Proactive Change: a divorced dad is still a dad

Warren Farrell

Father And Child Reunion: How To Bring The Dads We Need To The Children We Love by Warren Farrell, Ph.D.

Read excerpts from this book:
From Intro | From Ch. 1 | From Ch. 2 | From Ch. 6

What is Father and Child Reunion About?

"Just as the last third of the 20th century was about creating equal opportunity for women as workers, so the first third of the 21st century will be about creating equal opportunity for men as parents. Neither goal will be achieved until both goals are achieved."
--From Father and Child Reunion

Based on thirteen years of research, this book will force a re-examination of the circumstances in which a dad or a mom is best for children. For starters, some findings on children with single parents….

Children do better with single fathers than with single mothers. Both boys and girls are healthier and do better psychologically and academically, as well as socially.

Even characteristics such as empathy are exhibited more by children brought up by single fathers.

Single fathers experience less stress juggling children and work than do single mothers.

What family structures are most likely to be in the child's best interests? Dr. Farrell's findings suggest the following ranking:

(1) the intact family;

(2) shared parent-time(joint physical custody);

(3) primary father time;

(4) primary mother time.

While the intact family is the winner, Father and Child Reunion makes it clear why, if divorce cannot be prevented, children being primarily with their dads gives children more of both parents than when they are primarily with their mothers; reduces a mother's economic dependency on a man, and reduces men's ten times greater suicide rate after divorce.

Does Dr. Farrell conclude, then, that men are better at fathering than women are at mothering? No. But he does conclude that we have been waging a "War Against Fathers" - and mothers and children are among the losers.

Father and Child Reunion answers questions relevant to every family:

Exactly what do fathers do with children that's different from what mothers do?

When does the focus on the best interests of the child become in the worst interests of the child?

Why there is both a mothering instinct and a fathering instinct. Why they operate in different ways. How current parenting methods and government policies are destroying the fathering instinct.

What is the impact of a stepfather? A stepmother?

What is the long-term impact of moving the child away from the parent it does not live with?

Father and Child Reunion is about what it will take to make fathers full and equal partners in the family. It will take:

- Men's ABC Rights. And Responsibilities. See chapter 6 for a powerful argument as to how we are unwittingly preventing fathers from taking equal responsibility for children by denying them equal ABC Rights -- in the areas of Abortion, Birth control, and Childcare.

- Eliminating "Taxation Without Representation." When a father is "taxed" to pay for children he can rarely see, never see, was never informed he had, is tricked into fathering, or who have been fathered by another man, he is experiencing "Taxation Without Representation." Taxation without representation creates revolutions, not families.

- Ending the "War Against Fathers." The US government spends 340 times as much getting fathers to pay child support as it does to prevent mothers from denying fathers access to their children. Yet fathers who see their children pay for their children.

- Confronting the "Father's Catch-22." Fathers have learned to express love to their family by being away from the family they love.

- Re-examining the attitude behind our vocabulary. "Visitation": Isn't that for criminals? "Child support": Isn't that more than money? "Child abuse": Is denial of a child's access to the other parent child abuse? Is badmouthing of the absent parent? Is a false accusation of the other parent made in the heat of a custody battle?

- More than half of Father and Child Reunion is about such solutions. Radical solutions. Solutions that transcend disciplines.

Read excerpts from this book:

From Introduction | From Ch. 1 | From Ch. 2 | From Ch. 6

See Table of Contents | Order this book online

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