A divorce in Italy destroyed my researcher career
interessesuperioredelminore.wordpress.com
interessesuperioredelminore.wordpress.com
It's also well known that sometimes, in some countries maybe more then others, decisions wrt. children are biased toward mother's.
I have seen one such case in my environment myself.
I belive it is important that such Curt decisions are based on the combination of the situation both parents are in and guidelines in a impartial non gender specific way.
Through just to be clear while I have seen one such case myself I also have seen many cases with very reasonable decisions (in Germany).
Anyone who is interested in the subject should watch the “red pill” documentary.
In my 20s I was like "hell, people starts families, I could make it!". Now in my 30s knowing how awfully things can go south, having went through numerous within-EU emigrations and knowing the struggles... I don't know anymore what kind of partner would be even suitable to start a family with.
Unfortunately in some countries, forming a family can really go south for the guys if the woman decides so.
Ironically, this widespread disinterest in child care is what have allowed women to get these rights in the first place, because the late 1800's was certainly not a period of feminist dominion.
Al my sympathy to the author.
That seems to be clearly best for the child (removes the instability of moving back and forth between homes) and while it's inconvenient for the parents, at least it's equally inconvenient.
I strongly believe that most divorces would logically and financially require the existing house to be sold so that two smaller/cheaper residences can be bought or rented. This is espesially important to financial stability in instances where child support is dictated by an arbitrary formula (which tends to produce an unrealilistic amount) rather than the actual needs of the children, or where finances were already somewhat tight (most cases?).
So if you divorce, you should immediately become a total deadbeat, be broke and unemployed, ideally well on the way to homeless, by the time the trial happens. In contact with social services. Because men ALSO can't lose living standard. You won't get as much, because of course the justice system is sexist, but they're forced to give you something. Obviously the justice system cannot prevent this from happening. They may respond by placing the kid in foster care.
The net result of these laws: whoever is willing to most seriously damage the kid will have a decisive advantage.
However, I was recently a very close witness to some divorce proceedings involving my girlfriend and the end of her polyamorous marriage, and boy, oh boy. The husband made the decision to make the divorce as painful as possible (falsifying evidence, perjuring himself) to try to get her to give up and let him keep all of the money (he keeps the $400k house, she keeps the $5k SUV), and ultimately, it largely worked. Would you pay $50k to avoid having a miserable year? I would've kept fighting on principle, but she's wiser than I am.
Whether or not any of this was fair, eh. The mistake she made was to enter into a binding legal contract with someone that didn't have a clearly defined, equitable exit path. She misjudged her husband, but no one's immune to that. Honest people will want to write everything down and be bound to their word.
Don't make agreements based on mutual trust and assumed cooperation into perpetuity. It's only once people's incentives shift away from cooperation that you get to see their true character, for better and worse.
(Germany, Berlin, neither poor nor rich through sometimes slightly wealth family social circle)
The difference is that a few people people pay to have a custom one drafted for them, and everyone else just accepts whatever default one their jurisdiction provides.
I use to say those are O(n!) when they work, O(n!!) when they fall apart.
Having gone through an ugly family breakup, I can attest to how painful and stressful it is for everyone. Especially once the courts get involved.
From my experience the courts are very unsympathetic to any arguments outside the general consensus, almost to the point of being obtuse or jaded.
I know people think that children are better off having both parents involved in their lives but I beg to differ when selfish vendictictive parents are involved.
Childhood is important but it is not a lifetime, in some ways it is better to check ones ego and just step back and wait. Support the child as ordered by the courts and then when the child is an adult they can decide whether or not to have a relationship with the estranged parent. If they choose not to.. Accept that and live your best life, after all You don't own the child. (eventhough your ex may believe they do!)
This can be much easier on the child than witnessing constant bickering, accusations and pettiness between the parents. Possibly resulting in self harm or violence.
Just my point of view, might be wrong but nevertheless how I see it.
What you said after this is not any more sympathetic.
> Childhood is important but it is not a lifetime, in some ways it is better to check ones ego and just step back and wait.
This is an astonishing display of lack of empathy for the unfairly estranged parent. Not having your child in your life is one of the worst forms of torture a person should not be forced to endure.
> Support the child as ordered by the courts
The courts are, as you said, obtuse and jaded. Not to mention very often biased.
> Accept that and live your best life
You can't, when you're a good parent, you can't "live your best life" if your child was torn away from you.
> after all You don't own the child
I'm trying to be charitable here, because the HN guidelines encourage steelmanning, but comparing "wanting to have your child in your life" with "thinking you own your child" is appalling, to put it mildly. I hope this is just very, very, unfortunate phrasing, because I could find no other way to read it.
