Discovery issues and child custody evaluators

By its own language, the APA ethics code, an extra-legal code of ethics of a private trade association, requires compliance with "the law". In the law, there is a hierarchy of authority. Higher authorities control lesser authorities. At the top is the U.S. Constitution, and the case law interpreting it, recognizing fundamental rights of fairness, due process, and cross-examination. Below that are federal statutes that supersede state laws. Below that come state laws, constitutional, statutory, and case law. Below that come administrative regulations. At the very bottom is the law of private contract, such as the APA regulations or the contracts of nonparties who voluntarily -- and for profit -- knowing in advance that they wrongfully will be professing to have a conflict of interest, nevertheless have injected themselves into other persons' litigation.

Lower authorities that refer to exceptions "otherwise required by law" are indicating that they are to be interpreted consistent with that higher legal authority, and defer to it. Thus, it is neither "reasonable" nor "consistent with law" to posture that a private contract might supersede the requirements of the constitution. Doing so repeatedly, speciously pretending to ignorance and confusion, is frivolous, unsupportable, sanctionable conduct.

The Administrative Code regulating psychology, albeit a step up from private contract, cannot be interpreted by a thinking individual as law that competes with, conflicts with, or modifies higher legal authority or more compelling constitutional rights. The lower authority rules still must be interpreted in a manner that is consistent with those constitutional rights and superseding law. In the United States of America, we do not permit Court of Star Chamber proceedings, in which the underlying data upon which expert opinions are based, gets to be kept secret from the litigants. Since that's not an option, there's nothing for a court properly to decide. See additional discussion below on the Florida code.

Laying aside that the APA guidelines primarily address clinical practice anyway, there is no research evidence anywhere establishing generally that preventing the release of forensic psychology test data and other assessment records to "people untrained to use them" will protect anyone, or ever has protected anyone, or, conversely, that the release of such records in general has harmed or will harm anyone. While this all sounds plausible, and it is possible creatively to imagine situations in which such harm theoretically could result, it is simply not established as a general rule. No research has established that any harm will come to the public if psych testing were not available. While it is plausible as an hypothesis, no evidence establishes this. Indeed, the public managed very well for hundreds of years without psych testing and there is no evidence (unlike in the fields of medicine or dentistry) that the public is better off, more well adjusted, healthier, or happier, because of the availability of psych tests.

On the other hand, it is axiomatic in the law that deprivation of due process and the right of cross examination is a fundamental harm. In addition, misuse and misinterpretation of test data by psychs themselves, the lack of validity of many of the tests, the lack of interrater reliability, and high controversy over the efficacy and use of many of these tests also is well-known.

To the extent that the trade promotion interests of a third party are in conflict with the fundamental due process rights of the actual litigants in a court case, it should be remembered that the third party voluntarily injected itself into the proceedings, knowing in advance what its interests were, and thus implicitly waived those interests in deference to the litigants' higher interests in due process and fundamental fairness.

It is not a violation of copyright to turn over materials in response to a subpoena for discovery, or to make photocopies of the materials for use in connection with litigation. Period. This falls squarely within the fair use exceptions.

Material that is readily sold, that is available to competitors, that is discussed in articles and published in books that are available to the public in libraries, and that is not kept by the test publisher from tens of thousands of psychs is not a "trade secret". While test publishers individually indeed may have various trade secrets, they do not include material in the possession of competitors and industry-wide third party users. Once material is shared within the industry, trade secret law no longer applies. Psychs here have the same issues that magicians do, in that they attempt to keep material secret from the public but the material is well-known in and among the industry competitors. Trade secret law thus is inapplicable.

If and to the extent the test publisher markets its products for its own profit for intended use in court, it also has knowingly, and in advance, thereby agreed to any publication that foreseeably ensues in connection with those court proceedings, because those proceedings ordinarily should be expected to comport with due process.

There is an easy solution if the test publisher or the forensic psych doesn't like this. Don't use these instruments for forensic work. It is validly argued that by doing so, the psych deliberately, and for his own financial gain and self-aggrandizement, cavalierly set in motion a contract violation of his own doing. He cannot, after doing so, and after setting up a [purported] conflict of interest -- a dilemma of his own making -- now place the burden of rectifying that malfeasance on other people's time, money, and fundamental rights. A subpoena quash or protective order is an equitable remedy -- and the psych and the test publisher have dirty hands and cannot come into court midstream, changing their tune and begging for protection at others' expense and detriment.

More information can be found at http://www.thelizlibrary.org/therapeutic-jurisprudence/custody-evaluator-testing/ and at Child Custody Evaluation: Reevaluating the Evaluators

Parenting Coordinators: Practical Considerations

"...the second meeting we had she made a point along with the EX to attack everything we had to say, demanded that we keep our mouths shut while the other party talked yet the other party could interrupt us while we were talking... This lady has been a night mare for us... I thought the whole reason for having a med. was to make things go smoothly, no stress, and take BOTH sides into consideration..."

"Both parents wanted the child to participate in cheerleading. The coordinator decided against cheerleading! She felt the parents were setting the wrong priorities and that the child needed to understand that parenting time was more important than social activities. The coordinator also told the judge that the child was a "mediocre" student..."

"We recently found out that the Judge's Law Clerk, was in fact, also the "husband" of the Parenting Coordinator..."

A lack of research, a lot of self-interested trade promotion. Read the articles and references at About Parenting Coordination

Reviewing Child Custody Evaluations and Faux Science

See complete article at thelizlibrary.org

The posture of science is only required in order to justify an outcome that does not seem to make readily apparent sense. Few (if any) of the considerations that actually will move the final decision-making have anything to do with "science." It may well have to be "all about science" to the extent a trial court is diverted away from relevant matters off on a tangent about whether an initial evaluator (who arguably should not have been involved in the case in the first place) properly analyzed a psychometric test and similar, but the custody evaluator's investigation and recommendations -- and the court's final decisions -- actually will have little to do with anything scientific. Even if the custody evaluation reviewers are arguably more scientific in certain ways in order to counter the initial evaluator's opinions, the "crafting of scientific custody evaluations" remains a posture ignoring that it was inappropriate in the first place to burden a litigant who disagrees with the recommended arrangement with a second opponent in court arging for what are, at the core, his own personal preferences. And as to this opponent, the litigant is faced with having to hire a reviewer with ostensibly more scientific expertise to litigate the tangential side case because the first MHP was presumed to have grounded his opinions in science, thereby shielding them from ready criticism inside an armor of unwarranted wisdom and credibility.

Parenting Coordination - a very bad idea

Article from thelizlibrary.org
Parenting Coordinators are a Bad Idea. Why:

Let's start with the problems with parenting coordination that every lawyer knows: inappropriate delegation of the judicial function, impediment to court access, and denial of due process. And go on...

The parenting coordinator concept encroaches on family liberty interests, bringing the government behind the closed doors of people's lives, injecting into the private realm a third party who is not in any way more capable than either of the parents are to make day-to-day decisions about their own families, values, and goals.

Parenting coordination is a made-up, make-work field that has been invented by bottom-feeding extraneous "professionals" who have literally reproduced like bacteria in the family court system.

There are no studies indicating that parenting coordinators make good decisions, improve the lives of children or parents, or improve child wellbeing. And, there is no reason to believe they would.

What qualifies a person to make personal family and childrearing decisions for other people -- what physician a child should go to, what school, other academic decisions, what extracurricular activities a child should participate in, family routines and scheduling decisions, seating decisions at the bar mitzvah or soccer game, and so forth? What qualifies a person unilaterally to interpret a court order, or "fill in the gaps" in the details of a legal document, a "parenting plan" (a violation of freedom of contract)? What qualifies a person to do "parenting coordination" to "help other persons implement" a legal contract (marital settlement agreement), as a supposed neutral?

Nothing.

What constitutes "success" at parenting coordination? Who knows. To the parenting coordinator, perhaps getting a nice fee.

To a judge, perhaps that he thinks he's eliminating work, clearing his docket, or just putting off disputes to another day, or to a later judge. If a judge thinks this, he's mistaken, because parenting coordination is not just an inappropriate denial of access to the court. The presence of a parenting coordinator leaves cases continuously open, which is guaranteed to make things worse in the long run.

To one of the parties, that he or she now has an ally? That one of the parties is happy? That's not necessarily an indication of success unless we know with certainty that that party generally has the more meritable position.

Increased family well-being? How is this possible when people are burdened with tasks and negotiations and meddlesome reportings of the minutiae of their days to third parties, when their time and money is consumed, pointlessly, when their privacy is intruded upon by the government like this, and when they are forced to kow-tow to the dictates of a court-appointed, decision-making autocrat in every area of their most intimate lives? It's not.

When there are better child-rearing outcomes? As compared with what? Defined how? Under any definition, increased child wellbeing has not been shown to flow from any of the ideas of applied therapeutic jurisprudence trade promotion.

Just as with custody evaluators and guardians ad litem, and even to a large extent, the practice of mediation, there is no way to do any decent studies in this area. Don't fall for self-serving industry articles spinning speculation. Research will never demonstrate any benefits from many of these ideas, including parenting coordination, because credible studies simply cannot be done. Even, inappropriately, after the fact.

(If you don't understand why, contact me privately and I will direct you to material on social science versus science, experimental methodology, logic, and how to do critical reading and thinking and not be such a credulous patsy.)

The parenting coordination concept is an infection that causes all of the problems that custody evaluators and GALs bring into the family court system, and then some. Again, what qualifies a third-party stranger parenting coordinator to make daily family life decisions for other people? Nothing. And nothing ever will. Many of these kinds of decisions are made based on a free individual's private life, relationships, work, desires, schedule, personal values, beliefs and goals. The parenting coordinator makes decisions based on the parenting coordinator's own private agendas, preferences, motives, values, beliefs and goals -- and which party the parenting coordinator just happens to like better, which already is the unfortunate but real basis for most of custody evaluator and guardian ad litem opinings. (This includes, inter alia, intangible personality things as well tangibles such as who like them and pays them timely and well.)

Many, if not most, lawyer parenting coordinators as well as many mental health professionals, notwithstanding their ostensible "training", completely lack psychological insight. Parenting coordination is not "co-parenting therapy" (which rarely works anyway -- witness all the mental health professionals bucking for this authority to be mini-judges and dictators.) Most mental health professionals also lack a clue regarding the repercussions in law of their ideas. And these are people supposedly interpreting and "filling in the gaps" in legal documents!

There is no valid "training" because there is no body of expertise, no foundation of knowledge, to base any such training on. Maybe they're just smart? Well, not versus all possible litigants by a long shot, and no stranger is qualified to understand the daily life and routines, and individuals, and personalities, and interactions going on in someone else's household and the effects of their ideas in practice unless they actually spend considerable time in that household. Which, of course, they don't.

Parenting coordination provides a forum for the arguing of minutiae that, in the absence of a parenting coordinator, the parties would have to work out, and learn to work out, on their own, or just let go.

When the parenting coordinator makes a bad decision, this opens the door for the parties to go back into the courthouse, thereby bringing into court minutiae that otherwise would not have a forum. Moreover, the very existence of a parenting coordinator, like an uber-parent for the parents, itself creates a forum for petty squabbling, encouraging it because, ironically, just like a misguided inept parent, the third party (getting paid for his time) is ready and available to intervene in all manner of disputes, thus retarding rather than encouraging growth and cooperation.

Parenting coordination is expensive, even at hourly rates less than the ordinary rates charged by these professionals when they do real work. This is so because the cost is for extra work, on top of the lawyers and litigation expenses the parties still have to maintain; the parenting coordination process actually does not eliminate any of this. Rather, it adds on additional professional expenses to handle minutiae that otherwise would not be creating expense. Ultimately, it's very expensive because any expense that does not yield something of equivalent value is a waste of money. Moreover, having a parenting coordinator at the ready permits a wealthier party to spend the other's funds by unilaterally contacting and choosing to bring issues before the parenting coordinator. Generally, both parties have to pay a portion of the parenting coordinator's fees; usually these are divided 50-50, and timely payment of the parenting coordinator's fees also becomes an issue of high concern for the parenting coordinator, added into the case.

Once appointed, the parenting coordinator has absolutely no incentive to work himself or herself out of a job.

Parenting coordination intrudes on privacy. Among other things, parenting coordination permits the state via a state-appointed agent to demand information and details about people's lives that then can be brought back into court by the opposing party, effectively becoming ongoing compelled discovery, contrary to the Fourth Amendment.

Individuals who choose to do this "work", to become parenting coordinators, are the equivalent of paid yentas and neighborhood meddlers. They tend to be individuals who cannot make a go of practicing their profession -- the incompetent, the inexperienced, the nincompoop, the untalented, the lazy and/or the burnt-out. A good number are flat-out agenda'd, either politically, or of the psychic vampire or petty tyrant variety.

A big draw for doing parenting coordination work is, of course, that while parenting coordination promoters tout the "lower cost", meaning that they are willing to settle for lower fees per hour for this work rather than their other work, the work itself is relatively brainless. And it's unregulated and practicably unable to be regulated. There is no efficient or effective oversight. Being unregulated means that there is no recourse against the parenting coordinator for malfeasance or malpractice. How nice for the parenting coordinator.

In addition, the potential amount of work is open-ended and in large part able to be self-generated by the parenting coordinator. The schedule is flexible. Don't discount either, the parenting coordinators with axes to grind and personal agendas all about how other people's lives should work, what constitutes "fairness", fathers' or mothers' rights, parental values and roles, and so forth, as well as reliving and normalizing their own family-of-origin issues. How nice for the parenting coordinator.

If you've heard argument otherwise, that the field was chosen in order to "help" (dictate to other) people, or because they were "frustrated" as lawyers or psychologists or mediators in not being able to "help" (dictate to other) people, then given the relatively lower (albeit no-overhead) hourly fees charged for parenting coordination, ask how much unpaid voluntary work the person has done. Query why this ostensible advice-giving do-gooderism wasn't just done through their church, or a community charity agency, and offered to all-comers in their avocational spare time on a no-obligation basis, while in their regular working time, they just continue to practice the profession for which they actually were trained and licensed. That's how good samaritans and persons with kindly, charitable intent usually "help" when that's the actual motive and they already have a real profession to practice in the family court field.

The nature of the function as designed enables parenting coordinators to churn money by insisting on all manner of crap that involves them, under circumstances in which their decisions cannot be second-guessed, even by a judge. The parenting coordinator's "work" cannot conveniently be reviewed by a judge because the "proceedings" with a parenting coordinator are informal, undocumented, and outside of the court and due process. So no matter what occurs, the parenting coordinator can "remember" conversations and events differently from the way they really happened. If contested, the parenting coordinator also can -- and will -- employ the ready CYA alibis of "high conflict custody case" and one parent's ostensible irrationality or prevarication.

Frequent and typical make-work by the parenting coordinator includes forcing people to include the parenting coordinator in all communications and emails, provide the parenting coordinator in advance with parents' and children's schedules and activities, meet at the whim of the parenting coordinator, provide the parenting coordinator with school documents and medical records, and the like. Churn, churn, churn, duplicate, churn...

Many of the lawyers, mental health professionals, and erstwhile mediators and guardians ad litem who want to do parenting coordination have no actual experience themselves as parents, let alone as caregiving parents, let alone as single parents -- or with blended family issues, or with children with particular issues, or in "shared parenting" or divorced situations. Nor do they even necessarily hail themselves from successful well-functioning families. Parenting coordinators bring to their job their personal opinions and values and speculations founded on their unknown personal backgrounds, including some of the most dysfunctional (and undisclosed) personal familial histories, and implement their personal and political agendas. They are the antithesis of "wise persons", who generally are not found among neighborhood gossips or those who relish involving themselves in the mundane details of other people's lives.

Time spent with the parenting coordinator, where not catering to the dysfunctionals who just need sounding boards (that fantasy ends quickly, once the parenting coordinator begins to align with the other parent), is tedious and time-consuming for the parents. The same timewasting, of course, represents a ca-ching in the bank account of the parenting coordinator, which encourages plodding and more time-wasting meetings and talkings.

