Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to
the show.
Thanks so much for tuning in.
This week we are going to betalking about actually, we're
going to be talking about what Istarted my week off.
This week I was a little bitfired up about an article, and
actually the article itself isreally good news for divorce and
(00:20):
divorcing dads, but the contentand the context in which it was
written really troubled me.
But before we jump into that,let me welcome Sam and Josh to
the Divorced Advocate community.
Those are our newest membersand I want to encourage you to
check out the website.
We've made some changes to it.
We're adding some stuff to it.
(00:41):
We've got so much going on,gentlemen, right now, but check
out the website atthedivorcedadvocatecom.
We've got a new coachingprogram that's going to be
starting here on October 29th,called the Thriving Father
Transformation Program.
It's actually a group coachingprogram, so if you've been
(01:03):
thinking and hesitating maybe,about getting involved in some
coaching, this is an affordableway.
It's also going to allow you toget some complimentary private
coaching with me, as well as alifetime membership to the
Divorced Advocate.
So it is well, well worth themoney and you're going to get
(01:26):
some huge, huge benefits out ofit.
So check that out atthedivorcedadvocatecom.
It's right on the main pagethere, the Thriving Father
Transformation Program.
That's a mouthful if you say itreally fast.
Okay, fellas.
So I started the.
This has been a challenging week.
I'm sure a lot of you arefeeling it.
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We've had so much going on inour country, here in the United
States, and I actually startedthe week.
Out got a little waylaid inreading this article from the
Wall Street Journal that iscalled the Equal Custody
Experiment.
If you want to check it out,just Google the Equal Custody
Experiment, which just thattitle irritates the crap out of
(02:10):
me in general, because thatshouldn't be an experiment.
That should be the default.
But that is kind of the pointof the article.
What has happened in Kentucky, Ithink about a little over a
year ago, is they put intostatute that custody parenting
time would be 50-50 to start inthe court.
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So that is where the courtsstart.
Unless there's somethingegregious one way or the other,
it starts at 50-50 and that isthe default.
Well, guess what?
This is going to come as nosurprise to you and me and
anybody with rational thought,but divorces plummeted, not just
insignificantly, but theyplummeted in Kentucky over that
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year to the tune of decrease in25%.
Now I know you're thinking, heywell, just stop incentivizing
alienating children and creatinga financial incentive for one
party to file more divorces, andthat's what's going to happen.
I know that makes perfect sense, makes perfect sense to you and
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to me, and that's actually whathappened.
And so one of the other thingsI'll say, fellas, is part of
what we're doing here at theDivorced Advocate and some of
the men that have been involvednow for years.
We're really working hard inadvocacy for fatherhood and
fathers and for equal parentingtime.
(03:36):
It is something that has beenslow to catch up in the family
law system since forever, and sowe've got a group of guys that
are working together to do someof the advocacy.
I will do things like I did thisweek, which is respond to this
article, and I'll tell you whatirritated me the most about this
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article is within the article,they talked about those who were
worried quote unquote worriedor were saying that this is
actually going to be a problembecause of the fact it's going
to lead to more spousal or moreabuse of women and, ultimately,
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more abuse of children, andthat's really what they couched
it as is.
Well, this is going to createmore abuse of children and this
is complete bull crap.
And so what I did is I wrote anarticle refuting what they said
in this article, in the WallStreet Journal article.
(04:38):
I did send it in comments overto the Wall Street Journal
author and guess what?
It got deleted.
Of course, because it's arational thought.
It's supported by statistics.
You can go and you can check itout.
I've posted on all the socialmedia across the board as well,
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as it's up at the DivorcedAdvocate.
They're under the blog tab.
So if you check out the blogtab, you can see this article,
but I'm going to simply read itto you.
Today's going to be thisepisode is going to be short and
sweet.
Gentlemen, I just want you to bearmed with some information,
because you're going to runacross some of this.
