Despite what our legal system may say about fathers, my feeling is that a father cannot kidnap his own child.
People will be quick to say that fathers who abuse their children should not have any unsupervised contact with them -- and I totally agree. The problem is that often the charges against fathers are patently false.
I have witnessed or heard about multiple stories about fathers who have had their children stripped from them because an angry spouse leveled charges against him in a divorce proceeding. The goal being to hurt and humiliate the ex-husband. To burn the bridge of the relationship and destroy him as a man while stripping him of any parental authority in the eyes of his children.
Most times, all it takes is an accusation for a man to be frog-marched out of work or his home and denied contact with his children, even by phone. Chances are the "charges" make the news or the rumor mills go into overtime when not shred of evidence has been presented. Until an investigation can be completed -- which could take months or a year -- father's can't even see their children or hug them without supervision. Even after the investigation determines it is all a bunch of bunk, his reputation is still ruined and people are forever suspicious about his actions or intentions.
Perhaps if our courts aren't so biased in favor of mothers in divorce proceedings, fathers wouldn't feel a need to take such extreme actions like "kidnapping" their children just to be with them.
Right now a friend of mine is going through a divorce. It's something he didn't want and didn't seek. But, his wife was enamored with another man, so it was only right that she be allowed to pursue her happiness -- according to the courts. Yet, his wife gave him five days to find an apartment. When the only one he could get was a one-bedroom, she went to court charging that it would be inappropriate for his daughters to spend the night at his house, even if he slept on the sofa. The court agreed, stripped him of his right to spend time with his children until he could get out of one lease and into a two-bedroom apartment. Of course, the father who had to come up with a security deposit and first month's rent as well as utility deposits and connection charges (and then reconnection charges for the new place) and an attorney's retainer was ordered to pay $1,750 in child support with the first check due five days after the court hearing -- all because he couldn't participate in raising the children.
With the father stripped of joint custody, the mother used her court-granted right of placement and full custody to end relationships her children had with their father's friends. She forbid the girls from attending his church and dictated that he had to have them back in her house by 8:30 p.m. on the two nights a week he was allowed to see them. He picked them up on his way home from work at 6:30 p.m.
Oh, yeah, and despite the fact the father spent the first four years of his daughter's life raising her full-time while his wife got a college degree, the court ordered a psychological evaluation (at the mother's attorney's request) to make sure the man would be a "fit" parent if his daughters were ever allowed to spend time with him. The bills were split 50-50 with mom taking the mortgage and dad taking everything else. Then mom failed to make the mortgage payments, the house is in foreclosure and the father's credit is destroyed in the process.
This is considered "fair" and "equitable" by Wisconsin legal standards.
Another friend, who also didn't want a divorce, was given 50-50 custody of his child. The court ordered that the father maintain a two-bedroom home so that his son could spend three nights one week and four the next. And, despite the fact that the child's mother made 145 percent more money than the father, the father had to pay 19 percent of his income to his ex-wife for "child support" even though they had 50-50 joint custody.
A few years later, the woman grew tired of the mommy thing and decided that she didn't want the kid around anymore. So, she left the state and allowed his father to raise the child 100 percent of the time. Despite the fact the mother now earned well over $150,000 per year, the court decided it was "fair and equitable" that the father no longer be required to pay child support to the mother. In other words, even though the mother abandoned the child and made considerably more money, she didn't have to pay a dime in support to the father even though she spent zero time with her son. The father's reward was that he could keep all his money instead of sending any to his ex-wife to care for a child she no longer wanted.
When I read stories like the one last week about the guy who "kidnapped" his 7-year-old daughter, my heart goes out to men like that. I certainly am not going to rush to judge the guy for wanting to strike back against an unjust system and do something -- anything -- to spend some quality time with his child. That's especially true in a situation like this where a U.S. court allowed the mother to move the father's child to another country where regular visitation or involvement in her life is nearly impossible.
I can't imagine what it would be like to deal with the frustration, anger and pain that our unfair legal system imposes fathers simply because judges are under the impression that fathers are irrelevant and that a child of any sex is better off with the mother.