Author: Super User

April 27, 2020 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

Those of us who pay attention to family law and public policy on families and kids know all too well the multi-front attack on families that’s so much a part of our society and culture.  That is, after all, why we fight back.  Healthy families are necessary to a healthy polity, so the erosion of families can only pose a threat to societal health and well-being.  Unsurprisingly, as the family has declined, many of the problems that strong families help ameliorate or avoid have worsened.

Of course most of the ways in which families are attacked are well-known – divorce laws and practices, adoption law, child support laws, child protective practices, pop culture, etc.  But occasionally, we run into a new one, in this case, opposition to homeschooling (Harvard Magazine, 5/20).

Writing in Harvard Magazine, Erin O’Donnell channels Harvard professor Elizabeth Bartholet who’s on record as favoring an outright legal presumption that no child may be educated by his/her parents.  Apparently, Bartholet would graciously allow some parents to be able to rebut the presumption, but the article never suggests how.  Given that the presumption would be a legal one, I can only conclude that it would require a proceeding in court that would then require a lawyer and would therefore place homeschooling out of reach of parents of modest means. 

In short, like every other family-unfriendly policy already in effect, Bartholet’s would hit hardest at the poor.  This of course is in the service of her “progressive” ideology.

So why does Bartholet so loathe and fear homeschooling?  Her justifications seem to be three.  First, most parents who homeschool their kids are Christians who feel their children aren’t exposed to the right values or morals in school.  This is an anathema to Bartholet.

“Bartholet notes that some of these parents are “extreme religious ideologues” who question science and promote female subservience and white supremacy.”

Needless to say, she offers no evidence for her claim.  As such, it looks very much like Christian parents who homeschool their kids constitute an “other” to be demonized, the better to further erode their parental rights.

Second, and equally evidence-free, is Bartholet’s assumption that, if children are schooled by their parents in their home, they’re sitting ducks for abuse.

This practice, Bartholet says, can isolate children. She argues that one benefit of sending children to school at age four or five is that teachers are “mandated reporters,” required to alert authorities to evidence of child abuse or neglect. 

Yes, and we know all about those mandated reporters, don’t we?  They’re the ones who are largely responsible for burdening child protective agencies with a huge overabundance of reports of suspected abuse and neglect.  Some 80% of those reports never needed to be made, but they were and they take up countless hours of CPS agencies’ time.  In 2016, there were about 180,000 reports of child abuse that were found to be true.  That was about 0.2% of all children.  Bartholet attempts to recruit the specter of child abuse to her campaign to further increase state power at the expense of parental rights, so of course she nowhere mentions that children generally are overwhelmingly safe at home.

She also neglects to mention that some 2.2 million kids each year are injured at school.  Presumably that easily-obtainable factoid wasn’t obtained by either Bartholet or O’Donnell because it contrasts poorly with their desire to scare readers about parents.

Now, one argument Bartholet makes with which I agree is that homeschooling is monitored by states poorly if at all.  Some states apparently make no effort to see if their homeschooled children are actually receiving an education or not.  It seems worthwhile to require them to take a test every year to monitor their progress.

That said, given her stated interest in the quality of education received by homeschooled kids, you might think there would be a word or two in the article about how well those children stack up against others academically.  If so, you’d be disappointed.  There’s not a single word about the fact that, on average, homeschooled children outperform their peers in traditional schools.  That too, it would seem, constitutes a truth that’s inconvenient to Bartholet’s campaign to shove every kid into a school of which she approves and, in so doing, remove them from parental love, parental authority and parental teaching.

Meanwhile, as is so often the case, the comments to the HM article are far more instructive than the article itself.  Yes, there are several comments from parents who’ve homeschooled their children, but the one I find most telling is from “Larissa” who’s a public educator.  Her description of public schooling is a far cry from Bartholet’s sunny notions.  Here it is in its entirety.

