Glenn Sacks: Michigan NOW Fights New Shared Parenting Bill

I'm puzzled by NOW "logic" (in the loosest sense of that term).

If NOW argues that economic efficiency is essential for the "Best Interest of the Child", then the maximum money should be available to the caretaker or caretakers of the child. By NOW's own arguments re the "Wage Gap", women make $0.n for each dollar made by men (for some small value of n). Therefore, the father, being a man and member of the Patriarchy(tm), would have more money, and would be the logical person to act as primary caretaker of the child if the "Best Interests of the Child" are paramount.

Any effort to divide the child's time between two caretakers that requires government intervention by definition costs money in the form of taxes which could go toward the "Best Interests of the Child", and therefore is something NOW should oppose.

Any effort to divide the child's time between two caretakers that involves forcing one caretaker to pay the other caretaker encounters several objections that NOW should raise, as follows:

1. According to the "Wage Gap" argument, money would inevitably be transferred from the father to the mother, leaving the mother dependent on the largesse of the father, and therefore disempowered.

2. If the State is involved in the money transfer at all, the mother loses money to taxation. If the father falls behind for any reason, the mother loses money to fines and interest charged by the state and kept by the state,that could have gone to the woman. This is not only discriminatory toward women, but is the equivalent of Domestic Violence practiced on the disempowered mother by the state (withholding of funds).

3. If the mother is forced to care for the child during any part of the day, rather than being at liberty to pursue a career or other rewarding, non-family-oriented path, this is career discrimination against women, a sort of "Glass Diaper Bucket" holding her back from full self-realization. (Ugh, not the best of images.....) In addition, since women are the great majority of custodial parents, this is also Sexual Harassment and Sexual Stereotyping of a most pernicious sort. And since the majority of child abusers are women, it is also not in the "Best Interests of the Child". (Although the poor disempowered women were probably forced to abuse their children because of psychological pressures...)

By demanding that the mother be the normal de facto primary custodian, NOW is supporting domestic violence, sexual harassment, sexual stereotyping and denial of the "Wage Gap", as well as disempowering women. Oh, yeah - and opposing the "Best Interest of the Child".

I suggest that NOW, in order to live up to it's charter, should support law demanding, yes, DEMANDING! that men be forced to be primary custodians in the majority of child custody cases, and that men be forced to pay for the costs of child raising alone, until such time as the mother makes more money than she requires to pay for basic needs (which, given the "Wage Gap", will never happen, right?) I further suggest that, in the interests of empowering women, mothers be granted no more visitation than every other weekend and half the national holidays, in order to allow them to achieve self-realization and attain a fulfilling career path. In addition, NOW should demand that the state stay out of custodial arrangements, given it's proclivity toward demeaning, disempowering, harassing and stereotyping women. The force of Law should be used to compel men to be, not only Fathers, but Dads to their children!

Anything less would be selling out to the Patriarchy(tm)

NOW would not in the most bizarre circumstances, come out "against divorce"; Sacks is being rhetorical...for the reason that this is true, is because divorce itself is seen as a "woman's right"; and that is obviously connected to the very fact which he mentions, that women initiate most divorces!

-ax