by Anne McMurray2 and A M Blackmore3
The aim of the study was to gain an understanding of parenting from the non-custodial father's perspective and to draw comparisons between these data and the findings of an earlier study on non-custodial mothers' parenting experiences. Open-ended one-hour interviews were conducted with 68 non-custodial fathers whose ages ranged from 28 to 61 years and who came from a wide variety of social backgrounds. Common themes included: the high costs of legal fees and maintenance of ex-spouses and children, resulting for many in the choice not to work at all; poor relationships with the ex-spouse resulting in difficulties in access; the loss of day-to-day contact with the children, leading many to seek counselling or psychotherapy; frequent comments that participants didn't condone but could understand other men killing their wives; and reports of injustice in the court system both in allocation of custody and in enforcement of access arrangements.
Introduction
Despite the fact that approximately one fifth of Australian fathers live apart from their children (Funder, 1991a), the role of the 'access' or non-custodial father in parenting has
thus far been the subject of very little research. As in other countries, the majority of studies on
separating Australian families have focused on children's adjustment to divorce
(Amato, 1986; Harper & Ryder, 1986; Ochiltree, 1987; Sexton, Hingst & Regan, 1989; Funder,
1991b; Funder & Kinsella, 1991) and the plight of the parent who remains living with the
child(ren) (Wolcott, 1990; Funder, 1991b). The present study sought to
gain an understanding of parenting from the non-custodial father's perspective and to draw comparisons
between these data and the findings of an earlier study on non-custodial mothers' parenting experience
(McMurray, 1992).
Method
Findings
Financial Status
Relationship with the Custodial Parent
Coping with Limited Access to the Children
Bias in the System
Discussion
References
Introduction
Study participants were recruited through radio and newspaper advertisements which described the purpose of the study and requested separated or divorced fathers who, for any reason, were not living with their children to participate in a one-hour interview to be conducted in one of the authors' offices (AMcM). A phenomenological approach was adopted in an attempt to examine the phenomenon of non-custodial parenting from the fathers' perspective. The interviews were open-ended and began with the request: "Tell me about your experience of being the parent without custody". Interviews were audiotaped and, following transcription of the tapes, data were analysed for emerging themes and common variables using the constant comparative method of Glaser & Strauss (1969). Themes were then compared with those identified in the cohort of non-custodial mothers studied previously (McMurray, 1992).
Sixty-eight men were interviewed. Information regarding their ages currently and at marriage, the duration of their marriages, the time since separation, and the numbers and ages of their children is shown in Table 1. Although Table 1 shows a wide age range, most of the children (66%) were aged between 5 and 14 years inclusive.
| Table 1: Summary of Demographic Data | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Current age | Age at marriage | Duration of marriage | Age at Separation | Years since separation | Number of children | Age of children |
Study participants were predominantly urban dwellers (91%) and came from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds. Twenty-one (31%) were blue collar workers, 6 of whom were unemployed, while 47 (69%) were white collar workers whose occupations ranged from lab technician to lawyer. Four of this group were unemployed. At the time of interview, most of the participants (60%) were neither married nor in a defacto relationship, 19% had remarried, half of whom had children from the new marriage, and 16% were in defacto relationships.
For 47 (69%) of these fathers the court had awarded custody of their children to the mother. The others had arranged custody by mutual agreement with their ex-spouse. One-half of those interviewed stated that they were either seeking or had sought custody. Two were in the midst of negotiating for joint custody and the remainder were attempting to maintain reasonable access to their children. Eighteen (27%) of the fathers had at least weekly contact with their children, while in 24 (35%) cases, access was at least monthly, but most often involved having the children every second weekend. A further 26 (38%) fathers saw their children less than monthly, some only during school holidays, and, in five cases, only at the convenience of their ex-spouses. Access arrangements were either facilitated or constrained by the supportiveness of ex-spouses. Thirteen (19%) of the men reported having supportive ex-wives, while the remaining 55 (81%) described their former partners as obstructive, undermining and uncooperative when it came to arranging visits with their children.
Thematic analysis of the interview data revealed that these non-custodial fathers were concerned about some of the issues identified by the cohort of mothers in the previous study: namely financial pressures, relationships with the custodial parent and difficulties in coping with limited access to their children. In addition, the majority (55%) of the fathers were very concerned about what they identified as anti-male bias in the family court system. Each of these themes is discussed below.