Parents also are placed at the whim of all arbitrary demands made by the parenting coordinator for payment for their time, largely in the control of the parenting coordinator and possibly the other party. (This applies, to a great extent, as well, to various court-appointed therapists and GALs). Given the presence of the parenting coordinator, and the payment incentive, every decision, no matter how small -- not just major decisions -- is open for endless discussion and consultation. In addition to being time-consuming, it's a delight for stalker-harasser abusive types, as well as those who just won't let go of the other party.

The parenting coordinator can think up all kinds of things and require the parents to comply: pseudo-therapy (unregulated by the licensing boards because it's "not really" therapy); "communications counseling"; "coaching"; reading of materials; various homework assignments; meetings with one or the other of the parties, meetings together, meetings with various combinations of others; demands for disclosure, frequently in writing, of private thoughts, emotions, and information; consultations and strategy sessions with the children's guardian ad litem and parents' court-ordered or parenting coordinator-ordered therapists; meetings with the children's physicians and teachers; meetings with anyone at all; ordering of a parent into supervised visitation or therapeutic visitation; recommending to the court therapies of all kinds with yet more of the helping professionals -- almost anything at all. And if a parent doesn't comply, there are sanctions, imposed both by the parenting coordinator and the court for "noncompliance".

How-to techniques for would-be parenting coordinators in this new invented "profession" consist of almost anything the parenting coordinator might think up, sprinkled with suggestions and teachings borrowed from law, psychology, mediation and other practices, as well as fantasies from other imaginative self-styled professional parenting coordinators in the recent explosion of manuals, books and trade-promotion "trainings". (Until enough fools sign on for this cock-'n-bull to fill a workweek, for the ambitious, there's still money that can be earned professing to be a mavin). Parenting coordination "training" materials comprise mostly stuff plucked from the asses of their inventors.

Doubt me? Read some of it. Parenting coordination methodology includes such things as ordering people how to talk with each other ("use my template"), ordering parents in what method they may or must talk with each other ("email only, and you must copy me"), and even uttering orders to parents regarding when or whether they must or may not meet and/or communicate with each other, with the parenting coordinator, with the court and the parties' lawyers, and with other people, all in astonishing violation of the First Amendment. To facilitate all of this, parenting coordinator orders, agreements, "voluntary" consents, "understandings" and intake forms generally require the parents to sign away all manner of fundamental constitutional rights -- essentially, busybody's wetdream.

As previously noted, having a parenting coordinator on a case keeps the case continuously open and invites it to explode into endless issue-making, rather than being finally resolved, and in doing so, actually creates more, not fewer, problems for both the litigants and the courts. Sometimes a case does appear to resolve, but all too often that is only because the financially or emotionally weaker party, or the party unfavored by the parenting coordinator, just gives up in defeat, beaten away by the constant undercurrent threat of litigation, the harassment, and the need to avoid continuing costs.

(If judges' goals here are to get people to just shut up and go away, we could eliminate all of the docket problems in the civil courts and achieve equally fine results just by closing the courts altogether.)

In recent years there has been a burgeoning of child abuse and deaths stemming from child custody disputes in which abusive individuals get custody and visitation rights, correlating in the rise of joint custody theory and the intrusion into the family courts of therapeutic jurisprudence.

Parenting coordination, the latest of these therapeutic jurisprudential ideas is dangerous, and not merely because of the distortion it makes in the judicial system and of due process. Unqualified strangers can and will make bad decisions that simply cannot timely be brought to court, cannot effectively be reviewed by the court, or which are prohibitively expensive to bring to court. Parenting coordinators have missed domestic violence. They have assumed facts that are not true. They have perceived emergencies or situations incorrectly. They have mischaracterized events and made egregious judgmental mistakes. They have lied outright. And this is dangerous because they are not and practicably cannot be subject to any effective oversight.

Depending on the vagaries of the practice from time to time in this or that jurisdiction, parenting coordinators effectively have license to wield heavy authority and extremely biased power, opining back to and influencing judges, bringing issues into the public domain that do not belong there and which were not brought into the case by either party, siding with one party unfairly (even developing personal relationships), and recommending or just ordering the parties to hire their own cronies for therapies and guardianships and evaluations. It's a recipe for more corruption and an insult to the rule of law.

Parenting coordinators can -- and do -- violate the terms of parties' contractual agreements as well as the law. Lobbyists for statutory implementation of this role have argued, speciously, that oversight indeed exists because the parties can always go back to court. But real life doesn't work that way. "If you don't like it, then take it to court" is a dare that can be thrown out cavalierly, because the parenting coordinator role permits these court appointees to hold over the head of objecting parties the power -- baselessly presumed to be executed in good faith -- to obtain the ear of the judge first, to poison the well. They also hold more credibility before him than those lunatic, bitter, embattled, unreasonable, "high-conflict", personality-disordered parents. They can and do function as shadow witnesses ex parte, to provide the judge with information, evidence and innuendo. Their inexpert opinions can and frequently will label one of the parties as the recalcitrant, the wrongdoer, the deadbeat, the crazy, or the "uncooperative".

So "take it to the judge" does not work, particularly post-decree, when a party may be short of time or funds, or may no longer even have a lawyer. And it does not work because in many courts, days or weeks, or months may go by before a party can get a hearing. And it does not work because an objecting party has to overcome not only the parenting coordinator but also the opposing party (that's being out-voted from the git-go, two against one, a problem that is similar to that created by guardians ad litem, but potentially even worse because the parenting coordinator solicits cahoots with courthouse cronies, the guardian ad litem, the appointed therapists, and so forth). And it does not work because "going back to court" means risking the irritation of the judge who appointed the parenting coordinator in the first place precisely because he didn't want to hear about it. No oversight.

Difficult to remove in any event once appointed, the parenting coordinator is even more difficult to remove when he or she is biased (and that's a better than even bet, given the nature of ongoing informal relationships with people, especially where there is money at stake, and especially given who is drawn to this line of work). Bias should be one of the grounds that immediately would mandate removal of a parenting coordinator, but it also means that the parenting coordinator will be vested in preserving his own aura of competence (as well as income), and supported by the party with whom he is aligned. Moreover, how does a party prove "bias" when the ubiquitous explanation is that the "disgruntled" party who didn't get his or her way always makes that claim.

There is no way to tell in advance who might be a "good" or "helpful" parenting coordinator. Families differ, circumstances differ, and personalities differ. To parties disputing this, or buying into a sell-job from some mental health professional, mediator, or burnt-out lawyer, I would ask: how great were you in deciding in advance who to marry, or with whom to have a child. What makes you believe that the third party who wants this easy work will be a second voice on "your" side?

In the inane insistence that "both" parents "participate" in making decisions regarding the child, in order to avoid stalemate, parenting coordination is the tool for unworkable joint custody from BOTH parents the right to function with authority and automony. (Instead of one parent, the kid now has two ineffective half-parents.) One should counter: if a third party stranger based upon no established field of expertise whatsoever is supposedly qualified to make and facilitate decisions impacting people's family lives, something not even usually encouraged in clinical therapy, then why is not the better solution just to select one of the parents to make the decisions. At least then the children at least would have one functional authoritative parent, something that IS demonstrably evidenced in the research to be necessary for child security and well-being.

While the rhetoric is rampant that parents are less likely or unlikely to consider their children before themselves in their decision-making when they are embattled in divorce and post-divorce issues, no research actually substantiates this concocted rationale.

It first was invented to lobby for guardians ad litem in family law cases, and later was used to justify in part the appointment of custody evaluators. It's become yet another family court system truism without a shred of foundation. The anecdotal claims (if you even get that much, get any anecdotes) of individuals who have a political or profit motive, peddling their services to the market, are just not credible, especially as to historic primary caregivers. No one is as interested in or vested in their own children's happiness and wellbeing as the child's own parent, and as between two parents, than the one who already has shown higher attachment and commitment.

Parenting coordination stands as proof positive that forced joint custody does not work. There's a better solution. You all know what that is.

See the original article for citations and links.

Post-Divorce Relocation: Policy Considerations

POST-DIVORCE RELOCATION: POLICY CONSIDERATIONS
by Scott Altman

Professor Braver suggests that children would be happier and healthier if we discouraged parents who divorce from relocating. I am not convinced that this policy would help children. But this is an empirical question about which I will comment briefly as I conclude.

Professor Braver also offers a glimpse into public opinion, which seems to favor relocation deterrence, partly on fairness grounds. My main goal tonight is show why this view is wrong: inhibiting relocation by threatening to take custody away from the moving parent is not a fair solution.

It might strike you as odd that I mention fairness to parents; shouldn't custody law try only to protect children? I do not think so. Children are not the only people worthy of moral concern, and our legal practices reflect a commitment to many competing values.

Consider just a few examples: We permit parents to risk orphaning their children by sky-diving and climbing mountains; we allow intact families to relocate (for a job or just on a whim) even if this disrupts important social ties for children. We also send parents who commit crimes to prison, despite obvious harms to their children. And we force parents who commit torts to pay damage awards, even though these payments impoverish children.

Why do we allow all these risks to vulnerable children? Because we think that adults should be free to pursue their own interests, and because social goals, such as crime control or justice between adults, sometimes matter more than protecting children.

Relocation law already places many adult interests above child welfare. For example, if Professor Braver is right, moves by non-custodial parents harm children as much moves by custodial parents. Yet there has never been a serious effort to deter non-custodial parents from relocating. That people see little unfairness in this discrepancy suggests that the core issue in relocation is access to children and choice of residence, not the best interests of children.

Do these adult interests merit much weight in child custody policy? If so, how should we resolve conflicts between the interests of custodial and non-custodial parents?

Fairness requires us to take these adult interests seriously for three reasons. First, relocation doctrine should try to allocate fairly the personal hardships of divorce. Second, it should not exacerbate gender inequality. And third, it should not involve the law in unjust coercion. These conclusions do not provide simple solutions. But I will argue that they counsel against using conditional custody changes to deter relocation.

My first argument begins from the perspective of equality. Parents regularly make sacrifices to promote their children's welfare. Perhaps becoming a parent requires committing in advance to sacrifice for the child when necessary. But both parents share this obligation. Fairness between them counsels that one parent not be asked to sacrifice far more than the other in the interest of protecting their child.

Demands that sacrifices be fairly allocated are among the few positions shared by advocates on both sides of relocation debates. Indeed, it may be the reason these debates are so heated.

From the perspective of a noncustodial parent, relocation not only harms the child and deprives him of frequent access; it does all this even though he may already have made a very large sacrifice by accepting non-custodial parent status. He may concede custody willingly - preferring to settle custody terms quickly and peacefully for the benefit of the child. Having already given up daily contact with the child, much to the benefit of his former spouse, he is now asked to sacrifice even more for her convenience.

Custodial parents often see things differently. Child custody, despite its many rewards, also requires work and sacrifice. The custodial parent may feel she has given up personal freedoms and job advancement to provide child care, and that she is now being asked to sacrifice further, by foregoing a new job or proximity to family, all for the convenience of a parent who already had more freedom and fewer child-care duties. Relocation limits from this perspective are the insult added to the injury of her disproportionate child-care duties.

And each parent often suspects the other of bad faith: non-custodial parents believe that the move is motivated by spite or a desire to avoid continued contact; custodial parents often think opposition is motivated by spite or a desire for ongoing control.

No doubt there is some truth in both perspectives. Bad faith is always possible. And any self-aware parent knows that time with children is both a joy and a pain. In any given case, the balance of sacrifices and level of sincerity may vary.

But for most cases, this balance is more certain. Most fathers do not want custody of children, much preferring the freedom of visitation to the ongoing responsibility of single parenthood. Given what we know about the division of childcare chores and custodial parents' lower standard of living, custodial parents likely sacrifice more on average than noncustodial. Rules limiting their mobility exacerbate this imbalance.

I would weigh this imbalance less heavily if the law made great efforts to restrain moves by non-custodial parents. Inequities would remain - for example custodial parents would still likely suffer more from their inability to move. But at least all parents would lose mobility so that their children can flourish.

Without strong measures to restrain noncustodial parents, our laws are doubly unjust in their impact. First, they ask the overworked custodial parent to restrict her mobility to protect the child. And then they grant broad freedoms to the relatively unencumbered non-custodial parent whose relocation might be equally harmful. The inequalities I have mentioned so far ignore gender. But we all know that most custodial parents are mothers and that restrictive relocation rules disproportionately burden women. This is especially so for poor women, who most desperately need to relocate for higher pay or lower-costs, and who can least afford to navigate complex legal proceedings required by the procedurally burdensome factual inquiries that accompany restrictive rules.

For anyone who cares about equality of outcomes, restrictive relocation laws are problematic. These laws tie women to the location of their marriage, which often was chosen by their husbands, and therefore often keeps them far from family. It also limits their mobility to seek better jobs or new relationships, either of which may be important to raise their standards of living. Those standards of living are - by all measures - lower than men's after divorce. For some women, this lower earning capacity is due to their prior career sacrifices made while caring for children.

At the same time, relocation law allows men to keep the jobs they had during the marriage, or to relocate for better jobs or new spouses. Even if all this is fully equal in principle, it does not work out as very equal in effect.

Despite all my arguments so far, I am remain ambivalent about relocation. I share one intuition with people who oppose relocation: decent parents ought to make personal sacrifices so that their children have frequent contact with both mother and father - at least when there is no domestic violence or other serious problem. I hope that I would do as much, and admire the friends I know who have done so to protect their children.

If parents have this duty, shouldn't our legal system encourage them to fulfill it? Often the parent seeking to relocate would remain with the child if she had to choose between relocation and losing custody. By threatening a custody change that need never occur, the law encourages parents to fulfill their obligations. Absent domestic violence or high conflict, this might work to children's advantage.

I do not embrace this conclusion for two reasons. First, the inequality problem remains unless we enact strong measures to deter relocation by non-custodial parents. If we really think parents waive their rights to relocate away from children, we could dramatically increase the child-support duties of non-custodial parents who move, or threaten to end their visitation rights in the hope that the threat would induce them to stay.

Second, not all incentives are reasonable for governments to use. Most of us recoil when the police leverage family members' loyalty to their own ends. For example, officers sometimes threaten to prosecute a suspect's spouse or child unless the suspect pleads guilty. The problem here is not coercion, or even that people should not face hard choices; it is that government should not threaten to undermine intimate relationships as a way of influencing behavior.

Having offered some reasons to doubt that restrictive relocation laws are fair to adults, I want to conclude with a few cautionary notes about whether they are really important for children.

Professor Braver's research on this topic is in many ways careful. But like any social science work it has limitations. I am reasonably confident that he would be the first to acknowledge these. A few seem worth noting here.

First, the underlying data here is largely from surveys that ask college students to recall events from their childhood, some of which long predate the survey. There is nothing wrong with this method. But before making policy choices based on these conclusions, we would want to see them confirmed through other methods, such as longitudinal work that allows measurements taken closer to the events being studied.

Second, it is always difficult to know whether relocation is causing harm, rather than that harmful circumstances are leading to relocation. Professor Braver acknowledges this issue. Indeed his paper examining whether prior parental conflict caused both relocation and harm shows how important causal ambiguity can be. Several of the harms discussed in his first paper were reduced or eliminated once he controlled for conflict. This leaves me wondering whether there are other omitted variables that, once studied, would lead us to think relocation is not harmful at all. Indeed, if we had information about actual parental conflict, rather than children's memories of conflict years earlier, we might learn that conflict explains all of the harm that Professor Braver attributes to relocation.

Third, Professor Braver's study compares the welfare of children who moved with their mothers, or whose fathers moved away, with a third group who fared somewhat better. This third group was a set of families that remained near the marital home. The problem with this comparison is that these families may have remained nearby one another voluntarily. Until we can study children who live with custodial parents who were restrained from moving, we cannot predict what effect restraining moves will have on child welfare.

This comparison-group problem is more than just a methodological quibble. Many other researchers have found connections between child welfare and having a financially secure and personally stable custodial parent, and a home free from violence. We know that escaping conflict and seeking stability are common reasons given for wanting to relocate. So it seems likely that mothers who did not relocate in Professor Braver's study faced fewer problems with conflict, poverty, and personal stability than those who did relocate. This pattern might reveal that children whose mothers relocated had more problems than children whose mothers did not. But those children whose mothers relocated might have been even worse off had their mothers been forced to remain where they were. Given this uncertainty, we cannot really know what relocation rule Professor Braver's data supports.

