Rudolph is a family law attorney with Reel Fathers’ Rights and lives in San Diego.

Child abuse. Marital discord. Abandonment of children. Domestic violence. Internecine squabbling over assets. Family law is viscerally personal and not for shrinking violets.  Notwithstanding this negative narrative, family law cases can be full of hope. And on Father’s Day, it seems appropriate to showcase the battles many fathers have waged just to get time with their children. But before we get there, some statistical context is needed.

The American Sociological Association has found that women initiate 69 percent of all divorces. This is unique to heterosexual marriages. In non-marital relationships, both men and women initiate breakups to the same extent. The assumption used to be that women are more sensitive to emotional ups and downs in marriages and thus are more likely to depart. But if this were true, women would initiate most breakups in non-marital relationships as well. But they don’t.  This means there are other reasons for why women call it quits on their marriages at higher rates than men. Heidi Kar, a psychologist at the Education Development Center, connects the rise of divorce with women’s liberation.

For some, the discrepancy is explained by women having higher expectations for how husbands can fulfill various emotional needs. For others, women feel as if they are doing most (or all) of the domestic chores. These are necessary but not sufficient explanations, as they omit some of the specific legal considerations for women.

One startling statistic, for instance, is that women nationwide get 65 percent custody.  And in California, it’s no different, with dads getting only 32.8 percent of custody time. It’s no wonder, then, that women feel they have less to lose when petitioning for divorce. They are, statistically speaking, correct to assume that they as mothers will get the court to favor them as primary caretakers. How can this be?  After all, the California Family Code calls for children to have “frequent and continuing contact” with both parents pursuant to joint physical custody. The culprit, in my view, is the tender years doctrine, according to which young children require a substantial degree of close supervision best accomplished by mothers. To grant custody to a father, one court said, would be “to hold nature in contempt … and place it in the coarse hands of the father.”  This doctrine has been formally jettisoned.  But its spirit, I suspect, lives on in the unconscious minds of many judges.

I have seen, for example, mothers threaten to abandon their children on the streets and still get custody.  I have seen temporary restraining orders granted against moms get reversed within days because the mom filed a false response regarding her own abuse.  Men and fathers, to be sure, do this as well, but two wrongs don’t make a right.  Perjury, irrespective of gender, is still perjury.

If the tender years doctrine isn’t to blame, how do we explain the strong statistical evidence showing that fathers aren’t getting their fair share?  After all, under the law, mothers and fathers are equal and should have equal time with their children.  But this isn’t what’s happening, meaning fathers tragically and ineluctably end up excluded from the so-called psychological “sensitive period” during which imprinting occurs. And it’s difficult, if not impossible, to reverse.

In the face of such obstacles, what’s a father to do? My recommendation is to fight. And fight tirelessly. Be involved in the day-to-day activities of your children. Show up consistently for appointments and special events. Take them to baseball or dance or soccer. Offer emotional and intellectual guidance. Know that girls gain confidence when their dads are there to build them up and treat them right. Know that boys watch dads in everything they do – especially the way they treat their mothers. Referring to a handicapped dad who’d been deprived of his rightful time, one court said the child needed his dad’s “affection, sympathy, and wisdom to deal with the problems of growing up.” Indeed.

So fathers: Fight for your children. And if you end up in court, fight for your equal rights. But also do your part by acknowledging how very much mothers do to carry the load. Given the importance of having both parents involved in child-rearing, enlisting women to fight for fathers should be part and parcel of any serious feminist movement.

On this Father’s Day, then, let’s thank the dads who show up every day. And let’s encourage and give succor to those fighting the good fight. Their efforts should not go unnoticed. In this day of slaying built-in racism and reassessing old assumptions, it’s high time we attack all forms of unconscious prejudice — inside and outside the courtroom.