More Yin Than Yang
Cui Bono
This is long. So, if you're cramped for time, just click "Next."
I started out to write a brief response to somebody's post, then got
carried away and just kept on typing. I cut out some chunks, then
decided to post what's left. So, here are some comments from a
seasoned citizen about struggling single mothers, angry fathers who
have lost their children, judicial and bureaucratic bias, storm clouds
on the horizon, Promise Keepers, a quickie review of Oliver Stone's
"U-Turn ," and my date with Abby for a movie and coffee. Why should
you care about my date with Abby? Well, she and I are as different as
possible and yet we're able to talk somewhat civilly about child
custody, child support and feminism.
--------------------------
In the past two months, I have read hundreds of depressing posts to
the child-support, dads-rights, and feminism news groups. I'm trying
to get up to speed on current laws, policies and attitudes about child
custody. It has been almost 20 years since I was in court fighting
with my first wife (she was a divorce lawyer) over custody and child
support for my daughter and son, and now I'm trying to help my younger
brother get full custody of his seven-year-old son.
The child support enforcement system is out of balance. More yin than
yang. Too much has been pushed to one side of the table. The pendulum
has swung too far, and I'm concerned about the potential damage to
society and government when the big ball inevitably swings back.
There is too much pent up anger and desperation on one side, and too
much smugness and bitterness on the other. With society out of
balance, there is too much energy that could be unleashed if rational
corrections are not soon enacted for fathers who consistently lose in
divorce court. I see some early warning signs of ominous reactions to
the trends in marginalizing traditional male roles in society.
Yesterday, there was another collection of sad news group postings. I
found myself agreeing with some of the single mothers, being
sympathetic with many of the fathers, and once again reminded that our
government and many citizens are in denial on the importance of a
father in a child's life.
While reading the news groups, I almost wrote to a despondent woman
whose husband walked out on her and their one-year-old daughter so
that he could devote full time to graduate school. (That punk needs
his ass kicked.) Then, I read a post from a frightened and confused,
dirt poor young father who is going to court hoping for two hours a
week of "supervised visitation." (I wanted to offer the young father
some encouraging advice, but I couldn't think of anything.)
In the news groups, there are some frequent posters who write
brilliantly and offer rational suggestions for change on child custody
and support. However, too many posts were nothing but inane and insane
taunts by women and against men, and men against women. I've been
startled by the hostility in these news groups. "You should be
bobbitized," she writes. "You're a lying, thieving bitch," he
responds. These posters seem like participants in some kind of
leaderless, over-oxygenated, hyper-cyber group therapy session.
The phone rang and I was rescued. It was my friend, Abby (not her real
name). She asked me to go with her to see "U-Turn," the new movie
directed by Oliver Stone, starring Sean Penn and Nick Nolte. Her turn
to pay, she said. "We can go tonight, but I'd rather go late
afternoon. Can you be there in an hour? What are you going to wear?"
Abby is a 39-year-old software sales manager, raised in New York as an
Orthodox Jew, but she's now an atheist, feminist, voted for Clinton,
vegetarian, global warming worrier, endangered species protector, car
pool advocate, second-hand smoke zealot, women's shelter volunteer,
long ago engaged but never married, lesbian.
I'm a 57-year-old heterosexual male, voted for Dole, divorced twice,
mostly reformed skirt-chaser, Arkansas and California raised, old
Mercedes diesel driving (bumper sticker says "Celebrate Homogeny"),
meat eating, cigar smoking, Southern Baptist-Mormon parents, educated
by Jesuit priests in a Catholic university, agnostic (but lately I've
been reading the Koran, which I regard as the Way New Testament.)
In short, Abby and I are just your average, imperfectly matched
American two-some. For the past three years we have been doing
something together every month or so. We like the same kinds of
movies, concerts, music, books and long hikes. We both like to argue
about current events, and our contrasting views serve as reality
checks for each other. It's a no-pressure friendship that gives each
of us a break from other folks in our lives.
An hour after she called, we met in line at the movie. Abby is tall
and has wonderfully thick, curly black hair with a half-dozen too
perfectly random gray streaks. She's wearing Killer Loop black
sunglasses, eggshell white gabardine slacks and a black rib-knit
cotton T-shirt, with a single strand matinee length silver necklace,
and tastefully small silver and turquoise earrings. She has no
detectable make-up, but her nails have a fresh coat of clear lacquer
on a French cut.
"You look cute," I said.
"Asshole. Why can't you just say I look happy or healthy or something?
You know I hate cute."
