By Doug Brunk, San Diego Bureau
Dr. Steve S. Sommer can't recall feeling more alone than in 1997, when he became a single father after separating from his wife of many years. The couple's older daughter was 9 years old at the time, and their boy-girl twins were 4 years old.
“It was hard,” said Dr. Sommer, who chairs the departments of molecular diagnosis and molecular genetics at the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, Calif. “My dad was a fantastic dad. It had never occurred to me that I wouldn't have the same role with my kids. Instead, I found my close relationship to my children threatened. I had to fight hard for equal parenting time, losing most of my life savings in the process. I walked a tightrope between professional responsibilities and spending time with my children on the custody schedule.”
The marriage fell apart a few months after Dr. Sommer and his family had moved to Southern California from Minnesota. Because he was new to the area, Dr. Sommer lacked a strong social support network. “My aging parents and two good friends provided emotional support long distance, and I found a fantastic nanny/housekeeper, who helped me to support the needs of the children,” he recalled.
For many years, the children commuted the 15 minutes between their two homes. During most of that period, Dr. Sommer had the children after school on weekdays through dinner time and on Friday night through Saturday. “There was a level of continuity that seldom occurs with court custody orders,” he said.
Nowadays, he sees his children much less frequently because his former spouse moved away from the area about 4 years ago. “Millions of children of divorce experience the family tragedy of move aways,” he said. “Some move aways are motivated by diminishment or exclusion of the role of the other parent or by various personal choices, without necessarily prioritizing the children's need for frequent contact with both parents.”
Dr. Sommer noted that better navigational tools for single fathers have emerged over the last decade, including Fathers and Families (www.fathersandfamilies.orgwww.breakthroughparentingservices.comwww.stopparentalalienation.orgwww.hisside.com
He also recommends the independent film “Jake's Closet,” written and directed by Shelli Ryan (www.jakesclosetmovie.com
Looking back over this period, Dr. Sommer reflects: “My children somehow managed to overcome the emotional stress of the family break; they're great kids and I am proud of them. I'm grateful for this outcome, and I consider myself luckier than many.”
Prioritized for His Daughter
When Dr. Lloyd Axelrod separated from his wife in 1991, time management took on a new meaning as he orchestrated his new role as single father of a then-31/2-year-old daughter in a joint custody arrangement.
“I used to say that I went 171/2 hours a day nonstop,” said Dr. Axelrod, an endocrinologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. “But what I did in those 171/2 hours switched a lot when I had a little child.”
To compensate, he stopped doing research and closed down his diabetes research lab at the hospital. He also stopped working evenings at home on articles and grants. “I made a decision that my daughter was more important than becoming a professor of medicine,” he said. “It was the right decision then, and it was the right decision now.”
His effort to secure shared custody was “a brutal battle that shouldn't have been necessary. It should have been automatic, the way it is in the United Kingdom. The presumption should have been shared custody. But in our regressive society, that wasn't the presumption, so it was extremely difficult, expensive, and time consuming.”
During the early stages of the divorce, Dr. Axelrod heard about a support group for single fathers that had formed in the Boston area, but it never got off the ground. “I had certain friends who were supportive at the time,” he recalled. “I got to know a lot of the parents of kids my daughter's age at school events or soccer. So, in some ways, the parents were part of my support system when this was starting.”
The experience “heightened my awareness that there were a lot of issues about single fathers that weren't addressed in the public forum—the legal issues and financial issues and support issues. What was most striking was the lack of appreciation in the public and in the workplace about the role of single fathers. I encountered some of that.”
Dr. Axelrod, whose daughter is now attending college, was quick to note that resources for single fathers are at an all-time high in the form of support groups, advocacy groups, blogs, and books on the topic.