Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Radio program with worst-case scenario

Here is a sad story about divorce on the radio program This American Life. It started by saying that it was a worst-case scenario, and that "It is hard to see how anybody could have prevented things from going bad."

The mom gets a divorce, and decides that it would be good to move 1000 miles away. The daughters' lives degenerates as they disrespect their mom, get on drugs, drop out of school, run away from home, etc.

No, it is easy to what went wrong. All of these problems are associated with single motherhood. The girls missed their father, and didn't understand why he was removed from their lives.

Somehow, the mom must have gotten court permission to terminate the dad's visitation rights, and move away. The court would have told her that she could collect more child support by doing so. She might have even been advised by counselors that the leading divorce expert, Judith Wallerstein, has done research to show that the kids are better off when the mom moves away and the kids never see their dad again. (The research actually shows the opposite.)

I have no idea what led to the divorce, or what the mom's parenting abilities are. But I do know that we have a truly evil family court system that gives incentives for mothers to do the absolutely worst things to their kids.

No comments: