Category: Blog

November 22, 2019 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

Well, that didn’t take long.  I’ve been writing about the reaction, by those who apparently want fathers marginalized in their children’s lives, to the latest review of family law in Australia.  Their claims have little basis in fact and are best viewed as efforts to maintain the status quo in family courts.

Their main point is that judges routinely ignore mother’s claims of domestic violence and child abuse in order to hand over child custody to abusive fathers.  Of course, in many cases judges rule against mothers who claim abuse because there’s insufficient evidence of it or, sometimes, the claims are deliberately fabricated.  But according to the likes of Zoe Rathus and Jess Hill, mothers apparently never lie about abuse.  If Mom says it happened, it happened.  Such seems to be their basic assumption.

Indeed, the headline to the Rathus article was “Parental Alienation: the debunked theory that mothers lie about violence is still used in court.”  Never mind that that’s not what PA is and never mind that PA has never been “debunked” and in fact is coming to be more and more understood by legal and mental health practitioners.  The key to the Rathus piece (and others) is the assumption that mothers don’t lie about violence or abuse.  It’s patent nonsense, but that’s their claim.

Now, hard on the heels of those scurrilous claims, comes a case out of Nebraska that demands an answer from those who claim that, when a mother claims abuse, it’s always the truth.  What do they say to every judge in the case and every witness, expert and non-expert alike, who testified under oath that the mother in the case was not only wrong in her claims of abuse, but obviously so?  What do they say to the clear evidence that what Mom did in the case was itself abusive of her daughter?  Facts are stubborn things, so I’d be interested in their response.

Eric and Kelly Manka were married and, in 2009, had a daughter, Bailey.  They soon divorced and Kelly began claiming that Eric was physically and sexually abusing the little girl.  Kelly levelled numerous such allegations at Eric, calling the child abuse hotline so often that, eventually, its operators told her that they would accept no more claims from her about Eric.

Kelly took Bailey to hospital emergency rooms claiming abuse, but her claims were never substantiated.  She reported her claims to the police who duly investigated, but found no evidence of abuse.  Soon enough, the Department of Health and Human Services, the state’s child welfare agency, took Kelly to juvenile court, in part due to her shocking exposure of Bailey to unnecessary medical examinations.  In the two years following the divorce, Kelly took Bailey to doctors and hospitals an astonishing 117 times.  Many of those involved examinations for rape and other forms of sexual abuse.  Understandably Bailey came to fear doctors and strongly resist even when their attention was necessary.

Meanwhile, Eric had been contacted so often by the police, doctors, DHHS caseworkers, lawyers, etc. about Kelly’s allegations that he and his new wife turned their lives upside down in the hope of avoiding future claims.  Eric no longer bathed his daughter and was never alone with her.  His teenage son by a previous marriage was likewise prohibited from being alone with Bailey.  They all were “walking on eggshells,” fearing another claim by Kelly.

For her part, when it was time for her to go back to her mother’s house following visitation with her father, Bailey strenuously resisted.

So, in 2016, Eric asked the court to modify the custody order to give him half of the parenting time and the final say as regards Bailey’s education, religious upbringing and medical care.  Prior to that time, he’d had only every-other-weekend parenting time plus a few hours on Wednesday nights, some holidays and time during the summers.

The court agreed with him that Kelly’s behavior was clearly deleterious to Bailey’s well-being and that her continued insistence, against all the findings and evidence, that Eric was abusing his daughter constituted a change in circumstances requiring a change in custody.  The Court of Appeals affirmed the decision.

So what about it Ms. Rathus, Ms. Hill?  How does this case square with your claims that mothers never lie about abuse?  Would you, if you had been the judge, have left Bailey in her mother’s sole care because of your theory that, against all the evidence and common sense, mothers never lie?  If so, wouldn’t you have been abetting the mental and emotional abuse of a little girl? 

Writers like Rathus and Hill are free to peddle their bankrupt ideology all they want.  But judges ruling in child custody matters must look at the evidence.  And the facts are that parental alienation is real and parents, including mothers, do sometimes lie in order to gain an advantage in court and marginalize the other parent in the lives of their children.  They do that in part because the system all too often rewards that behavior.  And it’s that system that needs to change.  For the sake of children, for the sake of parents and for the sake of fairness and justice, that system needs to change.

