Cushman

00:17
I'm six years old,
00:19
and all I can think about is getting the pink Barbie Corvette!
00:23
I need five more dollars.
00:26
Luckily for me, it's Easter,
00:28
and I know that my dad always hides one coveted five-dollar egg.
00:34
I also know the best egg is the hardest to find.
00:37
This year, I'm ready!
00:40
Before long, I spot it,
00:42
right in the middle of my sweet '70s swing set pole!
00:46
You know, the one that runs along the entire top of the set.
00:51
I scramble to get the ladder and the yardstick
00:53
and duct tape it to a broom handle.
00:55
I fish it into the pipe, and I shove at it hard.
00:58
It flies out the other side,
01:01
and by the time it hits the ground,
01:02
I'm waiting above it like an expectant father.
01:07
The egg cracks open
01:09
and inside ...
01:11
is the very opposite of my grand prize.
01:14
Instead, a perfectly formed dog turd rolls out.
01:19
(Laughter)
01:21
I burst into loud hysterics.
01:24
At the same time, my father explodes with laughter.
01:27
(Laughter)
01:28
I run as fast as I can to my room,
01:30
but he's not far behind.
01:32
It's time for one of his talks.
01:37
"Honey,
01:38
it was clear that you already learned the important life lesson:
01:41
the harder you work, the better the payoff.
01:44
So it was time that you learned another valuable lesson:
01:48
sometimes, no matter how hard you work,
01:51
you just end up with shit!"
01:53
(Laughter)
01:58
And who better
01:59
to teach just this sort of hard-hitting, direct, and painful life lesson
02:03
to six-year-old me
02:05
than my father?
02:07
I'm a divorce attorney.
02:08
I've been practicing for over 20 years.
02:11
I began in Los Angeles,
02:12
but I've owned my firm in Nevada since 2001.
02:16
My firm has a particular sub-specialty:
02:19
men's rights.
02:20
My nine female employees and I
02:22
specifically represent men in divorce and custody battles.
02:26
And guess who runs the business end of my law firm?
02:29
My father.
02:30
(Laughter)
02:32
In my practice,
02:33
we've represented over 2,000 men,
02:36
650 of whom are fathers.
02:39
My expertise not only comes from my career
02:42
but just as much from my personal life.
02:44
I'm a mother.
02:46
My children are 23, 15, 12, and barely 3.
02:50
They come from two different mothers and three different fathers.
02:53
Hooker!
02:54
Let me explain.
02:56
(Laughter)
02:57
Let me explain.
02:59
I helped my ex-husband raise our 23-year-old son,
03:02
whom I didn't birth,
03:03
from age 5.
03:04
I share custody of my 15-year-old daughter with the same father.
03:08
My 12-year-old son sadly lost his father to suicide
03:10
when he was just 7.
03:12
And my 3-year-old is being raised at home
03:14
with his father and me.
03:16
I literally live my work every day!
03:19
(Laughter)
03:20
So, what has 20 years of representing men in family law
03:24
while living my own reality show as a wife, mother, and daughter
03:29
taught me about fatherhood?
03:32
Allow me, if you will,
03:33
to start with the second thing I learned about fatherhood:
03:36
men parent differently than women.
03:38
Big surprise!
03:39
But their influence is crucial in the development of their children.
03:43
Do you know any mom in the world who would put dog shit in an Easter egg?
03:47
(Laughter)
03:48
Okay, maybe that's a good thing.
03:51
Let me better demonstrate this point from my legal experience.
03:54
When getting my father clients ready for court,
03:57
I prepare them for this kind of interrogation:
04:00
"Who's your children's doctor or dentist?"
04:02
"What's the name of your school principal or even their teacher?"
04:05
"What grades did they get on their last report card?"
04:08
Nine times out of ten, they miss the majority of these questions.
04:11
Seriously.
04:13
Does this mean they don't care or love their children as much?
04:16
I bet it makes you wonder.
04:17
But please, hold your judgement.
04:20
Here are the questions that my father clients can easily answer:
04:24
"If your son could be a superhero, what would his power be?"
04:28
"What kind of monsters do your kids fear?"
04:31
"How high does your daughter feel comfortable flying in a swing?"
04:35
"What makes your son feel defeated?"
04:37
Yet, in my experience cross-examining hundreds of mothers in family court,
04:42
these are the harder questions for them.