In closing, I have focused on fairness to adults. In most cases, these concerns counsel allowing relocation without the need for burdensome factual hearings. I am unsurprised to learn that the public may have contrary views about fairness. And I do not discount the wisdom of common intuition. But in this case, the unfairness may have escaped public notice. The job of policy makers is to help shape public opinion to favor fair outcomes, rather than to follow public perception.

As to children's interests, a large body of research suggests that children do well when their primary caregiver does well (both financially and in other ways). Until the harms of relocation are demonstrated with greater certainty, we should not put custodial parents and children at risk by limiting relocation for those who need it, either by coercive threats to change custody or by costly and time-consuming legal proceedings.

Babies Need Their Mothers Beside Them

BABIES NEED THEIR MOTHERS BESIDE THEM
By James J. McKenna, Ph.D.

Throughout human history, breast-feeding mothers sleeping alongside their infants constituted a marvelously adaptive system in which both the mothers' and infants' sleep physiology and health were connected in beneficial ways. By sleeping next to its mother, the infant receives protection, warmth, emotional reassurance, and breast milk - in just the forms and quantities that nature intended.

This sleeping arrangement permits mothers (and fathers) to respond quickly to the infant if it cries, chokes, or needs its nasal passages cleared, its body cooled, warmed, caressed, rocked or held. This arrangement thus helps to regulate the infant's breathing, sleep state, arousal patterns, heart rates and body temperature. The mother's proximity also stimulates the infant to feed more frequently, thus receiving more antibodies to fight disease. The increased nipple contact also causes changes in the mother's hormone levels that help to prevent a new pregnancy before the infant is ready to be weaned. In this way, the infant regulates its mother's biology, too; increased breast-feeding blocks ovulation, which helps to ensure that pregnancies will not ordinarily occur until the mother's body is able to restore the fat and iron reserves needed for optimal maternal health.

It is a curious fact that in Western societies the practice of mothers, fathers and infants sleeping together came to be thought of as strange, unhealthy and dangerous. Western parents are taught that "co-sleeping" will make the infant too dependent on them, or risk accidental suffocation. Such views are not supported by human experience worldwide, however, where for perhaps millions of years, infants as a matter of course slept next to at least one caregiver, usually the mother, in order to survive. At some point in recent history, infant separateness with low parental contact during the night came to be advocated by child care specialists, while infant- parent interdependence with high parental contact came to be discouraged. In fact, thefew psychological studies which are available suggest that children who have "co-slept" in a loving and safe environment become better adjusted adults than those who were encouraged to sleep without parental contact or reassurance.

The fear of suffocating infants has a long and complex cultural history. Since before the middle ages "overlying" or suffocating infants deliberately was common, particularly among the poor in crowded cities. This form of infanticide led local church authorities to make laws forbidding parents to let infants sleep next to them. The practice of giving infants alcohol or opiates to get them to sleep also became common; under such conditions, babies often did not wake up, and it was presumed that the mothers must have overlaid them. Also, in smoke-filled, under-ventilated rooms, infants can easily succumb to asphyxia. Unfortunately, health officials in some Western countries promote the message that sleep contact between the mother and infant increases the chances of the infant dying from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). But the research on which this message is based only indicates that bed- sharing can be dangerous when it occurs in the context of extreme poverty or when the mother is a smoker. Some researchers have attempted to export this message to other cultures. However, in Japan, for example, where co-sleeping is the norm, SIDS rates are among the lowest in the world, which suggests that this arrangement may actually help to prevent SIDS.

Human infants need constant attention and contact with other human beings because they are unable to look after themselves. Unlike other mammals, they cannot keep themselves warm, move about, or feed themselves until relatively late in life. It is their extreme neurological immaturity at birth and slow maturation that make the mother-infant relationship so important. The human infant's brain is only about 25% of its adult weight at birth, whereas most other mammals are born with 60-90% of their adult brain size. The young of most other mammals become independent of their parents within a year, whereas humans take 14 to 17 years to become fully developed physically, and usually longer than that to be fully independent.

Apart from being a natural characteristic of our species, constant proximity to the mother during infancy is also made necessary by the need to feed frequently. Human milk is composed of relatively low amounts of protein and fat, and high amounts of quickly absorbed and metabolized sugars. Therefore the infant's hunger cycle is short, as is the time spent in deep sleep. All of these factors seem to indicate that the custom of separating infants from their parents during sleep time is more the result of cultural history than of fundamental physiological or psychological needs. Sleep laboratory studies have shown that bed-sharing, instead of sleeping in separate rooms, almost doubled the number of breast-feeding episodes and tripled the total nightly duration of breast-feeding. Infants cried much less frequently when sleeping next to their mothers, and spent less time awake. We think that the more frequently infants are breast-fed, the less likely they are to die from cot death.

Our scientific studies of mother and infants sleeping together have shown how tightly bound together the physiological and social aspects of the mother-infant relationship really are. Other studies have shown that separation of the mother and infant has adverse consequences. Anthropological considerations also suggest that separation between the mother and infant should be minimal. Western societies must consider carefully how far and under what circumstances they want to push infants away from the loving and protective co-sleeping environment. Infants' nutritional, emotional and social needs as well as maternal responses to them have evolved in this environment for millennia.

Dr. James J. McKenna is a Professor of Anthropology and the Director of the Center for Behavioral Studies of Mother-Infant Sleep, Notre Dame University. This article first appeared in the March-April 1996 issue of World Health, the journal of the World Health Organization.

1996, James J. McKenna

Dr. James J. McKenna is a Professor of Anthropology and the Director of the Center for Behavioral Studies of Mother-Infant Sleep, Notre Dame University. http://www.naturalchild.org/james_mckenna/babies_need.html

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More at http://www.thelizlibrary.org/

Attachment Research Bibliography

(Find annotated Research on Fatherhood, Motherhood, Joint Custody and related topics at http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz)

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Wobie, K., Eyler, F. D., Conlan, M., Clarke, L., & Behnke, M. (1997). Women and treatment in residential treatment: Outcomes for mothers and their infants. Journal of Drug Issues, 27(3), 585-606.

Zeanah, C. H. et al. (2000). Disorganized attachment associated with partner violence: A research note. Infant Mental Health Journal,Volume 20, Issue 1 , Pages 77-86 (Seventy-two low-income mothers and their 15-month-old infants were evaluated at home and in the laboratory to determine whether mothers' reports of distress and partner violence were associated with infant-mother attachment and infant mastery motivation. As predicted, mothers who experienced more serious partner violence were more likely to have infants with disorganized attachments to them. There was no association between mothers' experiences of partner violence and infant mastery motivation.)

Zuravin, S., & DePanfilis, J. (1997). Factors affecting foster care placement of children receiving child protective services. Social Work Research, 21(1), 34-42.

"I've been in this business (of academia) for nearly a quarter century now and nothing depresses me more than the rampant, seemingly inveterate mis-characterization that lies at the core of nearly every academic debate. We are not incapable of arguing about intellectual substance and empirical reality, but we seem to prefer misunderstanding as a subject for invective. The root of this lamentable behavior can only lie in careless habits of reading and thinking (or, worse, in our willingness to argue without reading at all)."
-- Stephen J. Gould. as quoted in Belsky, J. (2001). Emanuel Miller Lecture Developmental Risks (Still) Associated with Early Child Care. J. Child Psycho). Psychiat. Vol. 42, No. 7, pp. 845-859.

Fatherless Children

**Fatherless Children:

Alexander Hamilton - President Gen. George Washington - President Thomas Jefferson - President James Monroe - President Andrew Jackson - President Andrew Johnson - President Rutherford B. Hayes - President Herbert Hoover - President Grover Cleveland - President Gerald Ford - President William Jefferson Clinton - U.S. Supreme Court Justice James Wilson - U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Rutledge - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Johnson Field - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thomas Todd - U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Davis - U.S. Supreme Court Justice John McKinley - U.S. Supreme Court Ch. Justice (and U.S. Treasury Secretary) Salmon P. Chase - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Melville Fuller - U.S. Supreme Court Ch. Justice Edward D. White - U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo - U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas - U.S. Supreme Court Justice James F. Byrnes - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas - Frederick Douglas - Gen. Robert E. Lee - Gen. John Rawlins - Booker T. Washington - Benjamin Rush - Stephen Colbert - George Mason - Fr. Gen. Marquis de Lafayette - Henry Clay - Meriwether Lewis - Eleanor Roosevelt - Jackie Robinson - Mark Twain - George Washington Carver - Nathanial Hawthorne - Eli Whitney - Linus Carl Pauling - Aristotle - Nicolas Copernicus - Sir Isaac Newton - Mahatma Gandhi - Leonardo da Vinci - Confucius - Queen Elizabeth I - Jean-Jacques Rousseau - William Blackstone - Alexander Fleming - Nelson Mandela - Catherine the Great of Russia - Alexandre Dumas - Gen. Alexander Haig - Alabama Governor Bibb Graves - New York Governor Al Smith - Tennessee Governor Sam Houston - Indiana Supreme Court Justice William Allen Woods - U.S. Senator Al Sharpton - U.S. Senator Bella Abzug - U.S. Senator Barack Obama - U.S. Senator William Warren "Bill" Bradley - Queen Victoria of Britain - Alan Greenspan - Alessandro Volta - Ada Lovelace - Jane Austen - George Eastman - Roy Wilson Howard - Johann Sebastian Bach - Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz - John Lennon - Hans Christian Andersen - Edward Jenner - Giacomo Puccini - Joseph John ("J.J.") Thomson - Bertrand Russell - Hermann Rorschach - Herman Melville - John Keats - Marian Anderson - Garry Kasparov - Leo Tolstoy - Peyton Rous - Benjamin Carson - Raphael - David Hume - Hannah Arendt - Ralph Waldo Emerson - Stephen Crane - Friedrich Nietzsche - Agatha Christie - William Wordsworth - Max Weber - Cleopatra - Audie Murphy - Gustav Theodor Fechner - Edgar Allen Poe - Emile Zola - William Smith - Gerald Bull - Willa Cather - Daniel Dennett - Cass Gilbert - Mary Leakey - Charlie Chaplin - Nelly Bly - Max Born - Sarah Breedlove - Steve Allen - Louis Armstrong - Warren Hastings - Allan Pinkerton - Billie Holiday - Hank Williams - Malcolm X - Carol Burnett - Thomas Green Clemson - John Irving - J.R.R. Tolkien - Charles Bronson - Gene Hackman - Robert Hooke - Halle Berry - Eddie Murphy - Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg - Deborah Sampson - Ralph Ellison - California Supreme Court Justice Rose Bird - Eamon de Valera - William Reddington Hewlett - Mother Angelica - Deval Laurdine Patrick - F. Whitten Peters - Henry Talbot - Arthur C. Clarke - Jim Rogan - Frederick W. Alt - Emil J. Freireich - Charlotte Perkins Gilman - Bessie Coleman - Bertrand Russell - Dorothy Andersen - Chiang Kai-shek - Coco Chanel - Anderson Hayes Cooper - Hunter "Patch" Adams - Jack Nicholson - Roald Dahl - Douglas Fairbanks - David Harker - Irving Berlin - Loretta Young - Barbara Stanwick - Steve McQueen - Cher - Wayne Dyer - Sophia Loren - Stephen King - Whoopi Goldberg - Fatty Arbuckle - Dorothea Lange - Gloria Steinem - Gloria Gaynor - Jon Stewart - Bette Davis - Tom Cruise - Bill Cosby - Barry White - Jodie Foster - Ed Bradley - Rickey Henderson....


**The term "fatherless" is used in this post as it is in current research and policy rhetoric by the U.S. federal government, DHHS and the National Fatherhood Initiative, most U.S. states in connection with child custody law and policy, and various family values and fatherhood interest policy and lobbying groups.

Why Therapeutic Jurisprudence Must Be - and Will Be -- Eliminated From Our Family Courts

One of the problems with the rise of therapeutic jurisprudence and the placement of non-legal systems into the courts is the subtle denigration of long-established precepts of lawyer independence and due process. One of the multiple ways this happens in the family courts is through the common development of multidisciplinary collegial relationships and business referral.

The problem arises because most lawyers represent different clients taking different sides in different cases (sometimes the wife, sometimes the husband, sometimes the "good guy", sometimes the "bad guy", etc.). If a lawyer coming into a case runs up against an expert he has a referral or employment relationship with in other cases, and that expert takes an adverse position to the lawyer's client in the new case, the lawyer will have a very difficult time adequately representing his client. Appropriate representation may require the lawyer to strenuously object to an expert's testimony -- or even the expert himself. But if the lawyer needs the good will and cooperation of the expert in connection with the lawyer's other clients' pending cases, he cannot do that because he may put those other cases at risk.

Lawyers in these positions will be tempted to rationalize to themselves, as well as maintain the posture in the community at large, that the expert's opinions, even when they are adverse to his client, are scientifically valid -- even when they may not be, even if they are deeply flawed or completely bogus. These lawyers may rationalize to themselves that the validity of the science is not their responsibility because, after all, lawyers are not "scientists".

The lawyer who naively or purposefully steps down the path of multidisciplinary practice, regularly exchanging referrals and engaging in other close associations with nonlawyer case participants (a practice that is encouraged by the mixed-discipline organizations such as the AFCC under the Orwellian assumption that this fosters justice and works to "improve" the courts) in fact has sold his professional soul to the devil -- literally.

The lawyer and these other participants in the system have different roles. When lawyers directly hire paralegals, experts, and others to assist them, there is not as much of a problem, even when these individuals are independent contractors. First, their work is covered by attorney work product unless and until they testify. Second, because they were hired by the lawyer, they are subject to the same conflict of interest rules as the lawyer is, as far as their involvement in other cases. That is not the case with "independent" experts, however. Custody evaluators and guardians ad litem who render opinions "for the court", so-called "court-appointed experts", are a very different matter.

The conflict of interest problems are inherent in the nature of the association. They exist even when there is no explicit association or referral relationship. They are not the same as having a professional relationship with another lawyer who regularly may be on the opposing side of a case, because unlike the lawyer colleague, these individuals are case participants -- witnesses or even parties. They are not akin to neutral judges or magistrates, the bailiffs or other courthouse personnel. None of these truly neutral courthouse persons advocates for a position in a case, testifies as a witness, or participates as a party proper, as do some GALs.

The routine broad involvement of these expert witnesses must be recognized by the legal profession as an egregious misjudgment it is, as well as fostering ethical violations that must be addressed by state bar ethics rules.

Ironically, the problem is worse for lawyers who are not ideologues, because these lawyers are more likely to advocate for different client perspectives. The legal community, even in urban areas, is limited and often close-knit. Lawyers in the same area of practice regularly encounter each other. The pool of forensic experts and GALs tends to be even smaller. The repeated association time and again of these experts in cases means that at any time and from time to time any given expert may show up on the "wrong side" of a lawyer's case -- and simultaneously also be on the "right side" of other of the lawyer's cases, whether as hired expert or court-appointed expert. This creates many of the same dilemmas that ordinary client conflict-of-interest issues do.

Contrary to the rationalizing rhetoric, court-appointed evaluators and opining GALs are not neutral participants in the system. Even if they initially are hired under that rubric, once their reports are rendered, and their opinions formed and ready to be given, they have become advocates for one or the other side or issue. Thus, at a point, they are, just as any party would be, pointedly in favor of certain outcomes, and adverse to others.

What does the lawyer do when an expert the lawyer is relying on in one case takes a similar position that lacks scientific merit against another of the same lawyer's clients in another case. Because the expert and the lawyer have been, are currently, or will be in cahoots in other cases, the lawyer is placed into a conflict, unable zealously to discredit the expert when that is necessary to protect his client. Bar ethics rules must address this.

Lawyers are advocates. If an expert's position supports the lawyer's client, the lawyer is going to accept that opinion and put it forward in the interests of his client's case. But when the lawyer encounters the very same scientifically meritless position by the same expert in a case in which that does not favor the lawyer's client, what does the lawyer do? The problem is especially egregious in the area of psychological "experts" because, unlike other kinds of experts, the field of applied psychology is overrun with political machinations, nonsensical theories, half-baked ideas, and outright misrepresentation of research. Too often it's not "science" and it's not technical knowledge. Much of the time, it's akin to expertise in astrology, or theology -- a familiarity with complicated ideas and methods of calculating answers, and the body of literature that discusses all of this, but somewhere between unhelpful and misleading when it comes to ascertaining the facts.