This is, by far, the most vapid and poorly researched article I’ve ever read. I am a public educator. Children in public schools are penned in for 8-9 hours a day with MAYBE a 20 minute recess built in with another 25 minutes for lunch. Time is constantly wasted trying to corral and transition from one arbitrary class to another. They MAYBE experience 1 or 2 field trips a year. Homeschool children, on the other hand, are often doing their school outside. They are active. They are given specialized instruction instead of a one size fits all curriculum. Field trips take place as often as they want, many once a week or more. When a child is sick, they don’t miss instruction. They are given the time to recuperate and pick up where they left off. Co-ops offer group learning atmospheres where they can learn from specialized experts in certain fields. When a child masters a concept, they can move forward instead of sitting around waiting for their peers. When a child is struggling, they can slow down without feeling like they are holding everyone back or worse being forced to just trudge ahead without the skill. Children have more time to participate in activities like 4H, music lessons, team sports, and internships since their life is not dictated by a government institution. Furthermore, homeschool students outperform public school students on the ACT, SAT, and in areas of college readiness. They are better at discussions, better at asking questions and providing analysis. This idea that homeschool children are isolated and under authoritarian rule is antiquated and shows a lack of research by this author. Public schools dictate the way a child should dress, the way a child behaves, the way a child eats, the way they play, and the way a child should learn. They dictate who gets to be successful and who gets left behind. They funnel children into groups based upon arbitrary quantifiers of potential. They dictate the number of hours a child must sit. They dictate what a child should say. They dictate what days are school days and what days are for family. The public school system literally has control of a child and his family from age 5-18. And you say they provide freedom? Absolutely tone deaf and an embarrassment to this publication.  

Ouch!

There are so many excuses on offer for replacing parents with the state.  Not a one of them withstands even minimal scrutiny and yet many have found a niche in the law and public policy.  Like the others Bartholet’s ideas are unsupported by basic facts and an attack on the bedrock institution of society, the family.   

April 24, 2020 by Linda Reutzel, Chair, National Parents Organization of Missouri

Given the coronavirus upending our way of life, Americans are depending on elected and appointed officials to safeguard our health and economy. However, we as citizens also have the responsibility to stand up for our American way of life. This means we have to be even more vigilant about protecting our freedoms and the rule of law.

Specifically, in our neck of the woods, we are watching as Missouri legislators from the four corners of the state determine whether or not to re-start the stalled state legislative session on April 27.  When it comes to the social justice issue of shared parenting, our momentum before the crisis was right on target to pass this session.  There is still no reason that passage shouldn’t still occur.  Thanks to the efforts of two of Cape Girardeau’s finest, Senator Wayne Wallingford, and Representative Kathy Swan, the momentum for their shared parenting bills is still there.

Of course, the priority should be to safeguard all Missourians health and financial well-being. While we want to be sure that our legislators are safe, social distancing is not an excuse to end the debate on such important legislation. When the Missouri session comes back, a way to continue the regular order of business must be found.  

What ultimately matters is this:  Children need and want equal access to both parents and both extended families.  Reforming family law will allow for that. The more family members allowed access to love our children the more content, happy and secure our children feel. Parents treated equally in family court endure less conflict, keep more of their hard-earned money, and move on to co-parent more easily. When our laws are uniform, the divorce process is fairer, and less dependent on the particular circumstances and geography of the parents.When it comes to parenting our children, it shouldn’t matter which county you live in, which judge you get, your lawyers talents or the amount of money in your checking account.Clearly, if a parent isn’t fit they should not be allowed any opportunity to abuse a child and judges still have discretion to look at all exceptions.  We most certainly can take a look at strengthening domestic violence laws, but this is a totally separate issue from the bill at hand.  Shared parenting legislation simply changes the starting point of custody evaluations to equal.  We still have the same exceptions and factors written in statute.  Anyone attempting to conflate the two issues shows a lack of understanding or presents pure propaganda.