After the movie we walked to Starbucks near the mall for coffee. We
both enjoyed "U-Turn," and we agreed that we're among the few who will
have anything good to say about it. "U-Turn" is darkly funny and
brilliantly artistic. For the laughs, however, you have to get beyond
the blood, beatings, blood, stabbings, blood, kicks in rib cage,
blood, close range gun shots in the gut, blood, ritualized Apache ax
murder, blood, Russian mobsters cutting off fingers with garden
shears, blood, and a young woman getting slugged in the nose. And lots
of sex. Not fun sex, but brutal sex (him) and exploitive sex (her).
Of course, Abby thinks the woman in "U-Turn" was the victim of
lecherous men. Horse shit, I explained, she was just as much a
criminal as the others and was even more diabolical than the men
because she feigned innocence. How can two people presented with the
same set of facts, in this case a movie plot, come to such radically
different conclusion? Men and women simply see things differently.
Maybe neither is right nor wrong, just different.
We were talking about the movie, but Abby started to fidget. From
experience, I knew the conversation would soon shoot off in another
direction and land on a surprise topic.
"Except for the Jesus thing and all the praying, I thought you would
be a Promise Keeper by now," Abby told me. "You've said some of the
same things I heard those smarmy bozos say at that fascist political
rally in Washington."
(For those of you in fly-over country, "smarmy" is British slang,
meaning something like "oily-skinned lounge lizard." Picture Wayne
Newton with a Liverpool accent. Although entirely British in origin,
Abby likes the word "smarmy" because it sounds Yiddish.)
Well, Abby, there are certainly some areas where I agree with Promise
Keepers, especially the notion that fathers are critically important
in raising a child. The experience of the past several decades has
proven that single mothers as parents are not doing a very good job.
I haven't enlisted yet because I don't believe agnostics, lapsed
Catholics, Easter Baptists or Jack Mormons are welcome in Promise
Keepers. From what I've read and seen on television, the Promise
Keepers have their priorities backwards. I believe children and a wife
(in that order) should come before any commitment to religion. So, I
fail the first PK test.
It's time to refresh our coffee cups. I'm having today's house blend,
whatever it is, black. No blei frei scheiss for me. Abby wants another
mix of de-caf Costa Rican doka and Tanzanian peaberry, with amoretto,
raspberry, and cinnamon, non-fat milk, vanilla nut, and cranberry
creme, and mocha something. That's close enough. She won't know the
difference. Just give it to me. Keep the change.
I told Abby I don't have anything in particular against Promise
Keepers, but they just don't seem like my kind of people. The first
time I saw Coach Bill McCartney on television talking about Promise
Keepers, I had an immediate reaction that I could not like nor trust
him. Maybe there's something in the Colorado water, because I had the
same reaction 20 years ago when I first saw Patricia Schroeder on
television. They are very much alike in their unbending
self-righteousness (although McCartney is prettier than Schroeder).
I'm certainly interested in Promise Keepers. If some of that energy
could be focused on child custody and support as target issues, there
would be a rapid change in the official presumption that the mother is
the better parent. All it would take is five minutes at the podium at
one of the rallies, access to the mailing list, a couple million
dollars for postage and printing, and then the anti-male bias in
politics, the news media, the courts and government agencies would
start to turn.
This could go even faster if the Promise Keepers formed an alliance
with Louis Farrakhan. On the importance of fatherhood, the Nation of
Islam and the Promise Keepers have similar views. And, there are a
couple of million men in various militia groups hiding in the woods
who also would certainly support the notion that fathers are getting
the short end of the stick in divorce and custody disputes. These
groups hold tremendous potential political power, as yet untapped. So,
with some organizational and diplomatic skills, someone or some group
could emerge soon to inject some sanity into child support and
custody.
"That kind of thinking scares the hell out me," Abby said. "What makes
you think they would stop with child support and custody? Those guys
are already on a roll trying to take back all the progress women have
made. They're not even embarrassed when they say that men must take
back their roles as the leader of the household. Sounds like slavery.
What bull shit."
I told Abby that after "the Jesus thing and all the praying" there
really isn't much the Promise Keepers have to offer me -- yet. But, I
do wonder if somebody else with my views is thinking about Promise
Keepers entering the political arena to change public policy on the
role of a father in a child's life. And, on the issue of child custody
and child support, I will accept whatever allies I can find. If I
thought it would help the cause I might even put one of those metallic
reflector Day-Glo "Jesus Is Lord" bumper stickers on my car.
"I can't believe you're serious," Abby said. "You sound like you're
willing to do anything, sacrifice everything just to win again on
child support and custody. You're still angry just because you were
stupid enough to marry two women who got your money and you don't care
if you help turn the clock back 100 years on women's rights."
No, Abby, I'm not ready to devote my life to Promise Keepers. It's
just that I think child custody and support are at the core of a wide
range of social problems. If we can solve this problem, many other
social ills also will be fixed. I see Promise Keepers possibly as a
tool to help fix judicial and bureaucratic bias against the role of
fathers in children's' lives.
