Category: Blog

Portland, OR– “When I made the decision to divorce my children’s father and move to Portland [from the mid-west] when our twins were age 2, I thought I was the only parent my sons would ever need. I was mistaken.

“No matter how much love I poured into my children’s hearts, my sons were starving with ‘father hunger’…

“I owed them the chance to discover all of their father’s charms as well as his failings and be shaped by his modern day initiation rites, where a father teaches his sons secrets that only men know….

“[M]en aren’t always the only ones to blame when Daddy isn’t a part of his children’s lives. Women have a larger role in that than we’d like to admit…women of divorce need to lose the anger so our children don’t become unintentional pawns in a game to prove how much we don’t need a spouse to survive.’

A couple weeks ago I praised columnist S. Renee Mitchell for recent column Mom might be the reason dad’s absent (The Oregonian, 8/20/08), which is quoted above. I suggested that readers “commend Mitchell for her courageous, dead-on column,” and hundreds of you did.

The next day she posted some of the letters on her Oregonian blog in an entry called Discussing Fatherlessness, writing “I received email from readers from the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Canada, South Carolina, Alaska, Texas and even in Portland…”

I reprint a few of the letters below:

You did something that was very hard for you to do but it was the right thing to do, and I admire you for it immensely. Your character and integrity are an inspiration for all of us — women and men alike.
Kirk (Washington state)

It’s a rare person who will admit (in print no less) what they might have done — or failed to do — to contribute to a situation that deeply affects children. I remember hearing a fellow on radio say that the diagnosis of ADS in boys was most often found to be Absent Dad Syndrome rather than Attention Deficit Syndrome. Makes sense I think and apparently you, too, figured that out.
Marsha

I grew up without my dad and it was entirely due to my mom’s anger and vindictiveness…It was so devastating and really inhibited my growth. There were so many lessons I never got taught that I had to learn the hard way…I love my mother dearly, but on this one subject, I will never forget she did this.
Steven (Alaska) 

Read her full entry here. Thanks to all of you who wrote her.

Los Angeles, CA– I’ve long speculated that Heather Mills’ accusations of abuse against former husband Paul McCartney were false, and the evidence to support this supposition has been growing.

Here’s one more–according to the Daily Mail, Mills’ former publicist has now accused Mills of “conducting a campaign of dirty tricks against Sir Paul McCartney…and leaking false stories to blacken Sir Paul’s name.” She also calls Mills a “pathological liar.”  
 
According to the Daily Mail (9/08/08):

Heather Mills’s former publicist has accused her of conducting a campaign of dirty tricks against Sir Paul McCartney during their bitter divorce.  
 
Hollywood PR Michele Elyzabeth has launched a scathing attack on Miss Mills, saying the former model duped her into lying for her in their public battle and leaked false stories to blacken Sir Paul’s name.  
 
During her explosive rant she refers to Miss Mills as a pathological liar, a witch, a bitch and a gold-digger who married the former Beatle for his money.
 
Michele Elyzabeth branded Heather Mills ‘a calculating, pathological liar… who misled the entire world’

She declared: ‘That witch tricked me into spreading lies about Paul’…

Miss Elyzabeth also suggested the animal rights activist had misled the world into thinking she was penniless, when Sir Paul was still giving her money.

The LA-based executive claims Miss Mills had banked £3million from Sir Paul, while avoiding paying bills and getting freebies. There were also claims that Miss Mills, who secured a £ 24.3million divorce from Sir Paul, had exaggerated how much she gave to charity. 
 
She described Miss Mills as ‘a calculating, pathological liar…She not only misled me, she misled the entire world.’

Miss Elyzabeth, who represented Miss Mills for four years, said she had told lies for her after wrongly believing she was being told the truth. 
 
‘At one stage we were so close I viewed her as the daughter I never had. Today I think of her as the witch I wish I never met.  
 
‘I was foolish and saw her simply as the devoted humanitarian, charity campaigner and protective mother she wanted the world to see. Now I want the public to know who the real Heather Mills is’…  
 
The publicist said ‘Mucca’ [Mills] would also ridicule Sir Paul’s performance sexual prowess, going into graphic details with people she ‘barely knew’.

She also said ‘Mucca’ had also claimed she had a video of Sir Paul being abusive to her and tried to sell it to US TV for a million dollars.

But according to the publicist all she had was home movie footage, which showed nothing more than normal family life.

It was also claimed Mills leaked stories about Sir Paul’s health to the press about a secret coronary angioplasty operation he had last September.

Miss Elyzabeth, who is involved in a legal dispute with Miss Mills herself over a £168,000 bill, told the News of the World: ‘I have asked myself many times what was Heather’s motivation, but it all points to one thing – money.  
 