Along with a majority of legislators who have signaled that they are in favor of reform, Governor Parson has weighed in on this topic with more than that. In December, he signed a Proclamation declaring April 26 Shared Parenting Day, at the request of the National Parents Organization (NPO).  This day was selected because Kentucky signed the first true shared parenting law on this day, 1 year ago.  Kentucky declared April 26 as Shared Parenting Day also. 

We hope with our success, more states will acknowledge this special day for Shared Parenting.  NPO’s Matt Hale, creator of Shared Parenting Day, said, “Missouri’s proclamation means shared parenting has clear momentum there. Declaring a day for shared parenting shows that Missouri knows shared parenting is a good thing so now they need to express that in their laws. Further, we are now calling on other states to make April 26^th Shared Parenting Day.”

Conveniently April 26^th is the day before the Missouri Assembly is planning to return to Jefferson City to continue their work.

Life goes on in spite of the pain we know our state is going through, so should the Assembly continue their work at passing needed social reforms.  We are Missourians. Our way of life does not quit in a pandemic.  We are stronger than that.

We are counting on our legislators to safely continue the work that was started before the crisis.  Shared parenting bills have no fiscal cost but there is great emotional cost to keeping the status quo.  Children will still feel abandoned when one parent is denied significant time with them.  This moment counts. This simple change to our statutes will make a monumental difference in the lives of Missouri’s children and families.

On Monday, April 27, let us encourage our legislators to find their innermost strength. Let us support them as they get to work for our children who are facing the untenable repercussions from an outdated law that hurts working families.

Linda Reutzel

National Parents Organization

Missouri Chair

Cape Girardeau, MO

April 23, 2020 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

Sometimes it seems family courts are biased against fathers.  That’s true anecdotally, but it’s also revealed by half a dozen studies of judges and the lawyers who practice before them.

Well, here’s another of those anecdotal cases (TapHaps, 3/15/20).

Mark Athans and Charity (foreboding name) Parchem married in 2018 in South Dakota.  Athans already had a son who was 16 and had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.  Athans is the boy’s sole caregiver. 

Autism or not, to Athans’ son, something about Parchem didn’t feel right.  So he started doing some online research on her and found that she was not only already married, but to two men.  Athans made three.  So, five months into the marriage, Athans filed for an annulment of the marriage.

Now, that’s a legally straightforward case because, according to both federal and state laws, any attempt by an already-married person to marry someone else is void.  By law, you can only be married to one person at a time.  So Athans’ case before Judge Patrice McDonald’s of Conroe, Texas should have been a slam dunk.  After all, a court in South Dakota had already ruled the marriage void and Athans had the testimony of Parchem’s husband that the two had never divorced.

At the hearing however, McDonald ignored all the evidence of Parchem’s previous marriages and the action of the court in South Dakota and proceeded as if Athans and Parchem were married and were getting divorced.  That appears to be for the purpose of handing Parchem a lucrative order for spousal support and attorney’s fees.  The pair had been married a mere five months before the divorce filing, but McDonald ordered Athans to pay Parchem a whopping $96,000 in support and fees.

Athans tried to get her to dismiss her order.  She refused.  He refused to pay a cent of it.  She found him in contempt.  He appealed.  And won.

The Ninth Court of Appeals in Beaumont recently issued an order to McDonald that can charitably be called scathing.  The unanimous court told her to dismiss the order against Athans or the appeals court would do it for her.

So Athans is off the hook, but it frankly boggles the mind that a judge could so blatantly violate both the law and the rights of a litigant.  The law is abundantly clear on the subject of bigamy and Athans had abundant evidence that Parchem was married to another man.  McDonald’s course was clear – dismiss the case and move on with others.  Instead she abused a litigant, caused him unnecessary expense and time and earned herself a black mark from the Court of Appeals.

