4 ms·

> This simply isn't true, 2 of the 3 cases I know the dad got 80/20, primarily because he had a more stable situation, such as a full time job as a nurse, and/o

> This simply isn't true, 2 of the 3 cases I know the dad got 80/20, primarily because he had a more stable situation, such as a full time job as a nurse, and/or owning a house. I like my refutations with sources.

refulgentis 6y ago
It's extremely disproportionate to take a magnifying glass to evidence that _has_ to be anecdotal, by definition, when my interlocutor didn't even try including an anecdote. It's so disproportionate that I believe you're piling on bad-faith snark, not looking for me to post family court paperwork
woofie11 6y ago
http://realworlddivorce.com/ http://realworlddivorce.com/ has in-depth state-by-state statistics, interviews with lawyers (who see many cases), and is incredibly well-researched. TL;DR: Dads very rarely get more than 50/50 custody in most states. If parents play equal roles, states range from 50/50, to primary custody to the Mom. For Mom to get less than 50/50, she's probably on drugs, in prison, or actively abusive, and even in some of those cases, Mom gets pretty significant custody.
- refulgentis 6y ago
  Unfortunately, I'm also familiar with real world divorce, and there's no universal claims like that in the text. I'm glad you've moved on to engaging on facts, can you point me to where on the site you found this data?
  - woofie11 6y ago
    It's all over. Here's an example: Massachusetts does not have a statutory presumption regarding physical custody following a trial, though lawyers told us that courts have strong biases. "The adage is that unless the woman has a hypodermic needle sticking out of her arm when she comes into the courtroom, she is getting sole physical custody and the father will be a visitor," said one attorney. Given the unofficial "mom wins" rule, it is surprising how many custody fights that there actually are. Part of the answer may be that the one-page official complaint form that is used to start divorce lawsuits has a checkbox to ask for sole legal and physical custody of minor children but no checkbox for seeking joint legal or physical custody. (The same one-page form that invites a divorce plaintiff also to start a custody lawsuit has a checkbox for starting a domestic violence lawsuit as well; the plaintiff can ask the judge to "prohibit defendant from imposing any restraint on plaintiff's personal liberty," i.e., issue a restraining order against the defendant.) To see if the attorneys we contacted were exaggerating and/or if the bias towards sole custody indicated by the official state form did not reflect outcomes, we hired an attorney to pull and analyze all of the cases for one judge, Maureen Monks in Middlesex County, for 2009, 2010, and 2011 (approximately 350 cases per year, though not all of them involved disputed custody). Judge Monks awarded custody via temporary order to the mother in nearly all of the cases examined except for one case where the mother was a drug addict and another where the mother was in a mental hospital (and as soon as the mother was released from the mental hospital, Judge Monks awarded custody of the children back to her). During the three-year study period no father was successful in going to trial and obtaining a 50/50 shared physical custody situation from Judge Monks in the cases that our attorney-analyst examined. Our attorney-analyst for the May 2011 study concluded that one plaintiff mother was "objectively unfit" due to alcoholism; Judge Monks awarded her sole physical custody of three children. The record of Judge Monks is consistent with March 2014 U.S. Census Current Population Survey data suggesting that over 90 percent of custody lawsuits in Massachusetts are won by women (Census data doesn't track the lawsuits themselves, but shared parenting is uncommon in Massachusetts and the Census found that 97 percent of the Massachusetts residents collecting child support are women). This is consistent with our May 2011 analysis, which found that roughly 91 percent of the "primary parent" winners were women and only 7.5 percent of children were assigned to shared parenting. source: http://www.realworlddivorce.com/Massachusetts http://www.realworlddivorce.com/Massachusetts

refulgentis 6y ago

It's extremely disproportionate to take a magnifying glass to evidence that _has_ to be anecdotal, by definition, when my interlocutor didn't even try including an anecdote. It's so disproportionate that I believe you're piling on bad-faith snark, not looking for me to post family court paperwork

woofie11 6y ago

http://realworlddivorce.com/ http://realworlddivorce.com/ has in-depth state-by-state statistics, interviews with lawyers (who see many cases), and is incredibly well-researched. TL;DR: Dads very rarely get more than 50/50 custody in most states. If parents play equal roles, states range from 50/50, to primary custody to the Mom. For Mom to get less than 50/50, she's probably on drugs, in prison, or actively abusive, and even in some of those cases, Mom gets pretty significant custody.

refulgentis 6y ago
Unfortunately, I'm also familiar with real world divorce, and there's no universal claims like that in the text. I'm glad you've moved on to engaging on facts, can you point me to where on the site you found this data?
- woofie11 6y ago
  It's all over. Here's an example: Massachusetts does not have a statutory presumption regarding physical custody following a trial, though lawyers told us that courts have strong biases. "The adage is that unless the woman has a hypodermic needle sticking out of her arm when she comes into the courtroom, she is getting sole physical custody and the father will be a visitor," said one attorney. Given the unofficial "mom wins" rule, it is surprising how many custody fights that there actually are. Part of the answer may be that the one-page official complaint form that is used to start divorce lawsuits has a checkbox to ask for sole legal and physical custody of minor children but no checkbox for seeking joint legal or physical custody. (The same one-page form that invites a divorce plaintiff also to start a custody lawsuit has a checkbox for starting a domestic violence lawsuit as well; the plaintiff can ask the judge to "prohibit defendant from imposing any restraint on plaintiff's personal liberty," i.e., issue a restraining order against the defendant.) To see if the attorneys we contacted were exaggerating and/or if the bias towards sole custody indicated by the official state form did not reflect outcomes, we hired an attorney to pull and analyze all of the cases for one judge, Maureen Monks in Middlesex County, for 2009, 2010, and 2011 (approximately 350 cases per year, though not all of them involved disputed custody). Judge Monks awarded custody via temporary order to the mother in nearly all of the cases examined except for one case where the mother was a drug addict and another where the mother was in a mental hospital (and as soon as the mother was released from the mental hospital, Judge Monks awarded custody of the children back to her). During the three-year study period no father was successful in going to trial and obtaining a 50/50 shared physical custody situation from Judge Monks in the cases that our attorney-analyst examined. Our attorney-analyst for the May 2011 study concluded that one plaintiff mother was "objectively unfit" due to alcoholism; Judge Monks awarded her sole physical custody of three children. The record of Judge Monks is consistent with March 2014 U.S. Census Current Population Survey data suggesting that over 90 percent of custody lawsuits in Massachusetts are won by women (Census data doesn't track the lawsuits themselves, but shared parenting is uncommon in Massachusetts and the Census found that 97 percent of the Massachusetts residents collecting child support are women). This is consistent with our May 2011 analysis, which found that roughly 91 percent of the "primary parent" winners were women and only 7.5 percent of children were assigned to shared parenting. source: http://www.realworlddivorce.com/Massachusetts http://www.realworlddivorce.com/Massachusetts