Salon.com Gives a Boost to Equally Shared Parenting
February 28, 2010
Do you want the good news first about this article, or the bad news (Salon.com, 2/25/10)? Yeah, me too; bad news first.
And that's OK because the bad news isn't very bad and the good news is really pretty good.
The article is by a mother, Anne Trubek, and it's about being a parent post-divorce. She and her husband split up eight years ago and,
For reasons I cannot yet fully explain...I accepted the terms my husband laid out when he left me: Fifty-fifty.
In other words, she and her husband agreed to equally-shared parenting. Trubek's article gives us a peek at how she experiences that arrangement.
The bad news is that she confuses her fifty-fifty arrangement with single-parenthood. Yes, she's single, meaning she hasn't remarried and seems to have no significant other. And yes, she's a parent; she and her ex have a son, Simon, who's 11 years old now. But her situation is a far, far cry from single parenthood. Indeed the thing that makes her situation so different is that, even though they live apart, she has all of the resources of the boy's father to rely on. If she gets sick, he'll take Simon. If she needs to leave town on business, the boy can stay with him. She pays only half of the bills, not all of them. If a crisis arises, she can call up her ex and they can figure it out together; she's not out there on a limb alone.
What single parenthood so often means is a parent who's not only not married, but one who has little or no help from the other "biological" parent. That's not Trubek's situation.
So the differences between Trubek and a truly single parent are vital. They're the exact reasons why single parenthood is bad for children and parents alike. They're the exact reasons why equally shared parenting is such a good idea post-divorce - neither parent is alone; neither parent has to carry the whole weight and the child gets real parenting from both mom and dad.
And "weight" or "onus" is Trubek's recurring theme. Indeed, she looked up the word and found it exemplified by single-parenthood, i.e. single-parenthood is an onus, a heavy weight.
But in the end, Trubek finds that,
Simon will be a very tall, broad man someday. Today, 5 feet tall and chasing 100 pounds, he asks me to lift him up. My back hurts afterward, but it's good exercise. Simon giggles as I toss him around. He's not so heavy.
The lesson? Being a single parent isn't so hard when you have an equal partner. And that's the good news.
In getting to that, Trubek offers some valuable insights into the experience of being a mother in an equal-parenting relationship. What they add up to is that the culture still wants women to find their greatest fulfillment in motherhood. She regales us with the television shows that demand of divorcing women that they gain sole or primary custody. Others show wronged women taking the children and leaving for good, apparently empowered by their singleness. That'll show him!
And predictably, she feels pangs of being deficient. A good mother, a good woman would go it alone. How can Trubek accept just "half a child?" A strong mother wouldn't roll over for an ex-husband, particularly one who had an affair. Trubek relates all of that and we should listen carefully. The same culture that routinely depicts fathers as incompetent, uninterested and dangerous depicts women as mothers above all, undaunted by the challenges of single-motherhood.
Both are at best distortions of reality. Fathers aren't as they're made out to be, and neither are mothers. The fact is that, for women or for men, raising children alone is hard. If you don't have significant financial and social resources, you can get in over your head very quickly, to everyone's detriment. And yet popular culture continues to promote the cliche of the strong, dedicated, equal-to-anything single mother. And if fathers are the uncaring dolts they're made out to be, women had better be prepared to "mom up." Those two modern myths contribute a lot to the fact that 40% of American children are now born out of wedlock.
Until we deal with both sides of the pop culture mythology about mothers and fathers, it'll be hard to win people over to the concept of equal parenting.
To her credit, Anne Trubek shows us how it's done.
|
World Food Program’s Food For Women Only: A Policy in Search of a Rationale
February 28, 2010
In researching my original pieces on the World Food Program's policy of food distribution in Haiti to women only, I exchanged several emails with Gregory Barrow who is the WFP's Global Media Coordinator in Rome. I contacted him because the WFP spokesman in Haiti who had originally revealed the policy there, Marcus Prior, had been quoted by CNN as saying,
"Our long experience in food distribution tells us that by delivering food into the hands of women, it is more likely to be redistributed equitably among the household -- including the men."