‘She is a gold-digger. I’m certain her marriage to Paul was all about the money. I’ve spent hours with Heather. I’ve seen how tight she is with her cash, how she lied to me about Paul giving her money and experienced how she dodges bills – including my own fees.’
 
She said Miss Mills was piling the emotional pressure on Sir Paul during their divorce battle to get more money from the settlement. She said that despite her telling the world that Sir Paul had given Heather nothing, court papers showed she had got £3million.  Miss Elyzabeth said: ‘I stood up for her, insisting Paul wasn’t paying her. But it was a pack of lies.’  
 
Mr Justice Bennett in his divorce judgment had said: ‘In the light of the husband’s generosity towards her I find the wife’s behaviour distinctly distasteful. In any event it damages her overall credibility.’  

Read the full story here. To read my previous posts about Mills’ false allegations against McCartney, click here.

Mashpee, MA— “Thomas McDonald, 46, leapt into the water when a current pulled his daughter from the lip of the Chatham beach toward the open ocean.

“The two were carried at least 300 feet. He stayed close to her, as long as he could. Rescuers were able to save Kinley, but McDonald couldn’t stay above the water’s surface.

“‘On the 31st of August, Tom was being a dad,’ Fred McDonald, father of the deceased said, breaking out in tears as he addressed the mourners.

From Drowning victim ‘was being a dad’ (Boston Globe, 9/6/08):

MASHPEE – The hum of conversation among 80 or so mourners quickly gave way to silence yesterday afternoon as the mahogany-colored casket containing Thomas McDonald was wheeled into Christ the King Church.

Behind the casket stood McDonald’s 10-year-old daughter, Kinley, who survived a harrowing odyssey at Lighthouse Beach last week when a current swept her out to sea. Her father died trying to save her. With the help of her brother and mother, Kinley unfolded a large white cloth and placed it over the casket, and then she followed it up the aisle. As she walked, several adults standing next to the aisle reached out to caress her small shoulders, and the girl flashed a nervous, sad smile in their direction. At least 300 people walked into the church behind the family.

Last Sunday, Thomas McDonald, 46, leapt into the water when a current pulled his daughter from the lip of the Chatham beach toward the open ocean.

The two were carried at least 300 feet. He stayed close to her, as long as he could. Rescuers were able to save Kinley, but McDonald couldn’t stay above the water’s surface.

“On the 31st of August, Tom was being a dad,” Fred McDonald, father of the deceased said, breaking out in tears as he addressed the mourners.

Fred McDonald said his son was dedicated to Kinley and Conner, his son, as well as his wife, Theresa. He said his son, a computer software technician, was unemployed for two years, but when a new job came up, he flatly told his interviewers at the firm that he couldn’t work on Saturdays or do much overtime because he had to be there for his family. “Nevertheless, they offered him the job and he accepted the position,” McDonald said…

At Lighthouse Beach yesterday, Susan Hanifan took a stroll along the shore and remarked that the beauty of the beach concealed its dangers. “When people come out here, they don’t see the currents and what’s underneath the water”…

Read the full article here. To read more stories of heroic men sacrificing themselves to save their families, click on our archive here.

Thanks to Jed Hresko for the story. 

Richmond, VA– Some of you may recall that a year ago I called attention to the absurdity and gender bias behind Virginia’s anti-father Putative Father Registry. I wrote:

Virginia”s controversial new Putative Father Registry law asks any man who has had heterosexual non-marital sex in Virginia to register with the State. Supporters say the law will help connect fathers with their children before the children are put up for adoption. Critics see it as another example of the erosion of citizens” privacy. Both sides miss the real point of the Registry–to remove a father’s right to prevent his child’s mother from giving their child up for adoption without his consent.

Incredibly, under the new law, putative fathers who fail to register waive their right to be notified that their parental rights are being terminated. They also forfeit the right to be notified of the adoption proceedings and to consent to the adoption. Rather than being required to make a legitimate effort to find and notify the father, the state can now simply check the Registry and, if the man has not registered, give his child away…

The law should instead require that an honest, exhaustive search for the father be conducted before an adoption can proceed. This search should include use of the Federal Parent Locator Service, which contains a vast array of information, including the National Directory of New Hires. The FALLS is used to enforce child support, find children involved in parental kidnappings, and to enforce child custody and visitation. State systems are tied into the FPLS, and they are often remarkably effective at finding parents.

Fathers have the right to raise their own children. Virginia”s Registry is a shameful attempt to circumvent that right.

I was pleased to see recently that Marc Fisher of the Washington Post sees the Registry the same way. Fisher also tells us how the Registry is going after its first year. In Virginia to Lovers: Let’s Get Cynical (9/2/08), he writes:

If you don’t let the state know ahead of any dispute over whose kid it is, or ahead of any effort by the mother or anyone else to put the baby up for adoption, Virginia will assume that you don’t exist. Whereas once the authorities might have made an effort to find the father before putting a child up for adoption, the existence of the Putative Father Registry means the state now washes its hands of that obligation. If you haven’t registered your sexual encounter in Richmond, you are outta luck.

