Author: Super User

The myth of the “deadbeat dad” is pervasive in our society–in some circles, “divorced dad” or “noncustodial dad” are practically synonymous with “deadbeat dad.” One malignant outgrowth of this can be seen when divorced fathers try to install financial responsibility in their children by linking school performance or behavior to money provided for cars or consumer items. The letter below in a column from Annie’s Mailbox last year is a good example.

“Dear Annie: I have a 16-year-old son whom I love very much. I have been divorced from his mother for eight years, remarried for the last six. ‘Brendan’ lives with his mother in the same city, so I see him a lot.

“We had a good relationship until recently. I told Brendan I would give him a car and pay for the insurance if he kept his grades up. He agreed. His first report card, he got a D in one subject. The car stayed at my house. Four weeks later, he got another D on his mid-term.

“The day after he received his grades, Brendan gave my wife and me a very impressive presentation, with charts and everything. He promised to work hard, do extra credit and show us his test scores every week. We caved and let him have the car. Well, he had an excuse every week why he didn’t have his test scores. When his grades came, he had two Ds.

“I told Brendan to bring back the car, and he said I needed to talk to his mom, my ex. Naturally, she took his side and wanted the car to stay at her house, and didn’t care that Brendan and I had an agreement. The car is now back at my place, but Brendan is angry with me, and my ex is probably going to buy him a car.

“I want my son to learn that there are consequences for being irresponsible. Am I wrong? — Worried Dad

“Dear Dad: You are not wrong. A car is a privilege, not a right, no matter what some kids think. You kept your end of the bargain, and if his mother buys him a Porsche, let it be HER problem. Your ex is teaching Brendan that he doesn’t have to work for anything and that it’s OK to renege on agreements. We hope you will keep trying to teach him otherwise, Dad.”

One can almost hear 16 year-old Brendan fuming to his friends that his dad is a cheapskate. I wonder who helped teach him to think that way about his dad?

“Of course there were areas of safety; nothing could get at me if I curled up on my father’s lap, holding onto his ear…All about him was safe.”–Naomi Margaret Mitchison, Scottish Novelist and Poet

I think all of us hope our daughters will have the same type of memories of us…

Below are some recent articles and items of interest from Fathers & Families’ latest News Digest.

Fathers not short-changed by B.C. Adoption Act, minister says (The Canadian Press, 10-2-07)

Parents to have money taken away from child support payments (Informationliberation.com, 10-2-07)

Dancers lead fight for fathers’ rights (The Morning Sun, 10-3-07)

Televangelist’s Husband Denies Abuse (Associated Press, 10-3-7)

Waterford Police Pursuing Mother in Abduction Case (CBS 6 Albany, 10-3-07)

Family judges campaign to take the bitterness and costs out of divorce (The Times, 10-4-07)

TV chef must sell seafront restaurant in £3.6m divorce (Daily Mail, 10-6-07)

Home at last; Dad brings abducted tot home (The Record, 10-7-07)

A loan that helps couples go solo (Times Online, 10-8-07)

Rise of collaborative divorce is not for everyone (The Washington Times, 10-8-07)

Background: The Melinda Smith/Thomas Smith Los Angeles foster care outrage is one of the most egregious child welfare injustices I’ve ever seen. In my co-authored column, Choosing Foster Parents over Fathers (San Diego Union-Tribune, 7/11/07), I explained:

“In the heartbreaking Melinda Smith case, a father and daughter were needlessly separated by the foster care system for over a decade. Last week, Los Angeles County settled a lawsuit over the case for an undisclosed sum…

“Smith was born to an unwed couple in 1988. Her father, Thomas Marion Smith, a former Marine and a decorated Vietnam War veteran, saw Melinda often and paid child support. When the girl was four, her mother abruptly moved without leaving a forwarding address. Two years later, Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services found that Melinda”s mother was abusing her. Though the social worker for the case noted in the file that Thomas was the father, he was never contacted, and his then 6-year-old daughter was placed in the foster care system.

“Thomas–whose fitness as a father was never impugned nor legally questioned–continued to receive and pay his child support bills. Authorities refused to disclose his daughter”s whereabouts, and didn”t even inform him that his daughter had been taken by the County. Smith employed private investigators and attorneys to try to find Melinda and secure visitation rights, but he eventually ran out of money.

“Rather than allowing Smith to raise his own daughter, the system shuttled Melinda through seven different foster care placements. An understandably angry child, her outbursts led authorities to house her in a residential treatment center alongside older children convicted of criminal activity–when she was only seven years old.