We might view the Athans case as a rarity, except that McDonald has also aimed her guns at another father, Joshua Jaros who’s currently in prison for failing to pay child support, courtesy of McDonald’s once again ignoring plain law.  Having no money for a lawyer, he attempted to represent himself before Judge McDonald.  His defense to failing to pay was his inability to do so. 

McDonald held a “hearing” on the matter that consisted of her looking at a form Jaros had filled out seeking a determination of indigency and a court-appointed lawyer.  McDonald read his answers and, without taking any testimony or receiving any evidence, overruled his request for a lawyer.

Of course, as this article makes clear, whatever the merits or demerits of that “hearing,” it was only about whether the state should supply Jaros an attorney (The Child Support Hustle, 2/8/20).  It had nothing to do with whether he could pay the arrears on his child support obligation.  As readers of this blog well know, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled four years ago in Turner vs. Rogers that, when a child support obligor faces prison and is opposed in court by the state, he’s entitled to a complete hearing, including the opportunity to adduce evidence of inability to pay.  Needless to say, McDonald afforded Jaros no such thing.

The Jaros case is set for appeal.  Charity Parchem is in jail on charges of bigamy.

Patrice McDonald needs to find another job.

April 22, 2020 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

Ten years ago this month, Australian Laura Garrett abducted her four daughters from their father, Tommaso Vincenti, and their home in Italy.  With the illegal help of the Australian embassy in Rome, she took the girls, then aged 9 – 14 to Australia and, with the help of her mother, went into hiding.  Eventually, she was located and her husband, still in Italy, filed a lawsuit under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction seeking their return.  It would take three years for the Australian courts to do what should have been done in a few weeks, but eventually the children were ordered back to Italy to be with their father.

Australian television news showed the girls screaming and resisting when the police forced them to board a flight to Rome.  For all the world, it looked like child abuse, kids terrified of an abusive father.  After all, that had been Garrett’s claim from the first and the news media reported it without question.  The Australian government paid Garret $900 per month in compensation as a “victim of domestic violence.”  Eventually, though, it was revealed to be a sham. 

Now, a decade later, the girls have come clean (Kidspot, 4/14/20).

 “I remember when we were hiding from the police and we turned on the television,” Lily told Newman over the phone from Tuscany.

“There was a psychologist being interviewed and I remember thinking how stupid they all were.

“We knew what was really happening, even at that time. It was all made up.”

Lily is referring to the ‘scenes’ that she and her sisters put on when the Federal Police took them from their mother.

She says she and her sisters were coached by her mother and her mother’s family to act ‘in distress’ so they wouldn’t have to return to Italy.

Garrett’s justification for abducting the girls was that Vincenti was violently abusive of them and her.  That was a lie and, needless to say, she never produced any evidence to support it.  That wasn’t for lack of trying, however.  Garrett relentlessly coached her daughters to make false allegations against their father and, when that didn’t work, she tried to convince them that they simply didn’t remember the abuse.

She was told by her Australian mother, Laura, that her father was a violent man and they had to disappear to the other side of the world to escape him, something Lily – who’s now 16 but was only nine at the time – believes wasn’t true.

“Mum told us that Dad was abusive,” she tells author Jasmin Newman in ‘The Child Snatchers’.  “At the time I was so little that I believed her.”

Sometimes, Newman says, Lily was fed even more suggestions.

“Don’t you remember him hitting you?” she recalls her mother saying.

When Lily couldn’t recall this happening, her mother would justify the lies further: “You can’t remember because you were too little.”

Later, the girls lied to therapists supporting their mother’s claims about Tommaso.

For a long time she still maintained that her father hurt her.

“In the beginning, I would tell heaps of lies to the psychologists and my elder sisters would encourage me to exaggerate,” Lily told Newman.

The four sisters years ago reunited with their father and eventually Garrett returned to Italy to be nearer to them.  Apparently Italian authorities haven’t prosecuted her for the crimes she committed in abducting the girls and violating the custody order in effect at the time.