Unlike lawyers in many other areas of practice, who may retain their clients for years, family lawyers typically need a steady stream of new one-shot clients. In addition, family lawyers also tend to work in smaller firms. So they value those who send them business. Too many family lawyers, perhaps without recognizing or acknowledging the subtle conflicts of interest that have caused their discomfort and unwillingness adequately to represent some of their clients in some of their cases, in fact have sacrificed these clients on the altar of maintaining their professional relationships, associations, and referral sources.

In such circumstances, some busy family lawyers admit to feeling burnout, but they've rationalized their unwillingness to zealously advocate for their clients, as well as their discomfort, as stemming from the "high conflict" created by unreasonable clients, or the high emotional toll the cases are taking on them. Others retain their enthusiasm by becoming extremist ideologues and proponents of bad science, taking only cases in which they will not encounter these conflicts. For example, this is seen among lawyers who overwhelmingly assert that their clients have been the victims of "parental alienation". The lawyer becomes committed to propositions outside of law and outside of the lawyer's academic expertise, carrying these into media of the legal field. This conveniently furthers the propagation of the bad science.

Some lawyers caught in this vortex justify their lack of vigorous representation, and the coerced settlements they've foisted on some clients as really hailing from a motivation and concern for the best interests of children, or as taking the reasonable settlement position, or the high road, or as their commitment to helping people to just get along. They may profess to themselves and each other and everyone else around a great affinity for mediation and therapy and collaborative resolution, and all manner of therapeutic jurisprudence in the interests of everyone, and similar specious posturing, encouraged in their self-delusion by a steady drip of MHP literature. This kind of thing is just not as pervasive in other areas of the law, no matter how heated the conflicts get, and it's one substantial reason the public has such a generally dim view of the family courts and family lawyers.

Given that clients are entitled to their choice of attorneys, and are entitled to independent, unconflicted, agents at law who are committed to furthering their interests and goals (as the client, not the attorney, has defined them), the only viable solution is a disqualification of any GAL or forensic expert who previously has been associated in any case with either of the lawyers in that case, and the striking and nullification of all testimony and reports of that expert, no matter at what stage of a case the lawyer is hired.

It also is time to substantially limit the use of forensic experts and GALs in family court altogether because for the most part, MHPs, including child custody evaluators and their related forensic offshoots, in fact are unneeded, unhelpful, and undesirable in the vast majority of child custody cases.

http://www.thelizlibrary.org/therapeutic-jurisprudence/time-to-end-it.html

The Constitutional Right to Travel

DiAnn Lindquist, Esq. (Colorado) makes the following argument in favor of custodial parent post-divorce relocations:

A citizen's right to interstate travel has long been recognized as a fundamental right, grounded upon the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV, Section 2, of the United States Constitution. Edwards v. People of State of California, 314 U.S. 160, 173, 62 S.Ct. 164 (1941).

This principle encompasses the right of individuals to "migrate, resettle, find a new job, and start a new life." Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 629, 89 S.Ct 1322, 1329, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 (1969).

Edwards, Shapiro, and their progeny were concerned with the constitutionality of state statutes designed to discourage indigent people from relocating to their state of choice.

The Supreme Court consistently held the statutes to be unconstitutional, reasoning,

"...[t]he nature of our Federal Union and our constitutional concepts of personal liberty unite to require that all citizens be free to travel throughout the length and breadth of our land, uninhibited by statutes, rules, or regulations which unreasonably burden or restrict this movement." Id.

The Court also held that the right of travel is "...a virtually unconditional personal right, guaranteed by the Constitution to us all." Id. at 643, 89 S.Ct. at 1336.

For the same reasons that a state cannot prohibit a person from moving to a particular area, it also cannot prohibit a person from moving from a particular area.

Strict Scrutiny

Court action that places restrictions on a citizen's fundamental rights requires application of the strict scrutiny test. Jones v. Helms, 452 U.S. 412 (1981); U.S. v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144, 152, 58 S.Ct. 778 (1938).

Under strict scrutiny, the state must show that it has a compelling purpose for denying the fundamental right and that the remedy chosen is narrowly tailored to meet the stated purpose. Shapiro, 394 U.S. at 634, 89 S.Ct. at 1331.

Requiring a citizen to live in a specific locale, thereby restricting his or her fundamental right of travel, must be based on compelling state concerns. Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U.S. 417 (1990).

Parents also have a fundamental liberty interest in the care, custody, and management of their natural children, and due process must be provided when the state interferes with that relationship. Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745 (1982).

This argument successfully was used in the mother's brief in the Colorado Supreme Court relocation case of Spahmer v. Gullette, decided June 5, 2005 (Barry Seidenfeld, Esq. and Anne Whalen Gill, Esq., counsel.)

Joint Custody and Infants

More on joint custody and infants -- Attachment Parenting Org's November newsletter has an article by Dr. Susan Markel that's worth a read:

Q: How feasible is it for the Courts to insist on shared custody of infants and toddlers?

A: "Fair and equitable distribution" is a concept that works with property, but not with young children. In that case, the attachment to the primary caregiver (usually the mother) is the most important and overriding issue.

Maintaining a consistent, nurturing relationship cannot be reduced to a comparison of hours spent with either parent. This is even more critical in a situation where the toddler is breastfeeding (the norm in most areas of the world).

Most often it is the mother who feeds, rocks, diapers and comforts the baby from birth, responding consistently to the needs of the infant and thereby forming a strong emotional attachment. Toddlers and young children are in no way able to understand the concept of time and certainly have no awareness of the needs for a custody arrangement where there is a desire for an equitable arrangement that is satisfactory to both parents. Indeed, a child whose predictable routine has been altered without regard to the anxieties that would be engendered is under unimaginable stress, further compounded by the inability of the child to express verbally the distress that is being experienced.

Children who are attached to their mothers can simply not be expected to endure having that relationship disrupted. The situation between these children's parents regarding their own needs for satisfaction is simply not their burden to bear, and yet, if pursued, (by removing them from their mother for many hours at a time, particularly overnight), the children would be expected to lose their sense of trust. In the long term, any resulting anxiety and depression would then be the forbearers of later emotional problems during early school years, adolescence, and in adulthood.

Even if their parents both genuinely want what is best for these children, it is necessary that these parents, as well as the court system, be educated, enlightened and really committed to understanding the profound problems that will result if prolonged visits are allowed to occur away from the primary caregiver during this sensitive time in their development.

Susan Markel, M.D.

For more information on Dr. Markel's work, see her website at http://www.attachmentparentingdoctor.com/

For more information on the issue of joint custody and infants, see liznotes at the liz library at http://www.thelizlibrary.org/.

Fatherless Children - Episode 2

This child was born into a prosperous family and well-educated in his early youth. But then his father died when he was just 10, and he was sent off to live with his older half-brother. His formal education largely ended at that point, and he was sent to learn the trade of surveying, which he went to work at full-time by the age of 16.

When he was 20, his half-brother died of tuberculosis. Weary of the drudgery of surveying, and fortuitously now in possession of an inheritance from his half-brother that relieved him from that, he joined the army. Within three years he rose to the rank of colonel.

His military career was not uniformly positive, however; he gained a reputation for being brash, occasionally rude to superior officers to whom he wrote multiple lengthy letters espousing his differing opinions, and impatient with authority.

By the time he was 26 he left the army, and then married an older wealthy widow with two children. With their combined money, he retired for a while to be a gentleman farmer and went into local politics. He became very interested in science and agriculture.

Not long afterward, however, he was recruited to lead an army of revolutionaries against the soldiers he formerly had commanded as a colonel. His success in these endeavors won him fame and honor that would persist for centuries. His bravery at bring bringing his troops through hardship and losses made him respected and greatly admired. His reputation for integrity and wise leadership made him a beloved hero and legend in his own time.

He became the first president of the United States.

George Washington, a boy from a "fatherless home."

The term "fatherless" is used in this series as it is in current research and policy rhetoric by the U.S. federal government, DHHS and the National Fatherhood Initiative, most U.S. states in connection with child custody law and policy, and various family values and fatherhood interest policy and lobbying groups.

See more Fatherless Children Stories.

Twelve Steps for a Mom to Lose Her Children in Divorce

From an article by Mark Evans: The following are steps for a mom to follow in Cobb County Georgia and many other locales across the USA to lose her children in divorce:

1. Marry a charming business man (whom we shall call Jack) who comes from a wealthy family. You are impressed with Jack's love of children. Jack spent over $140,000 to win custody of a daughter from a previous marriage. Of course, Jack would never do this to you. Jack says his finest qualities are loyalty and honesty. Hmmm.

2. Give birth to two daughters and survive a close brush with death due to complications with your second pregnancy. Give up your career to be a stay-at-home mom.

3. To help you sort out the strains and conflicts of a blended family, record your deeply private thoughts in a diary that Jack can later steal and use against you.

4. Strive to make God and church the bedrock of your life, especially if Jack is an avowed atheist. Participate in church activities and take Bible study classes so that you can be branded a religious fanatic.

5. Home school your children because of concerns with the quality of the local public school system and because you want only the best for your children. For this you will be branded an anarchist.

6. Contract a serious lingering illness with Multiple-Sclerosis-like symptoms so that as household chores slide while you convalesce, Jack can say you are a hypochondriac, sloppy housekeeper, and lousy entertainer for his friends visiting from abroad.

7. As your daughters begin to mature (ages 4 and 6) take note of things they say that suggests that daddy likes to play with more than just the rubber duck while bathing with the girls, that daddy plays games that he does not want mom to know about.

8. Follow your natural maternal urge to protect your children by having them evaluated by a forensic psychologist. When the psychologist tells you the girls have been sexually abused, proceed to the threshold of family court hell -- the Department of Family and Child Services (DFACS, CPS, etc.) -- where you file charges of sexual abuse against Jack.

9. When you select a lawyer for the ensuing divorce, choose someone nice with a good reputation in the Christian community who will turn the other cheek when the other side accuses you of fabricating evidence of sexual abuse, of parental alienation, of being vindictive, hysterical, and insane.

10. You discover your lawyer also represented Jack's first wife, ineffectively, in divorce court (what a small world). Since you've gone so far with this lawyer, ignore the advice of family members to get a new lawyer. They are probably wrong anyway because to change lawyers makes you look unstable.

11. Disregard that for every dollar you spend on a lawyer and psychiatric professionals, Jack's family will spend three. Disregard that the legal system is more concerned with money and influence than with doing the right thing for children.

12. During the two years leading up to a custody trial in which temporary custody is switched to Jack and his new girl friend because you have been branded an alienator, vindictive and insane, continue with all your heart to fight for your children. Exhaust all your resources and borrow from friends and family for mounting legal bills, even a therapist for yourself to prove that you are not insane. (Unfortunately, your sanity became suspect when you married Jack in the first place.) The more you try to protect your children and prove yourself worthy, the deeper the court appointed "professionals" (Guardian Ad Litem, Psych, etc.) will be pitted against you while all the time billing you for their services! It's like being robbed and then having to pay the robber.

Note that it is not necessary for you to engage in adultery, prostitution or nude dancing, to abuse drugs or alcohol, to abuse or neglect your children, or engage in other immoral, unethical or illegal behavior. To lose your children, just follow these twelve steps.

This is the general pattern by which moms in Georgia and in family courts across the USA are being stripped of their children and all their parental rights. The children are deprived of their mom's love and daily guidance. And the Jacks of the world are free to repeat the cycle again and again.

As the children you once nursed and nurtured place their little hands on their hearts and pledge, "One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all," will they think of themselves and their mom and wonder if they got justice?

Article also published at http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/1.html For more information, see liznotes.

Busting the Fatherhood Myth for Victims of Domestic Violence

From article by Lily DeVilliers:

Every now and then in your life, you meet with a statement or opinion from somebody else which runs counter to every belief that you've ever held. But it lies around in your mind anyway, and if you ever want or need to do processing that goes beyond your existing system of thought, there it is providing a bridge for your mind to walk over into different turf. The statement opens a door in your mind, and even though you don't choose or want to go through it at the time, sometimes there are later moments when an open door makes an important difference.

I was lucky enough when I left my son's dad to meet a counsellor who broke a lot of that ground and opened a lot of those doors for me. She was this marvellous, mild old Dutch grandmother, and she always seemed to be knitting when I went to see her. She'd just seen too much life, and thought things through too clearly, to be the least bit bothered by the unconventionality of some of her own conclusions. And I remember two things she said, both of them entirely matter of fact, and neither of them entirely assimilable to me at the time.

It was about the myth and bugabear of fatherhood. I wish we talked more sensibly about this aspect of abuse, because I had a lot of trouble when I left my son's dad, first with him using my son as the only button he had left to push in me, and second with the deeply ambivalent attitude society has about abusive men and their 'rights' to fatherhood, not to mention my own son's 'right' to a relationship with his father.

My counsellor said two marvellous things. She said, on the subject of my ex-partner's purported 'love' for our son, and his stated intention of being a great dad to him: 'It may be unconventional, but I believe that when a man has four children and he's not supporting any of them, he should be castrated'. And she said, about the familiar yank of be-nice-to-me-or-I'll-make-sure-the-child-suffers (which I'll get to in a moment): 'Personally, I think a lot of children would be better off if we encouraged and allowed them to view their fathers as more like uncle figures.'

That second statement let me off an enormous hook, and I believe it's saved my son's life and the lives of people he'll meet in his adult life. In the first six or eight months after I left my son's dad, he went through a very common abusive pattern, and arrived at a very common abusive tactic. It works like this.

When you live with an abuser, and an abuser has the ability to affect your life and your well-being simply as a side-effect of the fact that you DO share a life, it's like he has this huge switchboard of buttons available to him that he can push. And when you leave him, it's like you gather all those wires together in one hand and yank them out of the wall. Most abusers don't register
this, because they're not quite normal in their thinking: cause and effect are a little blurred in their minds, and to them, people really are nothing but collections of springs and wires connected to the central control panel inside their heads.

You don't realize how truly abnormal they are until you leave them, and you realize that they're incapable of adjusting their button- pushing to adapt to the new circumstances. From a distance of half a city, I watched with amazement as my own abuser went through all the motions of controlling a human robot just like he'd been doing for almost three years - even though he realized on an intellectual level that I wasn't in a position where I had to care anymore.
It was one of the strangest collections of human behaviour I've ever seen, and it convinced me irrevocably that the man was insane. Maybe not the kind of insane that anyone could ever lock up, but disconnected from reality, living inside his head, so far round the bend he's on the return journey - absolutely. He was an unpleasant feature of our lives for about two years after we left, and the last I heard of him he was still dealing with all of life by pointing his remote-control device at the world and punching buttons. If he's still alive at this time, I doubt very much that he's changed his M. O. one bit. I don't think he's able to, quite honestly. He looks to me like someone who's not only hardwired that way, but has had the panel over the wiring welded shut forever. And with the dull intelligence of insanity, my abuser finally figured out that our son was the only button left with any life in it.

When I left him, it was amazing to me how many people applauded me for leaving him and dropping him off the edge of my personal world, but had the screaming hab-dabs at the idea that I wasn't going to go out of my way to foster a 'relationship' between him and my son.

I can't pretend there was ever any logic in the discussions that arose around this issue. I could never understand how it made sense. The man's bad for me, I'd explain. He's dangerous and insane and unhealthy, and you think it's great that I'm never going to see him again - so what makes you think he'd be 'good for' a two-year-old? I heard some pretty weird answers to that.

A child needs a father.

Even more than a father, a child needs to not be abused, or witness abuse, or given the message that abuse is okay, inevitable, or somehow redeemed by the position the abuser holds in the victim's life. I'd even say that a child needs to be able to choose ALL their relationships based on who's good for them or not - including fathers. There's really no difference between saying 'A child needs a father' and saying 'A woman needs a partner'. Fathers and partners are nice to have - but they're less important than some other things.