Among other things, I wanted to know what support the WFP had for making such a claim, so, via email, I asked Mr. Barrow. Given that the WFP has been in existence since 1963, I assumed they'd have studied the matter with some sort of rigor. After all, that's what Prior's remarks suggested - that over the years, they'd tried different approaches, studied their effectiveness and decided on this one as the most equitable. Barrow responded promptly and courteously and, over the course of numerous emails, eventually provided links to documents that he claimed form the basis for Prior's statement to CNN.
There's just one problem; they don't. Indeed, the publications he referred me to make no reference to the efficacy, or lack thereof, of distributing food to women only in the hopes that they'll redistribute it to all those in need. Indeed, the subject matter of those publications is not food distribution after a natural disaster at all. It's as if I had asked him about Hemingway and he'd sent me links to essays about Faulkner.
For example, his first link was to the home page for the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), which calls itself both a think tank and a "do" tank. It's located in Washington, DC. I went from the home page to ICRW's research and publications and more specifically to those on nutrition. Of the 56 publications listed, not one had anything to do with the issue I'd raised - the efficacy of distributing food to women only post-disaster. In fact, they dealt almost exclusively with attempts to improve agricultural productivity by improving women's education, management skills, and giving women greater access to land and certain farm technology. It made for some fairly interesting reading, but had nothing to do with the subject.
Barrow's second offering was even more limited. It's a single document published by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). It's a think tank with its office on K Street in Washington. The document offered eight findings, one each from eight studies. Again, not one of the studies even pretended concern itself with post-disaster food distribution. They dealt with things like how to increase agricultural production by increasing women's education and the fact that in Ghana, women have to do more than men to obtain title to cocoa-producing land they've worked. Again, it was interesting to read, but in no way supported Prior's statement.
Barrow's final link was to this World Bank document of two pages. It makes various assertions about the advisability of placing greater resources in the hands of women in the Third World. But again, it in no way addresses the efficacy of food distribution to women only in post-disaster situations.
That then is the intellectual basis for the World Food Program's claim that distribution of food to women only in Haiti means "it is more likely to be redistributed equitably among the household -- including the men." It's hard to conclude anything but that the WFP in fact has no support for Prior's claim or for its sexist policy. Maybe there's some basis somewhere else, but that's what my concerted effort to find it uncovered. Nothing.
|
Nevada Supreme Court Upholds Verdict Against Darren Mack in Slaying of Estranged Wife
February 27, 2010
From the Associated Press (2/26/10):
A Nevada Supreme Court panel upheld a wrongful death verdict against imprisoned former Reno pawn shop owner Darren Mack in the slaying of his estranged wife....Mack is 49. He's serving 36 years to life for the June 2006 killing of Charla Mack and the sniper-style shooting of their divorce judge in Reno.
After Mack killed his ex-wife and narrowly missed killing Chuck Weller (pictured above), the judge in his case, he fled. While on the run he tried to bring in/corral certain leaders of the fathers’ movement, not including myself, to defend him in the media and explain away what he did. Some in the fathers' rights movement speculated that Mack had been "driven to the edge and snapped" due to his mistreatment by Weller.
I would never argue that mistreatment excuses murder in any case, but I did investigate the case to see whether Mack was in fact mistreated. Judge Weller reached out to me and provided me his side of the story, along with documents and video of some of Mack's court proceedings.
My conclusion was that Mack wasn't mistreated by the system at all--in fact, Weller gave him 50-50 custody of his daughter over his ex-wife's objections. Weller's rulings were upheld by other courts. 
For those who'd like to get a taste of the proceedings, below I have the video of the last 10 minutes before Darren Mack (pictured right) shoots Weller. This is from the court hearing on May 24, 2006. It was the last legal proceeding or interaction of any kind between Mack and Weller before Darren Mack killed Charla and shot Weller with a sniper rifle from over 100 yards away on June 12, 2006.