This three-part series is written by Ashley-Nicole Russell, an author, speaker, and attorney, who is a child of divorce and a divorcee. She is an expert in divorce culture and shared parenting techniques. Through this series, she will explain what divorcing parents need to keep in mind during the holiday season as they work through separation, divorce, and/or life after divorce.

Part 1: Pledging to Co-Parent

I’m sure you and your spouse never thought divorce would be in your future. While your lives will significantly change, your child’s life doesn’t have to be significantly impacted. The holiday season is full of excitement, magic, and wonder. You and your spouse must come to agreement that you both don’t want your divorce to change your child’s perception of Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Christmas, or New Year’s celebrations. 

As a Collaborative Law divorce attorney, I believe in co-parenting and shared parenting agreements rather than court ordered custody agreements. If you’ve never heard of it, the Collaborative process is a legal alternative to court proceedings for couples facing divorce. This type of divorce is similar, yet different from mediation. During a Collaborative Law divorce, you have an attorney who can give legal advice. Each spouse must have their own attorney as they are separately represented. In mediation, a third-party is tasked with negotiating settlements with neutrality. This third-party cannot offer legal advice and represents neither of the spouses during the process.

When children are involved, a Collaborative process if often favored by most parents because child custody agreements are handled out of the court system. Children are not meant for the environment of a volatile and traumatic courtroom. There are dozens of studies that show the lasting impact a traditional divorce proceeding can have on children. As researched and cited in my recently published book, The Cure for Divorce Culture, children of the traditional litigation divorce model commit suicide 30% more, are addicted to substances and alcohol 18% more, and divorce at an alarming rate or do not get married at all. A 35-year longitudinal study shows children are broken from the conflict of divorce. I believe this conflict begins in a large part with primary and secondary parental titles.

Legal separation and filing for divorce are most common after the holiday season. If you and your spouse are considering divorce, I encourage you to consider Collaborative Law. The basis of this practice is dedicated to prioritizing families and ensuring the best interest of children. Through this concept, shared parenting is at the utmost importance. You and your spouse will meet with your Collaborative Law attorneys and come to an agreement on the best way to share your children. In my professional and personal experience, children are healthier and happier when they grow up with divorced parents who are equally present, even in separate homes. In addition to the shared parenting priority, Collaborative proceedings are much cheaper than a traditional divorce. When a divorce option is more affordable, without losing quality of care, this helps to eliminate unnecessary stress from each spouse and the impact it could have on their children.

If you’re currently experiencing the process of divorce or are already divorced, it’s not too late to choose shared parenting. In Part Two of this series, I’ll explain how communication methods between parents can make the holiday less stressful and more enjoyable for all parties involved, despite divorce and custody arrangements.   

November 21, 2019 by Mark Bliss ~ Southeast Missourian

Area lawmakers will introduce bills for the 2020 state legislative session addressing everything from shared parenting to texting while driving.

Lawmakers can pre-file bills beginning next month.

State Sen. Wayne Wallingford, R-Cape Girardeau, said his top priority is to pass a shared-parenting bill. It would create a “rebuttal presumption” for parents in child-custody cases to receive equal time with their children, he said.

He introduced similar legislation last session, but it failed to pass.

“This is going to be a big push for me,” he said. “Most fatherlessness is created by outdated court systems, not abandonment, so I want to get that corrected.”

State Rep. Kathy Swan, R-Cape Girardeau, plans to offer a similar bill in the House. The goal, she said, is to force judges to start with the premise parents should be granted equal time with their children unless there is evidence showing such a move is not warranted.

Read the full article at the Southeast Missourian

November 21, 2019 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

Augusto Zimmerman’s article in The Spectator summarizes his recommendations to the new Joint Committee on Australia’s Family Law System (The Spectator, 11/11/19).  Zimmerman is a heavyweight in the Australian family law community; among other things, he’s a law professor and former commissioner of the Law Reform Committee of Western Australia.  His words damn the system of domestic violence restraining orders from start to finish.

It’s a truism about human nature that, whenever we give power to any group of people, there’s a substantial likelihood that some of them will abuse that power.  The recognition of that truism explains why there are so few monarchies left, why we have a system of “checks and balances,” a Bill of Rights, etc.  It’s why we audit financial statements of businesses and monitor (ideally via the press) the doings of governmental officials.  It’s why we have elections.

And so it is with domestic violence and the restraining orders that Australian judges hand out like so much candy to children.  Those who claim victimization and seek restraining orders are placed by law in a position of power.  Most of them don’t abuse that power, but altogether too many of them do as the truism predicts.

