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Overview
How quickly people look at America and see the endemic problems they have. One is the epidemic of fatherlessness that sweeps the country. This is notable in specific communities that have also high rates of anti-social behaviour and mental problems and costs society billions of dollars. What people are not good at is looking at the problems in their own backyard. Finland has a systemic problem, and it is called the fatherless family, and this is played out in the front rooms, courts and social welfare offices. Under the Finnish Constitution equality is afforded to all, but when it comes to fathers in contested marital breakdowns the law may not extend that far.
Using a case of a father faced with marital breakdown, the tasks aim to raise awareness of basic analytical tools moving to specific-level themes that are integrated with grievance analysis.
G.5. Reading Look at this before doing the tasks to be found in No.7 in the dropdown menu. After which the Answer Key Pointers and Sources can be used to evaluate your answers to the tasks.
Think About:
"In the decades since my youth, I’ve witnessed the explosion of fatherless families and an exponential increase in illiteracy and crime" – Burgess Owens
"We can’t keep telling fathers they have equal responsibility and not give them equal rights" – Fathers Justice
"I think in today’s society we are dealing with an epidemic of fatherless homes. We’re turning everywhere else for people to be fathered" – Andy Mineo
Materials Updates/News:
Periodically, materials will be updated, or there may be news items worthy of attention related to this Unit. They will be notified here. If you come across any news/resources, e.g. journal/newspaper articles relevant to the content of this website, please let me know. I can be contacted via the email address below.
Interesting article by Boyd.
Boyd, S. (2004). Demonizing Mothers – Father’s Rights Discourses in Child Custody Law Reform Processes. Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering 6(1): 52-74.
Forsberg, H., et al. (2019). Moral orientations to post-divorce fatherhood: examining Finnish men’s descriptive practices. Families, Relationships and Societies 8(1): 23-36.
Venäläinen, S. (2022). Nobody cares for men anymore: Affective-discursive practices around men’s victimisation across online and offline contexts. European Journal of Cultural Studies 25(4): 1228-1245.
On the concept of parental alienation:
Harman, J., et al. (2023). Gender and child custody outcomes across 16 years of judicial decisions regarding abuse and parental alienation. Children and Youth Services Review 122: 107187.
There is a father’s advocates website:
https://www.isatlastenasialla.fi
Koivula, T. (2025). Role of Father in the Best Interests of the Child under the European Human Rights Regime. University of Lapland, PhD. Faculty of Law.
Yle. 3.4.25. Divorce more common in Finland than most EU countries.
Yle. 14.2.23. Best interests of children ´not always´taken into account, Migri boss admits.
Yle. 21.1.22. Divorce lawyer: Understand Finnish marriage laws before walking down the aisle.
Marjukka Litmala has written extensively on this subject.
Anton Sobolev wrote an interesting Master's Thesis at the University of Helsinki: Sobolev, A. (2020). Disputes over custody and residency at district courts of Finland 2004-2015. Master's Thesis, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Helsinki. https://helda.helsinki.fi/items/51f40871-31f0-4776-8e41-1facec42e8ff
Autonen-Vaaraniemi, L. (2022). Family Professionals´Attitudes and Stance-Taking on Post-Divorce Fatherhood: A Qualitative Attitude Approach. International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies. 13(1): 56-81.
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