July 2--The number of children without fathers in Massachusetts is continuing to grow, according to a report by the Massachusetts Family Institute. But lawmakers don’t seem too concerned. 

“The Commonwealth continues to pursue policies that create fatherlessness,” said Ned Holstein, M.D., president of Fathers and Families in Boston. “The pendulum continues to swing against children.” 

“It’s very bad, the courts are biased against the men and the legislators aren’t too enthusiastic about passing laws to help fathers,” Al Bonica, president of Divorced Fathers for Action and Justice in Waltham, told Massachusetts News. “Some legislators don’t seem to even care about fathers,” he said. Bonica has been lobbying Beacon Hill on behalf of divorced dads for 29 years. He’s spoken with some state reps that don’t know what a support-order is or what alimony is, he said. 

“Fathers can get more today, but there’s a lot more that needs to be done,” said Bonica, who’s helped pass laws that give fathers a little more leverage in family court. “I’m not against women, but the judges are still promoting the women over the men,” he said. “Particularly, the kids need both parents.” 

Holstein said that the courts are biased against fathers. The judges give child-custody to the mothers most of the time and the fathers are given “visitation,” he said. This means that fathers become visitors, not fathers. In addition, the courts usually fail to enforce visitation, he said, while the mothers are interfering in myriad ways to keep the kids away from their dads. 

It’s largely a matter of attitude. A father starts out with a presumption against him, several fathers told Massachusetts News. Other problems, said Holstein, include: 

* Courts allow divorced moms to move out of state for almost any reason, and the kids go with them. 

* We have the highest child-support orders, capped at 40.25% of the income before taxes of the parent who doesn’t have custody. 

* To pay those orders, fathers often work 60-70 hours a week, which leaves them scant time to visit their children. 

* Unmarried fathers have few rights if their children are adopted. And they rarely get physical or legal custody. 

* Restraining orders (209As) are often abused and issued for trivial reasons, and also to protect the court from a possible lawsuit. 

The judges hand out restraining orders like candy, said Bonica. “Many orders are bogus and used to punish fathers,” he said. “All a mother has to do is complain and she gets a restraining order.” 

The restraining order, or 209A, law went into effect in 1992. A person (man or woman) can get a restraining order at any one of the 97 courts in Massachusetts or get an emergency order by calling a police station. The Boston Globe reported that there are about 53,000 restraining orders issued every year, or about 145 a day. 

Everyone agrees that in many cases restraining orders are warranted. But there is mounting evidence that more and more orders are issued to punish fathers and put a mark on their record. Many judges, according to Bonica and others, issue the orders for any reason because they don’t want to risk the possibility that the mother may be harmed. And if she is harmed, the judge can say he did everything in his power to protect her. “They don’t want to get caught with egg on their face,” said Bonica. 

Revenue Machine 

The State of Massachusetts is “aiding and abetting” the divorce industry and “fatherlessness,” said Dr. Holstein. One of the ways it does so is through the Department of Revenue. Part of the Department’s job is to track divorced parents who are responsible for paying child-support, and to collect that money. 

Using a massive computer system, largely funded by federal tax dollars, the Department collects data on divorced parents -- financial holdings, stocks, bonds, wages, etc. The system is more advanced than what the state uses to track illegal aliens, Bob Maschi, president of  the Fathers Group, told Massachusetts News. 

In addition, the Department gets reimbursed between 6% and 10% from the federal government for each child-support fee it collects. It’s like a handling or process fee. But this creates an incentive for the Department to maximize its collection efforts regardless of the circumstances of each case, Mark Charalambous, spokesman for the Fatherhood Coalition in Milford, told Massachusetts News. 

“The Department of Revenue has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo,” he said. “They want to keep the money flowing.” 

The Department is “not a friend of Dads,” said Holstein.  “It gets a reimbursement from the federal government for the child-support collected. So, the more it can collect, the better. There’s a bureaucratic incentive there to collect. They want to maximize revenues, no matter what.” 

The Department gets people’s tax records, said Holstein. It then traces one’s income, especially when it goes up. But the Department ignores it when one’s income goes down, said Holstein. The Department also ignores when a mother’s income goes up, he said. 

Bonica says that the Department serves a purpose because someone has to collect the support money when parents are delinquent. But the Department is “sloppy,” he said. “It doesn’t do a good job of tracking the right people.” 

The Department is too quick to attach someone’s wages, he said, adding that innocent people often “get the short end of the stick.” 

War on Fatherhood 

The legislature and Gov. Paul Cellucci aren’t serious about helping children because they’re not interested in aiding fathers who truly want to help rear their kids but are hindered by the courts, said Holstein. “They give lip-service to the nice groups, the people targeting fathers who abandoned their kids,” he said.  And this is largely motivated by a desire to collect more child-support, said Holstein. 