When you value parenthood above personal safety and integrity on a child's behalf, you send a very mixed message. The message says: 'We don't choose who we love based on who makes us feel safe, confident, open, happy. We don't choose the most trustworthy people to be closest to us. We're just stuck with whoever happens to be born in a certain relationship to us.' Great message for adult life. You might as well just stamp the poor kid with a sticker that says 'Property of [father's name]' and box them up right away.

Children need someone to look up to.

Sure, and because it's a need, all the more reason to make sure the people available for them to look up to are worthy of it. Otherwise you condemn them to admiring and emulating the mediocre, the shoddy, the commonplace.

You'll destroy the child's faith in his dad.

My take on that is pretty simple. Abusers are the people who destroy their kids' faith in them, just like abusers are the people who destroy their marriages and relationships. All that's left for a child to wonder is whether the other parent can be trusted or not. Personally, I found that the fastest way to make a child feel really alone and untrusting is to not give them a safe place to express and validate their own impressions. That gives them TWO parents who seem to think abuse is okay and normal, not just one.

You're imposing personal baggage on the poor kid.

Strange statement. There's a big difference between 'baggage' and 'knowledge'. It's not 'baggage' that makes us teach our kids look both ways before crossing the street, or keep them from drinking the Drano under the sink. If I withdraw my child from a class run by a known pedophile, am I 'imposing personal baggage on him' or am I using my experience and judgement to protect him from unsafe people? Personally, I decided not to stand by while the poor kid went through the same hoops I'd been through, and learned the same lesson the same hard way I did. My feeling was that if I have knowledge that's relevant to his safety and well-being, and I consciously don't act on it, then that's a real betrayal. It seems to me like it sends the message to my son that he's a second-class citizen: what I won't put up with myself, I'm quite happy to let him suffer.

He's an abusive PARTNER, not an abusive PARENT.

I don't think this one is accurate or relevant. A person who is abusive is, by definition, unfit to raise or be around children regardless of whether or not the child is ever a specific target. As parents, what we do counts at least as much as what we say. We don't subject our children to abusers when they're strangers, and we don't subject ourselves to anyone who we know to be abusive 'because you're not the victim personally'. The rules shouldn't be different for children, or simply because the abuser's a parent.

You're using your son in your personal power-struggle with his dad.

Actually, no. There certainly was a power-struggle going on, but just like the abuse, none of it started with me. All I did was refuse to give in to the blackmail and eventually move to prevent my ex-partner from using my son as a tool for blackmail. Not something I did only to preserve myself, but also because kids are not pawns and should be made safe from people who use them that way. I personally believe that any parent who uses children as an extended control tool is abusive of those children by definition and forfeits all rights to contact with them on the spot.

What about his father's rights?

You earn the right to be a parent, and not with a quickie in the back seat without a condom. Children don't come stamped with their parents' mark of ownership, and pretending that they do is reducing them to the level of any other possession. It makes them into objects. My son has a greater right not to be an object than any man could claim through mere genetic connection. Parenthood isn't a right, it's a privilege. It's the children who have rights. And it's the parents who have never been abusive who are in the best position to enforce and protect those rights on the child's behalf.

You'll poison him against humanity.

Well, I guess if that were going to happen, eight years would be long enough for some signs of it to have shown up. I think kids actually learn greater faith in humanity from knowing a few people who actually do put principles into practice. They learn less of it from living around adults who turn wishy-washy and won't stand up in their children's defence.

Fatherless children are permanently damaged and scarred.

I wonder. Does being fatherless scar them, or does society's treatment of them and their mothers do the damage? Or do our stats on 'damage' REALLY come from all the adults who were forced into proximity with dangerous, negiligent, unhealthy people in the name of 'keeping in touch with their dads' when they were kids? I never could see how a poisonous father was better than no father at all.

It's been eight years and counting - six since I actually filed a motion to end all contact until he shaped up as a parent. I never forget how lucky we both are that he just disappeared instead of trying to fight me on it, because the two years before he dropped out of our lives were the real hell for my son - not the six years afterwards.

I'm eternally grateful to my old Dutch counsellor, who provided me with the two bridges of thought that made it possible for me to walk over the bridge of the fatherhood myth. So, for what the words were worth in our lives, I leave them here for others as well.

Parenting and Children's Educational Achievement

WHAT WORKS (in order):

1. The educational attainment of the children's mother.

2. The socio-economic level of the children's home.

3. In-home parental promotion of preschoolers' skills acquisitions, such as reading and numbers, game playing, and the creation of a stable, stimulating environment.

4. Parental aspirations (expectations) for children's achievement, and parents' own enthusiasm for, and attitudes toward education and learning.

5. In-home parent-child discussions, valuing of children's opinions and conversation, and social interaction, i.e. "the curriculum of the home."

6. Parental supplementation of children's education with enrichment activities, such as libraries and museums, and family hobbies.

7. Parental encouragement of older children's self-reliance and autonomy.


WHAT DOESN'T WORK

1. Homework in elementary school. [Recent research again confirms this.]

2. Routine parental involvement and help with homework.

3. Extended parent-teacher contact beyond the minimum necessary communication of notices, events, grades, and so forth.

4. Parental volunteering in and presence at the child's school and children's in-school activities. (As an independent variable and not merely appearing in the research as a correlate of parental socioeconomic status or family culture and interest in education, this does nothing for children.)

5. Parental involvement with and participation in school-related organizations, such as PTA. (Same comment as #4, above. This is not the kind of "parental involvement" that matters.)

6. Verbally encouraging a child to "do well in school," and giving rewards or punishment based on grades.

7. Parenting programs to enhance parenting skills. (Notwithstanding promotional hype, parenting skills programs have not been shown to result in any clear academic achievement or enhanced outcomes for children. However, to the extent there is some small success in situations in which these programs address families with serious problems, such as adolescent behavior issues, behavior-based programs work and relationship-oriented programs don't.)


WHAT ELSE DOESN'T MATTER

1. Children's educational achievement is not negatively impacted by a parent's lack of fluency in the English language.

2. Single motherhood, while it tends to reduce mothers' participation with children's schools and with their teachers (an "involvement" of little or no benefit anyway but bearing on educators' and the public's perceptions), does not reduce maternal in-home enhancement of children's education -- where "parental involvement" counts.


See the research and more at The Liz Library.

National Network On Family Law Policy™: Mothers' versus Fathers' Time Spent Caring for Children

National Network On Family Law Policy™: Mothers' versus Fathers' Time Spent Caring for Children

The "Right of First Refusal" in Parenting Plans -- When is it reasonable? 20 Questions.

The "right of first refusal" is a provision sometimes placed in child custody agreements which requires one of the child's parents, who otherwise would have "timeshare" prior to placing a child into third party care (such as a babysitter) to first grant the child's other parent the right to care for the child during the period of the first parent's absence. It is not a reasonable provision when it is sloppily thought through and badly drafted, because in such event it will not be practicably fair or workable, and will only exacerbate disputes.

CONSIDERATIONS TO DETERMINE WHETHER A RIGHT OF FIRST REFUSAL PROVISION IN A PARENTING PLAN IS REASONABLE AND WORKABLE:

1. There have been no substantiated stalking or domestic violence allegations made against the requesting party, whether or not same rose to a level that merited the issuance of a restraining order or resulted in a criminal conviction.

[If there have been substantiated stalking or domestic violence allevations, STOP HERE; the request for a right of first refusal is unreasonable. Even if they have not been substantiated, if there have been multiple allegations in a highly conflicted case, or allegations that the party requesting is "controlling", the request for a right of first refusal may still be unreasonable, and should be viewed with caution in light of other considerations.]

2. In the past, the parent requesting the right of first refusal, when given at least 24 hours' notice by the other parent, has never refused to take the child in order to pursue a voluntary or re-schedulable activity of lesser importance than that requiring the temporary absence of the requesting parent.

[For purposes of this question, family emergencies, required non-schedulable work-related activities, and illnesses, injury, and related doctor visits and hospital stays should be considered to take precedence over all other activity choices; significant social activities such as attendance at a family member's wedding, scheduled vacation travel, and events that require costly advance ticketing should take precedence over voluntary work-related activities that can be rescheduled without risking a loss of income or employment; and voluntary or re-schedulable work-related activities should take precedence over re-schedulable or non-significant social activities such as hobbies, parties and dating.]

3. The parent requesting the right of first refusal, when given at least 24 hours' notice by the other parent, has not declined on two or more occasions in the recent past to take the child, or to assist with or attend child activities -- for any reason.

[If there have been two or more occasions in which the parent requesting the right of first refusal has failed or refused to pick up a child from an activity, or to attend a child's activity when invited, or declined to care for the child in the absence of the other parent, STOP HERE, the request for a right of first refusal is unreasonable. The reason for the refusal itself is irrelevant because the pattern indicates that a right of refusal provision will be burdensome to the child's other parent, and tantamount to an indrect means of requiring that parent to have to "report in" the parent's planned activities without resulting in a response from the other parent that is beneficial. Caution also should be exercised (see consideration #1) with regard to the other parent's possible controlling behavior.]

4. The parent requesting the right of first refusal regularly has exercised scheduled timeshare without repeated (more than two) late pickups or returns of the child.

5. The parents are generally cooperative and friendly, have joint physical custody (whether or not equal, and by whatever name), and have confidence in each others' parenting ability. Neither party has filed motions in litigation alleging visitation interference or noncompliance. Neither party has alleged "parental alienation." The parties are not "parallel parenting".

[If parents are highly conflicted, and prone to having arguments or just exhibiting a cold and disengaged "attitude" when making exchanges of the child, the right of first refusal is unreasonable, and the additional transitions are a potential source of detriment to the child. Moreover, for one parent to function in lieu of the other parent's hired or family childminder, that parent must be willing to be contacted multiple times daily, and disclose the very same information about the child's activities and whereabouts as the current timeshare-exercising parent ordinarily would be receiving from a hired childminder. In order for the right of first refusal to not turn into a denigration of the other parent's timeshare, the "right of first refusal" must in fact function as it's posited to function, as a helper position in lieu of third party childcare, and with the same level of communication that happily married parents would exercise with each other.]

6. The parent requesting the right of first refusal does not occasionally use alcohol to the point of drunkenness or become impaired by substances even when that parent is not caring for children.

[This is not a moral condemnation, but it indicates that the requesting parent is not sufficiently ready and able at all times have care of children and thus, requiring that the other parent have the burden of contacting that parent, and disclosing the parent's schedule by offering a right of first refusal is unreasonable. It is also potentially dangerous, since the impaired parent may not disclose his or her impairment, but feel under a compulsion to accept the offered right of first refusal in order to protect his or her ongoing right by taking the child even when the parent is impaired and should not do so.]

7. Neither party has objected to or been recalcitrant in providing any litigation discovery or charged the other parent with discovery abuse.

[This consideration goes to assessing the level of trust between the parties and the degree of openness and honesty. The right of first refusal entails a substantial degree of loss of privacy in that to work adequately, both parents must have no problem freely disclosing their schedules, whereabouts, contact information, and day-to-day activities to the other.]

8. The parents live within a 10 minute drive of each other, in the same school district, or otherwise close enough (depending upon the occasion for which the right of first refusal is being sought), that the right of first refusal arrangements will not create a burden for either the child or the other parent. The right of first refusal will not create a need for the parent otherwise having timeshare of the child to spend increased time traveling, transporting the child, or making preparations. For example, a "right of first refusal" to care for a sick child who will stay home from school is not reasonable where it will entail that sick child having to dress and travel for an hour in rush-hour traffic, or require the working parent to transport the child to the other parent's residence prior to getting to work.

[A right of first refusal for anything less than a multiple overnight trip by the timeshare parent is unreasonable if it will add long car rides and travel for the child during the school week that the child otherwise would not have to suffer, or if it requires that the nonrequesting parent undertake burdensome out-of-the-way travel time, scheduling, and preparation, such as packing the child's things, in order to comply with the right of first refusal, especially if that parent's alternate childcare arrangement was in-home or close to home.]

9. If the requesting parent is the lesser time-share parent, he or she has not sought or threatened to seek additional timeshare via post-decree motions, and is not seeking the right of first refusal to position him- or herself to do so.

[The right of first refusal is unreasonable, and will increase conflict, stress, and distrust, where one parent is or is suspected to be seeking it to position him- or herself to motion for a change of custody. The reverse also is unreasonable; the right of first refusal should not function in lieu of reduced custody timeshare where one parent seeks an unwarranted amount of time for ulterior reasons, such as to reduce child support or maintain control, but cannot or will not exercise it (e.g. because of work demands, or plans to place the child into third-party care with a stepmother or grandmother), and when this is pointed out, offers the "right of first refusal" like a bone back to the primary caregiver. This is a way of obtaining "joint custody in name only" but with reduced financial support obligation to the caregiving parent. Also see consideration #10 and comments, below.]

10. The requesting parent, if the payor, has not objected to the amount of child support or alimony, or sought to reduce child support or alimony, and would not be using the right of first refusal to position him- or herself to do so.

[The right of first refusal is unreasonable where one parent is, or is suspected to be, using it to position him- or herself to motion for a change of child support or alimony, or where it will in fact result in a change of child support because of the application of formulaic guidelines.]

11. There have been no allegations made at any time of "snooping" into the other parent's privacy, and there have not been issues between the parents either before or after separation or divorce involving jealousy, paramours, adultery, or dating behaviors.

[See comments after consideration #12.]

12. The childcare right of first refusal will be requested only for time the other parent will be traveling overnight, or for periods of time in which that parent regularly is at work, and is NOT being requested for occasional evening or weekend time the other parent will be engaged in private social activities, for evening hours the younger child ordinarily would be sleeping while the regular timeshare parent attends a private social activity, or for after-school and evening hours in which the older child otherwise would be studying or attending extracurricular activities.

[A blanket right of first refusal, in order to be functional and able to be monitored for compliance and enforcement, will necessitate that both parents be willing to freely disclose to each other at all times their personal whereabouts, work and social schedules and plans, and even the details of their dating activities, such as times of departure and arrival and destinations for emergency contact purposes -- just as they would for an in-home babysitter. If this level of intrusion into a parent's private life is felt to be unacceptable, or if the intrusion into privacy will be one-sided, then the right of first refusal, if granted at all, should be restricted to more substantial and lengthy periods of time, such as travel out-of-town with multiple overnights.]

13. The right of first refusal is being requested for regularly scheduled time that the child otherwise would be spending with nonrelative babysitters, in infant/toddler institutional daycare, or with stepparents and paramours with whom the child has no significant attachment.

[If the time a child, who is not yet in first grade, regularly spends in nonparental third party care of any kind already exceeds 20 hours a week, and the other parent is ready, willing, and able to provide care, this especially bodes in favor of a right of first refusal for additional hours of care. But compare consideration #14, below, differentiating between enrichment and educational activities and mere child-minding.]

14. The childcare right of first refusal will not interfere with regularly scheduled school, preschool enrichment (educational preschool not in excess of 20 hours a week), or afterschool extracurricular activities of the child.

15. The childcare right of first refusal will not interfere with grandparent and other extended family occasional derivative visitation time.

[A parent should be permitted to "share" that parent's time with extended family members. This does not include frequent and regular childminding by a stepparents, grandparents, or other third party relatives while a parent works, both of which should take less precedence than direct care by a child's parent. It does include, however, such things as time over spring break in which a child visits grandma's house, or the occasional babysitting by a grandparent or other relative in lieu of a stranger babysitter, which should not give rise to a right of first refusal.]

16. When the parent who is requesting a right of first refusal is him- or herself exercising timeshare, that parent does not place the child into nonparental (including stepparent) third party care for equal or greater amounts of time than does the other parent from whom the right of first refusal is being requested. In addition, the parent who requests the right of first refusal will be personally minding the child.

[Anything otherwise is hypocritical and should give rise to consideration of ulterior motive for the parent's request for a right of first refusal.]

17. The childcare right of first refusal will not result in a reduction of income for the parent otherwise having timeshare of the child, inhibit the timeshare parent from pursuing reasonable career, educational, or social activities, create significant additional out-of-pocket expenses for the parent otherwise having timeshare of the child (for example, by changing a daycare arrangement from a lower monthly rate to a per diem or hourly rate), or result in the loss of needed regular caregivers or the necessity to pay for duplicate caregiving (for example, a loss of access to babysitting help when employment that was counted on diminishes).