It is that system of granting astonishing power to one person at the expense of others that Zimmerman so effectively excoriates.

At the outset, a person claiming victimization need produce no evidence of same beyond her/his say-so.  Orders are routinely issued on the basis of nothing but that.  Zimmerman reports that, according to officials in New South Wales, those hearings take less than three minutes each.  Needless to say, there’s little a judge can do in that time to assess the “evidence” or the complainant’s credibility.

When restraining orders are issued, the target is removed from their home, refused all contact with their children and often access to joint bank accounts.  The result is that they find themselves homeless, unable to work, penniless and unable to access resources with which to defend themselves.

Plus, as other attorneys have made clear to us, when a claim of victimization is made, the judicial hearing takes place almost immediately and the order issued just as quickly.  But when the respondent wants their day in court, it can take many months to get a hearing.  In that way too, the system places its thumb on the complainant’s side of the scales.

Of course, there are many benefits to claiming victimization.  A restraining order in one’s favor means the children are in the sole care of the claimant.  That in turn confers a huge advantage in the child custody case that strongly encourages making the allegation in the first place.  Greater time with the child means more money in the form of child support paid by the respondent to the claimant.  Plus, apparently the Australian government compensates victims of DV, so there are direct inducements to claim victimization.

None of this would be justified even if the claim were of actual violence, but often it’s not.

What is more, write legal academics Patrick Parkinson, Judith Cashmore and Judith Single, references to “fear” are included in a “routine or habitual manner” in these applications, ‘frequently as a bald statement to conclude a complaint without any reasoning or thematic connection to the victim’s experience’.

As a further indignity, a respondent may eventually – even after many years of being subjected to the restrictions of the restraining order – affirmatively disprove the allegations.  That is, they may be proven false, but, if they are, the false complainant suffers no consequences.  In other words, an allegation of DV is a free shot, one that can confer many benefits, but for which there is no detriment.  Given that, why wouldn’t there be false claims?

But disproving allegations isn’t easy.  Here’s how Zimmerman describes final hearings in DV cases:

[They are] notoriously devoid of due process and the most elementary elements of procedural fairness. 

He later called the system “a gross violation of human rights.”

Such is the Australian system for adjudicating claims of DV.

Against that backdrop, Zimmerman offers recommendations to the parliamentary committee conducting the review of family law and courts.

First of course he recommends that the process be altered to provide traditional legal protections to the accused.  Those include due process of law and the right to be judged “guilty” only if there’s reliable evidence of guilt.  He also argues that intentionally false claims of victimization should be treated as what they are – severe domestic violence themselves.  After all, claims of DV mean a child loses contact with the targeted parent and vice versa.  If such a claim is falsely made, both the respondent parent and the child suffer due to the malice of the claimant.  And that indeed is domestic violence.

This is the system for which Zimmerman seeks reform.  It is also the system people like Zoe Rathus and Jess Hill want to maintain intact.  Rathus, Hill and so many others prefer the power the system gives to one person at the expense of the other (and possibly the family’s children).  To them, if parents, children and the whole edifice of individual rights and procedural fairness suffer to promote their ends, well, you can’t make an omelet…

November 19, 2019 by Robert Franklin, Member, National Board of Directors

The shoddy screeds written by Zoe Rathus and Jess Hill in an effort to convince Australian governmental authorities that mothers are ill treated by fathers and judges in family courts are predictably short on facts and intellectual scruples and long on indignation.  They and others who oppose kids maintaining real relationships with both parents following divorce or separation routinely cite bad “science,” ignore good science, misrepresent other science and fabricate definitions of parental alienation.  That’s apparently what you do when you don’t have anything of substance to contribute to the conversation.

But there are other people, reputable people, scrupulous people who are talking as well and it’s high time we paid attention to them.  One is Augusto Zimmerman.  He’s a heavyweight in Australian family law.  Here’s how this article describes him (The Spectator, 11/11/19):

Dr Augusto Zimmermann was a Law Reform Commissioner with the Law Reform Commission of Western Australia from 2012-2017. He is currently Professor and Head of Law at Sheridan College, Perth, and Professor of Law (Adjunct) at the University of Notre Dame Australia Sydney campus. He is also President of the Western Australian Legal Theory Association (WALTA).