At a rally last month honoring fathers who were paying their child-support, for instance, the Department of Revenue was there with representatives and payment information at numerous tables, said Holstein. 

Divorced dads, the fathers forcibly separated from their kids, are basically ignored, said Charalambous. “These men want to be involved with their kids,” he said. “What needs to be done is to remove the obstacles. But Cellucci is focused on the dads who abandoned their kids.” 

“It’s deeply insulting to us,” said Charalambous. “They won’t let divorced dads on their commission.” Holstein said that the “fatherhood movement” has been excluded from almost all Massachusetts government commissions that are involved with family/parental issues. In the past, the government has let only “token, milquetoast” divorced dads on its commissions, said Holstein. 

Charalambous says that current divorce law is “a killing field” against fathers. Charalambous would like to see the Department of Revenue removed from the courtrooms and a new definition of the “best interest of the child” introduced. The best interest is “both parents,” he said. Maschi agreed, stating that “best interest” needs to be legally defined. 

Cultural attitudes must change, said Holstein, especially the feminist myth that fathers aren’t needed. “Children are entitled to both parents,” he said. 

The Massachusetts family is in decline. And for the fractured families trying to do the best for their kids under bad circumstances, Beacon Hill doesn’t seem to be listening. 

Holstein noted that Department of Social Services Interim Commissioner Jeffrey Locke has yet to respond to a written request by Fathers and Families for a meeting. “He claimed he was reaching out to the community,” said Holstein, “but he apparently has turned us down.” Fathers and Families has about 1,300 members. 

“It’s a feminist war on fatherhood” and Cellucci and the legislature are beholden to the feminists, said Charalambous. “The feminists want to overthrow the nuclear family. They’re targeting the weakest link, the father-child relationship. Boys are being feminized.” 

George Gilder, president of Gilder Technology Group, Inc. in Housatonic, Mass., a former fellow at the Kennedy Institute of Politics, and the author of Men & Marriage, has said: “The Women’s Movement tragically reduces female sexuality to the terms of male sexuality. … And this really destroys the family. … Marriage and family are the foundations of civilized life, and anything that tends to be hostile to the formation of families--or receptive to their breakup--tends to increase social problems and decrease productivity. 

“For instance, I think the feminist movement probably hurts young boys. In the cases I’ve cited in which the man leaves home, families headed by females tend to make it more difficult for boys to grow up into responsible and loving adults. That leads to increasing distress among women about the quality and attitudes of men they know--and the circle closes in on itself. Yet the response of some of these women is to advocate yet more women’s liberation, when this process is the cause of the problem rather than the solution to it.” 

Family Decline and Easy Divorce 

In its 1999 annual report, released last month, the Massachusetts Family Institute reported: “The percentage of fatherless families in the Commonwealth has more than quadrupled since 1960. … In addition, most of the destructive social trends that are directly linked to fatherlessness continue to plague the Commonwealth. Massachusetts continues to experience historically high levels of youth crime, violent crime, drug abuse, and incarceration. … As long as record percentages of children are raised in fatherless homes in Massachusetts, homicides and other violent crimes will continue to plague the Commonwealth.” 

The social and legal consequences of family decline are grim. The Institute found that 29% of all families in Massachusetts are fatherless. It also found that more than 25% of all children in Massachusetts are born to unwed mothers, and that the divorce rate here has more than doubled since 1960. Furthermore, the Institute gathered abundant evidence that shows “that family decline is at least a significant causal factor (if not the primary cause) of the rising level of these social pathologies in Massachusetts.” Studies strongly suggest a connection, the Institute said, between the decline of traditional families and the following trends in the Bay State: 

* Crime rate more than tripled since 1960. 

* Violent crime rate 13 times higher than in 1960. 

* Homicides up more than 100% since 1960. 

* Number of criminals under age 17 up by more than 90% since 1979. 

* Adult prison population more than tripled since 1980. 

* More than 39% of kids aged 12-13 report using illegal drugs. 

* Percentage of children living in poverty more than doubled since 1970; today, 20% of all kids in Massachusetts live in poverty. 

While that was happening, the legislature took a few steps to make life better for broken families--for kids and their mothers, and for divorced dads. But the help for fathers has been too little, say many critics. Divorced dads, in particular, who want to help in rearing their kids as best as they can, often face countless legal hurdles. As a result, “fatherlessness” is compounded because the laws and the courts tend to favor divorced moms. Fathers trying to be fathers are cropped from the picture because of state action--or the lack thereof. 

