Monday, January 28, 2002

Groups call for improvements in child custody cases handled by courts

A story published today by the Ann Arbor News reports that the National Organization for Women and a group for divorced fathers - are jointly calling for changes in the way child custody is handled by the court system.

NOW's Washtenaw County chapter and the Ann Arbor chapter of Fathers for Equal Rights say children end up in the middle of custody cases that sometimes become nothing short of a war between the parents, aided by their lawyers.

They want to remove some of the decision making from judges and have an independent office investigate citizen's complaints against judges and attorneys.

The groups say the existing system needs to be improved to create fairness for both parties while keeping the best interests of the child as the main objective.

The local NOW's Equality In Divorce Task Force and FER want to remove the final decision making from a judge to a team of professionals in mental health, social work, finance and education. The team would evaluate cases - looking at how a family break-up impacts a child from a psycho-social, financial and educational viewpoint - and then make custody decisions that would be enforced by the court.

The premise is that judges are attorneys with various legal backgrounds and are not professionally trained in child development and family systems, said Delia Lang, who's spearheading the task force's project and has also gone through child-custody proceedings in court.

The groups are also calling for an independent agency outside of a court system to investigate citizens' complaints against attorneys and judges handling custody cases.

Currently, complaints against attorneys are lodged with the Attorney Grievance Commission while the Judicial Tenure Commission investigates complaints against judges. But these commissions consist of attorneys, Lang said.

"You need an external group because the very nature of surveying yourself creates bias," she said.

"We want to equalize the playing field in the court system so that children are not victims of economic warfare and economics don't drive the decisions," Lang said.

University of Michigan Law Professor David Chambers said while the collaboration between the two groups seems to be "wonderfully healthy," it's unlikely that judges and legislators would accept it.

Chambers said a court could make the proposed panel available to parents and let them choose whether they want the panel to make the final decision. Or, a judge could choose to refer certain cases to the panel, even over the objection of a party.

What remains to be seen is whether another method would result in better decisions.

"If parents are fighting over custody, that means their communication over their child's best interest has broken down," said Chambers, a family-law specialist. "It's highly probable that one of them won't like what a panel does. I would be very surprised, if in the end, the level of unhappiness wouldn't be about the same as it is today. So then the question might still be, even though one of them might be unhappy, will this new approach produce better decisions for the child? We don't know this in advance."

Monday, January 21, 2002

Earning inequality can affect relationships

A story published today by the Orlando Sentinel reports that when earning power becomes unbalanced in a relationship, the relationship issues get even more complicated.

"There are official expectations and unofficial expectations," said Michael Freeny, a Longwood, Fla., psychotherapist. "It's the unofficial expectations that get everybody in trouble. As modern as we think we are, as liberated and enlightened and empowered and all that kind of stuff, when someone gets married, all these old traditions begin lurking beneath the surface. There's this kind of an Ozzie and Harriet mentality that the man's going to be the provider. Even if they agree that doesn't have to be the case, there's this gosh-darn undercurrent that keeps swirling around."

Since 1966, the percentage of working moms in the labor force has risen from 35 percent to 62 percent. Among today's two-career couples, men still earn more than women the vast majority of the time. But that's changing.

In 30 percent of couples where both partners work full time, the woman earns more. That's up from 26 percent a decade ago. Even when you include women who work only part time, nearly one-fourth of wives have fatter paychecks than their husbands.

Men so ashamed of earning less than their partners that they won't even discuss it have low self-esteem to begin with, said Dr. Jacquelyn Olander, a Winter Park, Fla., psychologist.

"I've had some mensay, 'Hey, I wish she would make more -- then I could work less and stay home,"' Olander said. "Other times they joke about it, and you can tell there's a bit of insecurity there, a bit of nervousness. If the man feels self-assured and comfortable with himself, it shouldn't be an issue."

For Kevin Nichols, it isn't.

"A lot of guys are like, 'No woman is going to make more than me,'" said Nichols, 31, who is between jobs now but who typically earns half what his wife does. "I lived in a 400-square-foot apartment in Daytona on what I'm making. I don't care if she's making more. I'm glad. I tell these guys, 'Get over it.'"

Wednesday, January 16, 2002

Married women going back to school can spell out divorce

A story published today by the New Zealand Herald reports that according to a British study conducted by the UK National Institute for Adult and Continuing Education, married women who go back to school to continue their education often face marriage breakdowns.

Kathryn James, who examined the topic for the institute said: "This is quite a common occurrence, sometimes referred to as the 'Educating Rita' syndrome."

In the film Educating Rita, Julie Walters plays a working-class housewife who failed at school and returns to study under the tutelage of Michael Caine.

Rita's husband resents her enthusiasm for learning, and they split up.

Ms. James found that, as with Rita, most women continued their courses with a new-found confidence, even if it led to marital separation.

One woman told the study researchers: "I have suffered a broken marriage since starting back in education, but this is down to personal growth and new confidence."

"Most women do carry on with the course. They see learning as their route to earning if things do go wrong. It becomes more important still." noted James." But some do give up to save their marriage."

The study said many women returning to education saw changes that could be considered traumatic, such as a marriage breakup, as a route to a more fulfilling life.

Another woman interviewed for the study said she was more stressed since starting further education.

"I never had headaches and now I am rarely without one.

"Despite this, I would still do the same again. Headaches are better than boredom."