What’s important about this case now is that, from the girls’ remarks, we can see just how powerfully a parent can influence a child.  Solely at Garrett’s insistence, the girls lied to therapists and the press about non-existent abuse by Vincenti.  When the older girls believed the youngest one wasn’t lying effectively enough, they encouraged her to do more and better.  They also seem to have lied to themselves, almost coming to believe that they’d been abused.

It seems a bit like Stockholm Syndrome.  From here it looks like the girls were so dependent on their mother and grandmother, who were hiding them in Australia, for their every need, that they felt they had to go along with the lies.  That was true even though, in the process, they betrayed their father and made reunification with him more difficult.

It’s worth reviewing the case in light of these latest revelations.  We’re often asked to believe that, if one parent claims the other is abusive and the child agrees, then it must be so.  The reality is that a child’s corroboration of such a claim is far from dispositive of the issue.  Children often act out of loyalty to a parent, to meet that parent’s needs or due to the enmeshing of their personality with that of the parent.

When a parent is bent on fraud, a child’s relationship with that parent can become a complicated web of truth, half-truth and lies.  The Vincenti/Garrett case reminds us that parent-child relationships can reflect loyalty sometimes at the expense of truth.

This case is beyond bizarre and outrageous.  I encourage readers to read my previous blogs on it here, here, here, here and here.

April 21, 2020 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

Every day for at least two weeks now, there’s been a large number of articles in a vast array of publications about how to handle the COVID-19 quarantine in child custody situations.  The overwhelming majority of those articles say that, unless there are other extenuating circumstances, the parents are to abide by whatever court order is in effect. The virus alone is not a change of circumstances sufficient to alter the status quo regarding parenting time and custody.  Countless lawyers and judges are repeating the same advice.

But there’s always the odd outlier (The Atlantic, 4/8/20).

Writer Deborah Copaken tells the story of her, her ex and their 13-year-old son. They’re divorced and seem to have shared time fairly equally until COVID-19 raised its ugly head.  They live about an hour apart in New York City. Sensibly, the two grappled with what to do with their parenting arrangements during the restrictions on activity designed to reduce transmission of the illness.

But then,

‘“I’m keeping him home from school,” I texted my ex the next morning: a unilateral decision, not an opening to a dialogue.’

And later,

“Hey, hey, we need to talk about parenting in the era of corona. All things being equal, I’d be happier if he just stays here until the plague is over, but maybe you could do bike rides together outside? What a crazy time.”

Her ex argued, but ultimately, Copaken unilaterally kept their son with her. No calling the court, no motions to the court, just her own decision.  Ironically, she, her partner and her son have all come down with COVID-19, so whatever precautions she believed she was taking didn’t work.

Remarkably, Copaken recruits a family lawyer to her cause.

“This is an unprecedented legal situation,” says Dana Stutman, a matrimonial lawyer in New York City, who has been inundated with calls from parents since the city’s lockdown began. “Children need to have a relationship with both parents, and continuing this relationship during this time is still important. But this is a life-threatening disease, and it’s very aggressive. Obviously the safest plan is to shelter in one place, and if there’s fallout as a result of this, parents will have to deal with that in the aftermath.”

Later, Strutman added,

“Protecting the child’s health and safety has to come first. Because if he’s not healthy and safe, he’s not going to have a relationship with either of his parents.”

Notice that neither Copaken nor her chosen legal expert ever mentioned the court order in effect or asking the judge with jurisdiction over their case to decide the matter that is, after all, one of family law. No, to both, it’s perfectly acceptable to simply violate the court order and, if that also violates criminal law, well, that’s OK too. Apparently the police are too busy with other problems to attend to parenting time violations, so, if you’re a Mom with possession of the kid, hey, do whatever you choose.

‘“No,” Stutman told me when I asked her. “I mean, he could try, but I think the police have more important things to worry about right now.” And no, she didn’t think he could successfully sue me at this point either.’