Now, one of the claims/strong suggestions made by Rathus, Hill, et al is that mothers don’t lie about abuse.  Hill and American academic Joan Meier avoid saying so explicitly, being content to let their readers draw the desired conclusion.  Rathus is more frank; the headline of her recent piece in “The Conversation” reads “Parental Alienation: The Debunked Theory that Women Lie about Violence…”  That makes the matter plain; she wants us to believe that the theory that women lie about violence has been debunked.

Needless to say, that’s utter nonsense as Zimmerman goes to some lengths to point out.

There is no doubt that countless applications are unmeritorious and grossly misused…

Since a restraining order can be so easily obtained, they can and have been maliciously used by unscrupulous applicants. The strategy is rather simple and it consists in one’s ability to defame his or her former partner with no necessity of actual evidence. 

Indeed, not everyone who applies for a restraining order is a genuine victim, just as not everyone who is subject to such an order is necessarily a perpetrator. Indeed, many cases of domestic violence have ended up in courts where these allegations have been disproved, and sometimes many years after the accused found themselves evicted from their homes, and alienated from their children.

Contrary to Rathus, Hill, et al, Zimmerman notes that false allegations of abuse are often very much part of a campaign of alienation by one parent against another.

There is an undeniable correlation between apprehended orders, false claims of domestic violence, and parental alienation. According to David Collier, a retired judge from the Parramatta Family Court, such orders have become a “major weapon” in the war between parents willing to secure the sole custody of children.

You’d know none of that if you relied on the likes of Rathus, Hill and Meier for your information on the subject.  Judges like Collier see it frequently from the bench.

Zimmerman’s article takes off from his submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee regarding Australia’s Family Law System, i.e. the very review of family law and courts about which Rathus, Hill and others are so exercised.  He doesn’t confine himself to the subject of false claims of domestic violence.  Zimmerman’s brief is that the entire system of protective orders, particularly in child custody cases, must be reformed. 

Rathus and the others of course like it just the way it is.

I’ll have more to say on Zimmerman’s piece next time.

November 18, 2019 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

Last time, I wrote about an article by Australian lawyer Zoe Rathus (The Conversation, 11/7/19).  The purpose of her piece was to try to cast doubt on the upcoming governmental review of family law and court practices.  That review is very much needed and very much feared by those who view with alarm the prospect of children maintaining meaningful relationships with both parents when the adults split up. 

The tactic of choice among those advocates is to cast aspersions on the very idea of parental alienation.  Since the facts that PA exists, is fairly widespread and constitutes child abuse are quite well established in the reliable scientific literature and the experiences of lawyers and judges, the task at hand for Rathus and others isn’t an easy one.  Having little-to-nothing with which to support their claims, they predictably (and all but invariably) resort to misleading their readers.

In the case of the Rathus article, its “honesty” fails to last past the fifth word of its headline which reads, “’Parental alienation’: the debunked theory that women lie about violence is still used in court.”

The problem being of course that parental alienation has never been debunked.  Indeed, it’s to be found in the DSM-V, albeit under another name.  Many, many researchers around the world are investigating all aspects of the matter and have produced much fine work, some of which was captured in Dr. William Bernet’s tome on the subject entitled “Parental Alienation: The Handbook for Mental Health and Legal Professionals.”  The book is relatively new, but our understanding of PA is not.  As Linda Gottlieb-Kase reported, research into what we now call PA dates back to the 1950s.

Plus, evidence of PA is routinely admitted by American courts under the most stringent standard for admissibility of expert testimony, known as the Daubert standard. 

In short, both the legal and the psychological professions accept the existence of PA and seek to understand, treat and curtail it.  They see that alienated children are victims of child abuse and that, in order to protect them, we must constructively address PA.

Then there’s Rathus’ claim that PA is the theory “that women lie about violence.”  No, it’s not.  Amazingly, not far into her article, she uses an entirely different “definition” of PA, i.e., “the actions of one parent to prevent a child from having an ongoing relationship with the other parent.” 

I call that quite an accomplishment.  To actually use two completely different “definitions” of PA in the same article, both of which are wrong, must have taken real effort on Rathus’ part.  That, plus the fact that the headline to her piece is wrong twice in the space of 10 words make me think she may be going for a record of sorts. 