At the time of this hearing, the Macks shared 50-50 joint physical custody of their now 10-year-old daughter Erika. The Macks were still working out remaining issues in their divorce, and a subsequent hearing was scheduled for September 2006.
Readers can watch the interaction between the Macks, their attorneys, and Judge Weller and decide for themselves. Did Weller mistreat Darren Mack? Is the "tyrant in black robes" who pushed Mack over the edge?
To watch the video, click here. All of my previous posts about the Mack case can be seen here.
|
Nevada Supreme Court Upholds Verdict Against Darren Mack in Slaying of Estranged Wife
February 27, 2010
From the Associated Press (2/26/10):
A Nevada Supreme Court panel upheld a wrongful death verdict against imprisoned former Reno pawn shop owner Darren Mack in the slaying of his estranged wife....Mack is 49. He's serving 36 years to life for the June 2006 killing of Charla Mack and the sniper-style shooting of their divorce judge in Reno.
After Mack killed his ex-wife and narrowly missed killing Chuck Weller (pictured above), the judge in his case, he fled. While on the run he tried to bring in/corral certain leaders of the fathers’ movement, not including myself, to defend him in the media and explain away what he did. Some in the fathers' rights movement speculated that Mack had been "driven to the edge and snapped" due to his mistreatment by Weller.
I would never argue that mistreatment excuses murder in any case, but I did investigate the case to see whether Mack was in fact mistreated. Judge Weller reached out to me and provided me his side of the story, along with documents and video of some of Mack's court proceedings.
My conclusion was that Mack wasn't mistreated by the system at all--in fact, Weller gave him 50-50 custody of his daughter over his ex-wife's objections. Weller's rulings were upheld by other courts.
For those who'd like to get a taste of the proceedings, below I have the video of the last 10 minutes before Darren Mack (pictured right) shoots Weller. This is from the court hearing on May 24, 2006. It was the last legal proceeding or interaction of any kind between Mack and Weller before Darren Mack killed Charla and shot Weller with a sniper rifle from over 100 yards away on June 12, 2006.
At the time of this hearing, the Macks shared 50-50 joint physical custody of their now 10-year-old daughter Erika. The Macks were still working out remaining issues in their divorce, and a subsequent hearing was scheduled for September 2006.
Readers can watch the interaction between the Macks, their attorneys, and Judge Weller and decide for themselves. Did Weller mistreat Darren Mack? Is the "tyrant in black robes" who pushed Mack over the edge?
To watch the video, click here. All of my previous posts about the Mack case can be seen here.
|
Are Attacks on Food Convoys in Haiti Due to WFP Policy of Women-Only Food Aid?
February 26, 2010
Not long ago, I wrote about the policy of the World Food Program that is coordinating food distribution in Haiti. The WFP's announced policy is to distribute coupons redeemable for food aid only to women and to men who can in some way prove that they are heads of households, i.e. they're single or don't have a living wife or mother. How men are expected to prove such a thing remains a mystery, particularly amid the post-earthquake chaos that reigns in the island nation.
Despite United States embassy statements to the contrary, it appears that, some six weeks after the quake, distribution of aid is proving to be haphazard at best. For example, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that some 3 million Haitians are in need of aid, and of those, about 2 million need regular food aid. But of those, about half have little or no access to food. Haitians have reported that much food has remained in dockside warehouses so long it's become rotten and unfit for consumption.
Obviously, the task of aiding the needy in Haiti, whose basic infrastructure was never very good and is now barely there at all, is daunting. Aid organizations and workers should be commended for their efforts under the most trying of circumstances.
But on January 30, a food convoy was attacked by men and had to be beaten back by the Haitian military personnel. On February 3 there was a food protest in Petionville which is a suburb of Port-au-Prince. And last Monday, Haitian men armed with machetes again attacked a convoy, this time making off with bags of rice.
