NPO Blog Archive

Marion, IL-Two mothers are suing an Illinois hospital because their newborn babies were switched at birth. Although the mistake was rectified within hours, Mary Jo Bathon and Kassie Hopkins are each demanding $50,000 for the mistake.
 
It is interesting to note the different levels of importance society attaches to mother-child mix-ups versus father-child mix-ups. Hospitals take elaborate precautions to match the right mother to the right newborn  — wristbands immediately after birth, footprints, and more.
 
When it comes to paternity, few steps if any are taken to ensure that babies are matched to the right fathers, even though a simple DNA test, now available for under $30 from RiteAid pharmacies, will do the trick.

ABC reported the snafu under the headline, “A Mother”s Nightmare.’  When is the last time a case of paternity fraud was reported as “A Father”s Nightmare?’
 
Mothers whose babies are accidentally switched for only a few hours apparently think it may be worth $50,000 in pain and suffering. Few if any fathers have ever collected a dime for having their children switched away from them for decades, even though it has often been done deliberately. And some fathers are required to pay child support for children fraudulently switched to them, even when the switch is discovered. (Under this line of precedents, perhaps Mary Jo and Kassie should each be required to pay child support to the other calculated according to the Illinois Child Support Guidelines.)
 
Other fathers turn up when they belatedly learn that they have a baby who is about to be “switched’ to adoptive parents. Such men are widely reviled.
 
Somehow society views mothers whose babies are switched as deserving of great compassion, whereas fathers in the same situation are assumed to feel no pain. They are expected to suck it up, be a man, and get along in life. It is the same attitude that assumes that fathers don”t really mind very much if they are reduced to seeing their children only four days per month, or if their children are moved far away from them.
 
Fathers & Families has filed a bill in the Massachusetts Legislature to prevent the babies of fathers from being “switched’ at birth. It calls for DNA testing in all out-of-wedlock births to determine the true paternity of children. We persuaded the Massachusetts Medical Society to endorse the bill by pointing out the increasing importance of genetic-based medicine these days. Despite this prestigious support, the bill”s prospects are poor in this session of the Legislature.
 
Apparently, determining a child”s true father is not worth much. Tell us what you think it is worth below.
 

San Angelo, Texas–On Tuesday, I asked whether the state of Texas had any concern for underage boys who are expelled from polygamous sects. Today I have the answer:  No.

All children under age 18  —  numbering 416 children  —  were removed from the Yearning for Zion Ranch (YFZ). Of these 416, only 27 are teenage boys. The law of averages tells us there should have been about 65 teenage boys. Thus, there are about 38 missing teenage boys. Most likely they were expelled by sect leaders prior to the official raids.

But the state of Texas apparently has no concern about 38 young boys left to fend for themselves. Today I spoke with Chris Van Duesen, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. According to him, there are no lost boys roaming the streets of Texas  — the problem does not exist. He told me that if young boys were being expelled, the state would somehow know about it. Although boys are expelled in Utah, Van Deusen says it doesn”t happen in Texas. He has noticed that most of the children from YFZ are girls, but has no explanation for this peculiar fact. There are no plans to look for expelled boys. Tell us what you think below.

The 27 teenage boys in state custody have been shipped over 300 miles to the Boys Ranch of Texas, north of Amarillo. They are the only children who have been moved from the San Angelo – El Dorado area.

A separate thread is the question whether Texas officials have abused their powers by removing 416 kids from homes and families in a traumatic scene involving armored cars and automatic weapons, holding these kids in a sports arena, breaking up siblings, and confiscating cell phones. All of these actions were spurred by phone calls from one anonymous girl whom authorities cannot find. Sect members believe there was no caller  – – that a pretense was constructed to justify the raids.

All Americans are repulsed by the specter of the forced “marriage’ of underage girls to older men. But some point out that over 300 of the children are under age five, and are in no immediate danger. In other words, they say, there is no evidence whatsoever of imminent danger to the vast majority of the confiscated children. They argue that children cannot be taken from parents lightly, and that a calmer, less frightening investigation of the problem should have been undertaken. They argue that no child should have been removed from her family unless there was specific evidence of danger to that particular child.

Tell us what you think about this point of view below.

In the first thread, the sect members are the bad guys. In the second thread, the sect members are victims of official persecution. Where does the truth lie?  Maybe both are true. Life is complicated.

(To learn more, see my previous blog post Texas Polygamy Case: Don”t the Boys Count?)

