe in equal rights for men and women”; because feminism has earned a reputation as being about the hatred of men (and boys and male animals, for that matter) and the supposed superiority of women.
well that’s a nicely femenist and or secular sentiment, but its not the marriage contract that gives rights to the father (not legally speaking of course) a child is equal parts of the father and mother and both parties should have automatic rights, barring a monumental screw up, to have equal access to their children and, as such, shoulder equal responsibility. Having a child is an enormous resonsibility, more than I think even seasoned parents realize. Not only should you keep that child healthy, happy and give it certain ammenities notwithstanding its simple survival needs, but it is also the parents responsibility to make sure that child is an intelligent, successful and productive member of society.
thank you 
for everyone saying “sign something”. my point is that the law already stands, but seems to be regularly unenforced. what it comes down to is whether the parents can work it out between them. this is something we have done and will hopefully continue to do. at no point in this thread have i said that she has been in any way unhelpful or obstructive. i am not pitting my ex. i am pitting the fact that, from lots of what i have read, the laws are skewed very heavily in favour of the mother, and that it is very easy for the mother to stop the father seeing the kid. this is not ranting at my ex, just at a society where the father is very much seen as secondary to the mother, to the point that if she so desired, the mother could ensure the father’s contact is limited to, if not nothing, certainly something too small to build and maintain the sort of bond that the father, and the child, would want. my ex has not stopped me seeing him, and is being supportive. my rant is that if that were to ever change, there’s not much i could seemingly do about it.
The non-custodial parent is seen as a secondary parent. Because they are.
You are expecting the rights without the responsibilities. You are expecting legal obligations to you without accepting legal obligations for yourself. And, you are expecting a formal legal arrangement while not wanting to enter a formal legal arrangement.
I’m sure you understand how many obligations, as primary custody holder, your ex has to your child. For the next 18 years, she is legally responsibly for the health, safety, and well-being of that child and it will alter the trajectory of her life in a million ways, whether she likes it or not. You, on the other hand, are legally obliged to provide a monetary contribution and that is it.
So how is it that you, who has a minimal legal obligation to the child, is free to run off to Mozambique or get a controlling girlfriend or do any number of things, and you expect her- despite taking the bulk of the responsibility- to not be able to do those same things? You can move to another country, right? Why can’t she? There are already any number of things she can’t do because she is a primary custodian of a child. Now, even beyond that, you want her to give up even more freedoms out of obligation to you as a father, despite you not taking on any additional responsibilities as a father?
There are legal ways to formalize your rights and responsibilities to a child. You choose not to partake in those. Not surprisingly, you do not have many legal rights to the child.
thanks for your comments even_sven, but you don’t really understand our situation as much as you think you do. she made it clear she did not want equal custody, and if i fight that i run the risk of making everything a legal court battle, and eroding any good will that we currently have between us, which i feel is important. i don’t like the tone of your comments suggesting a) i’m not interested in being a proper parent and b) that i might just decide to bugger off. i really can’t be arsed to respond to the rest of your points as i don’t think you really know what you’re talking about
**even sven **has a point, even if she states it a little accusingly. Biffer, think about it, what other viable options are legally possible, other then giving the custiodial parent that power?
Would you really advocate that a woman can’t move more then X miles away from the other parent? Or that the father can’t move more then x miles from her? What alternative is there? As things are now, the custodial parent can move and the other parent can move too, if he or she wants.
As for a custodial parent unlawfully limiting visitation rights, indeed that sucks. But it is not a problem of the law; it is a problem of enforcement, as a poster upthread said.
And it is unfair that currently deadbeat parents are prosecuted much harder then uncooperating parents who sabotage visitation.
The (bad) reason for that is that deadbeat parents cost the community money; sabotaging parents don’t.
Besides, as a psychologist I know that for kids’ mental health, absence of parental fights and strife is more important then contact with the other parent per se. They are actually better off when mom sabotages them seeing dad, then when they do see dad and their mom gives them the third degree afterwards and badmouths dad. It is sad but true: dads that want to keep seeing their kids need to be a positive factor in the life of their exes, the kids moms.
Hey Biffer, it’s like you walked into a pub and sat down to grumble about your potential situation over a pint and your mates just sit around pointing out all the stuff you did wrong.
Anyway, folks are actually providing plenty of great guidance amid the noise. Great to hear you are in your child’s life and I hope it works out in the long term.