For me, the Promise Keepers phenomenon is like watching a successful
wildcat oil rig. All of a sudden, there are thousands of gallons of
crude spewing out of a location that surprises everyone. Crude oil is
shooting all over, and everybody is excited. I'm looking at this and
wondering how all this new energy could be collected and used for
something else -- such as fixing the automatic awarding of custody to
mothers.
"You are one dangerous motherfucker," Abby said. "I'm hoping that you
don't find Jesus, or that none of those wackos thinks like you do."
Just guessing, Abby, but I would not be surprised if this topic has
not already crossed the mind of somebody active in Promise Keepers.
Resuming my expected conciliatory role as a male, I told Abby that I
generally agree that women in the past were discriminated against on
the job and in business. And, I'm fully aware that many women have
been sexually harassed in the work place. A generation ago, some women
did in fact receive lower pay than men for the same work. But, women
are now doing themselves a disservice by continuing the fiction that
there is today widespread bias in the workplace. If anything, the
balance has tipped too far in favor of women.
Additionally, I've lived long enough to also know that some women
flirt and fuck their way to big sales contracts, promotions and pay
raises, at the expense of their male co-workers. Abby disagrees, of
course, that very many women use sex for career advancement or to make
a sale -- and, anyway, it would help make up for centuries of abuse
and discrimination by domineering men.
"Yeah, and you're the same Mr. Macho who says you don't trust anything
that bleeds for a week and doesn't die." Lighten up, Abby, it's just a
sports bar joke. "Well, it's not funny to me." Then, get out of the
sports bar. "No, I think your stupid joke says a lot about how you
really think."
Well then, Ms. Bundle of Contradictions, just shoot me. There have
always been and will continue to be jokes by one sex about the other
sex. "Let she who is without sin tell the first male joke." I told
Abby, again, that one of my major complaints about feminists is that
they rarely smile and don't seem to have a sense of humor.
Abby, there's too much torque on your sphincter. So, here's a sexist
joke. Why does it take so many sperm to fertilize just one egg.
Because none of the sperm are willing to stop and ask for directions.
She smiled, and almost laughed.
Now, Abby, let's pretend that you and I have been appointed by the
Prime Mover to resolve current hostilities between men and women. You
and I are charged with negotiating a settlement.
I propose that every woman be paid reparations for past male sins,
that every man will sign a confession of sexist and lecherous
attitudes, that women will be fully integrated in the military, that
women will be installed in half the seats of all publicly traded
corporations, that women's salaries will be adjusted tomorrow morning
to the average of male salaries, and that half of the male members of
Congress will be thrown out and replaced by women.
In return, Abby, all I ask is that the we eliminate the presumption
that women are the best parents, that alimony and child support will
be abolished, and that disputes regarding custody of children shall be
determined based only on which parent earns the most money.
Impasse. Abby tells me my shirt makes me look too old. I ask if she
would like more coffee.
It's dark by now. I walked Abby to her car in the parking lot. We
never talk about it, but we both know that a woman by herself is more
vulnerable to attack in open places after dark.
I'm certainly not as agile nor as threatening as a 25-year-old kick
boxer, but I'm large enough and male enough to scare away a palsied
crack addict. I know that liking an escort to her car clashes with
Abby's feminist independence, and I never tease her on this
inconsistency because she would then take unnecessary risks.
Friendly hugs. Cheek kisses. Good-byes.
"Cute butt," I said, as she turned toward her car.
"What an asshole!" She paused for a couple of seconds, then said,
"I'll call you in a couple of weeks when the new Travolta movie comes
out."
---------------------------------------------------
"There is all the difference in the world between treating people
equally and attempting to make them equal. While the first is the
condition of a free society, the second means as De Tocqueville
describes it, 'a new form of servitude.'"
-- F.A. Hayek
Dennis Moore
Great Story, You have hit the nail on the head. I also liked the sports bar
joke, I have never herd it before..
Den
Cui Bono <dont...@nospam.com> wrote in article
<3441E4A9...@nospam.com>...
Bob Cortez
Cui Bono wrote in message <3441E4A9...@nospam.com>...
>This is long. So, if you're cramped for time, just click "Next."
>
written and a nice change of pace from the usual one sided diatribes we are
accustomed to on usenet.
Thanks Cui Bono
Excellent post.
Richard Harter
Cui Bono <dont...@nospam.com> wrote:
[snip story]
Well done.
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net, The Concord Research Institute
URL = http://www.tiac.net/users/cri, phone = 1-978-369-3911
Think of me as Santa Claus bearing little mind stuffers
for people with stuffy minds.