Los Angeles, CA-As a judge noted, Jorge C., the father of a newborn, “did everything one would hope a man in his position would do.’ It wasn’t enough–after all, he couldn’t become a mom.

Marc Angelucci, Esq. reports on a new anti-father ruling by a California Court of Appeal:

“Mom gives birth to a boy, doesn’t tell the dad about him, puts the child up for adoption, doesn’t name the dad. The dad learns of the child when the child is 7 months old, and he immediately seeks reunification services. The trial court awards him reunification services, but the 2nd court of appeal reverses (Los Angeles) because the dad came ‘too late’, i.e., after the adoption proceedings were completed. One of the three appellate judges vigorously dissented and said the mom committed ‘outrageous lies.”‘

As we’ve discussed before, these types of scams are not uncommon, and often separate babies from their loving fathers.

C.A.: Biological Father Waited Too Long to Assert Rights
Metropolitan News-Enterprise (4/7/08)
By SHERRI M. OKAMOTO, Staff Writer

A biological father seeking reunification with his child who comes forward after the reunification period has ended must establish changed circumstances or new evidence that reunification is in the child”s best interest, this district”s Court of Appeal held Friday.

In a split decision, Div. Five found that Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Emily Stevens abused her discretion, concluding that a father whose paternity was hidden from him by the mother is a presumed father entitled to reunification services without regard to the best interests of the child and reversed the dependency court”s decision.

Vincent M.”s mother–children in dependency cases are only identified by name and initial– surrendered him for adoption at birth, and declined to identify his father. The judge found Vincent a ward of the court, and because his parents” whereabouts were unknown, did not order reunification services. Stevens set a permanency planning hearing, with adoption by Vincent”s de facto parents as the plan.

The mother had allegedly deliberately concealed the pregnancy and birth from Vincent”s asserted biological father, identified in the opinion as Jorge C., who had relocated out of state and was allegedly expecting mother to join him and continue their relationship. Jorge C. said the mother finally told him about Vincent when the baby was seven months old, and he flew back to California to try and obtain custody.

He appeared at the permanency hearing, claiming paternity. He filed a petition under Welfare and Institutions Code Sec. 388 requesting presumed father status and reunification services.

Stevens found that Jorge C. was Victor”s presumed father under case law, and held that because he “came forward at the earliest possible time,’ she had “no choice’ but to find him the presumed father, entitled to reunification services regardless of the child”s best interests.

Writing for the appellate majority, Justice Sandy R. Kriegler reasoned that because a child”s de facto parents have an interest in the companionship, care, custody and management of the child, and that these rights and interests were injuriously affected by the dependency court”s ruling, Vincent”s prospective adoptive parents had standing to appeal.

Citing Civil Code Sec. 7004(a)(4), Kriegler said Jorge C. was not a presumed father because he did not receive

Vincent into his home and hold the child out as his own. Relying on In re Zacharia D. (1993) 6 Cal.4th 435–which held that a man who fails to achieve presumed father status prior to the expiration of the reunification period is not entitled to reunification services unless he can establish, in a Sec. 388 petition. changed circumstances or new evidence demonstrating that the child”s best interest would be promoted by reunification–Kriegler concluded the trial judge had abused her discretion in disregarding Vincent”s best interests.

Presiding Justice Paul A. Turner sided with Kriegler, but Justice Orville Armstrong argued in dissent that Jorge C. occupied a “completely different position than the biological father in Zacharia D,’ because Zacharia D. involved a father who learned of his child”s birth after he had abandoned the child”s mother and who waited until the court was about to terminate the mother”s reunification services before coming forward. In contrast, Armstrong noted, the mother in this case had “engaged in a web of lies’ to conceal the pregnancy and birth from Jorge C., who “did everything one would hope a man in his position would do’ upon learning of Vincent”s existence.

“It is an odd conclusion indeed to deem the hoped-for result–a family”s reunification–a legal injury to the foster parents,’ Armstrong added, disputing the majority”s conclusion the same Sec. 388 requirements applied to all biological fathers who appear after the end of the reunification period, regardless of whether his paternity was concealed from him or not.

The full article is here.

“The way the advertising industry portrays men has drawn increasing scrutiny in both the trade press and the mainstream media. Defenders of the status quo — in which men are depicted as irresponsible fathers and lazy, foolish husbands — are starting to feel outnumbered. It’s an understandable feeling…

“The evidence is clear: ‘Man as idiot’ isn’t going over very well these days.”

