Bad Mothers

[NSL]

I want to know what everyone thinks about this topic...

I read a while back, that NY Mayor Mike Bloomberg, blamed bad fathers for the downfall of the American economy, and the interview barely made a blip on the national radar, but infuriated me. I'm a single father, and do everything I can to keep my son healthy, and give him everything he wants or needs. His mother is the opposite. No car, no job, and as of today, lost custody of all three of her kids, to all three of their fathers. Her home has no electricity, no hot water, no stove, no microwave, no TV, and no food. She hasn't fed them a proper meal in over a week.

I filed for full custody on three seperate occasions, and each time, was ignored by the court system, and told that he should be with his mom, because of his two younger siblings. It took her grandmother, her aunt, and her cousin all calling Children & Youth Services, for them to realize they messed up.

I basically am asking, why don't bad mothers catch the same crap that bad fathers do. I'm not denying deadbeat Dads exist, I just want the deadbeat Moms to get noticed a little more. For every deadbeat, there's a single dad out there busting his ass to support his child(ren).

 

[Mr. TM]

It is still a problem in our society that people think that the best candidate for a child is the mother. But it has become obvious that his is not the the case in your case and hundreds of cases in our society. We have social workers for a reason, they must be the judges of who has the better economic and emotional situation. I have seen an Opera addition about this exact same situation, one time a child went to the mother, who had been arrested before for possession of Crack Cocaine. The father who lost his rights was a plumber I believe, making pretty good wages. The mother at this time delivered newspapers... when she wasn't smoking crack (apparently she was being tested, so she hadn't smoke crack that week). The reason she gained custody was she was the mother, and the father worked too many hours. The child ended up in the hospital before they reversed the decision. Can't the court system realize this is not the proper means, and do we not have social workers who can monitor this?

 

[Ms. TM Canada]

In the legal system, mothers are almost always favoured over fathers for custody. Unless a father can prove that the mother of his children is an unfit parent (doesn't meet their needs/has an addiction/mental issues, etc) custody invariably goes to the mother whether or not she is the better parent. It is completely unfair and is something the justice system needs to begin addressing.
I think a lot of it has to do with the way society thinks about the term "mother". When you hear the word mother, you think things like "nurturing", "unconditional love", "caring", etc. Whether the mother is actually these things or not isn't taken into account, it just seems viscerally wrong to take a child from it's mother.
Also, I think a lot of judges and people assume that mothers are the primary caregivers from birth on. They assume that since birth, the mother has fed the baby, comforted it, made sure it got bathed and put to bed, took it to daycare (or not), etc. Traditionally, the father is the person who leaves the home to work, and the mother stays home. Obviously in the past 50-75 years this has changed vastly, and is almost never the case. Unfortunately, the justice system hasn't caught up, as they haven't with a lot of issues.
It is completely unfair, and I believe there are several organizations you could Google on father's rights. There are many fathers in the same position that you were in.

 

[NSL]

The first two times that I had gone for custody, they outright ignored me. If I tried to talk, or defend myself from whatever my ex had made up, I was told to "stop this outrage"...She has never held a job past a month, and has never had the means to take care of one child, much less 3. The last time that I filed, I was told that because I work overnights, they couldn't give me my son with a good conscious. I don't see the connection there. My ex made false allegation, after false allegation, and they believed her, without even listening to a word I had to say. The next day, I called and complained about an unfair judge, and I said that she was sexist because she was a woman, and that I believed it changed the outcome of my hearing. She was reprimanded (probably a slap on the wrist), but they still said her word was final, and nothing I could do could change it. They're definitely seeing things differently now. They walked in her house, and their first words were, "Can you call the father of these children? They're not staying her tonight." I have full custody until she straightens everything out, and she most likely won't. She's lived like this for years, and has made no effort to better herself. If she doesn't do it in a timely manner, she's going to lose them all permanently, and I don't feel bad for saying I hope that's the case...

 

[Ms. TM Canada]

http:/www.fathersresources.com
http://www.fathersrights.org

Above are some links that you may find of interest.

The only thing I can suggest for future court dates is that you remain polite and unflustered. This, of course, is easier said than done considering that your children are obviously an emotional issue for you, but it is important not to sound accusatory to your children's mother. If you become emotional and do not remain completely relevant and state things that you can back up, you will look unstable even if she is the unstable one.
When her lawyer raises issues around your ability to care for the children (ie: your night shift) explain coolly and politely how and why this will not be an issue rather than get angry or upset (ie: explain that you can afford good childcare during nights that you work and that it will not disrupt the children's sleep schedule)

 

[HBK-aholic]

The thing I hate the most is when people think they'll be better of with their mother, when their mother is a stupid ****e who doesn't know how to look after her daughter. Just because she gave birth to her, means absolutely nothing in who would be the best person to look after a child. There are plenty of father or other relatives who have to look after a child because the mother is incompetant, yet all you ever hear about is bad fathers. There are a lot of bad mothers in the world, and it's time they got a reputation too.