04:45
Most of us know, motherhood brings with it a sixth sense
04:49
and an unspoken bond to our children.
04:52
But what about fathers?
04:54
Even fathers feel insecure about this reality.
04:57
After representing 650 fathers,
05:00
I can count on one hand those that felt secure
05:03
in their instinctive role and significance to their children.
05:06
What's interesting is my anecdotal legal experience suggests otherwise.
05:12
In 20 years of practice, I've had over 100 men take a paternity test -
05:16
like Jerry Springer.
05:17
Seriously.
05:18
Do you know how many were wrong
05:20
in predicting their biological relation to the child?
05:23
Two.
05:25
This shocked me and taught me my third lesson:
05:28
fathers, too, have a genetic bond and instinct about their children
05:31
from infancy.
05:34
Forget where you are for a moment, seriously, and close your eyes.
05:38
I'd like to ask you to feel.
05:41
Think about your childhood.
05:43
Picture your father,
05:45
his smiling eyes, his strong hands.
05:48
Hear his deep voice.
05:51
What did you love about your dad?
05:53
Did he throw you high into the air?
05:55
Teach you to ride a bike?
05:57
Carry you home when you got hurt?
05:59
Push you when you tried to give up?
06:02
What did it feel like to have a daddy?
06:05
Secure?
06:06
Fun?
06:07
Challenging?
06:09
Now, go back in your memories and erase your father from every scene.
06:16
This is what the other 40 percent of people's childhoods look like.
06:20
Just under half the people listening to me,
06:22
including my own 12-year-old son,
06:25
felt sad, angry, or blank
06:29
during the peak of your joy, while playing along.
06:32
Eye-opening, isn't it?
06:34
Nearly two of every five children in America
06:37
are growing up without their fathers,
06:39
or 17 million, according to the 2016 census.
06:44
Other sources estimate as many as 30 million.
06:49
In 2011, I joined the board for a local charity
06:52
called Nevada Youth Empowerment Project,
06:54
or NYEP.
06:55
NYEP is a housing program for homeless girls ages 18 to 24.
07:00
As board president of this small charity,
07:02
I've been closely involved
07:04
and gotten to know the girls and their tragic stories over the years.
07:08
Hundreds of otherwise homeless girls have come to our program.
07:13
Their backgrounds and what they have endured
07:15
would haunt you.
07:16
Do you know the one thing all of these girls have in common?
07:20
They all come from fatherless homes.
07:22
Sadly, these girls aren't the exception;
07:26
they're the rule.
07:27
My fourth lesson about fatherhood came from the data.
07:31
According to the Center for Disease Control,
07:33
children from fatherless homes
07:35
account for 90 percent of all homeless and runaway kids,
07:39
71 percent of high school dropouts,
07:42
and 63 percent of youth suicides.
07:46
While you listen to me speak, you have to be wondering,
07:50
"What makes fathers so crucial?"
07:52
Honestly, the answer is complex and better explored by psychologists.
07:57
What I can tell you is that the data unequivocally tells us fathers are vital
08:03
and yet laws and society undervalue their importance,
08:07
making it harder for them to be in their children's lives.
08:10
Even fathers underrate their own value.
08:13
I know this data upsets a lot of mothers, me included.
08:19
But advocating for fathers isn't about diminishing mothers.
08:23
While children deserve both parents whenever possible,
08:25
this crisis is specific to fathers.
08:28
The occurrence of fatherlessness is epidemic,
08:31
the effects are catastrophic,
08:33
and the causes are male gender specific.
08:37
Nearly 30 years ago,
08:39
leading child psychologist Michael Lamb reminded us:
08:42
"Fathers are the forgotten contributors to child development."
08:47
Yet, researchers have found that children with involved fathers
08:50
have stronger cognitive and motor skills,
08:52
elevated physical and mental health,
08:55
become better problem solvers,
08:57
and are more confident, curious, and empathetic.
09:01
Sadly, we've had this data for 30 years,
09:05
and fatherlessness has only continued to rise during this time.
09:10
The main contributors to fatherlessness are divorce and out-of-wedlock births.
09:15
Every 13 seconds, someone in America gets divorced.
09:20
That equates to almost 2.5 million divorces a year.
09:25
Lucky me!