Los Angeles, CA-My new column, Advertisers: Men Are Not Idiots (Advertising Age, 4/14/08), co-authored with Richard Smaglick of www.fathersandhusbands.org, appeared today in Advertising Age, one of the largest advertising industry publications. To write a Letter to the Editor, click on editor@adage.com. 

The piece is part of Advertising Age’s “CMO Strategy” section–a section directed towards marketing and advertising executives [Chief Marketing Officers]. Our column there is an opportunity to, as they say, “Speak truth to power.”

In the column, we gave three specific suggestions for the advertising industry:

“Create more ads that are father-positive. Some recent examples include AT&T’s touching father-daughter ad ‘Monkey’; First Choice Holidays’ ‘Slow-Motion Hugs’; and Ford’s father-son ad ‘We Know.’

“As we consider whether it’s wise to make men the butt of every joke, we should also consider the joke itself. Many see the 1960s as the golden age of advertising. Those who crafted the ads of that era created work of superb quality, seldom if ever resorting to the contempt, shame and aggressive ridicule of today’s ads.

“When an ad does need to poke fun at somebody, stop automatically defaulting to men as fools.”

467 Children Removed–But What About the Ones Previously Exiled?

Eldorado, Texas–Recent news reports about a Texas polygamist compound highlight the abuse of underage girls by compelling them to marry men two or three times their age under threat of excommunication.

But very little attention has been paid to the abuse and neglect of the boys. Even those as young as 13 are frequently expelled from the compound and forced to fend for themselves without education, friends, or adult guidance. The order is usually given by the spiritual leader of the compound, and the parents of the boys are too fearful of excommunication to object.

In the family court reform movement, we see the media ignore injustices against men over and over. Likewise, in reporting on the Texas compound, they are ignoring serious injustices against boys, even when they are in plain sight. In fairness to the media, the New York Times did run one article about the plight of such boys last September, but there has been no follow-up and current reporting from Texas almost ignores this aspect of the problem.

According to one exiled boy, now in his twenties, 70 percent of the boys in his school class were expelled. The New York Times article estimated that 500 to 1,000 boys had been expelled from one Utah compound alone over the past six years, out of a total compound population of about 10,000 — meaning that a large percentage of the boys had been expelled.

The claim is that they are expelled for offenses against the communal religion, but in most cases the offenses are trivial — watching movies or showing interest in a girl their own age.

In a polygamist society in which some men have many wives, simple math tells us that many men will have no wives at all. One way to deal with this inevitable imbalance is to expel the extra men, even if they are still boys. So the reasons offered smack of convenient excuses for getting rid of the boys. To learn more, click here.

These issues have been largely ignored. The excommunication of boys has been occurring for years and nothing has been done. Are state officials ignoring this problem? Why? — this is child neglect. Will charges be brought against the members of the sect for neglecting their male children, or only for the sexual exploitation of the girls?

Post a comment or view what others have posted below.

Background: Law enforcement officers and child welfare investigators raided the Yearning for Zion Ranch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Eldorado, Texas on April 4th after a 16 year old girl called a domestic violence shelter and stated she was beaten and raped by her 50 year old husband. Once at the Ranch, officials removed about 50 girls from the compound and a few days later received temporary custody of the 417 other children who reside on the Ranch. To read more, click here.

So far only two arrests have been made, neither of which address the core issues involved. Leroy Johnson Steed and Levi Barlow Jeffs were charged with tampering with evidence and interfering with the duties of a public servant. Presently, state troopers are holding an unspecified number of men until the investigation is complete. Why only the men, since the women are complicit with the crimes?

Our society needs to protect our boys as well as our girls. And needs to hold both mothers and fathers accountable for crimes against children.

Post a comment or view what others have posted below. 

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

Divorce attorney digs up wedding ring coffins (Atlanta Journal Constitution, 4/8/08)

Deadbeat dad locked up over $127,000 (Munster Times, 4/9/08)

Sean Penn’s divorce called off (San Jose Mercury News, 4/9/08)

Father keeps $3M award in case where sons taken to Egypt by ex-wife (Maryland Daily Record, 4/9/08)

Domestic violence bill sparks heated exchange (San Francisco Chronicle, 4/10/08)

Steelers’ Najeh Davenport Not Guilty In Domestic Violence Case (ThePittsburghchannel.com, 4/10/08)

34 arrested for failure to pay child support (Bridgewater Courier News, 4/10/08)

Haggling over who collects late child support payments could leave some kids without (Dallas Observer, 4/10/08)

New York, New York–The April 1 edition of the Wall Street Journal ran two articles on divorce and missed the real meaning of each.