“Melinda says that during this period she was told that her father was a ‘deadbeat dad’ who had abandoned her. When Melinda was 16, she told an investigating social worker that the ‘most important thing’ for her was to find her dad. Moved by her story, the social worker began searching for Melinda”s father–and found him in one day. In 2005, Thomas and Melinda were finally reunited.”

The terms of the settlement in this case are revealed in a recent Los Angeles Daily News article, and apparently Smith is going to receive $225,000 from Los Angeles County. I don’t know much about how these settlements are done, but I’m surprised–Smith should be paid millions for what was done to his little daughter. I know it’s comparing apples and oranges, but it seems particularly low in light of the millions that Los Angeles County had at one point agreed to pay former firefighter Tennie Pierce over a questionable racial harassment complaint.

As part of their agreement with Smith, the County generously agreed to “forgive” Smith’s fake child support debt, not one dime of which should he ever have been asked to pay. Moreover, much of the “debt” piled up after Smith and his daughter were already reunited, as the County still kept sending him child support bills.

The Daily News article by Troy Anderson, who has done a good job in his pieces on this case, is below.

Child-support case may be settled
Father would get $225,000 from county
By Troy Anderson
10/01/2007

A decorated Vietnam War veteran who spent more than a decade searching for his daughter would be paid $225,000 by the county, which mistakenly allowed him to pay child support for the girl although she was in foster care, under a settlement recommended Monday.

The Los Angeles County Claims Board recommended the payment to settle a lawsuit filed by Thomas Marion Smith, who was never told that his young daughter had been taken away from his ex-wife and placed in foster care. The Board of Supervisors will vote on the settlement Oct. 16.

“This is a landmark case having a profound impact on the system,” said Smith’s attorney, Linda Wallace. “At the point of entry, county departments are now notified to make sure children are not lost in the system.”

Lisa Garrett, chief deputy director of the Child Support Services Department, said her agency is working to improve communication with the Department of Children and Family Services to avoid a recurrence of the Smith case.

Smith’s suit claims that county employees were negligent for failing to notify him that his daughter was in foster care. Had he known of the girl’s whereabouts, he would have obtained custody of his daughter and eliminated the need for county intervention.

Read the full article here.

Background: The taxpayer-funded domestic violence industry vilifies men and promotes unfair and misleading stereotypes about domestic violence. One example is this amazing series of domestic violence public service ads from HomeFront, a Canadian domestic violence agency.

To learn more and to watch the ad “Restaurant,” the other ad in the series, click here.

The ad “Boardroom” is another example of the way the domestic violence industry views and portrays men. To watch the ad, click here, or see below.

The tagline to the ads is: “You wouldn’t get away with it here–you shouldn’t get away with it at home.” The ads were produced in 2003 by HomeFront, a Canadian domestic violence agency.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBCgZ1-ZZ-0]

Television reporter Tina Stein (pictured) of WIFR in Rockford, Illinois did an excellent job on the child support piece below. The piece details the case of Ed Conley, an electrician who broke his leg, was out of work for three months, and who nearly went to jail for it. Conley’s friends and relative came up with several thousand dollars to keep him out.

The case is typical of the way the child support system manufactures “deadbeat dads.” Let’s break it down:

1) Conley has a track record of 13 years of “mostly on-time payments.” Then he breaks his leg and can’t work.

2) He repeatedly tries to contact the child support agency to tell them and to get a downward modification, but can’t get through to anybody. Reporter Stein tries this also, and confirms Conley’s experience.

3) Ex-wife hires attorney to pursue Conley for the support she knows he shouldn’t be asked to pay. Her attorney blames Conley, saying, “He could file motions to where they could have child support reduced because they don’t have any income to pay for child support.” Conley had tried to resolve the issue the best he could–his only other alternative would have been to hire an attorney, which he obviously could not afford to do.

4) State doesn’t care, pursues him anyway, threatens him with jail, and only relents when his friends and relatives pay his child support for him.

This kind of outrage isn’t unusual–I hear stories like this all day long. It’s to Stein’s credit that she pursued this story. I spoke with Tina this morning and commended her–I suggest that readers send her a quick note to thank her–click here. Her story is below.

Child Support Concerns
Oct 1, 2007
Reporter: Tina Stein

A basketball injury didn’t earn Ed Conley any sympathy from the state’s Division of Child Support Enforcement, despite his 13-years of mostly on-time payments.

