With the continued shift of traditional families, where dads are more involved and sometimes the primary caregiver – the one who arranges the playdates, feeds the kids, takes the kids to the pediatrician, and volunteers at their schools- nontraditional outcomes are occurring in courtroom custody battles.
Working Mother Magazine published Family Focus: Custody Lost by Sally Abrahms, an interesting and eye-opening article about a hard working mother who lost custody of her children to her unemployed, at-home husband. “A shift in the courts’ focus, a limping economy and dramatic male/female role reversals in many nuclear families are leading to nontraditional outcomes. Not long ago, men usually paid the child support and doled out the alimony. Moms (working or not) almost always got the kids in messy divorce wars. Years of changing diapers, wiping noses and kissing boo-boos gave them the edge. But now the tide is turning. Over the past decade, the number of fathers awarded custody of their children has doubled, according to the latest data.”
The divorce rate has improved slightly the last few years, but still hovers around 50%. Sure, divorce is not a topic many like to discuss. Scary actually, especially as most of us embark on the new parenting gig. Candidly, I read this article and it made me cringe at the whole scenario of divorce, custody battles over the kids, marriages in shambles, etc. That said, I found this article to be very relevant to the lives of involved dads, at-home dads, and breadwinning moms…so read it as food for thought. Comments?
Thankfully my husband and I have a very strong marriage but we are certainly surrounded by so many who are divorced. It is sad, especially for the kids involved. As for boo-boos, we both kiss them AND thankfully we have a natural pain cream from Topricinkids that helps them. Now I just need to get my brother to use it with his kids since he is a single dad…though I know he would still want to kiss boo-boos too OL