Some stated that they were finding it impossible to start a new life because of financial constraints. In the words of one man: "I've worked for 20 years, had a family and I feel completely and utterly ripped off. Several men had spent up to $30,000 in custody cases through the courts, losing both the case and the money. One man described a sense of resentment which just kept building with a system in which there was no room for negotiation and in which an ex-wife could be living with another man yet could earn up to $32,000, receive a tax deduction for each child, subsidised health care, mother's allowance and approximately 30% of his gross salary. Most men expressed a commitment to provide for their children, but had no desire to be treated unfairly in the courts. They viewed the financial issue as a moral one. In one man's opinion: "Why am I paying such exorbitant maintenance while she's with another man? If I steal a race horse off somebody I can't send him a bill every month for the training fees". Back to present study
The relationship with one's ex-spouse was considered by all study participants as the key to maintaining
an influential role with the children and yet only 19% of the participants described their ex-spouses as
supportive of them having access to the children. Of the remaining 81%, many men reported that one of
the most difficult situations for them to accept involved ex-spouses who sabotaged the father-child
relationship(s) by trading access for maintenance. In some cases where the maintenance payments were
not being deducted automatically from the man's pay, the ex-spouse would counter late payments by
withholding access visits. Several of the men felt that their ex-wives were holding them to ransom by
failing to make the children available for access, knowing that the current law holds no means of
enforcing access orders. In these situations, at least three of the men admitted to resorting to violence
against their ex-spouses, which served only to have them restrained from seeing their children and
further fuelled their anger and resentment.
By far, the overriding concern for these fathers was missing the everyday world of their children's
growing up. The men were very articulate in discussing the emotional side of their non-custodial father
role and the strategies they adopted to cope with the situation. They spoke of intense love for their
children and the difficulty they had or were experiencing in coming to terms with the loss of daily
contact with them. At the time of interview, only six men described themselves as being well adjusted.
Nine others, six of whom had been separated from 2-5 years, described themselves as in crisis. They
spoke of not being able to resolve their grief, felling 'adrift', 'isolated' or 'in crisis'. Two of them were
hospitalised for clinical depression on more than one occasion. A further 25 had received counselling or
psychotherapy to relieve their grief. Others reported a variety of coping strategies which included
"toughing it out alone" (N = 4), drinking heavily in the short term (N = 5), working long hours (N = 5),
engaging in physical activities (N = 2), becoming involved in religion (N = 4) and talking to friends and
family members (N = 12).
Five reported that they had undergone a short-term distancing reaction, during which they had left town
or avoided contact with the children, only to realise that the constant goodbyes after access visits were
less painful than having no contact at all. Very few men had joined men's self-help groups, although
many mentioned that it would be helpful to have the support of other men in similar circumstances. One
participant, describing the need to have the support of like-minded others, commented that "men need
opportunities to express themselves, not explain themselves".
The most alarming issue related to the men's coping strategies concerned their attitude towards violence
against women, a topic which many discussed openly. Twenty-three (34%) of study participants spoke
sympathetically of custody related murder/suicides. Each of these men preceded their opinions with
comments like "I would never condone/do such a thing but. I can understand it happening/you know
what the guy is feeling, you've been there/when you actually get that low, you're contemplating things
you wouldn't have done other times". Some of the men blamed their violent tendencies on the system
which one described as "perpetrating domestic violence by discriminating against men". Another
crystallised the feelings of rage which he felt in the early stages after separation:
"You generalise a lot more ... all females are ... and you spend a year 'score
levelling', having conquests, not relationships. You inwardly cheer when an estranged wife is shot - like
a victory - chalk that one up. You don't mind too much when a judge gets shot or someone in the
system gets buckled. Guys make a joke of it. Your balance of rationality, your presence of mind is off.
You're often in a daydream, you're a liability on the roads, you get into auto mode, you don't see
what's coming or do crazy things. I've seen many productive people just fall out of society."
