Thompson R A
Center on Children, Families, and the Law, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Future Child. 1994 Spring;4(1):210-35.
Fathers figure prominently in a child's postdivorce life whether they are involved or disinterested, but concerns about inadequate child support, noncustodial fathers who fail to visit, and the economic plight of single mothers have together raised policy questions about how better to enfranchise fathers with the rights and responsibilities of parenting and ensure them a continuing and meaningful role in the lives of their offspring. This article focuses on obstacles and avenues to ensuring a meaningful postdivorce parenting role for fathers by examining the effects on them of custody standards, visitation policies, child support guidelines and their enforcement, and the other economic arrangements surrounding contemporary divorce. In the end, public policies that foster the child's unconflicted relationships with each parent in the context of reliable and adequate economic support will require new ways of structuring relations between ex-spouses in the interests of offspring (for example, new approaches to custody and visitation), nonadversarial modes of assisted dispute resolution to accommodate postdivorce changes in family life, child support policies which guarantee that a child's economic needs will be met when parents are unable to provide adequately (and that assist parents who are unable to provide), and that recognize and ensure both the relational and the economic contributions of each parent to a child's well-being.
无论父亲在孩子离婚后的生活中是积极参与还是漠不关心，他们都占据着显著地位。但是，对子女抚养费不足、非监护方父亲不探视以及单身母亲经济困境的担忧，共同引发了政策问题，即如何更好地赋予父亲养育子女的权利和责任，并确保他们在子女生活中持续发挥有意义的作用。本文通过研究监护标准、探视政策、子女抚养指导方针及其执行情况，以及当代离婚相关的其他经济安排对父亲的影响，重点探讨了确保父亲在离婚后发挥有意义养育作用的障碍和途径。最后，在可靠且充足的经济支持背景下，促进孩子与父母双方建立融洽关系的公共政策，将需要以有利于子女的方式构建前配偶之间关系的新方法（例如，新的监护和探视方式）、适应离婚后家庭生活变化的非对抗性辅助争端解决模式、保证在父母无法充分提供时满足孩子经济需求（并帮助无力提供的父母）且认可并确保父母双方对孩子幸福的关系和经济贡献的子女抚养政策。