But of course, Rathus doesn’t stop there, not even close.  Recall that her piece is about parental alienation and its use in court cases involving child custody.  Her thesis is that, when mothers claim fathers are abusive, fathers respond with the defense of alienation.  In that context, Rathus says, “But research suggests deliberately false allegations are rare…” 

Now, the reader who’s not wise to the ways of Rathus and others writing in the same vein would readily conclude that the research she refers to indicates that mothers’ claims of abuse by fathers are rarely intentionally false.  That looks very much like the purpose of her statement. 

But of course that reader would be completely wrong.  The research says no such thing.  The study linked to not only has nothing to do with parental alienation, it has nothing to do with divorce or child custody.  No, Nicholas Bala and colleagues were investigating whether reports of suspected child abuse or neglect made by third parties (such as doctors, the police, teachers, other “mandated reporters” and others) to child protective agencies were likely to be true or false and, if the latter, whether deliberately so or not.  In other words, the research cited by Rathus has nothing to do with her article and naturally doesn’t support her claims.

As I’ve said before, writers with evidence to support their arguments usually use it.  Given that, it’s fair to conclude that Rathus has none.

But she’s still not finished.  Until “the last syllable of recorded time,” I assume we’ll be seeing Joan Meier’s research being cited by the likes of Rathus.  Back in August I wrote several pieces on Meier’s latest effort to convince anyone who’ll listen that fathers are privileged in child custody hearings.  Seriously, that’s her claim.  She even maintains that fathers get 94% of child custody in divorce cases.  Not only that, according to Meier, they’ve had the upper hand over mothers since the 1980s.  I’m not making that up.  The fact that longitudinal datasets like those maintained by the U.S. Census Bureau directly contradict her claims and that no family lawyer takes them seriously bothers Meier not a bit.

Desperate for something – anything – to give her article an air of gravitas, Rathus naturally cites Meier’s recent work.

[Meier, et al] found where the father claimed parental alienation, courts were more than twice as likely to disbelieve any claims of abuse by mothers, and almost four times more likely to disbelieve allegations of child sexual abuse.

Yes, they did find that.  What they didn’t find, or even look for, was the reason why courts did that.  The sensible conclusion never seems to have occurred to either Meier or Rathus.  That conclusion is that, when mothers engage in alienation, fathers are likely to bring the matter up in court.  When they do, courts are likely to find that alienation took place and that the mothers’ allegations of abuse are simply part of those campaigns of alienation and have no basis in fact.  Stated another way, fathers are more likely to claim alienation when it’s taking place than when it isn’t.

It’s not a difficult concept, but one that, predictably eluded both Meier and Rathus.

It turns out that there’s more than one side in the fight over the Australian review of family courts.  Rathus, Jess Hill and others aren’t alone on the field of battle.  There are reputable, scrupulous combatants there as well.  I’ll report on one of those next time.

November 15, 2019 by Robert Franklin, JD, Member, National Board of Directors

I’d like to think we’re just watching the end of a bad horror flick from the 50s.  You know the type – the grainy black-and-white footage where the monster finally meets its end after destroying much of, say, Tokyo.  Amid roars and hisses and the thrashing of its tail, it sinks beneath the turbulent sea waters, never to be heard from again.  Or will it?  Stay tuned.

That’s the image that’s come to my mind when, in the past few weeks, I’ve read article after article all aimed at the same thing – casting doubt on the latest Australian governmental review of family law and courts in the Land Down Under.  Those who oppose children having full, meaningful relationships with their fathers post-divorce don’t like the new review for the simple reason that they fear the truth may at last come out.  Their shockingly hateful and misleading remarks put me in mind of that horror film monster gasping its last.

The previous review was much more to their liking.  It called for even the modest requirement that family judges “consider” shared parenting to be scrapped.  The anti-dad crowd in Australia considered that just the thing to keep mothers in control of custody outcomes and therefore maintain the flow of funds from fathers to mothers, but not the other way around.

Needless to say, there were countless problems with the previous review just a few of which I detailed here, here and here.

So the very same suspects are howling like banshees, not about the new review, that’s yet to be begun, but about the very prospect of it.  After all, they reason, since the last one survived just a couple of months, the new one will draw different and more fact-based conclusions.  Of that, they’re justifiably afraid.

It’s no surprise then that they’re pulling out all the stops to repeat their talking points, ad infinitum.  Here’s the latest case in point (The Conversation, 11/7/11).

