After reading a lengthy, super-parent rant on AltHouse regarding Alec Baldwin and what a total uncaring, self-absorbed, opportunist he is, I thought I’d share a few statistics from a post by a mySpace blogger. It’s so easy to dole out advice on what someone should focus on and how someone should react if you have no first hand experience of the single most hurtful, confusing, and enraging event in life: one parent trying to block you from seeing your own child for no other reason than spite and revenge. Where’s the post on that? Oh wait. . . here it is.
I sat in a mediator’s office and listened to my ex-wife say, “He’s a great father. He loves ______ more than anything. He definitely knows how to take care of him.” We were AT the mediator’s office because she was trying to coerce a parenting plan that would give me the least amount of time possible with my son because she didn’t “think [she] could handle not having him most of the week”. Someone who hasn’t been in that position has no idea how heart breaking and terrifying it is. So, here’s a big middle finger to those who are sideline judges for all of the “ridiculous father’s rights characters” who believe that we should be able to raise our children.

Stats from Gypsy Style on mySpace:

• 37.9% of fathers have no access/visitation rights. (Source: p.6, col.II, para. 6, lines 4 & 5, Census Bureau P-60, #173, Sept 1991.)
• “40% of mothers reported that they had interfered with the non-custodial father’s visitation on at least one occasion, to punish the ex-spouse.” (Source: p. 449, col. II, lines 3-6, (citing Fulton) Frequency of visitation by Divorced Fathers; Differences in Reports by Fathers and Mothers. Sanford Braver et al, Am. J. of Orthopsychiatry, 1991.)
• “Overall, approximately 50% of mothers “see no value in the father`s continued contact with his children….” (Source: Surviving the Breakup, Joan Kelly & Judith Wallerstein, p. 125)
• Only 11% of mothers value their husband’s input when it comes to handling problems with their kids. Teachers & doctors rated 45%, and close friends & relatives rated 16%.(Source: EDK Associates survey of 500 women for Redbook Magazine. Redbook, November 1994, p. 36)