Boston Globe: "The Daddy Track"

Submitted by anthony on Mon, 2007-07-09 20:10

Story here. Excerpt:

'Across the United States, the number of households headed by single fathers almost doubled between 1990 and 2006, from 1.15 million to 2.1 million – or 20 percent of all single-parent families, US Census Bureau figures show. No longer willing to accept that the mother should automatically look after the children – the "pay up and shut up" narrative in divorce – fathers now are competing more aggressively for custody and are winning cases.'

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Seems that the article is ambivalent on this "trend", which is really about notable exceptions (men getting custody) and not the rule. Notice this:

'For their part, women’s advocates say men generally have more power and money to bring to bear in a court battle, and, as a result, women are increasingly the losers. "A lot of time, who gets custody comes down to who has the most money to pay the lawyers," says Haji Shearer, director of the Fatherhood Initiative for the Massachusetts Children’s Trust Fund.'

Single mother advocates have been calling for taxpayer-funded childcare for decades. Do we see single fathers doing that? Maybe they should.

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Submitted by mcc99 on Tue, 2007-07-10 22:14

...in women's arguments for taxpayer funded coddling of women. Women think they are not welfare moms simply because they are not on welfare but I see any woman that depends on the taxpayers money to pay for her choices as a welfare mom. I find it funny that women claim they are independent yet always need some kind of government backing in order to maintain their so-called "independence." I would say that their claims of independence is largely a bunch of bullshit since they count on both men(via child support or gold digging) and the government(laws, restrictions on men, women-only programs, etc.) to help them along.

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*"the most outrageous aspect is the total and i mean TOTAL silence from women. hell, they could care less. makes me sick." ~ donnieboy5

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Submitted by MrReality on Tue, 2007-07-10 22:48

"And Jay Portnow, a doctor who works in Brockton, cut a deal to ensure he didn’t get cut out of his sons’ lives when he divorced 12 years ago. His oldest boy, then 10, lived with him full time, his youngest, then 7, half the time, and, according to the terms of his settlement, he paid his former wife above and beyond what a court would order. Now, he is not only paying $33,000 a year in child support but also willingly pays two private-college tuitions with no help from his former wife, who works as a nurse."

Native English speakers, help me out here - am I misunderstanding something, or is he paying child support to his wife without her actually taking care of the children?

p.s. ok, the younger one lived with his ex for half of the time.. umm, $33k for 6 months? That must be a very spoiled child. Golden cutlery or what?

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Submitted by n.j. on Thu, 2007-07-12 02:32