There is a men’s mental health crisis: What current paradigm would you change in order to help other men?

You should be entitled to an attorney in custody cases just the same as you are for criminal ones. If you can't afford one, one should be appointed to you. If the other parent files for child support and you have not responded, you should be sent an informational packet that provides a brief outline of these rights and what you can / should expect from a custody hearing.

The number of dudes that don't even try to be a part of their children's life is staggering, and at least based on the dudes I've spoken with a lot of the time it comes down to a misunderstanding of the potential impact that any bias present in family court can have on a man's relationship with his child. I knew a dude that had never even met his daughter, who at the time was eight years old, because he assumed that his having spent time in prison meant that he didn't stand a chance at getting any sort of visitation. He was wrong, and when I convinced him that was the case he was able to get visitation in no-time. At least last we talked he had a healthy relationship with his daughter, who ended up moving in with him when she turned 18 while she was going to college. That's probably my best success story, but there have been at least four other times that I know of where I was able to talk a dude into pursuing some form of joint custody and they had a near-100% success rate. Only one dude bombed it, and it was because he got back into heroin.

I think court appointed attorneys would be huge. It would be expensive, but the trade-off for allowing everyone a fair shake in family court would be 100% worth it. Studies show us time and time again that cutting a parent out of a child's life, even when substituting with another parental figure, is usually bad for kids. Anything that makes that happen less often would be a win in my book.

/r/AskMen Thread