Two‑thirds or more of all divorces involving couples with
children are initiated by mothers, not fathers.
Source:
Margaret F. Brinig and Douglas A. Allen, "'These Boots Are
Made For Walking": Why Most Divorce Filers Are Women"
American Law and Economics Review 2‑1 (2000):
126‑169.
Source:
John Tierney, "A New Look at the Realities of Divorce," New
York Times, July 11, 2000.
Source:
Sanford Braver, Marnie Whitley, and Christine Ng, "Who
Divorced Whom? Methodological and Theoretical Issues,"
Journal of Divorce and Remarriage 20, 1993, p.
1.
A
randomized study of 46,000 divorce cases published in the
American Law and Economics Review found that in only 6%
of cases women claimed to be divorcing cruel or abusive
husbands, and that adultery was cited by women as a cause of
divorce only slightly more than by men. Surveys of
divorced couples show that the reasons for their divorces are
generally a lack of closeness or of "not feeling loved and
appreciated."
Source: Margaret F. Brinig and Douglas A. Allen, “These
Boots Are Made For Walking": Why Most Divorce Filers Are
Women" American Law and Economics Review 2-1 (2000):
126-169.
Source: John Tierney, "A New Look at the Realities of
Divorce," New York Times, July 11, 2000.
Source: Beuhler, "Whose Decision Was It?" Journal of
Marriage and the Family, Vol. 48, pp 587 - 595, 1987.
Studies show that the overwhelming majority of steadily
employed divorced fathers pay their child support. While there
are a few well‑heeled divorced dads who stiff their children,
most non‑paying dads are either poor, unemployed, disabled, or
incarcerated. According to a US Government Accounting Office
report, two‑thirds of those fathers who do not pay their child
support fail to do so because they are financially unable to
do so.
Source:
Judi Bartfield and Daniel R. Meyer: "Are There Really Deadbeat
Dads? The Relationship Between Ability to Pay, Enforcement,
and Compliance in Nonmarital Child Support Cases," Social
Service Review 68, 1994, pp. 219‑235.
Source:
Cathy Young, Ceasefire!: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces
to Achieve True Equality, The Free Press, 1999, pp.
206‑207.
Source:
Kathleen Parker, "Deadbeat dads more myth than reality,"
The Orlando Sentinel, Jan 24 1999. See:
http://www.dadi.org/kpdbeat2.htm.
Look for "Census Bureau."
There are almost as many unfaithful wives as there are
unfaithful husbands. Research generally estimates that for
every five unfaithful husbands, there are four unfaithful
wives.
Source:
Maggie Scarf, “Intimate Partners: An examination of the
underlying architecture of love relationships—the influence of
the past, the causes of infidelity, and the systems that
couples create,” The Atlantic Monthly, November 1986.
The article can be viewed
here.
Look for “Emotional Triangles: Infidelity.”
Source:
John Przybys, “Unfaithfully Yours: Men, women have differing
ideas about fidelity,” Las Vegas Review‑Journal, March
29, 1998. The article can be found here. Look for
“Paul Wulkan.”
Source:
Jennifer P. Schneider, Richard R. Irons, and M. Deborah
Corley, “Disclosure of Extramarital Sexual Activities by
Sexually Exploitative Professionals and Other Persons with
Addictive or Compulsive Sexual Disorders,” Journal of Sex
Education and Therapy 24:277‑287, 1999. The article can be
found
here. Search in the text for the word “infidelity.”
Domestic violence research overwhelmingly shows that women are
just as likely as men to initiate and engage in domestic
violence, and that only a small percentage of women's domestic
violence is committed in self‑defense. Studies show that
women often compensate for their smaller size by their
significantly greater use of weapons and the element of
surprise.
Source:
Richard J. Gelles, Ph.D., “The Missing Persons of Domestic
Violence: Male Victims,” The Women’s Quarterly, Fall,
1999. See Gelles.
Source:
References Examining Assaults by Women on Their Spouses or
Male Partners: An Annotated Bibliography by Martin S. Fiebert,
Department of Psychology, California State University, Long
Beach. See
http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm.
Source:
Patricia Pearson, When She Was Bad: Violent Women & the
Myth of Innocence, Penguin Books, 1998, pp.
119‑123.
Source:
Cathy Young, Ceasefire!: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces
to Achieve True Equality, The Free Press, 1999, pp.
91‑96.
Official Department of Justice statistics show that men commit
70% of all murder of intimates. However, when other factors
are accounted for, including unsolved murders, poisonings
mistakenly classified as heart attacks, and contract killings
classified as "multiple offender killings," women have been
shown to be at least as likely as men to murder their current
or former spouses or intimates.
Source:
Dershowitz, Alan M. 1994. The Abuse Excuse: And Other
Cop‑outs, Sob Stories and Evasions of Responsibility.