“There were breaks in my leg I have got 2 plates 19 screws in there. I didn’t just sprain my ankle and want to stay off work,” Conley says.

The electrician was off the job for three months and his ex-wife didn’t get any of the 38-hundred dollars owed for those three months either.

“She hired an attorney and that attorney contacted me and basically said I had to pay in full what was owed right then, and sent papers wanting me to be sent to jail.”

On numerous occasions I’ve discussed the ways the taxpayer-funded domestic violence industry vilifies men and promotes unfair and misleading stereotypes about domestic violence. “Restaurant,” an amazing domestic violence public service ad from HomeFront, a Canadian domestic violence agency, captures perfectly the way the domestic violence industry views and portrays men. To watch the ad, click here, or see below.

Apparently the ad was blocked from airing on TV by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. HomeFront uses the ads in their trainings and has them on their website, and the ads are used in DV seminars. The ads in this series portray only men as batterers and women as victims. HomeFront’s slogan is “Stop It Where It Starts.”

Research clearly shows that women are just as likely as men to initiate violence in the home. Men suffer a third of all domestic violence-related injuries, and women use weapons and the element of surprise to help balance the scales. To learn more, see my co-authored column October”s Domestic Violence Awareness Month Ignores Many Victims (Louisville Courier-Journal and others, 10/4/06). To learn more about problems with the way our legal system and the media handle domestic violence, click here.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugTeOz7rsgE]

One common theme in Parental Alienation cases is the alienating parent punishing the children for having any positive interactions with the targeted parent. In Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome: Breaking the Ties that Bind, several of the adults interviewed by Amy J.L. Baker report having this experience.

One of them is David, whose parents divorced when he was six, and who was caught in his mother’s long-term alienation campaign against his father. (To learn more about David’s case, click here).

David’s mother drove his father out of his life, but even years later he would be made to pay a price for expressing interest in his father. David explains:

“I remember one time I mentioned about talking to Dad and she said, ‘I”ll take you out of my will.” That sticks in my mind because at the time I was thinking about calling him.’

Baker writes, “It was not enough for his mother to have eliminated all visits, she also had to eliminate any discussion or mention of the father as well. She made it clear that to talk about him was a betrayal of her.”

David remembers:

“Even when I was in high school and college if I talked about my dad that was like sticking a knife in her. It was just something you did not want to do. It was almost as if I knew if I mentioned that I wanted to go see my dad I would be brow beaten into submission. I was thinking this is crazy that it seems like every time I talk about my dad all hell breaks loose and it was almost easier… it was easier to not broach the subject. It became about survival…at that point in my life to survive you just don”t talk about him at all.’

The alienation and browbeating was so severe that David waited until three years after his mother was dead to contact his father, explaining, “Only then was I beginning to feel comfortable talking to my dad. It still felt like I was betraying her. It took three years for her to be dead.’

I’ve often criticized what one might call the “paternal abandonment script”–the standard assumption that if a father doesn’t remain in his children’s lives after a divorce or separation, it’s because he “abandoned the family” and/or chose to remove himself from his children’s lives.

This script is pushed heavily by both the left and the right, including: feminists; influential fatherhood expert David Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values; presidential candidate Barack Obama; former Vice-President Dan Quayle (and his famous 1992 Murphy Brown speech decrying fatherlessness); and countless others.

I’ve detailed in numerous newspaper columns the many barriers mothers and the family law system place between fathers and their children and won’t reprise the argument here. But many times I see references to fathers who “abandoned” their kids when, upon closer inspection, it is very unclear that such “abandonment” occurred. This is particularly common when dealing with African-American fathers.

I noticed this again recently when reading the autobiography of Dick Allen (pictured), probably the best hitter in the major leagues during much of my childhood. There are numerous media references to Dick Allen (aka Richie Allen) being raised by a single mother. For example, in Dick Allen, the Phillies, and Racism, William C. Kashatus writes, “Allen was the youngest of three boys raised by a single mother.”

The Encyclopedia of Arkansas reports that Dick Allen was the son of “Era Allen and her husband, a traveling truck driver who later divorced her. Era Allen raised her youngest son primarily on her own.”

Allen doesn’t focus on this issue in his autobiography, but in passing makes several assertions which contradict the paternal abandonment script written about his family life. According to Allen, his mother and father had a rocky, up and down relationship which finally ended when the couple divorced. That’s not exactly “abandonment.”

