If you want to be a parent, act like one

If you want to be in charge of your children or remain part of their lives, you need to stop acting like a child. Being a parent while divorced or married isn’t easy but throwing a fit about your situation isn’t gonna help either. 

Not every relationship is perfect or meant to be forever and that’s OK. Co-parenting can be difficult but it is worth it if you really want to be in your children’s lives. 

It’s hard to not be with someone you pictured spending your life with and it’s really hard to not be with your kids all the time and miss them growing up. 

But sometimes life doesn’t work out quite like you think it will and you end up having to deal with those little things. 

The best you can do from there is to act with humility and grace. 

Accept your situation and move on in the best you can. Try and be a present positive person in your child’s life. Unfortunately, it often seems not many people can do that or are willing to. 

Instead, you can find videos, comments, or – apparently – printed and sold books made by angry and indignant parents who would rather blame the world than take some initiative. 

One stance often taken by angry, divorced dads is that the system that people go through with custody and divorce only benefits women. (I wonder who created the systems that assumed men wouldn’t want time with their kids?) 

Now I’m glad for the dads that put in the time and effort with their kids and are fairly awarded custody or split custody. They deserve all good things. 

However it’s often those that scream loudest who do the least to help themselves. 

Stephen Baskerville’s book, “Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family”, seems to be a handbook for those screamers. In his book he gives some advice on divorce and custody.

In his book he argues, no-fault divorces exist to let women exploit men. (They exist because sometimes no one is the bad guy the relationship just doesn’t work.) 

In family court men are punished for being absent or being abusive without confirming evidence. There aren’t really dead-beat dads. (I know a few people who would disagree.) And that dead-beat dads are an excuse for women to extort men for money.  

He also says that women are just as likely to physically abuse their spouse and that men just do it when they are threatened with divorce or limited custody. (Because abuse is always a good way to keep a wife or access to your kids.) He also goes the traditional route and blames ‘radical feminists’ for saying divorce is OK. 

If you can read that and agree with him then maybe his book is for you, but if you want to keep a relationship with your kids, his book probably isn’t for you. Instead of persuading change or making scholarly arguments, his book takes a route similar to break up albums.

Has a break up album ever solved the problem? No, but listening to the album feels good when you’re not ready to get over your situation. His book is for people that aren’t ready to accept their situation. 

So you’re no longer someone’s husband. That sucks but being bitter about it doesn’t help anyone.

It instead hurts everyone involved, including yourself.

What’s particularly shocking to me about this book is somehow not that he seems to suggest that abuse is OK if divorce is on the line. It is where I found the book. 

I found an article on dadsdivorce.com talking about the book and while it’s not quite an endorsement it doesn’t do anything to discredit his potentially harmful statements. The only truly negative thing in the article is that it might not be ‘practical help’. 

I think it’s time we call things as they are and stop giving anything that could make a tense situation worse, the time of day.