Here's an article about the January 30 incident (Yahoo, 2/2/10).
Here's an article about the February 3 demonstration (Associated Press, 2/3/10).
And here's an article about the February 22 attack (The Star, 2/24/10).
Is there a connection between the attacks and the WFP's refusal to distribute food to men in need? I asked my contacts at the World Food Program, but they have declined to respond. Clearly, the plight of Haitians is dire. During the march in Petionville, people held signs reading "Help Us, We're Starving." I have no reason to think that that applies only to men. But those who are attacking food convoys are men, suggesting a level of desperation not experienced by women. And the policy of not distributing food to men is still in place. Maybe there's no connection between the WFP policy and the attacks, but my guess is that it's a factor in the overall desperation and discontent in Haiti.
Anti-Dad Crowd Strangely Silent When Moms Harm Kids
February 26, 2010
An Australian woman has been convicted of the murders of two of her children and sentenced to life imprisonment. Read about it here (Sydney Morning Herald, 2/24/10). The woman cannot be named, apparently because one of her children, a teenager, was able to escape her attempt on his life. Because he is still legally a child, Australian privacy laws prevent his identity becoming known and therefore the woman who attempted to murder him cannot be named either.
Her reason for the killings that took place in November, 2002 was that she had become enraged that her ex-husband had succeeded in obtaining visitation with his children over part of the Christmas holidays. As the judge said prior to sentencing,
"The prime motivation was to avenge what you regarded as the wrong done to you by your ex-husband, the children's father," he said.
Prosecutors referred to it as "the ultimate act of hate."
According to the evidence in the case, she ground up sedative tablets and placed them in the breakfast milk of the children who were eight and 10 at the time. She then placed them in the car, telling them they were going for a drive. She attached a hose to the tailpipe of the car and put the other end in the cab through a window. She started the car, intending to kill herself and all three children, but at some point abandoned the plan. The sixteen year old boy, who is profoundly physically and mentally disabled, managed to escape as well. The mother left the two dead children in the car for days before neighbors discovered their decomposing bodies.
When the verdict of guilty was read in court she told the jury "I am not guilty."
Meanwhile, a woman who lives near Edmonton, Alberta has been jailed following the death of her two children who were discovered dead in the bathtub of her home on February 1 of this year. Read about it here (Candian Press, 2/23/10). Allyson McConnell is being kept in a hospital and faces two charges of second-degree murder. Although facts are sketchy at this time, she apparently attempted suicide by jumping off a bridge.
She and her husband Curtis McConnell were embroiled in a contentious divorce in which child custody was the major source of acrimony.
She is a native of Australia and he is Canadian. They met in Australia in 2005 and married there in 2007. The moved to Canada, but once the divorce was in progress, Allyson decided she wanted to return to Australia with the children. Curtis resisted that and kept the children's passports in his possession. A Canadian court had issued an order that the children remain in Canada under an order of joint custody until a final order could be issued.
These two cases, apart from the tragedy of the deaths of four children, apparently at the hands of their mothers, are significant for at least a couple of reasons.
First, as we've seen before, the phenomenon of maternal gatekeeping can be horrific. The practice of mothers marginalizing fathers in matters relating to children and childcare is well-known and well-established by social science. Mostly it's pretty benign. Sadly, there seem to be extremes of that behavior that include the murder of the father, the murder of the children, kidnapping by the mother and false accusations of abuse by the mother against the father. Parental alienation of the children is another example. This behavior should be seen by mental health professionals as pathological and treated. It's not good for children or fathers even if it doesn't cost them their lives.
Second, the death of a child at the hands of a father is often put forward by those opposed to fathers' rights as evidence that fathers generally are dangerous to children. Therefore, so their argument goes, equally shared parenting laws pose a per se danger to children because they increase fathers' access to them.