Allen’s mother and father divorced when Allen was 15, meaning that the father had been with the mother as they raised all of the other children and up until Allen, the youngest, was almost grown. That’s not exactly “abandonment,” either.

In the book, Allen wonders what became of his father, but says that he would never discuss it in his family because any mention of his father greatly upset his mother. In other words, Allen thought that if he had a relationship with his father, it would have been a betrayal of his mother. Allen was fiercely loyal to his mother, often with good reason. But the “having a relationship with your dad is a betrayal of mom” is a central part of Parental Alienation. Again, this isn’t exactly “abandonment.”

Dick Allen’s father was a traveling truck driver, so he was probably gone a lot, even during the time his relationship with Allen’s mother was good. Allen’s dad probably wasn’t a Father of the Year candidate, but there’s not much evidence that he was a bad guy, either. All we know for sure is that he didn’t get along with Allen’s mother. And that doesn’t mean he abandoned his kids or was a bad father.

[Late note: Richard Allen Jr., Dick Allen’s son, wrote to me about my piece above, and adds some new information. According to Richard Jr., Dick Allen, in contrast to the paternal abandonment script, “did have a relationship with his father, however it was separate from his mother.” In other words, he continued his relationship with his father after the divorce, but probably refrained from mentioning his relationship with his father to his mother.

Sources I’ve read say that Dick Allen’s father was a truck driver and Allen was the youngest child. According to Richard Jr., Dick Allen’s father was a sanitation worker, not a truck driver, and he was not quite the youngest in the family–he had one younger brother, in addition to several older siblings.]

Recently my daughter and I were watching her second favorite movie, The Sandlot 3. (Her favorite movie is The Sandlot 1). The movie is the story of arrogant baseball star Tommy “Santa” Santorelli who (warning: plot spoiler ahead) travels back in time to 1976 and relives his boyhood days on the sandlot baseball team. This time he chooses friendship over individual accomplishments, and ends up turning his life around, becoming a beloved baseball star instead of a hated one.

When Santorelli goes back to his childhood he is reunited with his mother, who died when he was about 12. The boy’s bond with his mom is touching and sad, no question. However….Santorelli’s father is not mentioned.

I don’t mean that he’s not there–we’re used to that. Normally when they want to depict an absent father they’ll depict him as dead or, more commonly, as having run off. (Just once I’d like to see a kid in a mainstream movie casually say “Oh, my dad’s not around–mom divorced him and used family court machinations to drive him out of my life when I was younger.”) But here, unless my daughter, my wife and I all missed something, Santorelli’s father is not referred to at all. A child not having a father has become so routine that the screenwriters don’t even feel obligated to throw in a one sentence reference to dad and why he’s not here.

This is an increasingly annoying feature of many modern movies–“John Tucker Must Die” and Toy Story” are a couple of other examples. It seems particularly offensive here because, dammit, this is a baseball movie. Dads, boys and baseball go together. So in honor of the father-son-baseball bond which The Sandlot 3 has besmirched, I’ve put together some details about the loving bonds many current and former major league baseball players shared with their dads. Some examples include:

Former New York Mets relief pitcher John Franco, one of the better closers in baseball during the 1980s and 1990s, always wore an orange NYC sanitation T-shirt under his baseball uniform, in honor of his father, a New York City sanitation worker.

Former New York Yankee right fielder Paul O’Neill published the book Me and My Dad: A Baseball Memoir after his playing career ended. O’Neill’s father, Charles “Chick” O’Neill, was a paratrooper in World War II and pitched in the minor leagues. He died after Game 3 of the 1999 World Series. Paul O’Neill went to his father’s funeral, then played in Game 4, helping the Yankees complete their sweep of the Atlanta Braves.

Former Kansas City Royals third baseman George Brett honored his father in his Hall of Fame induction speech.

Current Houston Astros star first baseman Lance Berkman recently told a reporter, “My dad is my hero…I think so much of him. He’s just got tremendous moral values, and he’s just a wonderful person and somebody who’s very comforting to be around…He’s someone I’ve learned through by example more than anything else, particularly with his honesty…He’s not a man of many words. He’s not very charming. He’s not necessarily a guy that will walk up and take the floor and talk a bunch. But the way he lives is an example to a lot of people. He’s a true gentleman. He’s got a lot of people that look up to him and the way he carries himself. A lot of times actions speak louder than words, and he’s a guy that certainly lives that out.”