Dads get a bad rap, but they can be heroes, too

Not the era of the deadbeat dad but the era of the hero father

Date published: 6/19/2005

LOS ANGELES--Fatherhood has changed dramatically in the era of divorce and out-of-wedlock births, and much attention has focused on two unfortunate products of this era--the absent father and the deadbeat dad. However, there is another type of father this era has produced, one who has received very little attention--the hero father.

According to the Children's Rights Council, a Washington-based advocacy group, more than 5 million American children each year have their access to their noncustodial parents interfered with or blocked by custodial parents. Behind that statistic are legions of heroic divorced or separated fathers who fight a long, hard, but generally unrecognized battle to remain a meaningful part of the lives of the children who love them and need them.

Some hero fathers move repeatedly to be near their children. In the controversial case of DeBrenes v. Traub, Eric Traub already had moved to a new city twice to be near his daughter when he was forced to conduct a lengthy and expensive legal struggle to prevent her from being moved to Costa Rica. As is typical, the court allowed the move.

Traub's determination paid off, however, as the now-teenage girl became so set against the move that her mother, to her credit, dropped the request.

Most fathers are not so fortunate. In a recent California Supreme Court case, Gary LaMusga, who operates a business in Northern California, fought for eight years to prevent his two young sons from being moved to Ohio, 2,000 miles away. He eventually won--but his victory was a pyrrhic one because his children already had been moved out of state in violation of court orders. In the strange world of modern family law, even with the new decision, his children will not be moved back.

While divorced dads are unfairly stigmatized as stingy, some noncustodial fathers raise their children in their homes but still pay child support to the children's mothers. Many others never ask for child support. In the face of a family court system that usually grants mothers a monopoly of power over children, these fathers must buy or rent their children back.

When mothers allow their children to live with their fathers--or send them there because they've become unruly or inconvenient--fathers often won't challenge custodial and financial arrangements because they fear doing so will mean they'll be pushed out of their children's lives.

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Date published: 6/19/2005