I’m getting sick and tired of laws and divorce courts that take children away from their fathers.

I’m not happy that many children are raised with fathers two days a week, if they’re lucky!

I don’t know much about divorce court. I don’t know how to file what document where. That’s not my area of expertise.

I see so many men come to my office frustrated and alienated and angry and disappointed that courts have chosen against a 50/50 split for a 70/30 split or weekends only.

I don’t think this is usually in the best interests of the child.

I was a single mother for many years. I raised four kids. They’re now all adults. And I know how many adults feel such keen pain having had an absent father.

Little boys and little girls need fathers.

So in walks a man (Jake) to me who has a two-and-a-half-year-old son. And he hasn’t seen them in a year.

Jake and the mom made an agreement before birth not to marry but to share equally in the raising of the children.

Neither one is American. They are from different countries with different customs.

While the father of the child was out running errands, the mother decided the baby would be circumsized. As a Jew, I support that decision. But the father, not being Jewish, felt betrayed. The hospital did not have two signatures on the form that yes, they agreed with this small surgical procedure.

By the time the father got back, the doctor said, well, we can’t put it back now.

This is horrific. Why was it OK for one parent to make all the decisions when nothing had been established by the court?

While the father was gone, the registrar came in and said, “What do we call the baby?” And the mom decided his first name and then gave the baby her last name.

The father still hasn’t had the opportunity to change the child’s name to include his.

So they went to a mediator. He suggested they use the father’s name as the child’s middle name. For some people, that would be fine, but for this father from his Arab culture, this was offensive and unacceptable. The mother has to agree that the child can change the name and she refuses to change the son’s last name to that of the father.

I don’t understand why there is so much power in one parent’s hands?

I’m doing a lot of thinking about this. I see men who are so hurt, who are emasculated every day by women who don’t know what to do with men anymore.

We have created a generation of men who are boys. Or just guys. Or toys. But they’re not men. They have not grown up.

This is a serious issue. Men don’t know what to do with their lives. They don’t know who they are anymore. They don’t know what they’re needed for. We women don’t need them for birthing children. We can go to a sperm bank. We can go to a friend. We can make an arrangement for someone to impregnate us and have nothing to do with the raising of the child.

We don’t need men anymore for our professional growth. We can step up the ladder without having sex with them.

We don’t need men anymore to support us. We have professions of our own that support us nicely.

We don’t need men anymore to play house with. What’s their use?

Many women get stuck in that. It’s confusing. Many women think it is attractive to men that she is independent, self-supporting and not needy. On the other hand, with such women, men don’t know where to fit in. What can they provide? What does she need from them?

We’ve created a problem while trying to create a solution for housewives who were unhappy with their role, a role that I think is the most important role any person could have on this planet, raising children.

If women don’t have a man, they are forced to go out to work to provide. If they are a good provider, men will often feel intimidated, emasculated, and unneeded.

Many women need a partner’s help, not necessarily a man. So the man feels afraid and pressured and useless.

Since the 1970s, we’ve created a society that gives women the opportunity to do almost anything. Thank God for that. But did we think about how this would change the dynamics of a couple?

I was born in the 1960s. I look at the “Mad Men” TV show today and I am appalled at how women are treated. I am appalled at what was the norm.

Then I look around today and say, we got away from the chauvinism. We’ve got women who often become more manly than men, especially when they are in a masculine profession. They lose their femininity. They become tough and staunch. Other than their genitalia, they aren’t women. What have we done to ourselves?

I’m thinking about another way men get hurt in this equation. I have a patient who has a hard time meeting women because he would rather be a home husband. He would rather take care of the kids and be a home body than be out earning a living. Women look at him as a loser. He has no desire for great material things. He has no desire for the outfit. He has no desire for expensive entertainment. He’s happy with the minimum and he’s looked at a leach, as a mooch. Women don’t like the car he drives and that he has an office job and has no motivation to climb that corporate ladder.

If a man wants to be a homemaker, he’s considered strange.

What do we really want from the genders these days?

What good has this done for men?

I understand what feminism has done women. It has made them feel more powerful.

Maybe we forgot about the men when we were figuring out how to make women stronger and better?

I see a lot of sad men.