The night Kate Morris moved out of her home in an affluent Wheaton subdivision, a neighbor rushed out to stop her.
”I had waited until night just to avoid people seeing me . . . but she came out and grabbed me and said, `Do not do this. Don`t abandon your children.` I stood there in the street, crying and trying to say, `You don`t understand. You don`t understand.` ”
Kate Morris did what many people believe is the unthinkable: She left her two children in the custody of their father. She`s not an alcoholic, she doesn`t take drugs, she didn`t beat the kids and no court ever declared her an unfit mother. But after weighing her options, she was the one who said, ”You take them.”
She is in a small minority, but the number of noncustodial mothers is growing. (”Kate Morris” is not her real name. The names of the noncustodial parents interviewed for this article, except for those speaking in official capacities, were changed to ensure privacy for them and their children.)
In 1985, about 13 percent of children living with a divorced parent were living with their fathers, according to a census report. In 1975, only 8.5 percent of children from divorces went with the father.
”On one hand, I think there`s a growing feeling on the part of women of, `Hey, wait a minute. You`re not just going to walk away and leave me here with total responsibility of these kids,` ” says Dr. Lee Martin, a Chicago-area psychologist who grew interested in the problems of the noncustodial parent when he became one.
”And on the other side, there`s a consciousness-awakening on the part of men that they want to be part of their children`s development.”
Census figures and rationales, however, do not reflect the word used most often by the women interviewed for this article. That word is ”stigma.”
Something `wrong`?
”Society says there must be something terribly wrong with you if you leave your children. You must be a whore; you must have done something so bad,” says Elaine Lane, a noncustodial mother who lives in Atlanta and is in charge of organizing the fifth annual convention of Mothers Without Custody, a national support group formed in 1981.
”I made the decision in the best interest of my children. But I have felt so guilty, so rejected. The guilt can be lessened if the woman has the support of her friends, her family, her coworkers, but it`s horse—- to think that`s going to happen. People look at you as if you`ve got three heads on your shoulders.”
Kate Morris realized that the only way she could get out of a bad marriage and save her sanity was to let her husband keep the house and the children.
Abused as a child, she met her husband when she was 16 and married him at 18. She became pregnant with their first child when she was 20, and, she says, that`s when her husband began a lengthy string of affairs. After their second child was born, she started eating. ”I went over 200 pounds. I abused myself by eating. I was 24. I woke up one morning, and thought, `What am I doing with all this weight?` ”
She sought counseling, lost the weight and started working part time. As she neared 30, she also began to re-examine her relationship with her husband: ”I brought up divorce, but he said no, why should he want a divorce? He loved the house and he loved the kids. And he`s a good father; he coaches Little League and all that. He told me that he had stopped loving me a long time ago, but now that I was thin, he was beginning to love me again. Bull. He was still having his affairs. He wouldn`t go to counseling with me. He said I was the one with problems.
”Then one day, I was in the car, and I thought, `What if I move out and let him keep the kids?` I called him at work. He said, `Why didn`t I think of that?` ”
She`s in an apartment now and has a full-time job. The children spend three nights a week and every other weekend with her.
”I feel that right now he`s the better parent. He`s happier than I am. He`s got a new romantic interest and he`s more stable. I need to be alone for a while. I know I`m not in the best (emotional) shape.”
Her shaky sense of self-esteem is rubbed raw by such incidents as the neighbor who tried to stop her from leaving. Her mother calls every other night, begging her to return to the children.
`A mother at risk`
”The mother without custody is at risk,” says Steve Stone, director of the Naperville Community Outreach Program. A social worker, Stone started a support group for noncustodial parents in March. The idea for the group, called the Du Page Noncustodial Parents, grew out of his own pain as a noncustodial parent. The new group has eight regular members; three are women. ”Men and women go through a lot of the same experiences. Pain, confusion . . . one day you`re a mother or a father and the next day it`s, `Where are my children? How are my children?`
”But what is different with the women is the tremendous stigma they have to learn to adapt to and the guilt that comes with that. How the community looks at you (the noncustodial mother) isn`t an issue men face.”
In his 1985 book ”Single Fathers” (Lexington Books, paperback, $8.95), Dr. Geoffrey Greif, a social worker, comments: ”Many mothers give up custody for the well-being of the children. Instead of being praised, they become the lightning rod for negative misperceptions.”
For Anne Barnes, lack of money was the reason she gave up custody of her four children–plus the fact that her husband was a good father.
But giving up custody made it difficult for her to vent the rage she felt toward him. He had met someone else and wanted out of the 15-year marriage.
”I was a housewife. I had no known earning capability. I believed my choice was to live in poverty with four children, split my paycheck with a baby-sitter–and I didn`t even know what I could do. I saw myself an impoverished, bitter mother. The other option was letting him have custody. It was the lesser of two evils.