In it, attorney Zoe Rathus, writes at length, but manages to make no point that (a) hasn’t been made countless times before and (b) hasn’t been thoroughly debunked as often.  Her target of course is parental alienation.  I swear, someone must have come up with a template into which one can simply plug a date here or a name there and – presto! – there’s your article on PA.  Truly, all of these things look alike.

First, there’s the elision of the difference between PA and parental alienation syndrome.  The latter term seems no longer to be in use, so the various fellow travelers figure whatever aspersions can be cast on PAS apply equally to PA.  That of course is absurd, but when you’re attacking the unassailable, you use whatever weapon comes to hand.  The validity of parental alienation as a fact and as a mental health concept is no longer seriously in doubt.  Indeed, the DSM-V includes the concept, albeit under a different name.

Plus, my guess is that every veteran family lawyer in the English-speaking world and likely beyond has seen at least a few cases of obvious alienation by one parent against the other.  The notion that PA doesn’t exist is patent nonsense.

And no article on the subject would be complete without an entirely false “definition” of parental alienation.  Rathus naturally follows suit.

But it is generally understood as the actions of one parent to prevent a child from having an ongoing relationship with the other parent.

No, actually it’s not.  A two-minute search of the term using one’s favorite search engine would have provided the actual definition, but Rathus isn’t interested in the realities of PA.  She misdefines the term for a very clear reason – to support the rest of her article.

Like all the rest, Rathus portrays PA as something that violent fathers use against protective mothers as a sneaky and nefarious way of wresting child custody from them.  The idea that fathers sometimes engage in parental alienation at the expense of mothers goes entirely unmentioned, despite the ironic fact that, in attacking the very idea of PA, people like Rathus seek to undermine the very defense an alienated mother might use to get custody.  How can something so obvious not occur to these people?

And, again like all those other similar articles, what Rathus is going to bat for is child abuse.  Memo to Zoe: that’s not the side you want to be on.  Parental alienation seeks to and often succeeds at depriving a child of a loving parent, one who’s necessary to the child’s well-being.  That alone is abusive.  But, if the child is very young, of an age at which he/she can’t clearly differentiate fantasy from reality, the lies told by the alienator can cause very real and deeply injuring and long-lasting mental damage.

When a parent on whom a child entirely depends insists time and again that the target parent doesn’t love them, is abusive toward them, etc., the child believes.  But when that same child’s experience of the targeted parent is the opposite of the tale told by the alienator, it can create a crisis.  How to believe both the alienating parent and the child’s own lived experience?  It’s a terrible burden to place on a small child.  Whichever way the child seeks to resolve the dilemma seems dangerous and destructive.

To their everlasting shame, that’s the sort of child abuse the likes of Rathus are promoting. 

I’ll say more about this later.

Authors – Tom McDermott and Nicholas Dreeszen of Families United Action Network
Originally posted at FamiliesUnite.org

Veteran’s Day is a day when we acknowledge the sacrifices veterans have made for our country. Frequently, veterans are asked to put themselves in harm’s way to protect our country and our way of life. Since there hasn’t been a draft since the ’70s, most of our soldiers volunteered for service. Almost all veterans are happy and proud to have served. It is because of their sacrifice that the American life as we know it is possible. 

ALL of our freedoms come from these brave individuals standing up to protect every American. Your American way may mean starting with bacon and eggs for breakfast, playing frisbee in the afternoon, or dancing all night. Other citizens have the freedom to live the way they feel is best for them. It’s the way our founders envisioned American life.

According to the VA, there are approximately 18 million veterans in the US (about 7.6 percent of the population). To give you a visual, it would take around 338 football stadiums filled to capacity to hold all of our living veterans. 

Most of these veterans return to civilian life and become productive citizens and live the American dream. But what about the rest? Have you ever stopped to put yourself in their shoes to capture the emotions that they are feeling or to realize the different struggles that they may be facing? 

Have you ever stopped to ask WHY ARE WE LOSING AN AVERAGE OF 22 of these warriors EVERY DAY to suicide?

Have you taken a moment to ask, “What can I do to help those who have helped me without ever asking for anything in return?”

Take a moment to think about a returning vet’s new reality. Going from battle one day to the grocery store in Iowa the next week feels utterly surreal. Switching from being always on the alert and always looking for and fighting the enemy to being suddenly surrounded by friends and family can be jolting, especially as traumatic memories intrude. 

Soldiers may feel helpless as they think about buddies still deployed or experience survivor’s guilt when they’ve lost friends on the battlefield. It’s a lifelong journey. Now imagine returning home only to find that your toughest days and most difficult battles are ahead of you as you begin to face hardships at home.

