Father's Rights: The OI Thread

[Richard Nixon]

Since there's a father's rights debate topic in the Discrimnation forum and I'm mildly interested I've decided to create one for OI (which hopefully will have more ahem... diverse.... opinions).

One of the points on father's rights I agree with is on child support. I do agree that if parents divorce the other parent should pay some support but my uncle for instance: he has a rather low-paying job but he has to money to that ***** who divorced so that her daughter can get say gold fillings for a toothache (really, I'm not joking).

[Demogorgon]

There seems to be a popular belief that child support simply means that a father has to pay the mother money. Rather it goes both ways. The parent with main custody receives money from the othe rparent, but that may not be applied if they are substantially better off than the other.

As for father's rights, I believe that there should be a presumption in favour of joint custody, notwithstanding other factors, though obviously if a child has a preference for staying with one parent over another, that should be taken seriously.