Larry F. Rogers
I liked this post but a couple of comments...of course. ;)
The paragraph I cite below is exactly why women will get their come-uppance.
They cannot see their own hypocrisy. They say that if they agree to make
things fair they will lose everything...so it is justified to be unfair...so
long as it is unfair to men. Our (fathers) stance is we have lost
everything and we have nothing to lose.
The other completely moronic part of this statement is the part about being
stupid enough to allow a woman to take your money. Implication is that men
are stupid because the laws favor women. Women do not destroy men without
the stupid sexist and unconstitutional laws we have in place. It is the
laws that empower them to destroy men's lives. And anyone that empowered is
bound to be persuaded into action and is bound to attempt at every turn to
justify their actions no matter how unfair.
A final comment is that the Promise Keepers are all about family values.
They are a subtle group at this time, for if too radical they would scare
everyone into believing they are extremist. But they are the start of
national father's and men;s groups rising out of the ashes the women's
groups have made of the family. And they will affect how we think in
society and they will affect CS and custody bias. The Constitution will be
on their side and the courts and politicians will no longer be able to
pander to women to get the vote for they would have to much more visibly
break the laws of our nation to do so.
Women created the Promise Keepers and women have generated the movements
that are developing on state and local levels. As is the case in most of
these situations of extreme bias, it is those that justify the pendulum's
position and try to hold it in place, that contribute to its eventual
violent backlash.
Women will reap what they have sewn. And it won't be pretty.
Larry
:> "I can't believe you're serious," Abby said. "You sound like you're
P McCaffrey
Oh--I just loved that post!! It was like sitting down to a good book
with a cappochino!! Abbey is such a character....and I think this man
is in love!!
MORE!!!!
Debi
PART OF WHAT YOU WROTE I LEFT: Heres my response.....
To fix child support and child custody battles.........the adults in these
situations NEED TO GROW UP and forget that they are angry, bitter, pissed
off at their ex's, stop thinkning selfishly of themselves and what they can
or can not get out of the divorce or how they can plot the best revenge.
They need to stop wishing, that the other die, and NEVER EVER speak badly
of the other spouse in front of the kids NEVER!!!!!!!! The children NEED
both healthy adult parents in their life, with or without other
girlfriends/boyfriends or other spouses........face the fact that your
relationship is OVER and now you must think of WHAT IS IN THE BEST INTEREST
OF THE CHILDREN think of those prescious kids whom you BOTH brought into
this world hopefully under good, happy loving conditions.... REMEMBER THEY
DID NOT ASK TO BE BORN. The best situation would be you all live in the
same town and although they will or should live predominantly under one
roof and have a bedroom all their own in at least one home, be able to go
to both homes freely without feeling they are hurting the other parents
feelings. If hopefully u can stay in the same towns you can also be a part
of the childrens life, freely. THeir friends will be there, their schools
and functions.......Theres always a money issue, but lets face
reality...guys and girls....BEFORE you got married, you were self
supporting, well now its time to do it again. The child support money is
FOR CHILD SUPPORT, and that includes EVERYTHING. The custodial parent is
responsible for most of it....joint custody, both parents are responsible
for it. HOWEVER, if one parent makes more than the other....WELL
THEN...they have to pay more. And stop thinking your paying the spouse to
live, YOUR NOT your paying for the children to LIVE AS COMFORTABLE as
possible...Theres deadbeat dads and deadbeat moms....unfortunately theres
no helping them....BUT for those of you who are responsible adults START
ACTING LIKE IT..........No one is ever happy in a divorce, in a perfect
world there is no divorce. But since we have it.......LEARN how to do it
FOR THE KIDS>....one parent may be better at it than the other, well than
that parent MUST be the stronger, bigger, better ADULT!!!!!!! Stop being
victims and start taking control of your situation and your life and stop
looking for someone to blame.............it only hurts the kids.....
Just so u know, I am a single mom of 2 small kids....my ex left because he
couldn't handle the responsibility...and THATS OK!! Yes it hurt and I
trashed him and I was angry...for about a year...and someone said the same
thing to me I just said to you...and you know what....my ex and I have a
very nice, civil relationship and the kids are HAPPY HEALTHY WELL ADJUSTED
kids...at least right now...we work TOGETHER apart WELL and we maintain a
level of maturity between us...something we couldnt do married....we have a
new respect for each other...I admit sometimes I have to work harder at
keeping my emotions in tack, yet I see him struggling sometimes too....some
people just arent meant to be together...some are.....either way its the
KIDS who will benefit in the end and eventually the hurt and anger go
away......I PROMISE you that.....all I can say is JUST THINK OF THE
KIDS!!!!!!!!!!!
Thats all!