”Then I thought if he was going to have custody, I could never bad-mouth him. I could never give blame. I couldn`t say anything in my behalf. I hid from people. Even when I went to the grocery store, I looked up and down the aisles to make sure I didn`t know anyone.
”People felt sorry for him. The women in the neighborhood took him covered casseroles, that sort of thing. For five years, I operated totally in grief and fear. I cleaned apartments, I took any kind of job I could get.”
More than 10 years have passed for Anne Barnes. She lives in Chicago and says she has maintained a good relationship with her children, although there`s almost an unspoken taboo against talking about the fact that Mom left. And she got her revenge.
”I got rich (she heads her own consulting firm). I worked my ass off. And–I`m embarrassed to say this–but that was my revenge.”
Social worker Sara Bonkowski, who did a comparison of divorced custodial fathers and mothers for her doctoral dissertation at the University of Illinois-Chicago in 1981, says that the problems faced by the noncustodial mother are ”one of the dilemmas of our time.”
`Another layer of sadness`
”I hate to say this, but it`s hard on the kids,” says Bonkowski.
”Children want mothers to love them beyond all else. They can say, `Mom needed to go to grad school,` but underneath those little words is another layer of sadness. That puts a tremendous burden on mothers. Whose needs are going to be met?”
It also can put an additional burden on the men who end up with the children.
”My children still would like for it to be the way it was (before the divorce). They still miss their mother,” says David Kane, whose two children were 3 and 6 when he was divorced five years ago.
”I feel bad about that. I know I can do just so much, but I`m disappointed that I can`t be everything for them.”
Kane and his former wife agreed that he would have custody. ”I wanted them. I would hate to be without them. There were a lot of reasons–and I still don`t understand everything, but I think it was difficult for her to handle everything. She needed to sort things out.”
The maternal instinct isn`t of equal intensity in all mothers, says Bonkowski. Many noncustodial mothers live with continual guilt, but others choose to relinquish custody because their own needs take precedence. They are able to walk away without all the guilt.
Nancy, 17, a sophomore at the University of Chicago, was 5 when her parents divorced. She and her brother, then 3, initially lived with their mother, but it just didn`t work. As Nancy says now, ”My mother was a real me- oriented person. We had to stay out of her way a lot. She wasn`t a very pleasant person. She wasn`t a bad mother; she just felt she was capable of a lot more, and she was. But the kids stood in her way.”
Nancy and her brother spent more and more time with their father and eventually moved in with him. Their mother went back to school and became a nurse. She now lives in another state. ”My father absolutely was a more nurturing person. If I had continued living with my mother even part-time, it would have been bad. Now we have a good relationship because she doesn`t have to worry about being a parent. So we relax.”
In a time when most children of divorced families live with their mother, Nancy had to deal with friends who thought it was strange that she lived with her father.
”It was hard for them to comprehend I had to buy a plane ticket to see my mom. But then they meet him, and they think he`s a neat guy.”
Maureen Tamillow, the Illinois and Midwest regional director of Mothers Without Custody, readily acknowledges that she has seen instances, such as with Nancy`s mother, in which mothers have walked away with more relief than regret.
”Not all mothers like being mothers. They`re not the ones who join
(Mothers Without Custody). The stigma and guilt aren`t an issue for them, so they don`t need a support group.”
Anger — and acceptance
For those who do need help, Mothers Without Custody offers emotional and practical support. ”Most of the (noncustodial) mothers I know (in the organization) go through a grief-and-anger process,” says Tamillow. ”It`s a lot like the process of dying. Finally you come to acceptance.
”I get anywhere from 5 to 25 calls a month. Emotional support is the primary goal. Then we try to give information, (refer them to) lawyers who have empathy for the situation, who will understand the monetary angles of the support issue and will be aggressive (toward preventing support payments by the mother). What can a woman do when she makes little money and is presented with a 20 percent support demand?”
Money problems, frequently the reason the mother relinquishes custody, sometimes deal a double whammy.
Lucy Watkins found out the hard way.
A nurse, she was working the night shift and making about $20,000 a year. She received $600 a month in child support for the three children. She was having trouble meeting mortgage and car payments, plus household and baby-sitting expenses. The clincher was that she was always exhausted.
”I would get home around 8:30 in the morning, just in time to finish up with the kids` breakfast and then brush their hair,” says Watkins. ”I had a neighbor girl come in to spend the nights. The kids got home from school around 3:15, and it was taking them to T-ball practice, soccer and dinner at 5. I`d leave for work around 8. I was throwing up all the time from lack of sleep.
”My ex had married three weeks after the divorce, and their combined income was about $75,000. They bought a five-bedroom house. All I wanted to do was sleep. We talked it over–the kids and I–and we cried a lot. They went to live with their father. We changed it so that he had legal custody.
”Then he sued me for child support. We went to court. I got assessed $80 a week.
