Columnist Sandra Thompson: Expert challenges stereotype of deadbeat dads

Sandra Thompson is vice president/associate editor of the Las Vegas Sun. She can be reached at 259-4025 or e-mail at [email protected].

AN ARIZONA State University psychology professor is shattering myths about divorced fathers.

As a result of his eight-year study of 400 divorcing couples in Maricopa County, Ariz., Sanford Braver found that the stereotyped image of divorced fathers is not the norm, and that previous, widely accepted research on the subject was scientifically flawed.

Braver wrote about his findings last year in a book, "Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myths," published by Tarcher/Putnum.

He concluded that divorced dads are primarily not deadbeats, nor are they "runaway fathers" who abandon their children emotionally. The most "eye-opening" finding, Braver says, showed that divorced fathers did not fare better economically after the divorce.

That contradicted 1980s research promoting the "deadbeat dad" image. Braver specifically cites data released by Lenore Weitzman, then a Harvard sociologist, that said divorced mothers suffered a 73 percent decline in income, whereas divorced fathers enjoyed a 42 percent gain in their standard of living.

"Some call that research the most widely cited demographic of the 1980s," Braver says. "It changed divorce and support laws."

At the time, fathers were dubbed the villains in the divorce drama -- "men behaving badly." But the research to support that image, Braver says, came from divorced mothers. No one asked the fathers.

So when colleagues approached him several years ago to help with research on divorce's effect on children, Braver wrote a federal grant proposal that included interviewing fathers. He was approved for $1 million -- the largest grant devoted to understanding divorced fathers, he says.

Considered an expert on divorce issues, Braver's specialty is research methods and statistics. In reviewing Weitzman's research, he found flaws, which he says she eventually acknowledged. For example, Weitzman used before-tax income to make economic comparisons, which skewed the statistics. The research also assumed that all expenses, aside from child support, were paid by the custodial mother. It did not take into account clothing and other items bought by the noncustodial father.

However, in his research, Braver found that the standard of living for divorced mothers and fathers was about the same. Both were lower after the divorce. Generally, mothers and fathers suffer economically.

Braver also found that joint legal custody works well and is in the best interest of the children. Children do better emotionally, and divorced dads who share custody are more apt to pay child support and stay involved with their children.

Of course, joint legal custody is not appropriate, he says, in cases of chronic battering or abuse.

Just as there was a wave of reform in the 1980s, the time is ripe to change the judicial process now as it relates to divorce and Family Court matters.

The system, Braver says, promotes fighting and going to war.

"It's an adversarial process to determine the right and wrong party. It's in a legal context formed and developed for tort and liability. It's my lawyer hammers yours and who will win.

"Talk of winning, losing, warring and fighting is detrimental to the children."

We need to change the approach.

He draws a parallel: When his daughter was diagnosed with diabetes and became pregnant, a home health nurse visited her and her husband to help them deal with the disease and explain what they could expect.

"Why can't we have a similar social services outreach approach when a family's dissolving?" Braver asks.

"The courtroom and lawyers should be the last resort."

Now that's a concept that really shatters myths.

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