So I got an amber alert on my phone last night. You know that extremely alarming sound that would have you believe a nuclear warhead was going off soon, and you've got 5 minutes to get to a bomb shelter or you're dead.

Amber alerts go off when a child has gone missing. Never a good thing, but we generally never know what context in which the child is missing. We just assume kidnapping and the worst, right?

Well later that night the local news comes on and guess what the main story was? The child that was abducted by his father, and the all out manhunt that ensued. My finace, looked up from the laundry and said, "That's so sad". I looked up from reading The Rational Male and initially agreed…

The story read something like this: "Little Jimmy was abducted by his father this evening. Father was at the mother's house for his 3 hour scheduled and supervised visit, when the man decided to take the boy without permission of the mother."

Police recovered the boy, alive and perfectly healthy, and showed the mother holding him and he did in fact, look like nothing had happened to him at all. Honestly had the look of a kid that was just taken out for ice cream.

They then showed a mugshot of the man, and announced their hunt to find him. I'm sure once he is found, he will be met with the strictest penalties a "kidnapper" can and should get.

I went back to reading but then started thinking... Why is it assumed that he maliciously took the child? Why do we assume that the child is better off with his mother anyway? What if this man just wanted more time with his son and the mother was being an unrelenting bitch, because frankly, she can get away with it? How many times is this scenario more likely than some evil kidnapper?

Amber alerts are a big deal, and they make it known. Alerts on the cell phone, gas station pumps, road signs, milk cartons you name it. Don’t get me wrong if a child goes missing it is a big deal. One should not be taken without the permission of the legal guardian and law enforcement should do everything they can to get the child back to his home safely. However our court system has made it to where it is always assumed that with the mother is the safest for a child. The father is the villain and kidnapper for wanting what is his, and we always take the side of the mother. Again stories like these have no other context than what I am providing. But we are left to our own devices to fill in the missing information, and the way our system is leads us to assume the worst. Of course I support traditional matriarchal roles. Even in nature, a father will try to kill his own offspring, and the young are left with only the mother to learn survival. I am not saying kids are better off with their fathers if there is a split, but for all we know, for all the police and the court system know, the mother could have been a crack addict and in this case the child was in fact better off with his dad.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this because to me it is just another example of how divorce and child support laws have completely screwed men. Even a good man, that just wants to spend time with his son, but has to have “scheduled” and “supervised” visits just because mom says so. Did the man even want to divorce? Was he a good, loving and providing man that could no longer appease his woman’s hamster, or whatever reason, so she’s allowed to get a divorce and full custody of the child for no reason and no questions asked? Probably not, the guy did have a mugshot. I’m just saying, that doesn’t automatically make him the villain…in a rational world anyway. The one we live in however…