Potentially hopefully you'renot, but you potentially are
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going to run across this,whether it is in the family law
court with attorneys or opposingcounsel, or even your
soon-to-be ex or your ex, orjust in general in society, and
we need to be armed with theinformation.
You need to be armed with theinformation so that you can
mitigate this.
So here goes.
(05:40):
I'm just going to read this.
I'm going to read it as I wroteit so that you can hear this.
And again, if you want tofollow this or you want a copy
of this, go tothedivorcedadvocatecom and check
out the blog site, and then thename of the blog article is the
War on Fathers how BiasedCourts Endanger Our Children.
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The War on Fathers how BiasedCourts Endanger Our Children.
The War on Fathers how BiasedCourts Endanger Our Children.
Okay, so here goes.
For decades, a dangerous mythhas poisoned our family courts
and endangered our children theidea that a father is inherently
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more dangerous than a mother.
This baseless assumption,repeated in articles like the
Wall Street Journal's the EqualCustody Experiment, uses
emotional antidotes to prop up abroken system that
systematically sidelines lovingfathers, with devastating
consequences for kids.
It's time to stop lettingtragic but statistically rare
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stories dictate policy.
The irrefutable data tells acompletely different story, one
where fathers are not the risk,but the essential protectors are
.
Children are being denied.
The real danger to childrenisn't a loving father.
It's a legal system that pushesthem away.
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The real threat A revolving doorof unrelated men.
The single greatest threat to achild's safety is not their
biological father.
Single greatest threat to achild's safety is not their
biological father.
Overwhelmingly, the data shows,the most dangerous person you
can bring into a child's life isa non-related male, such as a
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mother's new boyfriend or astepfather this phenomenon known
as the Cinderella effect.
This phenomenon known as theCinderella effect is not an
opinion.
It is a statistical certainty.
When a court defaults to solematernal custody, it doesn't by
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a succession of new partners,exposing children to a level of
risk that should horrify everyparent, every judge and every
lawmaker.
Fatal abuse a groundbreakingstudy in the journal Pediatrics
found that preschool-agedchildren living with their
mother and her unmarried partnerwere up to 100 times more
likely to be killed thanchildren living with their two
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biological parents.
And I want to just let you guysknow that the references are
all on the website atthedivorcedadvocatecom, and
they're listed in the blog post.
Number two physical and sexualabuse.
A child living with theirsingle mother is 11 times 11
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times more likely to bephysically, emotionally or
sexually abused by her boyfriendthan a child living with their
married biological father.
Number three overwhelmingcaseloads.
A comprehensive review of childabuse-related fatalities in
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Missouri found that 75% of thevictims lived in households with
an unrelated adult, most oftenyou guessed it the mother's
boyfriend.
So let's be perfectly clear thecourt-sanctioned removal of a
biological father, which is whatdirectly enables this
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catastrophic risk.
By treating fathers as optional, the system swings the door
wide open for the real predators.
Equal custody is not just afather's right.
It is in a child's bestprotection.
It is a child's best protection.
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Let's talk about the slander ofthe quote-unquote dangerous dad.
The narrative that fathers arethe primary abusers is a
calculated lie.
Let me read this again.
The narrative that fathers arethe primary abusers is a
calculated lie, and thegovernment's own data proves
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this.
According to the US Departmentof Health and Human Services
2022 Child Maltreatment Report,women are responsible for more
child abuse than men.
Of the perpetrators whosegender was known, more were
(10:47):
female than male, and I'll justadd, if you check out the
article, it's 51% to 49%.
So this whole narrative is crap.
Meanwhile, when it comes tointimate partner violence, the
CDC reports that nearly one inseven men will be the victim of
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severe physical violence by apartner.
Yet the system ignores malevictims and treats every father
as a potential perpetrator,while ignoring the proven danger
of the home environment createdby sole maternal custody.
Lastly, the undeniable proofchildren desperately need their
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fathers.
A father is not a luxury.
Denying a child equal access tothe father is a form of
developmental sabotage.
