Happy Fathers Day

Research shows that fathers are extremely important, as their presence is correlated with all good parenting outcomes. Eg, crime comes from kids raised in fatherless homes. Kids do better with fathers in every way that anyone has ever measured. Singles dads do better than single moms.

Fathers Day usually has a lot of messages blaming fathers for not doing more. In a way, this is a recognition of the crucial importance of fathers.

If the importance of fathers were truly recognized, then fathers would get child custody in divorce cases. Instead, the bias is against fathers. Angelina Jolie sued Brad Pitt for divorce 5 years ago, and says she will never forgive him for seeking joint custody, and is now trying to manipulate the kids to testify against him. If the importance of fathers were really recognized, then the case would have ended 5 years ago.

The scientific evidence doesn't really prove what it appears. It is possible that all the bad outcomes are caused by bad mothering, and bad behavior by the mom is also what drives the dads away.

Or it may be that the parenting practices are irrelevant. The damage may be all at the genetic level. That is, the mom may have bad genes that cause her to choose dads with bad genes, and cause her to be unable to keep a husbands. Inheritance of those bad genes is then what causes the bad outcomes in kids, not the bad parental behavior.

Regardless, we would all be better off with a father custody rule. The consensus of the comments on the above story is that Jolie is a evil lunatic who should never have been allowed to litigate custody for 5 years.