Apart from the financial difficulties imposed by the asset sharing decisions of the family law courts,
several men discussed their outrage with what they believed were immoral decisions. One father
described an episode of violence against his ex-wife which he believed was provoked by her having
taken his sons into a lesbian relationship which was dismissed by the court as irrelevant to the children's
welfare. Another vented his frustration at a court decision to award custody to his prostitute ex-wife
who, he said, was conducting business from the home where she and the children lived. He claimed
never to have committed a violent act, yet declared: "I will have to either go mad or go in there with an
iron bar and just go berserk 'till I get some attention from politicians or someone to put it right". Eight
others recounted having contemplated acts of physical violence against their ex-spouses; in some cases,
murder. Three others were dismayed at the court's having awarded custody to their wives, each of
whom had been in and out of treatment for alcohol problems for varying lengths of time. One
extraordinary case involved an ex-wife who had died and was reportedly able to will her children to her
second husband who prevented them from seeing their natural father. The system was also blamed for
allowing the abduction of a man's child who was taken out of the country by the vindictive mother.
Back to present study
The most contentious cases reported concerned four fathers who had been banned from seeing their
children on the basis of suspected child sexual abuse. In three of these cases, no evidence had been
produced and, in fact, the fathers said they had not known of the accusations before their custody
hearings. They believed that when the court cases arose, the cloud of suspicion created by the wife's
having taken the children for medical examination was enough for the court to award custody in her
favour. All three fathers were convinced that their ex-spouses had been coached by someone in the legal
profession to use such an examination as a basis for excluding them from the family so that the mother
could start a new life. A fourth man was also accused of sexual abuse and, after selling his property and
spending many thousands of dollars in court costs, he was acquitted by the court. He is now penniless
and without contact with his children who have been taken interstate.
Relationship with the custodial parent
Coping with limited access to the children
Bias in the System
The study sample was strikingly similar to the sample of non-custodial mothers reported earlier (McMurray, 1992). The two cohorts had been separated for a similar duration (4 years for females, 5 years for males) following marriages of somewhat similar duration (12 years for females, 9 years for males) from which members of both groups had an average of 2 children. The mean age of the 43 females studied previously was 38, while the mean age of the 68 males in the present study was 40.
The study findings are consistent with the findings of previous studies which reported that the most painful and thus the most difficult aspect of divorce for the non-custodial father is the loss of the daily interaction with their children, the symbol of 'family life' (Buehler, Hogan, Robinson & Levy, 1985; Grief, 1985; Chadwick, 1989; Gibson, 1992). Non-custodial fathers related that the strains of non-resident parenting are not overcome in the context of the visitation ritual which as Ochiltree (1987) suggests, often becomes recreational. As Buehler et al., (1985) explains "it is very difficult to deal with relationship problems within a visitation context which has traditionally implied planned entertainment and activities fashioned to please children" (p.77).
The pervasive sense of loss experienced by the non-custodial parent has been reported elsewhere as precipitating either the transient distancing reaction described by participants in the present study, or a gradual decline in the frequency of contact between the non-custodial parent and children (Hetherington, Cox & Cox, 1977: Furstenberg & Nord, 1985; Stewart, Schwebel & Fine, 1986; Wilbur & Wilbur, 1988). This sense of disengagement from the children is magnified in cases where there is little support by the ex-spouse (Stewart et al., 1986; Camara & Resnick, 1989). In many cases, lack of spousal support is precipitated by the financial pressures on both parties to the divorce or separation.
Fathers in the present study shared the financial difficulties reported by non-custodial mothers related to what they considered to be prohibitively high maintenance payments; that is, the inability to provide adequately for, or entertain their children during access visits. The difference between the two groups was that, in most cases, the fathers had a greater earning capacity than the non-custodial mothers. Both groups described the financial strain as impeding their ability to compete with the custodial parent for their children's attention. Non-custodial mothers reported that they felt compelled to seek relationships with other men to find financial security, whereas the fathers spoke of the futility of establishing new relationships which they could not afford to sustain.
Both non-custodial mothers and fathers related that a further impediment to maintaining positive relationships with their child(ren) occurred when they remarried or entered a de facto relationship. Frequent conflicts between the children and the new spouse and/or between the children from different relationships made it even more difficult for the parent to maintain close and satisfactory relationships with all parties concerned, a problem which has been identified in previous research (Funder, 1991c).