09:27
(Laughter)
09:28
Currently, more than 40 percent, or 1.5 million babies,
09:33
are born out of wedlock each year in the US.
09:36
And this brings me back to the first and most significant thing
09:39
that my career has taught me about fatherhood:
09:42
family court is one of the critical places where fathers are disadvantaged,
09:46
and this hurts kids.
09:49
Historically,
09:50
this maternal preference was solidified in the tender years doctrine,
09:54
which mandated custody of children under age four be awarded to mothers.
09:59
This doctrine was in use until the 80's.
10:03
As the laws progressed, visitation for fathers improved,
10:06
but it took a lot of years before the law was finally gender equal.
10:10
In fact, it wasn't until 2017
10:14
that Nevada finally adopted a presumption for joint physical custody.
10:18
When I began my practice, and until 10 years ago,
10:21
the best my father clients could expect was every-other-weekend visitation
10:25
and maybe a dinner on the off week.
10:28
While significant legal progress has been made,
10:30
this long-standing bias against fathers still occurs
10:34
in the enforcement of custody orders, in child support rulings,
10:37
and it exists in paternity laws.
10:40
All the while, the number of kids growing up without dads continues to rise.
10:45
Between 1960 and 2016,
10:49
the percentage of children growing up with just mothers
10:51
nearly tripled,
10:53
from 8 to 23 percent.
10:56
Paternity laws desperately need more reform
10:59
to protect the 40 percent of children born out of wedlock each year in the US.
11:06
Right now, once custody has been ordered,
11:08
it's illegal to remove a child from their father -
11:10
usually a felony.
11:12
But it's perfectly legal, in all 50 states,
11:17
for a woman to conceal her pregnancy,
11:19
leave the father's name off the birth certificate,
11:21
and never tell him he has a child, ever!
11:25
How is this not kidnapping?
11:28
Just as horrible,
11:29
a woman can knowingly list the wrong father
11:31
in a child's birth certificate,
11:33
deceive him,
11:34
and a short while later, in many states,
11:37
the wrong man becomes that child's legal father forever.
11:41
He's obligated to a child that isn't his.
11:44
And that child just lost their real father with little to no recourse.
11:49
This is a betrayal of the worst kind.
11:52
And the law not only allows it, it creates the opportunity.
11:57
This is what we know.
12:00
Every bit of data we have tells us children need their fathers!
12:07
The law, its application, and society at large disfavor fathers.
12:13
The law is improving,
12:14
but the statistics are not.
12:18
So, what can you do?
12:22
We are the change makers, all of us.
12:25
If you're a father, make the effort,
12:27
do everything you can to be in your children's daily lives.
12:32
If you're a mother,
12:33
encourage and facilitate the relationship between your children and their father
12:38
instead of trying to interfere or control it.
12:40
If you're a child, spend time with your dad,
12:43
ask him to do something, seek his advice and guidance.
12:47
If you're an employer,
12:48
grant the fathers you employ
12:51
the ability to be at their children's events,
12:53
to help in their schools,
12:54
to take sick days to care for their kids.
12:57
If you work in the legal field,
12:58
help us continue to progress, change the laws,
13:02
and ensure that they're enforced to protect fathers and their children.
13:06
The importance of this pursuit cannot be overstated.
13:10
The fate of nearly half of America's children depends on it.
13:16
I'd like to close by asking all of you to do one final thing.
13:20
Please, stand if you are able or raise your hand - I'm serious, please -
13:26
if you grew up without a father,
13:29
if you raised or are raising a child without a father,
13:34
or if you are a father who's been separated from your child.
13:38
Now, look around:
13:41
the people really affected by fatherlessness.
13:44
Really, look.
13:47
Those of you standing and raising your hands aren't numbers.
13:50
You're real living and feeling humans.
13:53
You're the children scarred by fatherlessness.
13:57
Now let me tell you who can't stand.
14:00
The 1,000 fatherless children who were murdered last year.
14:05
The 3,000 fatherless children who died from drugs.
14:11
The 3,200 fatherless children who committed suicide last year.
14:17
And the 14,000 fatherless children who were incarcerated.
14:23
Everyone, please, stand for them!
14:28
And do everything you can
14:31
to help the remaining 17 million fatherless children avoid these fates.
14:38
Thank you.
14:39
(Applaus

Almasi Kitti

https://youtu.be/FoIla1WRA8A?t=4531