Kids, Cell Phones, and Dads

Coming home from school today where I had a killer test in Family Law covering Divorce, Child Custody, Support, etc. the radio station has a chat segment about when is a good time to get your kids a cell phone and why.

The first calls were pretty standard...kids have sports and other activities and for safety and transportation they can be a good thing to have...and then this woman called up.

In one of the most hateful voices I've ever heard she complained bitterly about how her 10-year old had a cell phone and it was usually a good thing except when he talked to his Father when they were on a 'Family vacation'. She repeatedly said he didn't need to be talking to 'him' because this was 'family time', this was time he was spending with his 'family, it was a 'family vacation', a 'family trip' and he had no business talking to his father when he was supposed to be spending time with his family.

Even the radio people were sputtering in surprise and, from the divorced father on the team, anger.

When did fathers stop being a part of a child's family?

Maybe I would have laughed it off if I hadn't spent the last couple of days reading about fathers losing custody and visitation because they were falsely accused of molestation and the investigation of the false charges had caused so much damage that it was 'in the best interests of the child' for the father to be excluded from it's life. Or about a mother who admitted hiding children for 5+ years for no reason other than spite, telling the children the entire time that the reason they didn't see their father wasn't because he had no idea where they were but because he didn't care about them. The court's response to that was not to put the children with the father but to say 'Bad Mommy, don't do that anymore'

Lord knows I don't want things to go back to the way they were when women had no rights to their children (or anything else) but when will the phrase 'in the best interest of the child' actually be followed? Will this system ever care more about who is the better parent than custom and the way things are done?