However, some things have improved over the last 30 years, said Al Bonica. In the past, divorced fathers had almost no choices. Courts almost always sided with the moms and the dads spent most of their time working to pay alimony and child-support. Custody or visitation rights were very limited. 

But Bonica agreed, as many observers do, that the primary problem is divorce itself--it’s too easy. In 1997, the latest year for which statistics are available, more than 23,000 Massachusetts couples were divorced. About 65% of these couples had children. Custody was awarded to the mothers in about 96% of those cases. 

The Massachusetts Family Institute reported: “Although the divorce rate has declined since 1985, the fact remains that the divorce rate in Massachusetts more than doubled between 1960 and 1997. … The increase in the divorce rate has contributed to the dramatic increase in fatherless families in Massachusetts. … Research shows that the divorce of parents inflicts significant long-term trauma on children.” 

According to Dr. Judith Wallerstein in an article published by the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: “[A] significant number of children suffer long-term, perhaps permanent detrimental effects from divorce, and others experience submerged effects that may appear years later.” 

The Journal of Family Psychology has reported: “The effects of marital discord and family disruption are visible 12 to 22 years later in poor relationships with parents, an increased likelihood of dropping out of high school and receiving psychological help.” 

Nationwide, about one million children experience the divorce of their parents, reports the Heritage Foundation. In addition, America has the highest divorce rate in the world, and the number of kids living with divorced parents continues to rise: 8.1% in 1997, up from 7.5% in 1993. 

“Divorce today is too easy,” said Bonica. “No-fault divorce is the worst thing that’s happened. The old way was the better way, when you had to bring up a charge against the person.”  Bonica added that cohabitation was illegal in Massachusetts until Gov. Michael Dukakis signed a bill that made “shacking-up” legally okay. “This is why we’re in trouble today,” said Bonica. 

Charalambous told Massachusetts News: “There should be consequences to divorce. A parent can’t just move and take the kids and throw the other parent away. Divorce would plummet if mothers knew they’d have to deal with the fathers.” 

This is a message that Massachusetts judges should be sending in their courtrooms, he said, adding that the laws should be changed to make divorce much harder for both parents. 

Welfare Hurts Families 

Divorce may be the fundamental cause of fatherlessness, but out-of-wedlock births aren’t helping matters. About 25% of Massachusetts’ children are born to unwed mothers. This percentage of births is more than three times greater than in 1970, reported the Massachusetts Family Institute. (This matches nationwide figures of out-of-wedlock births. For blacks the situation is bleaker: 70% of births nationwide are to unwed mothers, up from 58% in 1980.) 

The Institute went on to say, “The increase in the percentage of births to unmarried mothers has contributed to the dramatic increase in fatherless families in Massachusetts.” The Institute added that, “Studies have shown that children who are born out-of-wedlock are significantly less likely to become healthy and productive adults than children born to traditional families.” Studies have shown that children born to unwed mothers are 50% more likely to suffer from psychological problems, such as anxiety and depression. 

The increase in births to unwed mothers has also pushed more people onto welfare during the last 30 years, reported the Institute. Some 50% of all welfare cases are the result of births to unwed women. 

On a related note, the Institute found that welfare spending in 1998 in Massachusetts was more than two times that in 1960. Spending through the Women, Infants, and Children program in 1997 was nearly 234 times greater than in 1974. And, the spending per pupil in Massachusetts’ public schools rose about 95% between 1970 and 1997. 

“Nonetheless, the level of many social pathologies related to two-parent family decline has risen in Massachusetts during much of the same period that government social spending in a wide range of areas has also increased,” said the Institute. 

George Gilder has said: “To the extent that welfare programs usurped the male role of provider, it would be impossible to maintain intact families. … In the ghetto, the chief reason the male-provider role is unavailable is that it’s performed so much better by the government through the welfare state. … His provider role is absolutely central to the family: If the state replaces the male provider, you don’t have families. The welfare state cuckolds the man. That is why we have 80% illegitimacy rates in the inner cities. The welfare state has been far more destructive to the black family than slavery was.” 

Without fathers to discipline and guide them, young men gravitate to gangs and engage in criminal activity and other “macho displays,” said Gilder, which compounds social problems and destroys families. The welfare state “destroys men and drives them into increasingly futile virility rites--fighting and crime and drugs,” he said. 

Citing numerous studies, the Institute reported: “There is a strong connection between criminal behavior and being raised in a fatherless family. … African-American youths raised in fatherless families on welfare and living in public housing were twice as likely to end up in jail as African-American youths raised in traditional families on welfare and living in public housing.” 

While 29% of all families in Massachusetts are fatherless, the United States is the world leader in fatherless families, reported the Institute.