> This can be much easier on the child than witnessing constant bickering, accusations and pettiness between the parents.
Being separated from a parent can have even more dire consequences on the child. And there actually are studies on that.
> might be wrong
You argued in favor of the extremely unfair status quo of the courts and tried to suggest it could be better for the child.
I have gone through this have You? If so how did it work out for You? I hope much better than me and my son.
But if You haven't gone through the courts, maybe be a bit less ritcheous.
Edit
>>> "This is an astonishing display of lack of empathy for the unfairly estranged parent. Not having your child in your life is one of the worst forms of torture a person should not be forced to endure."
What is astonishing is I am that parent, maybe all the torture made me less empathetic to myself.
Also I was not arguing in favor of the courts unfairness. Infact, I am well aware of how hard the courts can cone down on anyone who doesn't toe the line. So don't be spinning my comnent, and keep your charity, thanks.
I could go into my particular situation, My ex was an opiod addict who ended up consuming my mother who was dying of lung cancer's medication. She constantly verbally and occasionally physically abused be, infront of our son. Then in court she had the nerve to accuse me of hitting her, which I never did. But because I was honest and admitted to using canabis (which is now legal) the courts believed her.
So yeah, I lost contact, as well as being hammered with a 100K+ maintenance bill until he turned 25, including losing my passport and drivers license when I lost my job and fell behind. Of course his mother OD'd a couple years later when I paid off what was due and he ended up being raised by the state....I guess the studies didn't include the kids like that, huh?
I read that other guts comment history and it's all aguments and belittling so what ever.
Good news I'm more upset, triggered about this than the election now!
Because that social expectation is there, it is far more often true that in a hetro marriage the wife will be the one who gives up their career path to take care of a child. Thus the court systems has standardized on an expectation that the mother will need spousal support, and child support in a divorce, because she is the one who'll need to retool and rejoin the workforce, while still _doing_ the parenting she did while in the marriage.
None of this happens in a vacuum.
Clearly in this case, the man wanted to parent. The thing stopping him was the power of the court’s decision.
In the presence of a legal framework like this the only reasonable choice for a man is to assume he is expected not to parent, since that is what the courts will enforce.
The legislature acts to change other kinds of discriminatory legal framework, and this is no different.
And yes, it would be good for there to be more pressure on men to parent, and on there being more acceptable models of parenting partnerships than breadwinner and child rearer.
I don't like the idea of court standards being tied to gender (or gendered roles), but it does have to take into account who was doing what work and how to ensure the safety of children while the parents disentangle their marital and financial bonds.
That’s always possible, but it seems irrelevant to the argument.
What I'm saying is that denying the fact that a partner gave up career growth to parent does not change that they did, and does not stop the pressure upon women to do so. It should not be tied to gender, it should be tied to who gave up paying work to do the child rearing labor.
Spousal and child support _are_ where divorce courts are influencing equity, by having the parent who's career was not impacted by parental duties provide monetary support to the parent who was.
This is quite clearly not true because of maternal preference, which is openly acknowledged by the courts.
They are not in fact basing their decision on who’s career was not impacted.
They are making the decision based on the sex of the parents, and simply recapitulating traditional gender role assumptions.
I’m not making a case that it shouldn’t be this way.
My point is that we shouldn’t gaslight ourselves about what is going on.
The court should temper society's vices not empower them.
There are other factors involved too.
Then the court doesn't need to show a particular bias towards either party on this subject. As you have very astutely pointed out, there exist other circumstances which may compel a court to apply a bias one way or another. That's what courts are for.
> What if is the higher earner that sacrificed an even higher position - do you make the lower earner pay them?
If a decade of childcare materially and demonstrably damaged their future career, they should take that into account. If not, no.
Please pay attention to the words I'm using - 'bias'. This means putting some weight on the scales, not dropping a bag of bricks on one of them.
They are a parent by their own actions, why should they be moated from the duty of parenting in the case of a divorce?
You are saying that if one of the parents sacrifices their future to care for the child, and the other does not, during a divorce, the latter does not owe the former anything.
The better question is - why do you want to moat the latter parent moated from the duty of parenting so much?
Or, if parenting is too complicated, here's a simple example.
Bill marries Jill. Bill works, buys their food, pays their rent, pays their bills, does the housework, and pays Jill's way through medical school. Bill and Jill have no assets, because all the money went into Jill's education.