18. The parents are in unambiguous agreement regarding the circumstances that will trigger the right of first refusal, and where the childminding will take place (such as in the residential or nonresidential parent's home if in the nature of and in lieu of short-term babysitting).

[It is unreasonable to "cure" burden defects (such as transportation and packing) in the right of first refusal by permitting a hostile "co-parent" access in the manner of a babysitter to the other parent's home and private life. While this kind of arrangement does work for some parents, they are unlikely to be the sort of parents who would need rights of first refusal dictated in parenting plans.]

19. The parents are in unambiguous agreement regarding the way the right of first refusal will be offered and accepted, and the method of notice and acceptance, such as whether by telephone, fax, or email. The amount of notice time that will be required when the right is offered and for accepting the option is well thought out and agreed to by both parents. The right is structured so that it is functional and flexible, and it will not place the current residential parent under a scheduling burden that will effectively prevent that parent from engaging in spontaneous last-minute arrangements and activities under threat of facing possible litigation allegations of noncompliance or noncooperation.

[If the requested right of first refusal is a blanket right, applying to all instances in which the other parent otherwise would hire a third party childminder, such as a babysitter for an evening out, the parent requesting the right of first refusal must be willing and able to assure that the other parent can readily contact him or her at all times, without delay, and promptly receive a response.]

20. The right of first refusal has not been recommended by a custody evaluator or recommending mediator or GAL, has not been not court-ordered, and is an arrangement that has been freely entered into by two parents in agreement. In addition, no "parenting coordinator" or "case manager" has been requested, recommended, threatened or used in the parents' custody case.

[The presence of one of these "helping professionals" is a bad sign. It indicates that at least one of the parents is being coerced. It also indicates that the parents do not sufficiently cooperate or communicate to make them candidates for a right of first refusal, and that they need bright-line and simple guidelines to show "compliance with their parenting plan". In addition, the flexibility of a childcare right of first refusal will give a parenting coordinator unwarranted opportunity to churn time and fees, and an inappropriate amount of power to pass judgment on and meddle with parents' lives and personal decision-making, as well as with the timeshare arrangement itself.]

Article originally published at the liz library

Mothers' versus Fathers' Time Spent Caring for Children

Excerpt from the liz library http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/custody-evaluator-questions.html.

Much research exists indicating that on average, fathers in intact homes spend far less time than mothers do in direct and indirect childcare. Recent research, however, has been touting an increase in father's participation but much of the research as designed appears to perpetuate the same lack of understanding of what constitutes primary parenting. See, e.g., W. Jean Yeung et al., Children's Time With Fathers in Intact Families, 63 J. Marriage & Fam. 136 (2001), finding that fathers in intact families spend 67% as much time on weekdays, and 87% as much time on weekends as mothers do doing childcare.

A closer look at the Yeung study indicates that no allowance was made for what the fathers versus mothers actually were doing in the time they were credited for, particularly for indirect care "accessibility", and moreover, no time was logged that included childcare activities (such as telephoning arrangements, cooking, laundry, and so forth) that did not involve either being "directly engaged" with the child or being "accessible" to the child (somewhere in the vicinity). Thus, fathers were credited for being directly engaged in childcare for such things as merely being present at a meal or accompanying the family to church. And mothers were not credited for a substantial amount of childcare activity. Fathers also were credited for being "accessible" merely by being in the home at the same time as another adult who was actively engaged in direct childcare and other chores, or else was similarly "accessible." For example, fathers were credited as performing childcare activities by being "accessible" while someone else actually fed the infant, and while other adults were present in the home while an older child did homework alone. Mothers' work thus was downgraded and minimized, while for the most part, fathers' was enhanced.

The researchers apparently were aware of the bias, but disclosed it in a way that only a sharp eye would be likely to notice -- as a lack of reporting on fathers' ostensible other caregiving activities and ignoring the impact this would have on mothers' comparable caregiving time: "The definition of fathers' involvement in this article is limited to those that require the physical proximity of the fathers, however. Thus, activities that may entail cognitive or emotional investment of fathers when they are not physically near their children, such as setting up a college fund or searching for a good health insurance policy for a child while he or she is at school, are beyond the scope of this article." p.137 (How often does a parent search for health insurance or set up a college fund... versus do the food shopping, prepare meals, shop for the children's clothing, arrange playdates, check in with the babysitter, do the laundry, purchase the child's school supplies, clean the child's room...? Specious.)

The Yeung study numbers were taken from daily logs of 1738 children's activities. The most telling data of the entire study is who completed those daily logs: "For the sample used for this article, 60% of the diaries were completed by the child's mother alone, 12% were completed by the mother and the target child, 6% were completed by the child alone (all of these children were 9 years or older), and 15% were completed by someone else in the household, such as a grandmother or other relative.

Information on who completed the instrument is missing for approximately 7% of the diaries." p.139. That mothers and apparently few or no fathers prepared or assisted with the preparation of the children's logs was, however, a negative in the eyes of the same researchers: "It therefore is important to bear in mind when interpreting the results the variation in respondents and the fact that data used in this paper were reported mostly by mothers." p.139-140.

To read more, go to Reevaluating the Evaluators: Rethinking the Assumptions of Therapeutic Jurisprudence in the Family Courts, at the liz library.

Fatherless Children - Episode 1

This child was born into poverty to an unwed mother who was a servant on a sugar plantation in the Caribbean. His father was a shiftless loser from Scotland who abandoned her at a time when this was a scandalous and irreversible blight on the mother's life. She taught the child how to read, write, and do math. The child was left alone much of the time. She died when the child was thirteen, leaving him an orphan.

The child, somewhat small and runty -- he never grew beyond a slight 5'7" as an adult -- went to work as a clerk for a large and wealthy sugar- and slave-trading and importing company. His talent for math and writing and his conscientiousness soon enamored him of his bosses. By the age of 14, he was left for periods of time in charge of the entire company. By the time he was 17, his acumen had so spread around the island that locals took up a charity collection to send him to college. Thus, he went to New York, to King's College (later known as Columbia University.)

Having witnessed the horrors of slavery and discrimination, the child in his later life became the first of his kind to speak out vehemently and publicly against these abominations. He also spoke and wrote against aristocracies in favor of meritocracy. His lack of having grown up in a real family did not impede him at all from having a successful marriage to the woman he loved, including having eight children whom he adored.

Notwithstanding that he had no real prior experience in another field of work -- or his slight stature -- in his early 20s, he convinced the man who was then his boss to give him a chance to form and lead a new division in his company. His ideas and almost maniacal commitment and enthusiasm for his new task literally caused jaws to drop. He led his division in the Battle of Yorktown, a resounding success, and the turning point of the Revolutionary War.

He was the author of the Federalist Papers, the first treasury secretary of the United States, and without question, singlehandedly, the creator of the economic system of the United States. After the War, his leadership and his unique ideas and future vision turned a debt-ridden, wounded collection of thirteen bickering colonies into a world-class economic power in three years.

Alexander Hamilton, a boy from a "fatherless home."

The term "fatherless" is used in this series as it is in current research and policy rhetoric by the U.S. federal government, DHHS and the National Fatherhood Initiative, most U.S. states in connection with child custody law and policy, and various family values and fatherhood interest policy and lobbying groups.

Article originally published at the liz library http://www.thelizlibrary.org/fatherless/001.html

Criticism of Custody Evaluations

As criticism mounts, there is a concerted effort in the community of MHPs to call for more "multidisciplinary efforts at communication," and to frame the rising problems as one of individuals' failings, not those of inherently flawed processes, or as shortcomings inherent in the legal system (or the laws themselves), not those of science, or as confusion created by political interest groups, and not confusion created by an incompatible mix of jurisprudence with opportunism as MHPs from another milieu altogether seek to ply their trade (apply their research) in the justice system because it is a lucrative source of income. MHPs are assumed to be primarily concerned about the wellbeing of strangers' children. MHPs who claim to be "scientists" are presumed to be neutral and objective, bound by scientific truths, scrupulously honest, and never motivated by their own agendas and biases. It is assumed that they would not be advocates unless somehow seduced by others (lawyers) for whom such advocacy is a deliberate or ignorant modus operandi. It is implied that the solution to the occasional anomaly lies in scientists' own self-regulation, and/or in training judges to exercise better oversight as "gatekeepers".

The blame, of course, lies everywhere ELSE. And the question is seldom asked whether and to what extent we even need this "science" -- or any MHPs for that matter -- in our courts, or should be diverting the resources of the judicial system toward the tedious efforts at discerning which "scientist" or "research" or type of MHP involvement is valuable. The question is seldom asked whether there are any overarching benefits to litigants from anything therapeutic jurisprudence has to offer, or whether better child custody decisions are made because of it, or whether children end up happier and better adjusted as a result of it. The answer to these unasked questions is quite probably not. Very little research has ever taken a stab even at beginning to answer these threshold questions, and so they conveniently are ignored. The omission itself constitutes a form of advocacy and propaganda.

See, e.g., the practitioner who endorses "parental alienation syndrome" and went even further, concocting "malicious mother syndrome" hypocritically claiming in a judges' publication, after a negative Florida appellate decision condemning the exhorbitant costs of unnecessary MHP "investigating" in the runaway case Higginbotham v. Higginbotham, 857 So. 2d 341, 341 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003), that "more than a decade ago" he had been reviewing the field and calling for better science: Ira Daniel Turkat, On the Limitations of Child-Custody Evaluations, 42 Ct. Rev. 8 (2005), available on-line at http://aja.ncsc.dni.us/htdocs/publications-courtreview.htm. (Aw, come on Ira.)

And see Janet R. Johnston, Introducing Perspectives in Family Law and Social Science Research, 45 Fam. Ct. Rev. 1 (2007). ("Despite these generally accepted guidelines, the problem remains that, in politically charged areas of divorce and child custody, too many social scientists and legal scholars are seduced -- wittingly or unwittingly -- into becoming advocates for political positions and social policies rather than being objective or balanced reporters of research findings... I have identified seven common techniques or strategies employed in the field that certain advocates use to destroy the standing of research data and researchers whose data they do not like, half of them at times found in peer-reviewed journals and used, at times, even by well-known and well-respected scholars. These I have named: (1) The Strawman, (2) Cherry Picking, (3) Leading Authority Declarations, (4) Scholarly Rumors, (5) Character Assassination, (6) Boycott the Researcher, and (7) Stalking and Hit Lists. Although I refer to these as techniques or strategies, I do not want to imply that they are always conscious, deliberate, or manipulative ploys. Rather, it is quite possible that those with strongly embedded frameworks for viewing and acting in the world will honestly construe other viewpoints in terms of their own using these or similar modes of cognitive distortion.)

from "Reevaluating the Evaluators: Rethinking the Assumptions of Therapeutic Jurisprudence in the Family Courts"

Reevaluating the Evaluators: Rethinking the Assumptions of Therapeutic Jurisprudence in the Family Courts

This article discusses the minimum disclosures every child custody evaluator, "best interests" guardian ad litem GAL, or parenting coordinator (herein called a "mental health professional" or "MHP") should be required to make, responding satisfactorily and in full, before being appointed in any family law case to do anything beyond answering a list of limited, detailed, specific, and narrowly-crafted questions the answers to which are directly within the MHP's field of proved expertise. This format is being used to help illustrate a problem, and with another purpose in mind. That purpose is to call for a revolt altogether against the notion of "therapeutic jurisprudence" -- which has been proved to do little to benefit children, much to benefit the divorce industry, much to complicate and pervert our family laws, much to erode fundamental rights and liberties, and much to harm the families who become trapped in the system. There are many problems, of course. But they are symptoms. Step one is to get the agent of most of them out of our family courts. The Emperor has no clothes... more at http://thelizlibrary.org

Noncustodial Mothers' Organizations

Red State Feminist has contributed an article, also published on her blog, that makes many valid points, and offers much fodder for thought about noncustodial mothers' organizations whose members unwittingly support counterproductive family law policies. We've commented on this problem in earlier posts, and felt that her comments were worth archiving here.

Why I Don't Support NANCM

NANCM is a large organization for non-custodial mothers. It’s the largest one I know of. It has a message board and a lot of local meet-up groups. But I don’t trust them, and I would never recommend them to a non-custodial mother. Here’s why: NANCM state on their web site that they do not give legal advice to mothers nor do they adhere to any particular political ideologies. That’s inaccurate, and at worst, it’s blatantly dishonest. They’re affiliated with the Children’s Rights Council, one of the oldest Father’s Rights groups in existence. And NANCM links to and supports Glenn Sacks, and the legislation both he and the CRC promote.

In doing so, they’re supporting the misogynist rhetoric that Fathers’ Rights groups advance. This rhetoric is the underpinning of the arguments that frame public-friendly sound bites like “Shared parenting” and “Friendly parent”. If you look at the actual reasoning that lies underneath these devices, there lies antipathy towards divorcing mothers, and specifically, divorcing mothers who ask courts to hold men accountable for abusive or otherwise unacceptable behaviors towards mothers and children.

Father’s rights groups began working aggressively on various forms of family court “reform” after child support laws were strengthened in the early 90’s. Those laws were strengthened to relieve mothers abandoned by their husbands and living in poverty, and to reduce the strain on the states that were having to pay out enormous amounts of welfare to those same impoverished, abandoned mothers. Some men became very angry that they were being forced to pay child support with heavy penalties for not doing so.

Custody battles were the direct backlash of men who had once, upon getting divorced, been able to drift from supporting the children of the marriage without much accountability. Men angered by being forced to continue to support these children discovered that there was a weakness in the family court system, and decided to exploit it by fighting for custody to get out of paying child support.

Father’s Rights organizations also realized that there was another inherent weakness in the system: they could turn a potential criminal complaint against them into a custody suit. This served twofold: it kept them out of criminal court, and it threatened mothers with the possibility of losing custody of their children if they did not keep silent to authorities about various forms of abuse that may have gone on in the home.

In general, smart people already know that Father’s Rights organizations are about just that - the rights of fathers, not the rights of children. And they are certainly not about the rights of mothers, non-custodial or otherwise. Many non-custodial mothers fall prey to the rhetoric put forward by Fathers Rights groups after they lose custody. The logic goes something like this: “if this legislation had been the law here when I went to court, this wouldn’t have happened to me” This is a flawed and short-sighted rationale, at best. I think many traumatized and confused non-custodial mothers believe such laws would protect them: but they’re wrong.

Glenn Sacks and other FR groups have aggressively pushed “shared-parenting” legislation, (mandatory joint custody in all situations) . Fathers Rights organizations have also been partly responsible for geographic restrictions, friendly-parent statutes and the elimination of the Tender Years Doctrine for "gender-neutral" custody decisions in the court room. They have certainly pushed these ideas and supported them. But these are notions that hurt primary caregivers (usually mother custody) in the first place in a number of ways:

Shared-parenting legislation, or joint custody enforcement won’t help mothers retain custody in court. Shared-parenting takes time away children spend being directly cared for by primary caregivers. Recent studies demonstrate that even working mothers still spend more time caring for children than fathers. Putting children in “equal time” slots with parents who don’t spend equal amounts of their time with the children means less parenting time for children overall.

Shared parenting has been put on many state ballots, and it fails. It fails from a legal standpoint because it focuses on a parent’s rights standard, not a best-interest of the child standard. Dr. Bruce Perry’s studies of child trauma also indicate that children who are separated from primary caregivers can and do have serious adjustment problems and emotional problems.

Forced shared parenting also puts mothers in untenable positions with regard to their personal autonomy, and therefore their ability to make a wider and better variety of choices about the upbringing of the children. Forced shared parenting, lastly, is a way for batterers and men with other serious issues to continue to abuse their ex-spouse. Children witnessing constant abuse of a parent are at high risk for a variety of problems including becoming abusive or becoming a victim of abuse. Parents who are willing and able to agree on shared custody already do make such decisions outside the courtroom, when it’s a viable solution. It’s only when shared parenting isn’t a workable solution in the first place that such legislation would force it on families to whom it isn’t suited. This can’t be good for children. Trish Wilson has more on forced shared parenting at her blog.

