Contributed by David Vesper, State Director for The Alaska Fathers’ Rights Movement
Part one of my article was in response to a woman that wrote to The Alaska Fathers’ Rights Movement. This woman’s friend had been deriding the father of her child through text messages. She could not understand why her friend would act this way and could see the strain it caused through the father-child relationship. Though he did not abandon his child, he was subjected to emotional and psychological abuse by his child’s mother. This emotional abuse towards the father caused transference onto the child. So, now the child suffers from emotional trauma as a result of the mother’s actions and words towards the father.
However, the mother’s actions are not only common, it is socially accepted, and this behavior is often reinforced in family law in Alaska; whereas the father abandoning his children is socially sanctioned, and often admonished in family law in the form of child support.
Legislation, though passed into law in good faith, can have unforeseen negative social impact. Federal laws often mandate what the states can and cannot do. As a tool for states to comply, the federal government will often withhold additional funding or incentivize funding. So, states like Alaska pass their own legislation to comply with federal guidelines. As a result of Alaska’s compliance for federal laws, the state has created a perfect storm for such an environment to occur in our social circles for which one example scenario was described in Part #1.
The scenario in #Part 1 of the series is the weaponization of a combination of the Child Support Act of 1988, the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, the abolition of the Tender Years Doctrine and Motherhood Preference in the 1970s in favor of the “child’s best interest” standard and the lack of paternal rights for unwed fathers.
The Child Support Act of 1988 gave teeth to the Social Security Act of 1974 that forced states to develop child support guidelines and authorized the states to garnish paychecks to secure child support payments. Alaska adopted the flat-rate percentage-of-income model in which only the non-custodial parent’s income is determined against the number of children and total time of yearly visitation. This provides incentives for one parent to pursue a redistribution of familial wealth and encourage custodial interference since the less amount of visitation equates to more monthly child support payments. Though it is illegal under Alaska statutes for custodial parents to interfere with visitation, this is rarely enforced.
Since Alaska has adopted the requirements under the Violence Against Women’s Act of 1994, Alaska has adopted domestic violence laws that were rated the worst in the United States by Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE) for the least possible threshold to claim abuse, the most incentives to file for protective orders, and the least amount of due process for the accused. In Alaska, domestic violence under the Preponderance of Evidence standard is a determining factor in all custody cases. This provides the incentives to file for protective orders in lieu of a custody battle. Then, the burden of proof falls on the accused to show the court that he or she is not an abuser and, therefore, a fit parent.
The abolition of the Tender Years Doctrine and the Motherhood Preference was intended for both parents to become equal under the law. Alaska state laws are written in non-gender specific language to provide the equal presumption between both parents. As a result, parents will go through great lengths to prove the other parent is unfit for custody. Often, this leads to high-conflict parental relationships and damages the mental health of their children.
This perfect storm of unintended social consequences has been perpetual since these laws were passed decades ago. The inability for legislators to react to social dynamics have cost the state millions of dollars and presents itself as a multi-generational social issue. The scenario in Part #1 was only one example of a series of complex issues that surround family law in Alaska. So, I urge state legislators and those candidates that are running for state office to consider the consequences of their inaction.
It will take much courage for legislators to make a bold approach towards family law reform, and it starts with rebuttable presumption of 50/50 shared custody between separated parents. The “child’s best interest” standard has been an ambiguous legal precedence that provides cowardly judges to adjudicate their decisions behind this standard in absence of a specific definition under AS 25.24.150(c), 1-9. The ambiguous language under AS 25.25.150 (c), 1-9 has created the notion of “mother-friendly” or “father-friendly” judges in Alaska.
Even though the law appears to be egalitarian, the outcomes are not. Mothers retain either sole or primary physical custody 85% of the time. This encourages the “gatekeeper” mentality among custodial parents that have a negative impact on children. Part #3 will address the negative impacts of single-custody parental homes in which the father is not a consistent member of the family.