This is a lot to process. Apparently, there's a book, too.<p>Divorce is child abuse. Custody battles are the worst, ugliest parts of a divorce, and the parents will perpetually pit their children against the other spouse if they harbor ill will in some way.<p>I can't speak globally. But everywhere in these United States, mothers are preferred implicitly over fathers in terms of custody and support. It doesn't seem like the courts care about who's the best choice, who's the most loving, who's the most supportive, who's the least abusive, the kids just go to Mom and that's the end of the story. It starts at conception where a father just loses all his rights.<p>I fathered two children, and I looked up a few bits of law: if the putative father is absent at the birth, he's off the birth certificate and will never have rights. There's some legal intricacy I may remember poorly, but the father must act decisively to gain parental rights, because they always default to Mom and losing them is that easy for Dad.<p>There's actually a very poignant inscription when a church keeps baptismal records for children: <i>Pater Ignotus</i> means "Father Unknown". When I learned that, I basically shed a tear for every child who's ever had that misfortune. And that number grows daily.<p>Paying child support to Mom makes a lot of sense where the woman is universally an unskilled homemaker with no professional career and no independent means of support. Due to Women's Liberation and equality, it would seem that child support is more or less moot for women who make their own living. Except, of course, that poor Mom now has to go to work and keep her career together while simultaneously raising children at home somehow. If Mom and Dad were both working, then of course it's going to be Dad paying the support while Mom keeps all the rest. Good times.