Boston: Little Brown, pp. 311‑313. See the pages "Wives Also
Kill Husbands‑‑Quite Often" at
http://www.uiowa.edu/~030116/158/articles/dershowitz3.htm.
Source: 1994‑95 U.S.
Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics
Publications Catalog, publication #. NCJ 43498, “Murder in
Families.”
Source:
Warren Farrell, Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say,
Penguin Putnam Inc, 1999, pp 150‑151.
Source:
This is also explained in detail in my column "Let's not
'Learn' the Same Lessons From Blake That We Learned From OJ"
which can be found at
http://www.glennsacks.com/lets_not_learn.htm.
Most child abuse and parental murder of children is committed
by mothers, not fathers.
Source:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration
on Children, Youth, and Families, Child Maltreatment 1997:
Reports from the States to the National Child Abuse and
Neglect Data System (Washington DC, :GPO, 1999). See:
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/publications/ncands97/s7.htm.
Child abuse perpetrators are 62.3% female. Child
fatality perpetrators are 62.8% female. The mother/father
ratio is actually greater than this, because many of the male
abusers counted are not the biological fathers but instead
step‑fathers, boyfriends, etc.
Source on
murders of children by single parents: U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, National Center on Child Abuse and
Neglect, Third National Incidence Study Of Child Abuse and
Neglect: Final Report Appendices (Washington D.C., U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, National Center on
Child Abuse and Neglect, 1997, pp. A‑63‑A‑64. The
estimated total is 264 parental murders of children committed
by single custodial mothers and 11 by single custodial
fathers. There are roughly five times as many single
custodial mothers as single custodial
fathers.
Source:
Warren Farrell, Father and Child Reunion: How to Bring the Dads We
Need to the Children We Love, Penguin Putnam Inc, 2001, pp
75-77.
Access and Visitation Denial
Three-quarters of divorced fathers surveyed maintain that
their ex-spouses have substantially interfered with their
visitation rights.
Source: Joyce A. Arditti, "Factors Related to Custody,
Visitation, and Child Support for Divorced Fathers: An
Exploratory Analysis," Journal of Divorce and Remarriage
17, 1992, pp. 34, 39.
A study of children of divorce found that 42% of children
who lived solely with their mother reported that their mother
tried to prevent them from seeing their fathers after the
divorce. However, only 16% of children who lived solely with
their father reported similar obstruction.
Source: Glynnis Walker, Solomon's Children: Exploding the
Myths of Divorce (New York: Arbor House, 1986), p. 83
Source: Cathy Young, Ceasefire!: Why Women and Men Must
Join Forces to Achieve True Equality, The Free Press,
1999, p. 209.
In another study, 40% of divorced mothers admitted that
they had interfered with their ex-husband's access or
visitation, and that their motives were punitive in nature and
not due to safety considerations.
Source: p. 449, col. II, lines 3-6, (citing Fulton) "Frequency
of visitation by Divorced Fathers; Differences in Reports by
Fathers and Mothers," Sanford Braver et al, American
Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 1991.
Source: J.A. Fulton, "Parental Reports of Children’s
Post-Divorce Adjustment,” Journal of Social Issues 35,
1979, pp. 126-139.
Source: Cathy Young, Ceasefire!: Why Women and Men Must
Join Forces to Achieve True Equality, The Free Press,
1999, p. 209.
The government spends $340 on enforcing child support for
every $1 it spends on enforcing visitation rights.
Source: Warren Farrell, Father and Child Reunion: How to
Bring the Dads We Need to the Children We Love, Penguin
Putnam Inc, 2001, pp 103-104.
Prosecutions of fathers who violate child support mandates
are common, whereas prosecutions of mothers who violate
visitation orders are rare.
Source: Neil Chethik, “Law Backs the Right to Parental
Visits,” Detroit Free Press, May 28, 1995, p.2J.
Source: Cathy Young, Ceasefire!: Why Women and Men Must
Join Forces to Achieve True Equality, The Free Press,
1999, page 209.
Forensic consultant Dean Tong, author of Elusive
Innocence, believes that in the context of a custody
battle, between 60% and 80% of domestic violence accusations
are false.
This is
based on my interviews with him. To contact him, go to
his website at
http://abuse‑excuse.com/.
The vast
majority of accusations of child sexual abuse made during
custody battles are false, unfounded or
unsubstantiated.
Source: Douglas J. Besharov and Lisa A.
Laumann, "Child Abuse Reporting,” Social Science and Modern
Society, Vol. 33, May/June, 1996, p. 42.
Source: Blush, Gordon & Ross, Karol,
1986, The SAID Syndrome. Sterling Heights, MI: Family
and Conciliation Courts Review.
Nationwide divorced fathers are ten times as likely to commit
suicide as divorced mothers, and more than twice as likely to
commit suicide as married fathers.