”I still feel I did the best thing as far as custody for the kids. They`re in a nice house; they`re part of a family. But I miss them so much. I have thought about suicide. I feel so guilty, as if I`ve really messed up my life. When this happens to men, people invite them for a home-cooked meal. I wish someone would invite me to a home-cooked meal.”
Although single fathers initially may get sympathy, support and covered casseroles, their lives usually settle into the same kind of tough routine that single mothers experience.
”I get tired, physically and mentally. It`s harder than I would have thought it would be,” says David Kane. ”When one of the kids gets sick, I have to take the time off–vacation days. My company, AT&T, has been very understanding. A social life? That`s something I won`t be thinking about for a while. There`s no time.”
Avoiding the ostracism
Many noncustodial mothers are reluctant to tell people they have children. ”You meet people and they say, `Oh, are you divorced?` ” says Barb Taylor, active in Mothers Without Custody. ”Then they say, `Do you have kids?` Women often say `No, I don`t,` for a while anyway. That way, they avoid the glances and that look in the eyes like a curtain is coming down. It`s hard to deal with the fact that most people think you must be a horrible person.” When Debra Watts and her husband were divorced, they agreed on joint custody. The children would stay put, and the parents would take six-month turns living in the family home.
It looked good on paper, but it didn`t work.
”I was the first to leave. At the end of the six months, he said he could not go ahead with that part of the agreement. He wouldn`t move out,”
she said.
”I could have gone to court, but I didn`t want to drag the kids through that. He traveled a lot, and when he was gone I would go stay at the house. The pain, though, was that I wasn`t with them every day. At the beginning, it was so bad that I was physically ill with stomach problems and headaches. I kept telling myself that men probably go through this all the time because they don`t usually get custody.
”And, of course, the attitude was that I must be an unfit mother. If it hadn`t been for a couple of women friends I could talk to, I don`t think I could have survived. That first year especially was so bad. Now I tell people not to make any decisions the first year. You`re not thinking right.”
For the noncustodial mother, it`s an uncharted life. Many don`t know any other women in similar situations, and isolation is layered onto the other pain.
”We are the beginning and we don`t know what path to take,” says Lucy Watkins. ”I feel so much of the time that I`m going around in circles.”
Elaine Lane, in the midst of planning the Mothers Without Custody convention, is somewhat cynically optimistic.
”When I was a child, I suffered the stigma of (my parents`) divorce. Now divorce isn`t a stigma. But a woman not keeping her children is a new idea, and society says it`s wrong.
”Only time will tell whether our decisions are right. It will probably get to the point where it`s not a stigma anymore. And something else will take its place.” —
For information about the national organization of Mothers Without Custody, write P.O. Box 56762, Houston 77256-6762. National dues are $18 a year.
For local information on Mothers Without Custody, call Illinois coordinator Maureen Tamillow at 860-5948.
The newly formed Du Page Noncustodial Parents group, for both men and women, meets at 8 p.m. on the second and fourth Sunday nights of each month at Central Du Page Hospital in Winfield. For more information, write P.O. Box 934, Wheaton 60187, or call either 231-3930 or 469-0619.
LEGAL ADVICE FOR MOMS
A woman is going through the trauma of divorce and is considering giving custody of the children to their father.
What kind of advice should she get from her lawyer?
”First, I would tell the woman what the legal consequences will be of her decision,” says Charlotte Adelman, Chicago lawyer and author of legislation that allows for automatic enforcement of child-support collection in Cook County.
”She should not think that someday she will get them back. Within the first two years (if she wants custody), she has to prove a serious
endangerment (to the child); after two years, she has to prove a change in circumstances. That`s true for mothers and fathers.
”The courts don`t want children used like some kind of football. The feeling is that there should be security in the child`s life. So if she has chosen to (give up) custody, if it hasn`t been contested, it is probably a permanent thing.
”I`d tell her about child support. The guideline is that the noncustodial parent pays 20 percent (of net income) for the first child, 25 percent for two and 32 percent for three. Adjustments in that can be made if one parent has much more money than the other.
”I would tell her that she might have problems with visitation. It`s been my experience that (visitation problems) are sex-neutral. Fathers bemoan the fact that their (former) wives won`t let them see the children, but it`s exactly the same thing when they have custody. The custodial parent has the power to refuse phone calls, refuse giving information, refuse the visits. That`s not sanctioned by the courts, certainly, but to deal with it, you have to go back to court.
”I would emphasize that if the father is in a financially secure situation and she isn`t, she probably doesn`t have the trump card of being able to threaten `I`ll take you to court` if he withholds visitation. She might just be out. It`s a practical matter if she can`t miss classes or work to spend time and money in court. The realities of the court system are very different than the theoretical.
”I would consider that advice my duty. I would probably also mention that people are going to look at her in a certain way.” —
