Open letter to National Councillor Jacqueline Fehr

Below we publish an open letter from a woman to National Councillor Jacqueline Fehr.

Dear Ms. Fehr,
At the conference on joint custody held on February 23, 2011 in Solothurn, you addressed us with a presentation entitled "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater".

Ms. Fehr, you mentioned that it took you a very long time to understand..  can,  What are these men involved in this project about? Would it be possible that more time is needed? to understand the true core of the problem?

I take the liberty of quoting from your post:
More symbol than commitment Beyond its concrete responsibilities, custody has a strong symbolic significance. It seems that fathers, in particular, find it harder to find their role when they don't have custody. This close connection between the legal framework and personal role is difficult for most women to understand and feels alien. It took me a very long time to grasp what these men involved in this are really about, and why, for example, the amount of childcare provided differs only slightly between men with and without custody. It's not primarily about the specific level of involvement, but about the position itself. The study presented to us this morning by Linus Cantieni illustrates this quite clearly. Joint custody primarily affects fathers' satisfaction and far less so their actual involvement. In other words, most fathers don't want joint custody because they want to be more involved with their children, but because they perceive shared custody as a setback and a form of hierarchical subordination. Shared custody is experienced as a defeat, a humiliation, and a demotion. The father feels he can no longer interact with the mother as an equal. All these feelings are negative and negatively impact the post-marital family situation and the children's well-being.

Ms. Fehr, the study by Linus Cantieni revealed that 75% of fathers without custody want a change! They want to be storytellers, comforters, explainers of the world, band-aid providers, loving fathers during the week, and much more! They no longer want to be just the provider and the visiting father. And now you come along and claim that these very fathers have a problem with their sense of self-worth and the division of roles? That it's not about involvement  but about position? That these fathers experience shared custody as a defeat,  a humiliation, and a demotion?
You've really taken a long time to understand very little.

Ms. Fehr, in your statement on Wednesday, I questioned your blinkered perspective – how can you almost completely close your eyes and, as Vice President of Pro Familia Switzerland, pursue such policies? I am appalled and speechless – I hope you will never find yourself in a situation where the most important people in your life become estranged from you.

You talk about the child's welfare, about what is "best for the child." Ms. Fehr, you haven't understood anything there either. What's best for the child is both father AND mother – in equal measure, in fair measure, under the same conditions, with the same duties and rights.

I invite you to approach me and I will show you "our" world, the world of fathers whom you describe as men without a sense of self-worth, merely insisting on hierarchy.I would be happy to introduce you to men and women who understand what the unfortunate term "child welfare" actually means, and who understand that gender conflicts in our daily lives benefit no one…

 

Kind regards,
Brigitte Helfenstein
, VeV Switzerland,
mother with 50% custody
, teacher, emancipated and responsible parent.