Geographic restrictions hurt the autonomy of divorced mothers who are primary caregivers. Since we’ve already established that mothers are still more likely to spend more caregiving time with children, even when they’re working, I’m going to refer to primary caregivers as mothers from this point on, with the caveat that a small percentage of men are primary caregivers and they can infer as much going forward. Geographic restrictions hurt mothers because if mothers are forced to remain in one particular location to suit the whim of the father, they may have to make economic sacrifices, such as better career opportunities or better education opportunities. Mothers already make less than fathers in general, and more often have to achieve additional degrees to live comfortably as a single parent unit or move to less expensive areas. Or, a geographic restriction may force mothers to stay in a region that’s far from the support of their family of origin. They may be forced to live within a small community where there’s little hope of finding a new mate. They may be forced to live in close proximity to an abusive ex-spouse, which is hardly safe for her or her children.

Lastly and most importantly I don’t support NANCM because by supporting Father’s Rights groups like Glenn Sacks and the CRC, they are supporting Richard Gardner's bogus Parental Alienation theory, which has been repeatedly used as the basis for abusive men to get custody of children in response to a mother's bringing concerns about that abuse to authorities. The "Friendly Parent" statute, awarding custody to whichever parent seems the most "willing" to share custody with the other parent, is a legislated bit of PAS theory.

If NANCM feel OK about supporting organizations that support PAS theory, which has been the MOST destructive to abused mothers and children, then they are not supporting protective mothers, battered women (the majority of noncustodial mothers) or abused children. If NANCM members feel OK about supporting organizations that care more for the convenience of fathers than they do for the rights of children, then they are not supporting either mothers OR children.

If that's the case, who, then, are they supporting? I'm curious.

All in all, potential NANCM members need to look deeper at the myths of Fathers Rights groups that are used to destroy the custody of fit, loving primary caregiver mothers in the first place:

* Women lie about abuse to get custody;
* Children lie in great detail about abuses done to themselves;
* Women can and do, by some kind of mysterious intangible transmission, “brainwash” a child into being afraid of their father and into believing their father hurt them when he did not;
* Women are hysterical, vindictive liars who are only out to “get” their ex when the marriage ends;
* Women are less credible than men;
* Children can be arbitrarily subject to sudden, extreme reversals of primary parent roles in custody suits without severe emotional damage; and
*Children who live with single mothers suffer from a variety of social ills only cured by father influence

If they are willing to incorporate this canon, directly or indirectly, into their own mission, then they have become a part of the belief system that has destroyed the lives of the mothers and children they are claiming to support, and I want nothing to do with them.

Stop Drugging Foster Children

PRESS RELEASE October 29, 2006
Contact: Rick Callender, President
(408) 406-5203 Phone

NAACP Calls For Ending Use of Psychiatric Drugs on
Foster Youth

Says Foster Care Children should be protected from the financial incentives the Foster Care Industry receives for pushing psychiatric drugs on them.

OAKLAND, CA - Mr. Rick Callender, president of the San Jose Silicon Valley branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) submitted a resolution to the State NAACP Convention calling for an end to the profit-motivated practice of using psychiatric drugs on foster youth. The resolution was unanimously passed today by the membership.

Several investigations into Foster Care have recently exposed how group-home "parents" request and administer psychotropic drugs on foster youth at far greater rates than any other population. Since 1999 State & Federal regulations provide a financial incentive for Group Homes and Foster Parents to use psychiatric drugs on these children. California's deranged foster-care system pays higher rates when young people are drugged for even the slightest sign of misbehavior or upset.

In July of this year, the Blue-Ribbon Commission on Foster Care Members were reportedly stunned to learn the overuse of psychotropic medications was an important area foster youth pleaded for reform.

Mr. Callender said that, "In February 2006 an FDA Advisory panel recommended a black-box warning that certain psychiatric drugs, like Ritalin, Adderall & Concerta, when prescribed to children can cause violence, suicide and sudden death. This resolution is significant since we already know that children of color make up a disproportionate amount of children within the foster care system. We must ensure foster youth are given proper medical care and only prescribed medically necessary medications, not just a drug to quiet them down and add dollars to their guardian's pocket."

Dr. Lawrence Hooper, a medical doctor and the Health Committee Chairman of the San Jose Branch said, " Ever since the American Psychiatric Association admitted no lab tests exist to diagnose any mental disorder, the entire legitimacy of psychiatry has become questionable. Couple this with the 19 international warnings about how psychiatric drugs have been linked to causing diabetes, liver failure, violence, suicide and sudden death, it becomes apparent that strict constraints against psychiatry must be called for to protect children."

2006 marks the three year anniversary of when Mr. Callender helped guide the passage of a national NAACP resolution that stated, "Research by medical professionals have indicated considerable controversy and diverse opinion about the validity of childhood behavioral or learning 'disorders' such as, but not limited to ADHD." This resolution called upon San Jose/Silicon Valley NAACP (www.sanjosenaacp.org).

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is the oldest, largest and strongest civil rights organizationin the United States. The principal objective of the NAACP is to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of minority group citizens of the United States. The San Jose/Silicon Valley Branch of the NAACP was founded in 1952.

Outing the Flawed Social Science Research

The author of "Parental Alienation Syndrome: Getting it WRONG in Child Custody Cases" has a new must-read article out that discusses the misuses and misrepresentations in the social science research that impacts child custody policy.

Professor Carol S. Bruch is Distinguished Research Professor of Law and Professor Emerita, University of California, Davis; Visiting Scholar, UCLA Center for the Study of Women (2004-2005). Her article, "Sound Research or Wishful Thinking in Custody Cases? Lessons from Relocation Law" has been published in the ABA's Family Law Quarterly, Summer 2006. The introduction:

Professionals who deal with specific child custody disputes surely seek to advance the children’s best interests, as do the legislators and commentators who address child custody law. Yet there is often profound disagreement about the principles that should guide them, and decision-makers are at a particular disadvantage if—as is increasingly the case—flawed research and inaccurate reviews are offered as improvements on the sound work of others.

This article examines these forces in the context of relocation disputes—cases that arise when a noncustodial parent seeks to prevent the custodial parent and their children from moving. It summarizes the relevant legal issues, provides an overview of the credible U.S. research on children’s needs, and critiques the wishful thinking and mistaken analyses that threaten sound outcomes for children.

The full article may be found and downloaded from the liz library website at http://www.thelizlibrary.org/bruch

Child Abuse Articles By Eli Newberger, M.D.

A number of articles on child abuse and child health issues, by renowned physician and Harvard professor of pediatrics Eli Newberger, M.D., now are available on line on his web site. Dr. Newberger is the author of "The Men They Will Become."

The Incest Loophole Closed in New York

Andrew Vachss has a followup article out on the "incest exception" to the laws against child sexual abuse.

"The Incest Loophole has finally been closed in New York. To read about this victory and what it means for children, please read, 'A Long Time Coming: Closing New York's Incest Loophole' by Andrew Vachss."

Excerpts from the original article, The Incest Loophole, at http://www.vachss.com/av_dispatches/nyt-11202005.html

What if I told you that a father who was regularly raping his 8-year-old daughter could reasonably expect to avoid prison if he were discovered? You'd be outraged, right? But this is a fact of life in New York, thanks to the "incest loophole"...

When they were first written, laws against incest were founded on biblical prohibitions and intended to prevent the conception of genetically impaired children. The paradigm was first cousins marrying, not parents raping their children. The New York incest statute pre-existed by decades any public recognition of child sexual abuse. It has never evolved in recognition of the unsavory but indisputable reality that the overwhelming majority of sexual crimes against children are not committed by strangers...

Batterer's Terrorist Tactics are Not "PAS"

We are noticing that some women who have lost custody to batterers who subsequently have succeeded in barring them from contact with their children, or turning the children away from them believe that what they are experiencing is "parental alienation syndrome."

However, "parental alienation syndrome" as described by the late Richard A. Gardner involved a "campaign of denigration" and manipulating tactics. What made this theory so popular was that it gave language to a perception of often subtle hidden family dynamics that otherwise did not have a label in the law. Coercive control and outright terrorism, such as using illegal means to cause false charges to be brought, interfering with lawful investigations, and fabricating evidence required no new label.

Abused women not infrequently are the targets of a pattern of criminal and terroristic behavior that goes far beyond what parental alienation syndrome ever was described as by Gardner or intended to be applied to. We are concerned that as more and more abused women lose custody to batterers in family courts, they are embracing the very ideas that enabled their abusers to gain custody in the first place.

"Parental alienation" is a psychological theory and a legal defense theory that is used sometimes on its own, but often in connection with the denial of an accusation of abuse, to turn tables on the accusing parent and find an explanation for a child's fear of or unwillingness to visit an accused parent, to explain a child's preference for one parent over the other, and to explain similarly otherwise "inexplicable" child positions in the claimed absence of the target parent having done anything wrong, and no clear indicators that the "alienating" parent did either.

What Gardner described as "PAS" therefore was an internal psychological process of identification that a child purportedly had with a parent who encouraged this
identification with them at the expense of the other parent. Gardner never clearly described how this identification could lead to false accusations of abuse, and this is a gaping hole in his theory. But it's important to remember that Gardner and his followers were not using PAS to describe illegal, terroristic behaviors, battery, destruction of property, locking children in rooms to prevent them from calling parents, falsifying documents, and similar behaviors. No one needed a psychological theory to explain these kinds of things -- or a child's reaction to them.

Controlling, coercive, illegal acts often done by abusive and controlling people, usually men, are not subtle, and do not encourage an identification with a parent. These behaviors encourage compliance by threats and fear. If views of the child do change internally when exposed to tactics like this over time then it is more likely a form of "Stockholm Syndrome" or attachment to the abuser, rather than the alignment with one parent and negative reaction to the other that Gardner described as "alienation".

One dangerous thing about Gardner's theory is that in large part these mysterious processes of alienation are invisible, or at least unseen. That's why a psychological theory was needed. Criminal, fraudulent, coercive acts are visible and obvious.

A recent and comprehensive article on PAS and its use in the court system, by Jennifer Hoult can be downloaded HERE.

Media Distortions by Fathers' Rights Advocates

Glenn Sacks has complained about recent responses to his and other fathers' rights advocates' comments about joint custody. In one of his columns of August 1, 2006, " Feminist Columnist Slams Glenn, ACFC Over North Dakota Shared Parenting Initiative," he attacks Trish Wilson's recent commentary with distortions and misrepresentations.

One has to wonder: if the facts have to be distorted to make your case, isn't that a clue that perhaps your conclusions are incorrect?

The joint custody advocates' primary claim is that men are not being treated equally as parents by the courts. But let's look at what that word "equality" actually means in the law, and not the propaganda and rhetoric.

"Equality before the law" means that persons who are in similar positions will be treated similarly. Thus, for example, if a father is a child's primary caregiver, that fact will be given the same weight as it would if a mother is a child's primary caregiver. And, for example, if a husband is a dependent homemaker spouse, he would be as entitled to alimony as a wife in the same position.

However, a contrived equality of outcome when persons come before the law in dissimilar positions would be tantamount to disparate treatment. It would require taking persons who were not equally situated and treating them differently in order to effect "equality." That's not what "equality under the law" means; in fact it's the anti-thesis of it.

Leaning on his erroneous premise of "equality," Sacks criticizes Wilson's point that "ninety percent of parents settle without the need for court intervention in deciding what form of custody is best for them and for their children." Sacks claims that her "statement is misleading because it implies genuine agreement between parents." Sacks writes that "such accords aren't made in a vacuum -- they're bargained in the shadow of the law. What happens in most cases is that fathers must agree to having a very limited role in their children's lives because they don't have the tens of thousands of dollars (or more) necessary to fight for shared parenting in family law proceedings which are heavily stacked against them."

But Sacks's position is specious. Not only are the fathers coming into court without a marital track record of having been equal carers of the children and household, but when it comes to litigation, it is the men who generally have greater access to funds to litigate, more time to litigate, and more sophistication and ability to network, hire lawyers, and make a case. And be this as it may, the reality is that most men simply don't want joint custody. They don't want it for the very same reasons they were not doing half or more of the housework and childcare when they were married. Their careers and habits don't suddenly alter merely because they are getting divorced. And that's why the vast majority leave "custody" where it de facto was during the marriage, changing as little as possible in their and their children's lives.

Sacks also criticizes Wilson's statement that "when dads make an issue of custody, they get some form of it more than half the time." This was the finding of every single state gender bias commission who looked at the issue (there were 40 of them.) Sacks pretends that Wilson's statement is based on one small study of 60 women, and purports to debunk that as nonrepresentative. But it wasn't. The reality simply is not debatable. Sacks also claims that the Massachusetts gender bias task force findings by lawyers and scholars have been discredited, based on speculations made by libertarian men's rights journalist Cathy Young in an opinion piece. But she did not get her facts right or conclusions correct then. Repeatedly citing to secondary opinion sources that were wrong to begin with is not tantamount to documentation. It doesn't matter how many times a claim is made, such distortions just do not gain veracity with repetition, any more than the children's game of telephone.

The reasons mothers more often end up with custody after divorce encompass all of the same reasons that mothers end up being the majority of child caregivers and homemakers while marriages are intact. To the extent the factors moving this include bias, it's bias that's occurred long before anything that ever happens in connection with a divorce. In fact, that more men post divorce end up with far more custody time than they ever spent caregiving, homemaking, or with their children during their marriages attests to a divorce court bias that far and away favors fathers.

Trish Wilson on Shared Parenting

Trish Wilson's op-ed is in response to a column that Glenn Sacks and Mike McCormick had written about shared parenting.

Posted on Sun, Jul. 30, 2006

VIEWPOINT: Don't force 'shared parenting' on children
By Trish Wilson

BOSTON - Mike McCormick and Glenn Sacks have written a lot of misconceptions about shared parenting in their viewpoint, "Initiative helps children of divorce".

"Shared parenting" is a feel-good euphemism for joint physical custody. Shared parenting has been rejected in Maryland, Colorado, Tennessee, New York, Illinois, Nevada, California, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and Canada. A shared parenting bill has been shelved in Massachusetts; it is dead for the time being.

Custody should be determined on a case-by-case basis. One particular form of custody (such as shared parenting) should not be forced on parents when other forms of custody would be more appropriate for them and especially for their children.

Shared parenting already is an option for parents who choose to try it on their own. There does not need to be a presumption for it. Ninety percent of parents settle without the need for court intervention in deciding what form of custody is best for them and for their children.

Most parents do not choose shared parenting because they recognize how hard it would be on them and especially on their children. They also recognize that in most cases, the mother had been the primary caregiver of the children, and they believe she should continue in that capacity. That is why mothers most often get sole custody. It is not because of bias against dads in court.

When dads make an issue of custody, they get some form of it more than half the time.

Courts are not biased against fathers. Lynn Hecht Schafran found in "Gender Bias in Family Courts," published by the American Bar Association Family Advocate, that "despite the powerful stereotypes working against fathers, they are significantly more successful than is commonly believed. The Massachusetts (gender bias) task force, for example, reported that fathers get primary or joint custody in more than 70 percent of contested cases.

"The various gender bias commissions found that at the trial court level in contested custody cases, fathers won more than half the time." While shared parenting may work for parents who freely choose to try it, shared parenting has been shown to be detrimental to children who are exposed to conflict between their parents. When one parent wants shared parenting and the other doesn't, there will be conflict between those parents that shared parenting will not alleviate.

Shared parenting asks a lot of children. It is harmful to children who cannot handle the restrictive schedule. Many of them cannot handle the shunting back and forth between homes very well. They also must keep track of which home they are to be in on a given day, which is stressful for them.

They can lose track of their friends, and their extracurricular activities can suffer. They can miss birthday parties, sleepovers and evening school activities.

In the cases where shared parenting has worked, the families had these qualities in common: The parents had an amicable relationship, their divorce was amicable with little or no conflict, they had higher-than-average incomes, they had only one child, neither parent (especially the father) had remarried, they lived within close proximity of each other, they had flexible job schedules, the child could handle the shared parenting arrangement, the parents chose freely between themselves to try shared parenting - and they chose to make it work.

There should not be a presumption for shared parenting in North Dakota. It ignores the desires of most parents, who don't want shared parenting. It also ignores the contributions of the primary caregiving parent, most often the mother, and it ignores the needs of children. It ignores the child's development as the child ages.

Hopefully, North Dakota will reject a presumption for joint custody, as many states and countries have already done.