Indeed, we've seen that exact argument made by anti-father forces in Australia in their efforts to roll back that country's modest and mostly successful shared parenting legislation that became effective in 2006. For example, anti-father advocates seized on the tragic case of a deranged father who threw his child off a bridge in Sydney last year.
But tellingly, shortly after that incident, a Washington State mother did almost exactly the same thing. She threw her two children off a bridge over the Willamette River, killing one of them and injuring the second. But the anti-dad crowd remained silent about that. If they really wanted to protect children from dangerous parents, surely they would have admitted that parents of either sex can injure and endanger children. Simple honesty requires the admission that far more children are hurt by mothers than by fathers. But only when it's a father who commits a horrible crime do they pipe up.
The propensity of a few disturbed individuals to do harm to their children is no sound basis for a public policy that affects everyone. Clearly, we need to do what we can to protect children from known dangers. The problem is that the anti-dad crowd wants us to believe that that includes fathers generally; it doesn't, any more than it includes mothers generally. More children are injured by their mothers than by their fathers, but that's no reason to deny custody or access to mothers generally or to carry a generalized suspicion of them. And so it is with dads.
So what these cases show, in addition to the extreme of maternal gatekeeping, is the frank dishonesty and misandry of those hostile to fathers' rights, who cloak themselves in the rhetoric of child protection. It's a classic red herring.
|
Anti-Dad Crowd Strangely Silent When Moms Harm Kids
February 26, 2010
An Australian woman has been convicted of the murders of two of her children and sentenced to life imprisonment. Read about it here (Sydney Morning Herald, 2/24/10). The woman cannot be named, apparently because one of her children, a teenager, was able to escape her attempt on his life. Because he is still legally a child, Australian privacy laws prevent his identity becoming known and therefore the woman who attempted to murder him cannot be named either.
Her reason for the killings that took place in November, 2002 was that she had become enraged that her ex-husband had succeeded in obtaining visitation with his children over part of the Christmas holidays. As the judge said prior to sentencing,
"The prime motivation was to avenge what you regarded as the wrong done to you by your ex-husband, the children's father," he said.
Prosecutors referred to it as "the ultimate act of hate."
According to the evidence in the case, she ground up sedative tablets and placed them in the breakfast milk of the children who were eight and 10 at the time. She then placed them in the car, telling them they were going for a drive. She attached a hose to the tailpipe of the car and put the other end in the cab through a window. She started the car, intending to kill herself and all three children, but at some point abandoned the plan. The sixteen year old boy, who is profoundly physically and mentally disabled, managed to escape as well. The mother left the two dead children in the car for days before neighbors discovered their decomposing bodies.
When the verdict of guilty was read in court she told the jury "I am not guilty."
Meanwhile, a woman who lives near Edmonton, Alberta has been jailed following the death of her two children who were discovered dead in the bathtub of her home on February 1 of this year. Read about it here (Candian Press, 2/23/10). Allyson McConnell is being kept in a hospital and faces two charges of second-degree murder. Although facts are sketchy at this time, she apparently attempted suicide by jumping off a bridge.
She and her husband Curtis McConnell were embroiled in a contentious divorce in which child custody was the major source of acrimony.
She is a native of Australia and he is Canadian. They met in Australia in 2005 and married there in 2007. The moved to Canada, but once the divorce was in progress, Allyson decided she wanted to return to Australia with the children. Curtis resisted that and kept the children's passports in his possession. A Canadian court had issued an order that the children remain in Canada under an order of joint custody until a final order could be issued.
These two cases, apart from the tragedy of the deaths of four children, apparently at the hands of their mothers, are significant for at least a couple of reasons.
First, as we've seen before, the phenomenon of maternal gatekeeping can be horrific. The practice of mothers marginalizing fathers in matters relating to children and childcare is well-known and well-established by social science. Mostly it's pretty benign. Sadly, there seem to be extremes of that behavior that include the murder of the father, the murder of the children, kidnapping by the mother and false accusations of abuse by the mother against the father. Parental alienation of the children is another example. This behavior should be seen by mental health professionals as pathological and treated. It's not good for children or fathers even if it doesn't cost them their lives.