Some Uncomfortable Realities:

• Many veterans now live with a disability or other injuries. Too many struggle with unemployment or homelessness.
• A 2016 studyshows that one-third of adult homeless are men, and nearly one-fourth of all homeless adults have served in the armed forces.
• The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reportsonly half of the veterans who need mental health treatment will seek it. Only half of that group obtain suitable aid. There is a glaring need for more treatment resources and counselors for our veterans.

The US Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that PTSD afflicts:

• Almost 31% of Vietnam veterans.
• As many as 10% of Gulf War (Desert Storm) veterans.
• 11% of veterans of the war in Afghanistan.
• 20% of Iraqi war veterans.

Veterans who deal with significant anxiety, depression, and PTSD would fill around 67 of those 338 football stadiums. Sadly, an estimated 22 veterans take their lives every day. Did you know:

• 70% of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans return home to divorce.
• Within five years of their return it, 90% of the rest will be involved in divorce proceedings.
• Only 1.5% of servicemembers get fair treatment in the family court. (male or female)

Many will struggle to obtain or maintain employment. They may be alienated from their children, forced into a life of poverty, driven to a life of crime, and forgotten.

“Analysis of military suicides in 2011 found that service members who were divorced had a 55 percent higher rate of suicide than those who were married.” [Source]

So, we need to ask the question: What are WE doing for our veterans? Honoring them with a special day is nice, but how do we show our gratitude and respect? We need to take our appreciation a step further and look at ways we can affect their lives for the better. 

Unfortunately, when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable of these veterans, Iowa seems to fall short in showing compassion. Vulnerable means soldiers who have sustained physical injuries and/or are affected by debilitating mental conditions while defending our country and are receiving disability through the VA.

Current laws allow the legal system to take large amounts of veterans’ disability payments because the courts treat VA disability as ordinary income when calculating child support. Often their disability payments are their only source of income. 

Yet in cases where non-veteran citizens are receiving social security disability because of their inability to work, the same standard does not apply. The state uses the dependent benefit amount given to the disabled individual to satisfy their child support obligations. 

VA disability has a similar allotment added for dependents. However, it is merely added to the veteran’s total disability income and, therefore, used to calculate child support payments. Is this how we should be treating those who have put their lives on the line for us? 

Shouldn’t veterans be treated at least equally with anyone else who is disabled?

We’re reminded every Veterans Day to thank our veterans. Still, some of those veterans live every day with injuries sustained during their service. Because of an oversight in the law, The fact is these veterans are being taken advantage of. 

We feel this is something that legislators need to address. Veteran’s Disability is a Federal program. It does not allow states to withhold or garnish those funds for any reason. Still, Iowa circumvents those laws and orders veterans to pay court-ordered support. That support is set above what the federal government is providing for the families of the veterans. 

In essence, the state is saying, “we aren’t touching your disability pay, but you need to pay “X” amount of money. We don’t care where it comes from even if your only source of income is veteran’s disability.” 

This is about an unfair practice of squeezing as much money out of disabled veterans as possible because the state law allows it despite federal laws. It isn’t about taking care of children. 

Families United Action Network-FUAN along with other groups, are actively working to change this law to treat all disabilities the same. David Thornburg from Disabled American Veterans (DAV)-Iowa says, “Disabled American Veterans-Iowa, wholeheartedly share mutual support with FUAN on their commitment to our children of disabled veterans and all families.” The DAV has adopted this as one of their 2020 legislative recommendations.

For Veterans Day 2019, let’s try to remember all veterans, but after Veterans Day, let’s remember our disabled veterans. Donate to one of the many organizations that are working hard to help our veterans. Help them gain the education or life skills necessary to find employment, lift themselves out of homelessness, and adjust to new disabilities or injuries, assist them in combating substance abuse and addiction or push through PTSD and mental health challenges. In this way, perhaps they can avoid the further devastation of divorce and loss of family. 

Aside from donations, other organizations like Families United Action Network are working diligently to change these unfair laws. Laws like these deteriorate the lives of our vets by allowing the courts to take an excessive portion of their benefits or denying Shared Parenting arrangements. 

Join Families United Action Network-FUAN in calling for lawmakers to change Iowa law to protect our most vulnerable veterans.

Do not leave our esteemed veterans alone to face their everyday problems.