Reference no: EM133640312
Question 1. As men have become more involved in the nurturing of children, the courts no longer assume that "parent" means "mother." Instead, a new family relations model is emerging. It suggests that even nonbiological parents may be awarded joint custody or visitation rights as long as they have been economically and emotionally involved in the life of the child.
Question 2. Given that fathers are no longer routinely excluded from custody considerations, over half of the states have enacted legislation authorizing joint custody. About 16 percent of separated and divorced couples actually have a joint custody arrangement. In a typical joint physical custody arrangement, the parents continue to live near one another. The children may spend part of each week with each parent or may spend alternating weeks with each parent. New terminology is even being introduced in the lives of divorcing spouses and in the courts. The term "joint custody," which implies ownership, is being replaced with "shared parenting," which implies cooperation in taking care of children.
Question 3. There are several advantages to joint custody or shared parenting. Ex-spouses may fight less if they have joint custody because there is no inequality in terms of involvement in their children's lives. Children will benefit from the resulting decrease in hostility between parents who have both "won" them.
Question 4. Unlike sole-parent custody, in which one parent wins (usually the mother) and the other parent loses, joint custody allows children to continue to benefit from the love and attention of both parents. Children in homes where joint custody has been awarded might also have greater financial resources available to them than children in sole-custody homes.
Question 5. Joint physical custody may also be advantageous in that the stress of parenting does not fall on one parent but rather is shared. One mother who has a joint custody arrangement with her ex-husband said, "When my kids are with their dad, I get a break from the parenting role, and I have a chance to do things for myself. I love my kids but I also love having time away from them." Another joint-parenting father said, "When you live with your kids every day, you can get very frustrated and are not always happy to be with them. But after you haven't seen them for three days, it feels good to see them again."
Question 6. Decimated by war, first with France in the 1950s, then with the United States, the southeast Asian country of Vietnam appears to be booming again, with many of the country's citizens enjoying a sense of peace and well-being. That's true at least for those citizens who don't have freckles, white skin, or blue eyes. In Vietnam, freckles are a source of shame. They announce American parentage and make their owners despised because they are Vietnamese Amerasians, the children of mothers who slept with American soldiers during the country's war with the United States. Considered offspring of a once-hated enemy, Vietnam's Amerasians are despised by the people they live with and rejected by the country to which they believe they rightly belong: the United States.
Question 7. Initially, though, the United States did make attempts to reach a hand out to the children U.S. soldiers had left behind after the Vietnam War ended in 1975. The 1987 Congressional "Homecoming Act" even funded a city center for Vietnamese Amerasians. At the same time, the government also offered visas to the offspring of American soldiers. At that point, the only thing needed to qualify for a visa was an obviously mixed-race appearance. That alone could guarantee resettlement in the United States. But these good intentions on the part of the Americans were undermined when con artists began picking kids up off the streets and attaching them to fake relatives, who also wanted a new life in the United States.
Question 8. The easy visas, dried up as officials began demanding hard evidence-documents, letters, and pictures-as proof of an American father. The problem was that any such evidence had been quickly destroyed after the war with the United States ended and the Viet Cong took over Vietnam. No woman who had been involved with the enemy wanted visible proof of the relationship. In addition, a country in wartime doesn't usually excel at filing documents.
Question 9. Thus, Vietnam's Amerasians, most of whom desperately want to leave a country that despises them because of their parents, are left to search for their fathers on the Internet, using what little they know about their past to search out a father who may not even care to know they exist. For a number of years, they have had an ally in a Danish furniture painter named Brian Hjort, who created a website called FatherFounded.org. Backpacking through Vietnam in the 1990s, Hjort became friendly with some Amerasian war orphans, and was impressed by their generosity and warmth. He became determined to aid their cause, even though he knew most of the fathers he was searching for would probably never be found.
Question 10. Hjort's website has brought about a few successful reunions. But he depends on donations for continuing his work, and it's not clear how long he can carry on. Still, for now at least, the site remains in existence, and Hjort does his best to reunite American fathers with the children they fathered during war time, because as he says on his website, "Amerasians are paying the price for past events in Vietnam." In his mind, at least, someone needs to take responsibility for their plight.