Jill graduates, becomes a doctor, starts making mountains of money, meets a pretty intern, and divorces Bill.
Does Jill owe Bill anything?
It's the same situation as with childcare. Bill put more into maintaining the marriage/child than Jill did. Jill benefited/was harmed less during the marriage. Bill deserves compensation after the fact.
Had the fruits of his labours gone into a savings account, he'd receive at least half of it on divorce. Instead, they went into developing Jill's earnings potential - so he's entitled to a share of it. Likewise, if instead of paying with money, he paid with childcare that was damaging to his career.
Would they consider rent, food, utilities, and everything else a gift too?
A marriage is a not a quid-pro-quo financial transaction. It is an entanglement of two people's lives. The purpose of divorce court is to unentangle those lives in a fair and equitable manner.
One person supporting the household, while the other mooches off them, and then divorcing right when they start becoming responsible for supporting the household is not a clean break with zero financial entanglements.
Imagine if instead of pouring money into an education, Bill was supporting Jill as she was building a startup. He kept the family afloat, he poured money into it, while it was running at a loss - and then, right as it turns profitable, she leaves him with nothing.
Would that be fair and equitable? If not, why is a high-earning education any different? [1]
[1] The difference is obviously, that in this case, the startup's ownership would be split between the two spouses, with the spouse that financially supported the founder receiving a portion of it - probably not a 50/50 portion, but some portion nevertheless. An education's ownership can't be split... But the wages derived from an education can be.
Your statement about credit for paying all the utilities is not how it works. In fact, that can work against you. Like I stated before, lifestyle can be a big part of the decision. The spouse paying all the bills may still be required to pay many of them because the other person has a lifestyle the court wants to preserve. Take for example the divorce in California where a man had a porn addiction and the wife was ordered to pay alimony to continue supporting that addiction.
Your example of a startup is not the same. A startup is property, which can be sold and has inherent value. Being acquired during the marriage, that makes it marital property.
Coming back to your previous comment, do you really think that is a fair split at 50/50 even though one person provided the intellectual capital and work? That would be devastating to most people to have their "baby" of a company ripped from them to the point where they no longer have majority ownership.
I'm also curious, what is the 'vice' in this statement?
IANAL, but I do have familiarity with the subject, and if you read a common law book, you'll see how the courts think.
Now, to be fair, in a way, we could say that courts don't give precedence to a parent based on the sex (this is made explicit in the law of a certain country I've examined)... but they could give it based on the hair count :-)
But again, courts definitely take into account many factor in the cases.
You are ignoring biological reality. The reason why this happens in 'hetero' couples is that the woman has an obvious physical relationship with the child. This doesn't happen in gay male couples because neither of the fathers can have this relationship. In lesbian couples, it's common for the non-bio mother to not only feel alienated, and even to do less childcare than the biological one (https://www.thespermbankofca.org/sites/default/files/1998_Ch...). Lesbian adoptive couples are more likely to share childcare equally, just like gay male ones of any kind, or heterosexual adoptive families.
My wife and I used to be really into this idea of parental equality in all things until we had a baby biologically. Now I obviously love my daughter, but there are some things only a mother can do, like nurse her, and this forms a special bond between mother and child. The fact of the matter is that men have to work harder to get that close of a relationship with their child that the mother is predisposed to. However, even then, the most devoted father would likely still see their child want to nurse when they get hurt or feel scared, until the child reaches 2-3 years of age. This is normal. Nursing is meant to do this, and although it's a physical act, it has real emotional consequence in both mother and child. My heart breaks hearing my daughter cry, but my nipples do not leak milk. It's not even that I couldn't calm her when she's mad, but the fact is that it would take significantly longer. Meanwhile, the child will be screaming and upset, and I should be willing to do this in the name of equality? On the other hand, handing her off to nurse with mom calms her instantly, as nature dictates.
To me it seems cruel to force my view of equality on the child by forcing them to remain terrified, frightened, anxious, and sad all because I want to feel as important as their mother, even while mom is right there. Is this unequal? Certainly. But it is the only humane decision in our opinions.
That is not to say we should think less of paternal love or the paternal relationship (especially since research shows that dads play a very important role in socializing their children into larger society), but rather that we should not see the inequality between mom and dad especially with young children and attribute it to some nefarious social force, instead of millenia of biological reality.
And they did that when they were infants as well. My wife did not do well without a solid nights sleep, and I was used to oncall work, all night nursing was me. This was equitable, as well as playing to our strengths and weaknesses.
There is no reason to have iron rules of we must each do every parenting action in equal amounts, but to find equitable split of the work that needs to be done.
