Child custody decisions: Another casual lie from Barbara Kay

Wow, that was aweful. I wrote her an email and am working on one to her editor. I especially liked the part where she claims that just as many men are abused by women as women are by men. What a fucking idiot.

Yikes, Le T.  I wouldn't recommend conversing with Barbara Kay.  I still have bitter memories of a 2006 email exchange with her regarding SSM.  Ghastly woman.

ETA:  Come to think of it, I think it was in 2005.

Maybe she took 53.5 and divided it by 62.6 (53.5 plus 9.1), got 85.4% and then rounded it up to 90%?  Otherwise, I have no idea what she did there. 

Even that approach doesn't justify her claim that " almost 90% of contested custody cases end up with sole custody going to mothers," since joint custody decisions clearly figure among the settlements of contested custody situations.

She told me that by "contested" she meant those settled in court (i.e. a small number of actual contested custody disputes). She also seems to be under the impression that universities do "soft appraisals" of applications by women to programs like engineering (lie #2). She also thinks that because undergrads are about 50/50 male/female that this will lead to tenure posititions reflecting gender parity despite all the data that this is not true in any dicipline. I dont have the energy or motivation to keep up the conversation with her.

I think she must have meant that almost 90% of sole custody awards in custody disputes go to the mother.  Anyway, I think we've had this argument in a different thread, right?  If I recall correctly, your position is that, from a disputing mother's point of view, joint custody is a loss whereas I would characterize it as a tie. 

This is not about my position, or the merits of joint custody decisions, it's about the statistics of sole custody decisions. They validate neither Kay's contention or your interpretation of what she must have meant. She is just regurgitating a tired and utterly false Fathers Lobby factoid.

oops (clicked the back button)

You should email her Martin. She told me that I was the only person who had taken exception to her facts and language and made it seem like I was some idiot wack job. It's fun.

That roughly 90% of sole custody awards go to mothers is not a factoid.  The statistics do validate Kay's (very poorly worded) contention.

Please post a link to such statistics. No one but anti-mother activists gains from fudging distinctions between de facto situations (e.g. paternal abandonment), agreements, awards, judicial decisions, and judicial decisions in contested cases (Kay's subject).

No need to.  I'm just going by what you yourself posted at the start of this thread. 

I agree they shouldn't be fudged.  The only group relevant to this topic is your last one:  judicial decisions in contested cases.  And it's there that 85% of sole custody awards go to the mother.  I really don't see what the issue is. 

Except that she didn't say that.

The problem isn't just wording. If we are going to do some creative reading, as Kay did, one could just as well state - presuming that it is over mothers' objections that joint custody is awarded in contested custody cases - that as far back as 2000, fathers were managing to deny mothers sole custody in 46,3% (37.2 + 9.1) of contested custody battles, regardless of parental merits, lethality or the real reasons for such demands.

And, as I said, that ratio has been evolving in favour of men ever since.

But it would appear that was what she meant to say.  Kay's a crappy journalist, no argument from me there, but I don't think she invented the "almost 90%" figure. 

Yes, one could say that if one were comfortable with the idea that mothers should always get sole custody and any other result is somehow a denial of their rights.  Taking such a stance, however, would be as much of a distortion as Kay is guilty of. 

Could be true.  I haven't seen any more recent statistics than the ones you provided. 

I think there's a phenomenon which doesn't show up in these statistics anyway which nevertheless accounts for a lot of sole custody agreements.  Some men give away sole custody because they don't have the money, time or energy to get anything else in place.  My former boyfriend did this without ever being aware that sole custody meant that his ex-wife could move their children to a different province. 

This whole discussion is fruitless because no one has defined their terms.

It starts with meaningless statistics like "in 33,098 divorces decided in 2003, the mother had custody in 47.7% of the divorce judgments." That's meaningless seven times over:

1.  That's the number of divorces where the children are mentioned in the divorce judgment, not the number of custody trials. It means that, in divorce judgments where custody of the children is even mentioned -- which is not required -- there was something about the children being in the mother's custody. (Table 2.8)

2.  In large numbers of cases the divorcing parents agree to call it "joint custody" but the children's "primary residence" is with the mother, which amounts to the mother having custody.

3.  In a smaller number of cases the children are in shared custody, 50/50 time-sharing or at least in the 60/40 range. In a few they are in split custody, one with each parent. Those cases are perhaps lumped in with "joint custody." Who knows?

4.  Most custody disputes take place soon after separation, long before the divorce. If you want to compile statistics on contested custody cases, you don't study Divorce Act judgments, you study Children's Law Act judgments.

5.  By the time you get to the Divorce, the parties have, in almost all cases, settled the custody terms. The table shows an increase from 1986 onwards in the use of the term "joint custody." This is almost certainly because social workers, lawyers and judges have increasingly told parents in the last 20 years "it doesn't make any difference what you call it, if the children are in the care of the person providing their primary residence, call it joint custody if that makes the other parent feel included." That accounts for almost all the "joint custody" mentions in Divorce Judgments. No one seems to have counted how many of them showed the mother with primary residence. Useless stats. 

6.  Most custody disputes are not resolved by judges making decisions at trials. They are resolved by an independent social work report or an assessment by a social worker/psychologist team, which both parties accept rather than one proceeding to a trial where the evidence will be against them. You cannot collect such stats by counting the court orders. You would need an in-depth study of a sample of custody contests.

7.  Note the major decline in the number of divorces counted in the Stats Can table. That's because more and more divorce judgments don't even mention who has the children; the custody order was obtained before the divorce went through, and the divorce itself was uncontested -- no need to risk muddying the waters by re-opening the custody/access issues, just claim a divorce.

Good points, Wilf, thanks - exept for your assuming that my alternate wording requires "comfort(able) with the idea that mothers should always get sole custody". It required no such assumption (and I don't believe that BTW): it simply takes into account whether woman received or not what they presumably requested - since it generally reflects their having assumed most primary parenting tasks.

Your penultimate point - You cannot collect such stats by counting the court orders. You would need an in-depth study of a sample of custody contests. - is another good argument against Kay's seat-of-the pants assessment that men are discriminated against since they end up less often with sole custody. They often do so by choice, even when there has been a contest over issues. As therapist-author Lundy Bancroft (The Batterer as Parent) puts it, women often tend to "give away the farm" in negotiations in order to retain custody, at the perspective of leaving their children in the custody of certain men. Mediation is another big influence in strong-arming meritorious parents away from sole custody.

Thank you, Wilf.  Very edifying.