I don’t automatically assume that when a divorce happens it must be the man’s fault*, or that women necessarily make better single parents. I do think that logo looks like something a disgruntled dad would put on rather than something an irreverent mom would put on. I also think that a person who would put that logo on their vehicle probably is the problem, or at least they aren’t the solution. Both parents are responsible for making sure the kids aren’t pawns in their fight.
I can easily imagine a divorce situation in which a mother unfairly denies her ex visitation rights as a means of revenge and/or control.
I have a much more difficult time imagining a father who wants his child to grow up happy and well-adjusted putting this decal on his jeep for the world to see. Regardless of anything his ex-wife did or did not do, THAT DECISION is going to cause his child pain and humiliation.
OK, then just imagine the same sticker with reversed genders. Is that something a mother who wanted nothing but the best for her child would put on her car?
There are a lot of NSFW bumper stickers out there. We don’t know anything about the context of this particular decal. Saying that it’s inappropriate for a child to look at, seems pretty out of character for BoingBoing… to me.
#notallchildren. Just the child of the hypotheocal author of this hypothetical dad.
Sure, if its something the kid has to see, its a dick move. And if this scenario has any basis in reality, the kid is subject to far worse.
Divorce is fucked. Complaining about how fucked it is, doesnt make the reality any worse. Not to someone on the inside, I guarantee you. That kid already knows the score, we arent stupid.
Its people outside the splash zone who find this sort of thing inconvenient.
In fact I’d say if you’re not thinking of the children in a situation like this then you probably don’t deserve custody of them.
Taking that fucked-up situation into the public sphere like this isn’t doing any wonders for the kids’ self-esteem. It’s one thing to know that your parents are using you as a pawn in the fucked-up mind games they play with each other. It’s another to get picked up by a parent driving a vehicle that has been transformed into a billboard to announce that fact to any and all passers-by.
Why not just buy the kid a t-shirt that says “my dad thinks my mom is a manipulative b****?”
“Airing your dirty laundry in public” as my Gram called it, doesn’t benefit anybody.
Divorce is hard on everyone involved except the lawyers; compounding that difficulty out of mere spite and bitterness is a dick move, regardless to gender.
IMO, if you’re willing to risk using or hurting your kid as a way of ‘getting even’ with your ex, then that makes you a pretty crappy parent, full stop.
Doesn’t matter which parent owns the car, it’s a shit statement to make and makes everybody involved look bad.
If it makes you laugh with anything but pity you’re an asshole.
I read it as being the mom’s vehicle since it is in her voice and to me put the blame on the father for doing something (again) to piss her off.
I imagine she pulls up to the school to get the kid. Kid whines that it’s dad’s weekend. Then she has to explain that the father is being a jerk again so weekend at dad’s it canceled. Eventually she gets sick of giving the explanation over and over and just prints on the vehicle so the kid doesn’t need to ask again when she drives up on a day that the dad was supposed to pick up the child.
But of course I have no idea and regardless of the person’s gender, this is no way to treat your kid.
Word. Leave the kids out of it, and don’t make it any harder on them than it has to be.
Even my favorite dark comedy about divorce, War of the Roses, fully understood that the kids are off limits… no matter how completely batshit the parents were acting by the end.
i’m going to go ahead and respectfully disagree that animal farm is about men’s rights during divorce proceedings and instead put forth my own hypothesis that is is a critique of stalinism.
cheers!
I believe the legal term is “parental alienation” and it is not kosher during a divorce
I always hated The Parent Trap and its various remakes because I couldn’t understand how anyone was supposed to empathize with a pair of divorcees who were so monstrously selfish that they not only denied their children contact with their other birth parents, but deprived them of even the knowledge of their twin siblings.
In the vast majority of cases, gender privilege favors cis men over cis women. And “men’s rights acticvists” don’t have a leg to stand on.
But when it comes to anything having to do with children, men are not the privileged gender, women are. Its caused a lot of problems for men in nursing, teaching, massage therapy… and parenting.
Most comments on this thread have been about how it’s the man’s fault here, which is in keeping with the prevailing bias.