I countered with my own experience that it is not.
Ancedata all around.
I'm glad your system works for your family. Similarly, I'm glad ours works for our family. But from both stories we can see that what you claim as a biological fact is not so clear.
Up to this day, I'm really conflicted about everything surrounding it. This article says the truth, but it does overlook how painful it is for a 3 years old to have 2 bedrooms and 2 different places to stay. I can confirm that, it's one of the things I suffered the most for. And it goes on until you are much older (14-16-18) when it becomes alienating.
My uncle went through a divorce and things went exactly how described on the article. The mother had no job, she was renting an owned place as income, so she took over their family house and the kids and she got also paid. My uncle was able to fix some of the situation, not sure how, it seems like he got in a better relationship with the ex wife.
It's a nightmare I'd never recommend to anyone and the psychological support I received as a child was not closely enough. I repeatedly had to "choose" between my parents throughout my life, even though it was clearly stated to me by the child support that it should never have happened. That money should have never been between me, my father and my mother, while it was repeatedly and continuously one of the key points. I blame both parents for that, but today I ask myself if the government shouldn't provide a lot more support to me, the kid (and my sister).
Anyway, it's a big mess, I can't help but seeing a lot of truth in what's written.
Tl;dr ... A disproportionate share of seriously troubled boys share an alienated, minimized or absent father in common. The worthwhile and well intentioned effort to right the wrongs of past discrimination of women has traveled a bridge too far. Tragic unintended consequences plague children of divorce, working men, and stay-at-home fathers. This cause-effect is an inconvenient truth, ignored because its not politically correct or advantageous to raise the issue.
Speaking for myself as someone who spent 8 years and about $300,000 to have an equal role in my children's lives... you can watch the damage this has on your children change them over time. Resignation, external locus of control, etc. are all divorce-induced impacts on kids who must endure the back and forth.
Brutal stuff.
In terms of child support, New York State is one of the few states that doesn't take into account parenting time when setting child support. Custody is solely determined by who earns $1 less than the other parent.
And NY courts have thrown up their hands saying "the legislature chose not to include it, it's not our problem". Sigh... The moment you (re-)discover that legal =! right.
To date, I don't really see the advantages of being married - seems like a whole lot of risk to take on someone who will likely change in 3-5 years.
The fact of the matter is that divorce is terrible, and there's no good way to allocate resources after the fact. Of course there isn't---divorce is fundamentally the destruction of all kinds of financial assets (all the economies of scale in the marriage) and the upsetting of huge social, financial, and geographic commitments, even without children being involved. Of course everyone is going to be dissatisfied with however the courts divide that poisoned pie.
I can't speak for the 3rd party institutions like lawyers being paid.
Anecdotally, you should really live in Italy to understand its terrible legal system.
This was my approach, and ultimately I got what I wanted because it was fair and because the courts here are generally fair. Although we didn't go to court, knowing how the court would rule was hugely supportive in me offering a fair deal and standing my ground.
It's almost impossible to amicably settle out of court, though. There are too many people on both sides trying to stir the pot to get the most for their client. If you're in this situation, you, as a client, need to be very clear about what you are trying to achieve with your lawyer. Their default is to go in guns blazing. I did this with my lawyer, and he only unleashed the nukes when necessary. My ex did not (and for reasons, it was very obvious to me that her lawyer was in charge, not her). It ended up costing both of us quite a bit. Just as one example, we spent five hours paying a private judge, two lawyers, and two accountants to ultimately reach a final agreement. The agreement we reached? The one my side offered in the first five minutes.
Then, even when it's over, maybe it's not. My ex's new husband convinced her to sue me over child support. More thousands in lawyers fees later, and nothing changed because it didn't have a chance in hell.
What does it say to a child to unmake the very thing that made them? How awful. The wisdom of the past says that the old way was simply superior, and we see that when we look at things like the mental health crisis, the lack of grit, the prevalence of anxiety disordes. Generations past would look at our current system and say the obvious -- which was said at the time no-fault divorce became a thing as well, just forgotten by this day -- that the prevalence of family dissolution causes severe, apparently unrelated social ills. We need to put the brake on really.
This article has references to many studies (I haven't looked into them all yet). https://gillespieshields.com/40-facts-two-parent-families/
So no, there are no studies directly on this, just as there are no studies on how divorce has no effect on children. The fact is that when the first decision was made to allow no-fault divorce, such a system had never existed in the Western world and it eschewed thousands of years of practice. This demanding of scientific study for every little social detail is a major problem. Previous generations would have resorted to philosophy, rather than demand empirical data. CS Lewis's book 'The Abolition of Man' goes into why demanding empirical data for every little social policy, rather than listening more to tradition, is both self-contradictory as well as dangerous. So I'll refer you to that as the best 'study'.