Source for
divorced fathers vs. married fathers: Augustine J. Kposowa,
Ph.D., "Marital Status and Suicide in the National
Longitudinal Mortality Study," Journal of Epidemiology
& Community Health, March, 2000, Volume 54, No. 4,
pages 254‑261 See
http://wizard.ucr.edu/~akposowa/Status.pdf.
Search for "divorced men."
Source for
"10 times as likely" is Warren Farrell, Father and Child
Reunion: How to Bring the Dads We Need to the Children We
Love, Penguin Putnam Inc, 2001, pg. 174 &
279.
The largest factor in predicting whether a child will graduate
high school, attend college, become involved in crime or
drugs, or get pregnant before age 18 is the presence (or
absence) of a father in the child’s life. Studies show
that this remains true even after adjustments for household
income.
Source:
The largest predictor of juvenile crime is the presence of a
father is from, among others, “Douglas A. Smith and G.
Roger Jajoura, “Social Structure and Criminal Victimization,”
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Vol. 25,
Number 1, February 1988, pages 27-52. In this studies
children of poor and wealthy families had equal juvenile crime
rates if there was a father in the home.
Source:
The largest predictor of drug use is from, among others,
Robert H. Coombs and
John Landsverk, “Parenting Styles and Substance Abuse During
Childhood and Adolescence,” Journal of Marriage and
Family, Vol. 50, May 1988, p. 479, Table 4. The
study considered various factors, including race, social
class, gender, etc., and father presence was five times
more important than any other factor.
Source:
The teenage pregnancy statistic is from, among others, Frank F
Furstenberg, Jr. and Kathleen Mullan Harris, “When and Why
Fathers Matter: Impact of Father Involvement on the Children
of Adolescent Mothers.”
Source:
Father presence and education is discussed in Warren Farrell,
Father and Child Reunion: How to Bring the Dads We Need to
the Children We Love, Penguin Putnam Inc, 2001, pp
31-34. The presence of a father in a child’s life has
more impact on a child’s educational achievement, beginning,
in early elementary school, than race, social class, gender,
etc.
Children are 88% more likely to be seriously injured from
abuse or neglect by their mothers than by their fathers.
Source:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration
on Children, Youth, and Families, Child Maltreatment 1997:
Reports from the States to the National Child Abuse and
Neglect Data System (Washington DC, :GPO, 1999). It
is discussed in Father and Child Reunion by Warren
Farrell, page 76.
Prosecutions of fathers who violate child support mandates are
common, whereas prosecutions of mothers who violate visitation
orders are rare.
Source:
Neil Chethik, “Law Backs the Right to Parental Visits,”
Detroit Free Press, May 28, 1995, p.2J.
Source:
Cathy Young, Ceasefire!: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces
to Achieve True Equality, The Free Press, 1999, page
209.
Fathers have a much better record of paying court-ordered
child support than mothers do.
Source:
John Siegmund, “Preliminary Analysis of the Database of the DC
Office of Paternity and Child Support Enforcement” compiled
for the National Council for Children’s Rights, November 9,
1999.
The government spends $340 on enforcing child support for
every $1 it spends on enforcing visitation rights.
Source:
The actual numbers are $3.4 billion on child support
enforcement and $10 million on visitation enforcement.
The $3.4 billion figure comes from “Child Support Enforcement
is Working Better than We Think” by Elain Sorensen and Ariel
Halpern, The Urban Institute, Series A, No 31-A, March
1999, page 4.
The $10
million figure comes from The Department of Health and Human
Services, “93.597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation
Programs.” (http://www.cfda.gov/static/93597.asp)
Source:
Warren Farrell, Father and Child Reunion: How to Bring the Dads We
Need to the Children We Love, Penguin Putnam Inc, 2001, pp
182-183.
Other fathers have suffered at the hands of "move‑away moms"
who permit or even use geography to drive fathers out of their
children's lives.
Source:
Maura Dolan, Legal Affairs Writer, "Justices Ease Relocation
of Children in Divorce Cases,"Los Angeles Times, April 16, 1996, p. 1. Three
out of every four custodial mothers move within four years of
divorce, for various reasons.
Men win custody in only 10% of contested custody cases"
(Note: To
avoid confusion: the sources below do not all indicate
10%--some indicate 15 or 20%, some indicate less than 5%.
As a whole, the average is around 10%).
Source:
Eleanor E. Maccoby and Robert H. Mnookin, Dividing the
Child (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992),
pp. 104-105, 149-150.
Source:
Stephen J. Bahr, J.D. Howe, M. Morrill Mann, "Trends in
Custody Awards: Has the Removal of Maternal Preference Made a
Difference?", Family Law Quarterly, Vol, pp. 247-267,
Summer 1994.
Source:
Wendy Reiboldt and Sharon Seiling, "Factors Related to Men's
Award of Custody," Family Advocate, Winter 1993, pp.
42-44. Published by the Family Law Section of the American Bar
Association.