Be honest with us and yourself, dude. You don’t want joint custody. The status quo makes you happy enough and you’re perfectly fine maintaining it. It’s okay to admit that. It doesn’t make you a bad father.
If you really wanted joint custody, the prospect of hashing things out in count would be a price you’d be willing to pay. As it stands, you’re not even willing to go to court to hash out visitation rights; so it’s not very convincing to say you want even more than that. It’s like saying you really to want lose 50 lbs, but you don’t want to work out or stop eating energy dense foods.
even sven may not be as sympathetic to you as others in this thread, but she is making some solid points. If you were a woman making the same kind of complaint about how percarious her situation was, despite not taking any proactive steps to legally line her ducks in a row, do you really think people would be patting her on the head with soft assurances and advice on how to continue on the path of least resistance? Come on now. People would be telling her to put on her big girl pants and talk to a lawyer, or stop whining.
If fathers want to be given the same considerations that mothers are, then they need to buck up like mothers do. The bias that exists towards mothers didn’t arise in a vacuum. If fathers want things to be fairer, it’s only fair that we hold them to the same expectations that we hold mothers to. So put on your big boy pants, talk to a lawyer, or stop whining.
Maastricht, thanks for your (far more reasonable) interpretation. I’m not sure if I understand you correctly. You say there should be no restriction on where the parent can move. So she could just take him abroad to live? I’m fairly sure that’s illegal.
And all your things that you say sucks is what I logged in to say sucked too. That’s what I’m ranting about. Not my ex, who has behaved very well towards me. Luckily we don’t have what you describe at the end of your post (although in the example you give, I would squarely blame the mother, and believe this to be a factor in the downturn of society, where too many kids are not having a good relationship with their father). I hope very much that our relationship will stay as it is - where we support each other (and are flexible enough that we can both spend as much time as possible with our son, who is our main priority in all this). thanks for your thoughts
edit: thanks minor7flat5 
…which is natural, for any dad. Hell, I worry about these things and I’m not divorced.
And this is why we need a little cognitive therapy-- a good dose of facts. Talk to a lawyer, read unbiased accounts, whatever it takes to stop worrying.
Then take all that energy and pour it into creative thinking about Cool Stuff to Do With Kids.
Best wishes!
Biffer may be afraid that him going to a lawyer might get his ex on the defense and sour relationships. While I think the opposite is true. the time to make legal arrangements is now, while you are still on good terms and neither of you has other partners to contend with. It is similar to me and my husband: we went to a lawyer (actually, to a notary) to draft up what to do with our house in case of divorce, when we were about to be married and thus were on good terms.
Your ex has as much to win with good legal arrangements as you do. Present it to her as working out a mutually beneficial set of arrangements that will give you both and your kid security for the future.
you with the face: again, people here don’t go through the courts unless they have to. it’s not a case of not being bothered to do it. what we have is working, and it’s important to maintain a good relationship between the two of us, and put his interests first. but maybe it’s better to sit there and assume things about me and a situation you don’t understand. i’m leaving this thread now. as minor7flat5 says, i posted in here to rant about a couple of things on my mind, and instead i’m being told i’m a shit parent and that i’m not putting the effort in. i gave up my job and moved across the country to be with my kid and spend every spare minute i can with him, and apparently i need to buck my ideas up and i should take the kid’s mum to court and fuck the entire amicable relationship up and run the risk of everything being decided through the courts, where only the lawyers win. bollocks to this. and run the risk of losing the access to him that i currently have. thanks to those who understood what points i was making. no thanks to those who stuck their oar in even if they didn’t.
Notice how he keeps attributing stuff to her, though?
He wants equal custody, but she doesn’t. So rather than make waves, he settles for visitation only. To appease things with her. Right.
He doesn’t want to run the risk of a “legal battle” because he doesn’t want to make her mad. So he avoids laywers. Right.
To put it all on the ex certainly makes the OP look more sympathetic than he would if he took more responsibility for the decisions that have been made up to this point, but being the cynical type, I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
Of course its true. Unless the ex is an idiot, she should realize that a contract that requires him to pay child support is in her best interest as well as the child. All the OP has to do is impress upon her the importance of having these montary details spelled out in writing; make that the emphasis. All the other details that will allow him access to the child also needs to be in there as well, but if the OP makes it seem as though his main concern is making sure his financial obligations to the kid are enshrined in law, then there is absolutely nothing that the ex should balk at.
Sometimes people go throught the courts now just so that they don’t have to go to the courts later. It’s called being proactive instead of reactive.