---

Wilson is a member of the National Network On Family Law Policy and the Family Court Reform Coalition.

Domestic Violence And The Darren Mack Case

FROM OUR READERS: A LOSS OF CONTROL: The warning signs for violence

Mack case can provide us clues

By SOL GOTHARD, JAY SILVERMAN and TASHA AMADOR
SPECIAL TO THE REVIEW-JOURNAL

The Darren Mack case shocked Nevada and the nation. Could anyone have predicted that this millionaire "Father of the Year" might allegedly attempt to murder Judge Charles Weller and brutally stab his wife, Charla, to death? (Mack is awaiting trial on the charges.) The answer is yes. Both of these tragedies were predictable and preventable.

Though many have stated there was no forewarning that Mack might be a "ticking time bomb" who could allegedly commit murder, the reality is there were many warning signs that were ignored. What huge red flag was missed in the Mack case? Domestic violence. This case has made national headlines, but it has been largely overlooked in the media that this is a domestic violence case. Failure to identify domestic violence in divorce cases is a critical nationwide problem in family courts that can endanger judges, the public's safety, and the abuser's partner and children. The shooting of Judge Weller shows this failure can be deadly. In order to prevent future tragedies, including attacks on the judiciary and others, policymakers should mandate the screening and identification of the well-known warning signs of abusers who pose a high risk for homicide.

The Mack case included many common warning signs of an abuser who poses a high risk to commit murder: access to guns; controlling behavior; his wife's expressed fear that he would kill her; and separation -- all of which are significant predictors of intimate partner murder, according to a 2003 study funded by the National Institute of Justice. Domestic violence murders are not typically crimes of sudden, unanticipated violence where an abuser "just snaps," but instead are often the culmination of a predictable pattern of escalating abuse and violence.

Darren Mack was accused of domestic violence by his wife. These charges shouldn't be surprising, as Mack's controlling behavior and abusive tactics during his divorce clearly indicate his actions followed a pattern common to domestic violence perpetrators. This escalating abuse, particularly after separation, can lead to homicide.

The most dangerous period for the families of violent abusers (and others) is the time following separation. Research shows that separation is a powerful trigger for homicide among abusers, who become enraged at losing control over their partners and children. Domestic violence perpetrators can be extremely dangerous after separation/divorce, as they often increase their violence to re-establish their control and dominance. The majority of domestic violence murders occur after separation.

We are not suggesting that all separated abusers will commit murder. However, a careful assessment should be conducted to determine which individuals pose a higher risk for lethality. The Mack case clearly illustrates that a thorough investigation by trained family violence experts should be mandated whenever domestic violence allegations are raised during a divorce. These investigations must include emphatically validated protocols to assess homicide risk, specifically designed for use with domestic violence perpetrators. A legal strategist Mack hired stated that Mack displayed "no propensity" for domestic violence, because he passed psychological testing with "flying colors." However, psychological tests are ineffective in screening for domestic violence or partner homicide risk because domestic violence is not rooted in mental illness -- most abusers are not mentally ill, so they often do well on such tests, and appear normal. Identification of a pattern of controlling and coercive behavior is the most effective method of assessment for domestic violence (a profile Mack fit exactly).

As seen in the Mack case, domestic violence perpetrators can also pose a danger to judges. Abusers accustomed to firm control of their partners can become enraged that a judge is now in charge, and their loss of control of the situation can lead to attacking third parties, including judges. (Judge Weller, now recovering from multiple gunshot wounds, presided over Mack's divorce case). In June 2006, in another domestic violence/divorce case, Jeffrey Phillips was accused of making a death threat to "put a bullet" through the head of Judge Peter Hurd, who had issued a domestic violence order against Phillips.

Innocent bystanders, including children, are also at risk of homicide and can get caught in the cross-fire when the predictable warning signs of lethality in domestic violence perpetrators are ignored. John Allen Muhammad, charged in the 2002 Washington, D.C., sniper shooting case (a murder spree that left 10 people dead), had a history of domestic violence and divorce. The sniper boasted, "Your children are not safe, anywhere, anytime." Reports state that after threatening to kill his estranged wife, Muhammad traveled to Washington, D.C., to hunt her down, and unable to find her, began shooting people.

In a 2003 domestic violence case, after his wife filed for divorce, Tacoma Police Chief David Brame fulfilled numerous death threats by shooting and killing his wife in a shopping center parking lot, then killing himself. In another 2003 domestic violence murder/suicide case, William Hoffine, refusing to accept his divorce, ambushed, shot and killed his 14-year-old son in front of a grocery store as the boy jogged with his cross-country teammates.

Nevada U.S. Sen. Henry Reid has shown leadership in response to the Mack case by spearheading a federal bill to increase court security. However, much more needs to be done. To prevent future domestic violence-related tragedies, legislators should mandate the thorough investigation of domestic violence allegations in divorce cases as well as the identification of the common warning signs of violent abusers who present a higher homicide risk.

While many question how anyone could have predicted that Darren Mack might have committed murder, the answer lies in the words of Charla Mack: "He is out to get me and someday he will probably kill me." We need to start listening.

---

Sol Gothard, a retired federal appeals court judge in Louisiana, is president of the Council for Family Court Reform. Tasha Amador is the group's vice president. Jay Silverman, an assistant professor at Harvard, is a psychologist and domestic violence researcher.

What's Wrong With Mutual Orders of Protection?

One would have thought this issue had been long-resolved, but it seems to be coming up with increasing frequency of late. What's wrong with mutual orders of protection against domestic violence? What's wrong with the state's saying, parent-like, to a complaining seeker of a restraining order "Well, now I'm not going to figure out who started this, so how about the two of you just stop squabbling with each other." In short:

Mutual Orders Are Worse Than No Order and Endanger the Victims.
"Mutual orders of protection are protective orders issued against both of the parties to a dispute. Typically they occur within the same document, but they need not do so. Indeed, they could be issued by two different courts at different times, provided that they are both in effect simultaneously.Usually mutual orders are issued after only one of the parties has sought a protective order, particularly when they are issued within the same document. Regardless of how the mutual orders are granted, they have many problems..."

The complete article, originally published in the Domestic Violence Report, can be read at http://www.scvan.org/mutual_orders.html

Get it; read it. It lays out the talking points.

Therapy "No Cure For Sex Offenders"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5130560.stm

Therapy 'no cure for sex abusers'
Psychological therapy for sex offenders can reduce re-offending rates, but does not provide a cure, a study says.

Researchers from the Universities of London and Leicester reviewed nine studies involving 567 offenders in the US, UK, Canada and Europe. Some treatment programmes have cut re-offending by up to 40%.

But experts said the British Medical Journal report was wrong to talk about curing as it was not a medical problem and could not be solved as such. Most sex offenders in the UK receive some form of psychological treatment, mostly from the NHS and prison and probation services.

"I think it is wrong to believe you can cure a sex offender", Donald Findlater, of the Lucy Faithfull Foundation. It tends to take the form of talking therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy. Under 10% of sex offenders end up re-offending.

Report author Belinda Brooks-Green: "Offenders who successfully complete a treatment programme re-offend less often and less seriously than those who do not show that they have understood and worked through the relevant psychological issues." But she warned sex offending cannot always be successfully treated.

"Better understanding of the outcomes of treatments - either controlling and moderating or harming and worsening behaviour - could at least focus on the most beneficial and cost-effective interventions."

Review
The review covered people convicted of paedophilia, exhibitionism or sexual assault.

But Zoe Hilton, policy adviser at the children's charity NSPCC, said she would like to see more research on the issue, particularly on the differences in re-offending between paedophiles and adult sex offenders.

She added: "In many ways it is not surprising, we know with good support and the will of the offender, we can reduce re-offending. "But it does depend on the individual."

And Donald Findlater, deputy director of child protection charity, the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, and who used to run a treatment service for sex offenders, said: "I think it is wrong to believe you can cure a sex offender. You can't. You can manage the problem and psychological treatment has been shown to do that. "But you can't say someone is free of the problem and not a risk at all of re-offending."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/5130560.stm
Published: 2006/06/29 23:02:20 GMT

NY Paternity Ruling That Favored The Child

N.Y. High Court Says Mistaken Avowal of Fatherhood Imposes an 'Equitable Paternity'
New York Law Journal

He who acts like a father, is a father -- at least legally -- the New York Court of Appeals said in imposing "equitable paternity" on a man who wrongly assumed he had fathered a girl and acted accordingly. The man had argued that the order to pay child support on behalf of a child he did not father effectively saddled him with an involuntary adoption, in violation of the Constitution and contrary to public policy. But the court focused not on whether he got a raw deal but on the best interests of the child.

-----

More from the article:

"Mark did not dispute his paternity. Instead, he helped pay for Shondel's pregnancy, visited the girl he thought was his and made her a beneficiary of his life insurance. He also signed a letter affirming his fatherhood so the child could obtain immigration papers. In 1999, he married another woman, and they have children."

"The next year, Shondel moved to New York and lodged a paternity petition in Brooklyn, and Mark filed a separate visitation petition. A court-ordered DNA test proved that Mark was not the father. "

"At that point, Mark attempted to sever ties with the girl. But he was equitably estopped from disclaiming paternity and ordered to pay child support. The child support amounted to $78 weekly, plus retroactive support of $12,859. Mark has had no personal contact with the child since March 2000. "

"On appeal, Mark argued that the imposition of "equitable paternity" effectively saddled him with an involuntary adoption, in violation of the Constitution and contrary to public policy. "

"But the 2nd Department, and now the Court of Appeals, focused not on whether Mark got a raw deal, but on the best interests of the child."

"In allowing a court to declare paternity irrespective of biological fatherhood, the Legislature made a deliberate policy choice that speaks directly to the case before us," Judge Albert M. Rosenblatt wrote for the 5-2 majority. "The potential damage to a child's psyche caused by suddenly ending established parental support need only be stated to be appreciated. Cutting off that support, whether emotional or financial, may leave the child in a worse position than if that support had never been given."

"Like the lower courts, the Court of Appeals found that Mark had in every way held himself out to be the child's father -- buying her Christmas and birthday presents, referring to himself as "daddy," introducing her to his family, and regularly communicating with her. Mark had claimed he had rarely seen or had contact with the child, but none of the courts hearing his case believed him. "

"The issue does not involve the equities between the two adults; the case turns exclusively on the best interests of the child," Judge Rosenblatt wrote. "The Legislature did not create an exception for men who take on the role of fatherhood based on the mother's misrepresentation ... [T]he mother's motivation and honesty are irrelevant; the only issue for the court is how the interests of the child are best served."

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The child's welfare is most important, not dad's rights. New York made the right decision in this case. Dad had already established himself by his actions as his daughter's father, even though he was not her biological father. Fatherhood is more than DNA. New York agreed with that, and ruled accordingly.

Dr. John Money Has Died

Dr. John Money, who became famous for his gender reassignment surgery, has died. He was in his eighties. His adult sex change operations were controversial. The Baltimore Sun described one of his more controversial cases, known publicly as the "John/Joan" case:

His belief that gender could be assigned to a child before age 3 played out in a radical experiment that proved devastating for him and the child upon whom it was performed.

Canadian parents of twin boys sought Dr. Money's advice in 1967 after one of their sons suffered a botched circumcision. Dr. Money advised them that with hormones and sex-change surgery, the child could be raised as a girl.

But by the time Brenda was a teen, it became clear the plan wasn't working. Brenda became known as a boy, David Reimer, who later was the subject of the 2000 book As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl, by John Colapinto. In the book, Mr. Reimer decried the experiment and spoke of his anguish. Mr. Reimer committed suicide in 2004.

Dr. Money refused to speak publicly on the subject, said niece Sally Hopkins of Baltimore.

John Money also gave a positive review to a book by Dr. Theo Sandfort, entitled "Boys on their Contacts with Men - A Study of Sexually Expressed Friendships", which praised pedophilia. Money had also been quoted in support of pedophilia. He has said this the Spring, 1991, vol. 2, no. 3 issue of Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia, on page 5: "If I were to see the case of a boy aged ten or eleven who's intensely erotically attracted toward a man in his twenties or thirties, if the relationship is totally mutual, and the bonding is genuinely totally mutual...then I would not call it pathological in any way." On top of that, Money was a Penthouse Forum consultant. According to Dr. Judith Reisman, Money "led for an organized crusade to end age of consent laws. It was John Money who promoted the word "paraphilias" in order to refer to aberrant sexual conduct such as necrophelia, sexual sadism, bestiality, coprophilia, urophilia and pedophilia in a manner less clear and offensive to readers."

That is some sick stuff.

Such praise for pedophilia didn't stop the Children's Rights Council from allowing Money to serve on its board of advisors. Money's name had been removed from CRC letterhead a long time ago, possibly due to the bad publicity from the John/Joan case, reviews such as the one for the Sandfort book, and his stance on pedophilia.

Leadership Council on "Parental Alienation Syndrome"

The Leadership Council
610-664-5007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Child Abuse Experts Applaud Legal Community for Rejecting Parental Alienation Syndrome

July 11, 2006 Bala Cynwyd, Pa. - People who care about abused children finally have something to celebrate. Two recent high profile legal publications have rejected "Parental Alienation Syndrome" (PAS), a controversial label often used to discredit allegations of child abuse or domestic violence in family courts. According to PAS theory, children's disclosures of abuse by one parent are reinterpreted as evidence of "brainwashing" by the other parent. The solution proposed by PAS theory is to immediately award custody to the alleged child abuser.

The newly revised, 2006 edition of "Navigating Custody and Visitation Evaluations in Cases with Domestic Violence: A Judge's Guide," published by The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, includes a strong statement condemning the use of PAS which it calls a "discredited" syndrome that favors child abusers in custody determinations.

At the same time the Spring 2006 issue of the American Bar Association's Children's Legal Rights Journal provides a comprehensive analysis of all legal case involving allegations of PAS. This definitive review concludes that science, law, and policy all oppose the admissibility of PAS in the courtroom.

"PAS is junk science at its worst," says Dr. Paul Fink, President of the Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence, and a former President of the American Psychiatric Association. Dr. Fink explains, "Science tells us that the most likely reason that a child becomes estranged from a parent is that parent's own behavior. Labels, such as PAS, serve to deflect attention away from those behaviors."

Judge Sol Gothard is glad to see that the legal community has joined other professionals in recognizing the harm that PAS can cause. Recently retired from Louisiana's 5th Circuit Court of Appeal, Judge Gothard has been involved in over 2000 cases of allegations of child sexual abuse. He states, "PAS has caused emotional harm, physical harm and in some cases, even death to children."

Joyanna Silberg, Ph.D., a Clinical Psychologist and Executive Vice President of the Council, has also seen first hand the long-term emotional damage this so-called syndrome has caused. "How do you explain to young children forced to live with abusers why the courts have considered them liars and ignored their cries for help?" Silberg has found that it can take years for these children to get past their feelings of betrayal by the system that was supposed to protect them.

Dr. Silberg views PAS allegations as part of a larger strategy in which abusive parents try to fool the courts, attorneys, child custody evaluators, and mental health professionals into believing that their children and ex-spouses are crazy when they raise concerns about safety. She notes the recent case of Darren Mack, accused of shooting his custody judge and stabbing his wife to death. Mack successfully convinced a custody evaluator that he was a loving parent with no violent tendencies, notes Silberg.

Stephanie Dallam, MS, a researcher with the Leadership Council, has spent the last 10 years researching PAS. She traces the syndrome to a controversial psychiatrist, Richard Gardner, who described sex between fathers and their offspring as normal and natural. In his voluminous self-published writings, Gardner blamed abused children's suffering on our society's "overreaction" to sexual abuse, notes Dallam.

Dr. Paul Fink concludes, "Children suffer when law embraces a 'syndrome' just because a so-called 'expert' coined a snappy phrase. Increasingly, courts are seeing through the PAS charade and refusing to allow the courtroom to be used as theater for the promotion of junk science."

The Leadership Council on Child Abuse & Interpersonal Violence is composed of national leaders in psychology, psychiatry, medicine, law, and public policy who are committed to the ethical application of psychological science and countering its misuse by special interest groups. Members of the Council are dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of children and other vulnerable populations. More information can be found at: http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/