Second, the death of a child at the hands of a father is often put forward by those opposed to fathers' rights as evidence that fathers generally are dangerous to children. Therefore, so their argument goes, equally shared parenting laws pose a per se danger to children because they increase fathers' access to them.
Indeed, we've seen that exact argument made by anti-father forces in Australia in their efforts to roll back that country's modest and mostly successful shared parenting legislation that became effective in 2006. For example, anti-father advocates seized on the tragic case of a deranged father who threw his child off a bridge in Sydney last year.
But tellingly, shortly after that incident, a Washington State mother did almost exactly the same thing. She threw her two children off a bridge over the Willamette River, killing one of them and injuring the second. But the anti-dad crowd remained silent about that. If they really wanted to protect children from dangerous parents, surely they would have admitted that parents of either sex can injure and endanger children. Simple honesty requires the admission that far more children are hurt by mothers than by fathers. But only when it's a father who commits a horrible crime do they pipe up.
The propensity of a few disturbed individuals to do harm to their children is no sound basis for a public policy that affects everyone. Clearly, we need to do what we can to protect children from known dangers. The problem is that the anti-dad crowd wants us to believe that that includes fathers generally; it doesn't, any more than it includes mothers generally. More children are injured by their mothers than by their fathers, but that's no reason to deny custody or access to mothers generally or to carry a generalized suspicion of them. And so it is with dads.
So what these cases show, in addition to the extreme of maternal gatekeeping, is the frank dishonesty and misandry of those hostile to fathers' rights, who cloak themselves in the rhetoric of child protection. It's a classic red herring.
|
Paternity Fraud Victim: State ‘Rewarding Adulterous Liars’
February 25, 2010
Mike, from Washington County, got married and he and his wife had a baby girl. Years later, he found out that his wife had been cheating on him for the entire length of their marriage.Mike filed for divorce and demanded a paternity test on the child."Got the results back and it was zero percent chance that I am the biological father," he said.
It's pretty much a standard, off-the-shelf case of paternity fraud, so what came next should be no surprise. Sure enough, the mother who'd defrauded Mike sued him for child support and won. Read about it here (KDKA, 2/23/10). He's surprised for all the reasons men who are victims of paternity fraud are always surprised - he thought actual paternity had something to do with paternal obligations. He didn't know - although he certainly knows now - that state laws routinely reward lying and misrepresentation by mothers when child support is at stake. As Mike himself said,
"So they're basically rewarding the adulterous liars for being adulterous and lying and deceiving," he told KDKA-TV.
That's about the size of it. Interestingly, this time it's not even about money. Often enough, the state just wants to be sure there's a man to pay child support. It doesn't matter that he's not the father; he's a source money for child support, so pretty much any relation to the child or the mother will do for an order to issue against him. That's often the case in which a woman who's received TANF money identifies the wrong man as the father of her child. The state wants reimbursement and is not about to let little things like fraud get in the way of obtaining it.
Since the actual fact of paternity is of only marginal importance to the state and since getting reimbursement of TANF payments by the state is the main point of the exercise, I've been moved in the past to suggest that we just do it like jury duty. States could maintain a list of all sexually-mature males in the state, and every time there's an unmarried mother receiving welfare, the state could just choose a man at random. He'd get a notice in the mail that he owed the state X amount and, oh by the way, he has parental rights to a child somewhere. It makes about as much sense as the way we do it now.
But money's not the issue here. Mike's ex-wife moved in with her boyfriend who is the child's father. So why not get the money from him? Why not have him be responsible for the child he actually helped bring into the world?
Well, it appears that Pennsylvania law doesn't allow that to happen. It, like most other states, has a presumption that a married woman's husband is the father of any child born to her. Statistics show that that's not true in something like 7-10% of cases, and given that we now have an incontrovertible method of proving who the actual father is, you might think that states would just do genetic testing of all children and establish paternity once and for all.
