NOW at 40: Group’s Opposition to
Shared Parenting
Contradicts Its Goal of Gender Equality
By Mike McCormick and Glenn Sacks
© 2006
The National Organization for Women
turned 40 this summer, and formally celebrated its anniversary at
its national conference in July. NOW President Kim Gandy has proudly
recounted her organization's successes in opening up opportunities
for women, and says they are “never giving up the dream of full
equality for all.”
Unfortunately, on some issues – particularly in family law and child
custody – NOW's policies and actions contradict its ideals of “full
equality for all.” This is most evident in the group's dogged
opposition to joint custody and shared parenting.
The logic behind shared parenting is hard to dispute. Kids love,
want and need both their parents. When divorcing parents cannot
agree on custody arrangements, as long as both parents are fit, they
should both be allowed to share in parenting their children. Not
surprisingly, research shows that children of divorce fare better
under joint custody – where they spend significant amounts of time
with each parent – than under sole custody.
NOW and its co-thinkers, to their credit, once encouraged fathers,
fathering and shared parenting. In 1971 Gloria Steinem wrote that
children suffer from having “too little father” in their lives, and
that a more equal balance of parenting was needed. Karen DeCrow,
president of NOW from 1974 to 1977, says “it was clear from the
feminist writings and ideas of the '60s and '70s that joint custody
was what we supported after a divorce.”
Fathers have embraced the call for more father involvement. Despite
an ever-expanding work week, children today benefit from receiving
more hands-on fathering than ever before. The Families and Work
Institute found that fathers now provide three-fourths as much child
care as mothers do – 50 percent more than 30 years ago.
Paradoxically, while fathers are more directly involved in their
children's lives than ever, their bonds with their children are also
more fragile. In the late 1970s NOW reversed itself and began
promoting sole custody in divorce cases. In most divorces mothers
are awarded sole (or de facto sole) custody of the children, and
most post-divorce parenting time schedules offer fathers and
children less than 20 percent physical time together.
Men who don't provide for their families are not respected, yet
family courts treat fathers who have worked hard to support their
families like absent parents whose bonds with their children merit
limited consideration. DeCrow rightly denounces this practice as
“sexist” and “inhuman.”
Along with divorce attorneys, NOW is the largest organized group
fighting shared parenting legislation. It has issued numerous
warnings, including one that says fathers' groups seeking joint
custody laws are “using the abuse of power in order to control in
the same fashion as do batterers.” In their statements the words
“husband” and “father” are generally preceded by the word “abusive.”
Using these scare tactics, NOW has blocked shared parenting bills in
several states this year, including New York and Michigan. Yet as
even feminist firebrand Martha Burk notes, “With close to half of
all marriages ending in divorce, it's impossible to believe that the
majority of divorcing fathers are violent, and it would be wrong to
base public policy on the notion that they are.”
Over the past four decades America has come a long way in redressing
the grievances of disadvantaged groups, including women,
African-Americans, Latinos and gays. The most glaring civil rights
violations in America today are those suffered by divorced dads,
many of whom have been pushed out of their children's lives without
justification. It's time for NOW to re-examine its misguided stand
against shared parenting, and to bring its policies into line with
its stated ideals.
Mike McCormick is the Executive Director of the American Coalition
for Fathers and Children, the world’s largest shared parenting
organization. Their website is
www.acfc.org.
Glenn Sacks' columns on men's and fathers' issues have appeared in
dozens of America's largest newspapers. Glenn can be reached via his
website at www.GlennSacks.com or via email at
Glenn@GlennSacks.com.
Glenn Sacks'
columns on men's and fathers' issues have appeared in dozens of
America's largest newspapers. Glenn can be reached via his website
at
www.GlennSacks.com or via email at
Glenn@GlennSacks.com.
Copyright 2006 Glenn
Sacks, all rights reserved