In the grand scheme of history, the burden of proof is still on the people promoting no-fault divorce to produce a valid study showing that society is better off with no-fault divorce.
My viewpoint does not require as much proof since it is -- still today -- the typical state of western society.
At this point, no-fault divorce has been a thing for about 50 years in the USA, which is barely a blip in the grand scheme of history. In many parts of Europe, it is still not a thing, or much younger.
Suppose today I decided to raise my daughter without looking at her in the eye anymore. I made this decision without any data to either validate or invalidate my claim that raising her in such a way would make her a better person (how could there be such a study today?). However, since it's more comfortable for me to not make eye contact, it seems that this is my right as her father.
Now obviously, most people would say that that sounds cruel and inhuman. But really, it must appear no different to us than the idea of no-fault divorce would have appeared to our forerunners.
Now imagine that if a large subset of society made the same choice I did with my daughter, but many kept the normal view such that it was still normal to look children in the eye. Still, a large enough group of people didn't. Now suppose that 50 years later, after mental health and attachment problems appear in greater numbers in the populace, someone who questions why some no longer look our children in the eye is asked for a 'study' to show that looking them in the eye would fix things? Certainly such a demand should be met with incredulity.
So that's my response to you. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and society is still waiting for the extraordinary evidence that no-fault divorce does not increase mental health problems in children. Otherwise, the original claim deserves to be prevented -- at least temporarily -- from influencing our social policy.
EDIT: downvotes should explain why, otherwise I interpret it as someone who disagrees but cannot formulate a cohesive argument to critique mine, which is rather sad really.
1200 for shop assistant is rather unlikely.
shop assistant: 1,000-1,100 Euro/month but for 13 months of wage[0]
web designer[1]: 1,800-2,200 Euro/month but for 11 months of work only
[0] the 13th month wage is only part of the full month wage, but for low pays, like 1,000-1,100 it is a large part, probably 850-950 Euro
[1] maybe you are misguided on the definition of web designer, here in Italy that generally (but not always) means "a self-educated programmer that makes a somewhat basic living doing a few very small company sites at 500-2,000 Euro each and, if he/she is good, maybe has a handful of yearly contracts to maintain them, at 100-200 each per month".
Ah, good point - usually people who call themselves "web designers" in the US have degrees in CS and make comfortable 6-figure salaries.
- start to work part time as an employee.
- formally earn about the relatively high non-impoundable minimum.
- pay zero alimony.
- start a limited liability company to do business.
- have the business pay himself/herself zero wages, just benefits in kind (no or low tax).
And sometimes the system fails the other direction too. My wife's father got divorced and had a high paying job, so he was required to pay a lot of child support. He was in a car accident which resulted in him being in a coma for months. Since he wasn't making money during that time in the hospital, his bank account was emptied and the court issued an arrest warrant since the child support was not being paid. He lost his job and was never able to get a new one. He's now living on food stamps and waiting to reach the social security age. The family court system ruined his life.
So people want this system, even to the point they're willing to destroy people's lives over it (mostly, but not exclusively, men's lives), and yet they consider it offensive if one points out the nature and consequences of this choice.
There are other consequences too: obviously it is easy for the man to avoid this responsibility: simply lose your job. There's a legal saying "you can't force blood from a stone". In other words, if this man wants out from under his responsibility, he is guaranteed to achieve that, laws or no laws. And yet that, too, people are unwilling to consider and I'm sure is offensive to bring up too.
If you think it through, you'll realise that this system gives the power to the person willing to do the most damage to the other and the child and because of the preexisting conflict encourages exactly that. This guy can cause repossession of the house, take away 2/3rds of the woman's income, and have child services take the child away. And there is absolutely nothing any additional laws or judgements can do to prevent this, in other words, the judge, any social help and/or the police are totally powerless to do anything about it. Obviously if this guy plays hardball negotiation, if he is willing to use the child to get what he wants (just like the woman was using the child in the court case), he will obviously win such a negotiation, especially if he can fall back on his parents for living expenses. He is threatening, after all, to damage himself, and her only recourse ... is to damage him. In other words, she has no recourse. The judge has no recourse. Social services have no recourse. They will lose if he presses through.
You don't believe this will be the result? Ask child protection services for their "most common problem". This is it.
I'll get downvoted as well I think.