IT and Divorce?

frank_tudor asks: "I am graduate student and work as a web developer. I am also getting a divorce and I have a son caught in the middle. I believe my profession had a part in it. For my graduate thesis I am writing a paper about Dads who work in the computer industry, divorce and custody. I think our industry causes a high rate of divorce but I need some help from the Slashdot community. My questions are: How many of you computer Dads have also gone through divorce and have retained either half or full custody of your children? Do you think your job had something to do with it? What were some of your hardest challenges and are your kids happy?"

Primary Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

My ex cited long working hours and "workaholism" as the primary reasons. They were not the only reasons, but she thought they were primary.
After remarrying, I've made very sure to spend less time at work and more with my family.
At least nerds can learn from experience.
Sorry about the AC reply, my wife reads Slashdot.

Asperger's Syndrome

[RAMMS+EIN]

I wonder if there may be a relation with Asperger's Syndrome [wikipedia.org]. According to an article in Wired [wired.com], Apserger's is disproportionally common among IT people.

fuck equality

[not already in use]

It's issues like these that really give me a bad taste in my mouth with it comes to women's rights and equality and such. Not that I want to bring the discussion off-topic, but in order for there to be true equality, women would infact have to give up certain rights. One of these being the fact that women are almost always given custody of children in a divorce. I went through this, not as the parent, but as the child. The issue itself is really independant of your job. By default, my mom was awarded full custody. My dad threatened to take the issue to court to fight for custody. I don't know your overall financial situation, but the thought of hiring a lawyer and going through more legal process than already required by a divorce was enough for my mom give up half custody. As far as any advise I could offer, if it is possible to live close to your ex, try and do so. I constantly moved every other week, across town. It was hard to maintain friends. It was hard to get to school on time living way outside my district, and it was held against me when I would be late so often. To be honest, it was tough not have one place to call home. But at the same time I feel like having the influence of both parents in my life was a positive thing. Hope things work out for you.

Re:Bias

[0rbit4l]

Aren't you worried that, in light of your complete lack of understanding of what a Thesis defense is, that your question might come across as a little...I dunno...ignorant? Just a tad?

It's his committee's job to present alternative views, put him on the spot, be impartial, and even by sincerely proposing the "devil's advocate" position. It's his job to be prepared for that and be able to answer tough questions. This is part of the whole "peer review" thing - look it up. Just because a person's experiences coincide with their research does not mean they are "biased." A scientist is not "biased" if their child gets run over by a drunk driver & that scientist then does a study on the phenomenon of drunk driving. If every one of the members of this person's committee has some conflict of interest, then yes, your concerns of bias are perhaps valid. But tossing out his research as biased without impartially examining it is premature and irresponsible - and contrary to whoever is moderating today, definitely not "insightful". We'd never get anywhere if all scientific conclusions by interested/opinionated parties were automatically rejected because the researcher himself/herself wasn't sufficiently "unbiased".

Re:You need to work it out...

[pete.com]

There are numerous studies, that show married people are generally happier and live longer.

I screwed up the URL's sorry.....here they are corrected

http://www.family.org/cforum/briefs/a0041644.cfm [family.org]
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Depression/story?id=2 298049 [go.com]
http://www.apa.org/releases/married_happy.html [apa.org]
http://pewresearch.org/social/pack.php?PackID=1 [pewresearch.org]

Re:Oh please

[gunnk]

40% ( http://www.divorcereform.org/nyt05.html )

Still, the number IS very high. I still think the number one cause of failure is the fact that looking after your family is something that most people would rate "very important", but would not say needs to be one of TODAY's priorities. It gets put off, and put off again, until it fails from neglect.

It's a big issue in all time management -- items you need to do "sometime" but which don't have deadlines. Working out is another great example. Fitness is critical to a long, happy life, but when you have a big to-do list it tends to get postponed until that most mystical of days: "tomorrow".