I’m not calling you a bad father; I haven’t a clue about your parenting skills. All I know is that you have been venting about a risk that you accepted the moment you decided that an informal agreement with your ex was what you wanted.
Do you disagree that if you had a formal, legally-binding agreement, you wouldn’t have the worries you do now? Yes or no?
Do you think a full-custodial parent should have the ability to move where they want to, unless they have a formal, legally-binding agreement that requires them not to do so? Yes or no?
If you answered no and yes, respectively, then honest to God, I have no idea why you think your cicumstances are unfair. If you don’t want to clarify that to me, that’s perfectly fine. Just sayin’ that your case for a pity party looks weak.
Courts, yes. But why not go to a notary?
So, OP decides to go to court for a formalized agreement. That might take - what, two months for a date? In those two months, mom gets pissed at him for bringing lawyers into it and causing money to be spent. Mom spends a month denying him visitation when he shows up to her house to get the child.
OP tells court that mom has been denying him access to child. Court formalizes previously agreed upon agreement, kid goes home with mom until next arranged visit. Mom starts talking bad about OP in front of child. OP comes to pick up child for visitation, child doesn’t want to go, is miserable for entire visit. OP takes kid back to mom, mom continues smear campaign against OP, refuses to let OP talk to kid on the phone, etc.
OP gets another court date to deal with this, wanting joint custody this time. Mom doesn’t show up for court date, so judge sends mean letter to her telling her to show up for next court date, in another two months.
Meanwhile, Mom takes a new job in another state and moves child. It’s now been a year since we started! Mom files something saying she can’t be back in other state for court date because of hardship (spent all the money moving to new job). Wait! Now we’re looking at multiple states involved! Court date gets pushed back.
OP can’t afford to fly out to visit his child and pay for his lawyer fees. Finally, the OPs court date comes around and they use their lawyers to fight each other, but with all the legal hassle, we’re now clocking in at 2 years since we started!
And this is why the OP doesn’t want to get lawyers involved. The problem is that the courts take so long. A child that is being provided for but taken to another state is going to be at the bottom of the list, behind all those kids that are under Social Services’ wing for abuse.
What’s all this “Right” stuff? Writing “Right” after something doesn’t add to your point. What the OP is saying is extremely reasonable, and reflects real life.
If someone is going along with someone else and the other guy suddenly drags them into court to get legal rulings, that first person might well get ticked off. This is beyond obvious to anyone living on Planet Earth with a half a brain, and 100 "Right"s are not goint to change that.
Now the significant point here is that any legal rights the OP is likely to get in court are very hard to enforce as a practical matter. For some reason people in this thread and elsewhere like to wave away this fact by noting that it’s “unfortunate”, before going on to discuss other aspects that are of greater interest to them, but it’s a real fact and one that has great relevance to people in the OP’s situation.
As it stands now, he has a good relationship with his ex and with his kid, with no imminent reason to think he will lose either. If he goes to court, he stands a good chance of losing his good relationship with both, and what he gains is a right that is largely unenforceable, “unfortunately”.
On top of that, AFAIK, he can always go to court later if the relationship sours, and would probably be better off doing so than going now, because by that time he would have a longer history of a parenting role.
So in short, the OP going to court at this time is probably a completely idiotic idea, and should not be brought up in an attempt to wave away his very real concerns.
Well, you probably won’t read this. But, if things really are going well, you need to stop obsessing about how the law might screw you.
(And learn to use your shift key.)
Once again, while it is convenient to paint the ex as a raging shrew without there being any indication that she’d act like this, the likelihood of this worse case scenario seems mighty low given the amicability of their current arrangement. But it’s interesting to see how people will create any and all kinds of excuses for the OP so he can feel sorry for himself for absolutely no reason.
Consider this as well. There isn’t even a reason he need to take this to court per se. Why can’t he just consult with a lawyer to have a legally sound contract written up and then have it officiated by a notary or something. Is even this too much to expect him to do? Really?
You may think you’re helping the OP in a constructive way, but you’re not. If his ex does decide to pick up and move, leaving him without access to his child, he won’t have anyone to blame except himself. He needs legal advice, not coddling and excuses.
If he doesn’t want his ex to pick and move away from him (with his kid), then he needs a legally-binding agreement that prevents that from happening. That could mean going to court or it could mean going to a lawyer and writing up a contract.
If he’s not willing to do what it takes to get that legally-binding agreement–and he’s not-- then he needs to accept the risks that come with that decision.