But no. They prefer to allocate paternity, not on the basis of sound science but on the basis of a legal fiction established long before anyone could ascertain paternity for certain. And apparently in Pennsylvania, the presumption can't be rebutted, even by DNA.
Of course it's not enough to do DNA testing long after a child is born. Mike's case makes it clear why. He's spent years caring for and bonding with his daughter, so for him the fact of biology is inextricably linked to non-biological things. Should he give her up just because another man's sperm gave her life?
And in any case, the child Mike raised for so long has two fathers - Mike, who pays support and presumably has a visitation order, and the biological dad with whom the girl lives. So why not let Mike visit and let the other man pay? Or if Mike gets custody, his ex can pay.
The point being that doing DNA testing of all children at birth would obviate all the problems and confusion involved in the countless cases like Mike's. Genetic testing of all children at birth would establish paternity from the start and allow men to sort out their relationships with children before too much attachment had been formed. It would save money and heartache and relieve courts of a lot of unnecessary litigation that never seems to have a fair or just outcome.
Meanwhile, a Pennsylvania legislator, Tim Solobay, has introduced a bill that would make a very small dent in current law. Specifically, HB1140 would permit DNA testing to determine paternity up to the child's fifth birthday. If testing determined the child not to be the husband's, the presumption of legitimacy would be rebutted. Apparently, after the child's fifth birthday the husband is stuck regardless. So the bill, if passed, would simply require the woman to maintain the fiction that the husband is the father for five years and then everything remains as it is now.
This bill is no substitute for what would really solve the problem - genetic testing of all children at birth.
|
F & F Responds to Criticism in Sacramento’s Capitol Weekly over Parental Alienation
February 25, 2010
In Parental Alienation must be excluded from all custody hearings, (Capitol Weekly, 2/18/10), Preston Thymes, the head of public relations for the domestic violence service provider Shelter Outreach Plus, criticizes efforts by Fathers & Families and others to promote recognition of Parental Alienation. Thymes writes:
Parental Alienation is a perilous accusation that should never be recognized in courts or viewed as particularly compelling in cases deciding the custody of a child...
[V]ocal proponents of Parental Alienation Syndrome such as Glenn Sacks, Executive Director of Fathers and Families, are captious...We fully support AB 612, which is coming up vote in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to ban Parental Alienation Theory...
In our new column Preventing courts from considering parental alienation will harm kids (Capitol Weekly, 2/25/10), Fathers & Families' legislative representative Michael Robinson and I respond to Thynes and lay out our case why courts should take Parental Alienation seriously. We also detail the problems with AB 612, whose passage Robinson was instrumental in blocking last year.
To post a comment on the column, please click here and scroll down to the bottom of the page. To write a thoughtful Letter to the Editor of the Capitol Weekly concerning the issue, please write to letters@capitolweekly.net.
Robinson and I wrote:
At Fathers & Families, we receive thousands of heart-wrenching calls and letters from parents whose children have been taught to fear or hate them. Both mothers and fathers can be perpetrators of Parental Alienation, but the true victims are always the children.
Thymes asserts that recognizing Parental Alienation as a legitimate issue in custody cases would endanger abused children. But in genuine cases of domestic violence or child abuse, all sides agree that courts need to protect children from abusive parents. Yet there is a large body of evidence which shows that false accusations of domestic violence are a major problem in child custody cases.
Unfortunately, Shelter Outreach Plus, like many domestic violence service providers, displays a troubling lack of awareness of this problem. Thymes writes:
“At Shelter Outreach plus, we render any claims of Parental Alienation invalid…we absolutely do everything we can to keep [the father alleged to be abusive] away from those children [including] our legal advocates through restraining orders…”
Thymes apparently feels that a mere accusation equals the truth, and that judges should not even consider whether an accuser is misleading the court...