In a world of press coverage that’s all-but unanimous about how to handle parenting time during the COVID crisis, this is what The Atlantic has to offer.

April 17, 2020 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

There’s bad news on the child protection front (KSAT, 4/13/20).  In Texas and across the country, calls to child protective agencies during the COVID-19 crisis have sharply decreased.  By 20% in Texas, by 50% in Wisconsin and elsewhere, reports of child abuse and neglect have dropped precipitously.

And CPS officials aren’t happy about it.  Not one bit.

A perfect storm — that’s what some child abuse prevention advocates are calling the coronavirus pandemic.

For a month now, children at risk of abuse and neglect have been locked in homes with parents ill-equipped to deal with the stress, anxiety, and uncertainty of the virus. Some worry the longer this crisis continues, it will lead to another epidemic of child abuse and neglect cases.

Randy Burton is particularly worried about the impact the health crisis is having on kids who were already living in crisis. The Houston-based attorney, former Harris County prosecutor, and founder of the non-profit Justice For Children fears what’s happening behind closed doors.

“This is a bad situation. It’s open season on these children right now,” Burton said. “We would anticipate that there will be significant increases in (abuse) reports.”

“Open season on these children?”  Really?  Being home with their parents is fraught with peril?  It’s astonishing to see people wringing their hands and making the wildest statements with absolutely no evidence for their claims.  What’s happening “behind closed doors?”  No one knows because the doors are, well, closed.  Burton doesn’t know and neither do I.  But I don’t assume that children are at increased risk of abuse, while Burton and many others take it for granted.

What is unquestionably true is that kids are no longer in school and aren’t allowed to go out publicly to parks, malls, etc. nearly as much as they recently could.  And, since many “mandated reporters” – teachers and other school officials, police officers, etc. – are to be found in those locations, there won’t be as many reports of abuse.  Clearly, that’s no surprise.

Here’s a rundown of where reports to CPS agencies come from nationwide (Richland Source, 4/11/20):

According to www.childwelfare.gov, the most common professional report sources were education personnel (19.4 percent), legal and law enforcement personnel (18.3 percent), social services staff (11.7 percent), and medical personnel (9.6 percent).

The remaining reports were made by nonprofessionals (17.3 percent), such as friends, neighbors, and relatives, or by unclassified reporters (17.0 percent), a category that includes anonymous and unknown reporters.

It’s strange in the extreme that the various opiners on children assume that kids are at increased risk because they’re spending more time with their parents than previously.  In fact, it’s entirely possible that the vast majority of the decrease in calls to CPS agencies are those that didn’t need to be made in the first place.

What none of the articles I’ve read mentions is that, nationwide, 80% of calls reporting suspected abuse or neglect are unfounded.  That’s according to the Administration for Children and Families that collects child abuse data from the states every year.  There are about 3.4 million such reports every year, but under 700,000 of them report actual harm to a child.  Of those, over 70% show neglect, not abuse.  Now, I strongly suspect that, with more parents at home with the kids, neglect of children is significantly lower than it previously was.  How can it be otherwise?  So I suspect that one impact of the virus on children is that they’re being better cared for than before.  

Plus, we can’t forget that mandatory reporters run a huge risk if they see something that might indicate abuse or neglect but fail to report it.  In Texas, it’s a felony to fail to report and that also likely means the loss of employment.  So needless to say, mandatory reporters are highly motivated to call CPS at even the slightest hint of abuse or neglect.  It stands to reason then that they’re responsible for a lot of the over-reporting that plagues the system.

In short, it’s likely that much of the drop-off in reports is due to mandatory reporters not having contact with children and not making reports that don’t need to be made.

But we won’t hear that from the likes of Randy Burton or CPS officials who seem to have a vested interest in keeping the public as alarmed as possible about danger – whether real or imagined – to kids.