The data on the benefits offather involvement is a mountain
of proof that our currentsystem is actively harming
children.
Children with involved fathersare 80% less likely to spend
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time in jail, 75% less likely toexperience a teen pregnancy,
twice as likely to go to collegeand find stable employment.
And those are just three.
Three indicators and threestatistics around the benefits
of involved father and child'slife.
These aren't minor improvements.
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They are life altering outcomes.
Fatherlessness is a publichealth crisis and our family
courts are its primary engine.
It's time to protect children,not biases.
The stories of children harmedin the system are tragic, but
the blame is being placed on thewrong policy.
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The danger isn't equal custody.
The danger is a biased judgeignoring a domestic violence
order.
The danger is a system thattreats fit, loving fathers as
second-class parents and therebyexposes children to far greater
, statistically proven risks.
Any lawmaker who resists thechange to a legal presumption of
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equal custody is complicit inthe harm being done to children.
The science is settled.
The data is clear.
It's time to dismantle thediscriminatory court system that
wages a war on fathers andstart prioritizing what truly
matters the safety andwell-being of our children.
(13:23):
Okay, that is it, fellas.
There is so much in that andit's so important for you to
know and understand especiallyif you're just starting out in
this process what the system andhow the system is structured
and what the narratives are outthere.
That's simply what I want youto know from this brief episode
today that there are narratives,even with all of the statistics
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and information that I justshared with you.
I mean, how many times have youheard the dangerous dad BS?
Well, the statistics show thatactually more women abuse their
children than men do.
But have you ever heard that?
Do you ever see that onbillboards?
No, you don't.
So just know, just be aware ofwhat that narrative is, so that
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you can get ahead of the game,so that you can prepare.
That's part of what we do.
We had a phenomenal, phenomenalgroup meeting on Saturday where
we talked a lot about this stuff, talked about some of the
tragedies that happened thisweek in in our country, but in
the context of what we can do asfathers and how we can show up
for our kids during this time,and so, again, I'll encourage
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you if you're not involved inthe community somehow get
involved in our Divorce Dadscommunity.
We have some of the free groupmeetings.
We've got the group coachingcoming up.
We've got private coaching aswell.
So check out all that on thewebsite.
We've got our Signal channel.
We've got a lot of that.
So check out all that on thewebsite.
We've got our Signal channel.
We've got a lot of that workthat's happening in the
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different states with some ofour Father's Rights advocates
within the community ishappening on that Signal channel
.
So if you want to get involvedin that, check out the website.
Join the membership.
Look on the events page.
The events page has everythingon it that's going on this week.
We've got a couple of great,great workshops going on.
They're more of Q&As.
(15:12):
We're doing a narcissisticabuse one on Tuesday night, the
16th and then on Thursday, the18th we're going to have Ben
Schooley again, the pro se coach, that's going to be talking to
us about how you can go throughthis without hiring an attorney,
but at the very least, even ifyou have attorney, talking with
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Ben and showing up to thisworkshop.
This Q&A is critical so thatyou are armed with the
information that you need to beable to communicate effectively
with your attorney and talk toyour attorney.
So all of these are tremendousopportunities for you to get
engaged.
Find one of them around yourbusy schedule, get plugged in
and get plugged into thecommunity.
(15:53):
Get the support that youdeserve and need.
All right, gentlemen, that wasshort and sweet.
Thanks for listening.
If you found some value in this, please share it far and wide.
On social media, we are now on.
The Divorced Advocate is now onalmost every social media.
It's more than I can evenhandle at this advanced age in
my life, but we're on X now.
(16:14):
We are on Instagram, facebook,linkedin, so connect with us
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We got lots of stuff that getsposted there and we just want
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Please share this and all ofour information on social media
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That helps immensely.
Even better, just give us somecomments that let you know what
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you thought and how you feelabout the episode.
That helps other dads to lookat it and tune in as well.
Thank you for listening.
Have a terrific week and Godbless.