Page 1 noted that 33 percent of higher-earning spouses, but only 3.8 percent of alimony-payers, are women (Men Receiving Alimony Want a Little Respect ). A male weakness is asserted as the reason for this discrepancy: it”s all due to male shame, according to the article.

A better explanation is that family courts will rarely order women to pay men, as they are still stuck in old stereotyped gender roles. Also, men trade away alimony for more time with their children, another prize that family courts often refuse them.

Here”s an interesting sidelight. A top-ranking New York family court judge says that women ordered to pay alimony are angrier about it than men. (This clip can be viewed here.) So much for the mad-dad stereotype.

On page D9 of the same edition, the Journal reported that almost twice as many women with professional degrees are separated or divorced compared to men with these degrees (Women MBA”s More Liable to Divorce than Men). Again, the asserted reason is an alleged male character flaw–fragile ego”s causing them to leave successful wives.

But since women seek 70 percent of divorces, the real story is that wives are the ones doing the leaving. So yet another male character flaw is offered– the fast-track wives are leaving because men allegedly don”t give them enough TLC. But maybe a better reason is back on page 1–the professional wives leave more often because they know they won”t have to pay alimony. And they will get the kids, house and child support.

What do you think? Tell us below.

Tucson, AZ–“CNN says ‘Report: Men still not pulling weight on chores.’ Major newspaper headlines include: ‘Home equity? Men are doing more chores, but women still do most,’ ‘Men still slack off, but not as much,’ and ‘Men do more housework, but not yet a fair share.’ Several hundred newspapers and media outlets are covering a new Council on Contemporary Families report on men and housework. The message is clear–yes, men have improved a little, but they still don”t do enough, and women are still getting a raw deal.

“This is a terribly unfair distortion…”

My new co-authored column, Media Reaction to New Housework Study Minimizes Men”s Work, Sacrifice for Their Families (Tucson Citizen, 4/1/08), criticizes the misleading reporting of a new study on men”s housework and child care. The original Associated Press article is Men still not pulling weight on chores (CNN, 3/6/06).

To write a Letter to the Editor of the Tucson Citizen concerning Father knows rest? 2 men beg to differ (4/1/08), write to letters@tucsoncitizen.com.

The column, co-authored with family law attorney Jeffery M. Leving, is below.

Media Reaction to New Housework Study Minimizes Men”s Work, Sacrifice for Their Families
By Jeffery M. Leving and Glenn Sacks

CNN says “Report: Men still not pulling weight on chores.’ Major newspaper headlines include: “Home equity? Men are doing more chores, but women still do most,’ “Men still slack off, but not as much,’ and “Men do more housework, but not yet a fair share.’ Several hundred newspapers and media outlets are covering a new Council on Contemporary Families report on men and housework. The message is clear–yes, men have improved a little, but they still don”t do enough, and women are still getting a raw deal.

This is a terribly unfair distortion because it disregards the fact that men are usually their families” primary breadwinners, and often make great sacrifices in that role. Studies which account for the total amount of work that husbands and wives contribute to their households–including housework, child care, and employment–confirm that men contribute at least as much to their families as women do.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics” 2004 Time Use Survey, men spend one and a half times as many hours working as women do, and full-time employed men still work significantly more hours than full-time employed women. Census data shows that a quarter of married women with children under 18 do not hold a job outside the home, and less than half work full time.

A 2002 University of Michigan Institute for Social Research survey found that women do 11 more hours of housework a week than men but men work 14 hours a week more than women. According to the BLS, men”s total time at leisure, sleeping, doing personal care activities, or socializing is a statistically meaningless 1% higher than women”s. The Families and Work Institute in New York City found that fathers now provide three-fourths as much child care as mothers do–50% more than 30 years ago.

Yet even these studies understate men”s contributions because they only count the hours devoted to a task without measuring the physical strain and/or danger associated with it. A man doing eight hours of dangerous construction work in the 95-degree heat is credited with no more “work” than a woman who works in an air-conditioned office. A man driving a truck, taxi or heavy equipment under hazardous conditions is equated with a woman caring for her children or making dinner in the comfort and safety of her own home.