Certainly there are fathers (and mothers) who have alienated their children through inept parenting, narcissism, drug or alcohol problems, or abuse, and who attempt to shift the blame to their exes by falsely claiming Parental Alienation. Sometimes, as research by Janet R. Johnston Ph.D. of San Jose State University confirms, Parental Alienation exists but is only one of several factors causing a deterioration of the parent-child bond. Sometimes parental alienators are unaware of their harmful actions.
Nevertheless, Parental Alienation is a serious problem. When fact-finding in custody cases, judges and custody evaluators must be able to properly consider all available evidence. When abuse is alleged, the accusation merits serious consideration. When Parental Alienation is alleged, the accusation merits serious consideration, too.
Read the full article here.
F & F Responds to Criticism in Sacramento’s Capitol Weekly over Parental Alienation
February 25, 2010
In Parental Alienation must be excluded from all custody hearings, (Capitol Weekly, 2/18/10), Preston Thymes, the head of public relations for the domestic violence service provider Shelter Outreach Plus, criticizes efforts by Fathers & Families and others to promote recognition of Parental Alienation. Thymes writes:
Parental Alienation is a perilous accusation that should never be recognized in courts or viewed as particularly compelling in cases deciding the custody of a child...
[V]ocal proponents of Parental Alienation Syndrome such as Glenn Sacks, Executive Director of Fathers and Families, are captious...We fully support AB 612, which is coming up vote in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to ban Parental Alienation Theory...
In our new column Preventing courts from considering parental alienation will harm kids (Capitol Weekly, 2/25/10), Fathers & Families' legislative representative Michael Robinson and I respond to Thynes and lay out our case why courts should take Parental Alienation seriously. We also detail the problems with AB 612, whose passage Robinson was instrumental in blocking last year.
To post a comment on the column, please click here and scroll down to the bottom of the page. To write a thoughtful Letter to the Editor of the Capitol Weekly concerning the issue, please write to letters@capitolweekly.net.
Robinson and I wrote:
At Fathers & Families, we receive thousands of heart-wrenching calls and letters from parents whose children have been taught to fear or hate them. Both mothers and fathers can be perpetrators of Parental Alienation, but the true victims are always the children.
Thymes asserts that recognizing Parental Alienation as a legitimate issue in custody cases would endanger abused children. But in genuine cases of domestic violence or child abuse, all sides agree that courts need to protect children from abusive parents. Yet there is a large body of evidence which shows that false accusations of domestic violence are a major problem in child custody cases.
Unfortunately, Shelter Outreach Plus, like many domestic violence service providers, displays a troubling lack of awareness of this problem. Thymes writes:
“At Shelter Outreach plus, we render any claims of Parental Alienation invalid…we absolutely do everything we can to keep [the father alleged to be abusive] away from those children [including] our legal advocates through restraining orders…”
Thymes apparently feels that a mere accusation equals the truth, and that judges should not even consider whether an accuser is misleading the court...
Certainly there are fathers (and mothers) who have alienated their children through inept parenting, narcissism, drug or alcohol problems, or abuse, and who attempt to shift the blame to their exes by falsely claiming Parental Alienation. Sometimes, as research by Janet R. Johnston Ph.D. of San Jose State University confirms, Parental Alienation exists but is only one of several factors causing a deterioration of the parent-child bond. Sometimes parental alienators are unaware of their harmful actions.
Nevertheless, Parental Alienation is a serious problem. When fact-finding in custody cases, judges and custody evaluators must be able to properly consider all available evidence. When abuse is alleged, the accusation merits serious consideration. When Parental Alienation is alleged, the accusation merits serious consideration, too.
Read the full article here.
To learn more about Parental Alienation, as well as Fathers & Families' Campaign to Ask DSM to Include Parental Alienation in Upcoming Edition, click here.
|
-
Free E-Course
Look Familiar?
Let us show you, for free, Ways to Reduce the Pain of IBS.