April 16, 2020 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Director

I recently posted a piece lauding courts for generally continuing to enforce whatever custody and parenting time orders are in place during the time restrictions on human interaction are in place due to the risk of contracting COVID-19.  This case is a rare exception (CNN, 4/13/20).  It’s also an opportunity to explore some of the reasons why the virus must not be used as an excuse to limit children’s time with one parent or another.

Dr. Theresa Greene is an emergency room physician in Florida.  She’s been divorced from her ex-husband, Eric, for two years and the couple have a young daughter.  The two have, until recently, shared parenting time equally. 

But Eric went to court to request that Theresa’s time with their daughter be stopped for some period of time, presumably until the risk of contracting the virus abates.  Judge Bernard Shapiro’s order includes make-up time for Theresa when the emergency is over and daily Skype time with her daughter.  So, whatever its other shortcomings, the order isn’t as bad as it might be.

Understandably, Theresa is appealing the order on the ground that it discriminates against her as a divorced parent.  She makes a good point.  As she says in the video interview that accompanies the article, if she were married, no one would tell her not to go home to her family every night, even though she’d worked at the hospital all day and been exposed to COVID-19.  That’s true and there’s no coherent argument to be made for treating divorced and married parents differently, certainly not in Greene’s situation.

But there’s a larger point too.  The simple fact is that this virus will eventually abate, a vaccine will be developed or perhaps hydroxycholoroquine plus an antibiotic will prove effective at combatting it.  However that happens, prior to this particular pandemic and after it, doctors have been and will be exposed to infectious diseases.  So will nurses.  So will hospital orderlies.  So will secretaries and various  assistants for all sorts of medical providers.  So will EMTs.

Should they all be restricted from seeing their children?  After all, the diseases to which they’re exposed can be dangerous and their children can in turn be exposed and potentially infected.  There’s little difference between COVID-19 and many other infectious diseases in their ability to sicken and even kill children. 

There is no reasoning that demands removing all parents who are medical providers from their children based on their exposure to disease at their places of work.  Therefore, there is no reasoning that we should do that to parents who are exposed to COVID-19.  Yes, this virus is somewhat more easily transmissible than some others, but it’s also less deadly than many, particularly for children. 

Judge Shapiro’s order does not constitute a precedent in any case; it’s binding on no one except Eric and Theresa.  But no one should consider it authoritative.  On the contrary, it should be rejected as wrongly thought out by all and sundry.

Moreover, this order is one more pernicious example of the misuse of the concept of the “best interests of the child,” that’s too often been used to deny parental rights on less than solid grounds.  The best interests standard is so vague as to mean little at all, if anything.  It’s a tabula rasa on which every judge is invited to write his/her own ideas about proper parenting.  Not only are judges untrained in what actually constitutes children’s best interests, they routinely ignore the most important thing that promotes those interests – meaningful relationships with both parents.  Removing Theresa Greene’s child from her care due to the fear that the child may contract the virus is not in her interests, but Shapiro seems to have looked only at the risk of illness and not the certainty of trauma suffered by the child on the temporary loss of her mother.

Last, as poorly as judges manage custody and parenting time, child protective service organizations do much worse.  Charged with protecting children from abuse or neglect, caseworkers too often err on the side of taking children from their parents, thereby causing harm where none is warranted.  We often see CPS officials taking children from parents based only on what they perceive as the risk of abuse or neglect, instead of abuse or neglect itself.

I can easily see CPS caseworkers doing the same during the COVID-19 outbreak and using Judge Shapiro’s reasoning to do so.  Does Mom’s work at the hospital pose a threat to her children?  Well, then perhaps they should be taken from her.  Doing so doesn’t make sense, but so much of what CPS does is senseless.

It can’t be overstated: medical professionals of all sorts are daily exposed to illness.  That never has and does not now constitute a justification for limiting their access to their children or their children’s time with them.  Period.