It seems so much easier to "strip the parental rights" from a man than from a woman. We had the intervention of the office of the Children's Lawyer, whose responsibility it is to be concerned first with the welfare of the child, and even they (or at least the social worker assigned to the case) felt that somehow the child was better with his mother (and half brother), even tho' she recognized that this "mother" was lying about my son being abusive, etc. etc. Consequently, my son settled for this joint custody arrangement, feeling that the cards were stacked against him, being the man; and we would never get anywhere trying to prove she is mentally and emotionally abusive to the children. That is SO hard to prove, and this social worker was not interested in input from other people who knew both parties involved.
So, even tho' I appreciate your kind comments that our grandson is lucky, I personally feel he could be A GREAT DEAL LUCKIER, if we could minimize his mother's role in his life - or remove it!!!
The ex of the young man you speak about is lucky he's out of her child's life!

Worried:
It is truly unfortunate that the court system can't see that just because someone is a female, it doesn't mean they are qualified to be a "mother". If people would just listen and be open minded before making such an important decision!! I know it must be so frustrating, for YOU know what would be best, but you have your hands tied when it comes to dealing with the system. Best regards to you, your son and especially your grandson. You are in my thoughts.

Another note about the system. The social worker on the case indicated to my son and his ex that she was aware that the ex had lied about my son being abusive. One of those lies involved having her 7 year old son suggest to his teacher that his dad had "touched his pee pee" while they were wrestling. When this child was interviewed by a Children's Aid worker, he said he didn't know which dad had done it (natural or step) or when it had happened. Could anyone doubt the child had been given a story to tell? The social worker on the case had access to all this information, yet still stated that M had made good decisions for her first son, and should have the final say on decisions about the second one, if they couldn't agree on joint custody.

Makes me wonder about what someone suggested earlier, that a lot of psychopaths may be hiding in the mental health field. And if this person was just making an honest judgement, then judging that lying about abuse is a normal thing for women to do, when they want out of a relationship (and she said she thought it was) indicates that our society is in a pretty sad state.