 

[NSL]

The only thing I can suggest for future court dates is that you remain polite and unflustered. This, of course, is easier said than done considering that your children are obviously an emotional issue for you, but it is important not to sound accusatory to your children's mother. If you become emotional and do not remain completely relevant and state things that you can back up, you will look unstable even if she is the unstable one.
When her lawyer raises issues around your ability to care for the children (ie: your night shift) explain coolly and politely how and why this will not be an issue rather than get angry or upset (ie: explain that you can afford good childcare during nights that you work and that it will not disrupt the children's sleep schedule)

I have remained cool and un-flustered. I'm pretty good at controlling my emotions. I only have 1 child...She's has 3. We've never used attorneys, mostly because she can't afford one, and I should've been able to win this without one. When I first went, I figured it would be an open and shut case. How could I not win custody? I don't even ened to afford overnight care for my son, because my mom lives 5 minutes from me, and watches him for free. If she can't watch him, my girlfriend watches him with no problems. He's never missed a day of school with me, and has missed 13 while at his mom's house, and has been tardy 6 other times. The bus stops at her house. How does she not make the bus? She sleeps in...She feels that because she's 24, she can stay up as late as she wants, and sleep in til whenever she feels like waking up. It's almost as if she's failed to realize being 24 is far lass important than being a mother of 3, with 3 different daddy's to deal with. The caseworker had called me today, after I left with my son, and after she was done talking to my ex, just to tell me that she wishes me the bes tof luck with Zack, and that she hopes the children don't return to the mom. I doubt they will be, and if they are, I'll be at the courthouse re-filing for custody.

 

[Mighty NorCal]

Its stereotyping and ignorance at its finest. People throw blanket assumptions over situations based on norms. a lot like with the affirmative action, racist bullshit, just with women in place of blacks. Its a victim mentality we thrust upon a certain group.

This reminds me of an argument that happened during the great abortion battle of the spring that was engaged on these forums. When people think of a scenario were a woman should have the right to choose having an abortion, of course the thing that comes to mind is the poor girl who got kocked up and split on by a peice of shit guy, or a rape victim. NO ONE ever thinks of the irresponsible moron girl who is going to kill the thing just becuase she is selfish and doesnt give a fuck, while there is a man on the other end who would be MORE than happy and willing to be a single dad, if ONLY the bitch would let the child live. No one thinks of this scenario, becuase of the stere types society has placed on certain groups of people, and on this scale, sexes. Its just the way it is. Fairly or unfrairly, these are the roles and stere types which have been assighned, and everyone needs to work together to balance things out. More men need to step up, and actually BE men, and less women need to induldge the victim role. Until these things happen, nothing will change.

 

[Azrael Cain]

Society deems that a mother is the more appropriate care taker because she gave birth. Socially, it is a woman's role to rear children and take care of them, while it is a man's job to provide for his family and not interfere with the woman's affairs. The courts are based on societal preconceptions, stereotypes and "norms." Single fathers are more and more common these days, but single mothers will most likely always outnumber and gain more sympathy. It's easier to assume the mother will know what is best because of the "Motherly Instinct."

I have nothing against single moms -- my mom is a single mom, and she busted her ass for my brother and me. She fought for every fucking penny of alimony and still never got it on time or in full from my step-dad, and she deserves all the financial help she can get, working three jobs and still only making enough for the mortgage.

The legal system is screwed up. While, apparently, lazy bitches can easily manipulate it to gain the maximum alimony payments, the others that truly need it cannot even get an order taking it directly out of the check of their husband.

I feel for decent single dad who are putting up with a bitch wife. One of my mom's friends is still dealing with his lazy, non-working leech of an ex-wife. She played the system, got custody and 30% of his paycheck. He is unemployed and is struggling to make ends meet, and can most likely be thrown in jail for missing an alimony payment. While here you are, a hard-working single dad, trying to get justice only to be ignored.

System's fucked, what can I say. But it's the best we've got. But until we ditch the stereotypes, generalities, assumptions, hopes and illusions and delusions, there will never be true law, order and justice in the world. So we're screwed for a long time... just buckle down and hope for the best.

 

[Mrs Sexy]

Bad mothers don't get noticed because the law usually picks the mother to be the main caregiver, thus making the fathers pay the child support. I agree that they should get noticed. I believe bad mothers don't get noticed because they hide it from the public eye. They seem all perfect out in public, but it's what you don't see behind closed doors. It's all hush, hush.

Sad but true, my mother is a prime example of a bad mother. But she's been noticed. She has had one of my brother's and one of my sister's taken away from her. My brother is in foster care and my sister gets to live with her dad. I never got to live with my mother. I was raised by my grandmother because my parents were unresponsible when I was born. Don't get me wrong, my parent's love me and did back then too. My Mom was 15 and my Dad was 16 when I was born. They were pretty much kids themselves. Now they both regret the fact that they didn't get to raise me. They both had to pay child support.

A bad mother is someone who just doesn't take care of their child or want to take care of their child. There's a lot of mothers in this day in age that have killed their child because they didn't want to take care of it or want it in the beginning. I frown upon them for that.

For example, I read on the net about a little two year old girl that was cut up and stuffed into a box and somehow the box ended up in a river or lake. I believe it came to be found that the mother of the girl beat the girl and then threw her up against a wall and killed the little girl. Then she cut her up and stuffed her in a box. Then hid the box in a garage for quite some time. To me that's one of the cruelest things ever. If you don't want the child, give it up for adoption or give it to the other parent if they are willing to take care of it. Mind you, this mother wasn't with the father.

Another example of a bad mother is about a girl I know. She has a little girl I believe that is 4-5 years old, but she doesn't have custody of it because she chose to not take care of her. Therefore, her mother has custody of her. To me, she just didn't want to take the responsibility of being a mother. She wanted to go out and drink or do whatever instead of being a responsible parent.