It would appear that the instrumental role of the male as breadwinner has changed little over the years and, at the time of separation and divorce, becomes even more entrenched through the court system which tends to view the mother as the care giver and the father as the financier. At least for this study sample, experiences with the legal and court system, particularly in combination with an uncooperative ex-spouse, served to provoke intense feelings of aggression and, in some cases, real or vicarious violence. Where the tendency in the group of non-custodial mothers undergoing similar experiences was to become self-abusive, (6 [14%] of the 43 mothers reported mental breakdowns and/or attempted suicide), the non-custodial fathers demonstrated a stronger tendency towards venting their anger at others. That such a large proportion of this group of men have even contemplated committing acts of violence is cause for alarm; particularly if they are typical of the cross-section of men undergoing separation and divorce.
Despite this difference, these fathers demonstrated patterns of coping similar to those of their female counterparts, for what is, in most cases, the most traumatic event they will ever experience. It is interesting to note the number of men who sought counselling and the company of friends, family and the church for support.
Undoubtedly, the system needs some revamping. At present, moves are underway to enforce access orders with some type of penalty; for example, a requirement that the offender contribute a proportion of time to community service. This may provide some alleviation of the frustration endured by non- custodial parents attempting to maintain continuity in their relationships with their children. A further area which is in need of immediate review concerns the interpretation of the law which, according to the Australia Family Law Council (1991a) suggests that one of the areas for reform should be to separate the processes of resolving money and property disputes from those involving the children. Parenting issues and responsibilities could then be negotiated, with or without a mediator, in a manner quite removed from the adversarial legal system and in the best interests of the children. Clearly, the present system often runs contrary to those interests. One solution which has gained favour in countries such as Sweden and the US is joint custody. Trost (1986) reports that joint custody in the Swedish experience allows each parent a less stereotyped and more balanced role with their children while also increasing the resources available to the children. However, Wallerstein & Blakeslee (1990) caution that the American experience with joint custody reveals that the number of transitions (moving to mother's house, moving to father's house) can interfere with the children's adjustment in joint custody situations. In addition, their research suggests that, where there is not mutual trust and support, the anger between ex-spouses may be compounded by frequent changeover day encounters. Back to present study
Despite the subjectivity of this group of men's accounts, it would be cause for great concern if custody judgements were being made without considering such important aspects of the children's environment as an abusive alcoholic parent or prostitution in the home. The real or perceived bias in the family law courts which has been documented elsewhere (Hasche, 1989; Funder, 1991a) must be examined and openly discussed by those who formulate and interpret the laws, so that the unresolved anger and resentment of either parent does not override the benefit to the children of the involvement with both.
Non-custodial parents in both the previous and the current study complained that the existing conservatism and rigidity in the court system is detrimental to the welfare of both the children and the parents. In their opinions, maintaining stereotyped gender roles runs counter to effective parenting. Despite small gains in achieving gender equity in the workplace Australian men's roles and women's roles in marriage and parenting have changed very little over the years (Weston & McDonald, 1991). Mothers still tend to believe that control of and responsibility for child care belongs to them, and fathers feel that they are relegated to the financial support role (Funder, 1991a).
While this situation persists, custody and access will continue to be viewed as part of a property settlement process, custody being seen as the 'prize' and access as an opportunity for entertainment. Thus we have a fundamental flaw in the ideology underpinning parenting, which should be addressed in the legal system. If parental roles were balanced so that both parents were required to share in the care, nurturing, financial support and entertainment of children perhaps society would begin to accept men's roles as including the capacity for competent and committed child care as Teyber & Hoffman (1987) suggest. Similarly, viewing women in a less stereotyped way may help to overcome the stigmatisation which occurs when a woman is the non-custodial parent. Back to present study
This research has indicated that there are serious problems which should be drawn to the attention of those involved in the family court system and those who counsel parties to a separation and/or divorce. These problems have the potential to fragment still further the tenuous parent-child relationships that already exist at a crucial time when the family is undergoing major structural and emotional changes (one participant even went so far as to describe the system as "fundamentally anti-family"). We have attempted to document the voices of non-custodial parents at this precarious time of their lives, and to provide information that may help in the process of resolving family dissension.
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