As the Daily Press in Hampton Roads reported last week, in the registry’s first year of operation, a grand total of 64 men in Virginia availed themselves of this splendid opportunity to create an official record of their sexual activities.

Oh, I suppose it’s possible that a few more than 64 men had sex with women not their wives, and perhaps some of those relationships resulted in the birth of a child. Indeed, the Daily Press says that in the most recent year for which statistics are available, 33,681 nonmarital births occurred in Virginia.

Which would suggest that this law is not exactly entirely all about protecting the rights of men who might want to take care of children whose existence they may not even be aware of. No, it seems quite possible that the primary motivation here is to absolve the state or adoption authorities of the task of trying to find missing fathers…the state [shouldn’t] be able to use a legal trick to strip all putative fathers of their parental rights without making some effort to find and contact the fathers.  

Boston, MA–On Tuesday, the Associated Press (AP) ran a typical “deadbeat dad’ story. I was able to insert a bit of sober truth into the story as follows:

Ned Holstein, founder of Fathers and Families, a Boston-based organization that supports the rights of fathers, said the seizing of economic stimulus checks ignores the fact that most fathers who owe child support are earning little.

“We’re trying to support very poor people, the mothers and children, from the pocketbooks of other very poor people,’ he said. “There are those who are just downright avoiding their child support payments, but there are many more who just can’t make their payments.’

The story has appeared in 238 newspapers and other media outlets around the country so far, including the Los Angeles Times, Houston Chronicle, Newsday, Miami Herald, Forbes, Philadelphia Inquirer, Dallas Morning News, Chicago Tribune, Boston Herald, Boston Globe and the major broadcast networks.

The AP story had a new twist: about one percent of the “stimulus checks’ that the Bush administration began sending out a few months ago to help the economy have been intercepted by state child support enforcement agencies for child support arrearages. The total has amounted to almost $1 billion.

I told the reporter that 70 percent of all child support arrearages are owed by people who earn less than $10,000 per year, and that 70 percent of all child support arrearages are owed by people who earn less than $40,000 per year. I also did the math for him, and showed that a minimum wage non-custodial parent working 60 hours per week would have less than $1,000 to live on per year after paying income taxes, payroll taxes, child support in Massachusetts, and $900 per month for an apartment rental. These facts and figures did not make the story.

Of course, there is no discussion of mistaken identities, inaccurate records, paternity fraud, access interference, or whether the child support orders were simply too high to begin with. The article did mention that some of the money will never go to the children, but will remain in the coffers of the states. But it did not tell how much of the money will follow that route.

If you have seen this article, write a letter to the editor briefly explaining your experience of the child support system.

Also, tell us what you think below.

Richmond, VA– Some of you may recall that a year ago I called attention to the absurdity and gender bias behind Virginia’s anti-father Putative Father Registry. I wrote:

Virginia”s controversial new Putative Father Registry law asks any man who has had heterosexual non-marital sex in Virginia to register with the State. Supporters say the law will help connect fathers with their children before the children are put up for adoption. Critics see it as another example of the erosion of citizens” privacy. Both sides miss the real point of the Registry–to remove a father’s right to prevent his child’s mother from giving their child up for adoption without his consent.

Incredibly, under the new law, putative fathers who fail to register waive their right to be notified that their parental rights are being terminated. They also forfeit the right to be notified of the adoption proceedings and to consent to the adoption. Rather than being required to make a legitimate effort to find and notify the father, the state can now simply check the Registry and, if the man has not registered, give his child away…

The law should instead require that an honest, exhaustive search for the father be conducted before an adoption can proceed. This search should include use of the Federal Parent Locator Service, which contains a vast array of information, including the National Directory of New Hires. The FALLS is used to enforce child support, find children involved in parental kidnappings, and to enforce child custody and visitation. State systems are tied into the FPLS, and they are often remarkably effective at finding parents.

Fathers have the right to raise their own children. Virginia”s Registry is a shameful attempt to circumvent that right.

I was pleased to see recently that Marc Fisher of the Washington Post sees the Registry the same way. Fisher also tells us how the Registry is going after its first year. In Virginia to Lovers: Let’s Get Cynical (9/2/08), he writes:

If you don’t let the state know ahead of any dispute over whose kid it is, or ahead of any effort by the mother or anyone else to put the baby up for adoption, Virginia will assume that you don’t exist. Whereas once the authorities might have made an effort to find the father before putting a child up for adoption, the existence of the Putative Father Registry means the state now washes its hands of that obligation. If you haven’t registered your sexual encounter in Richmond, you are outta luck.

As the Daily Press in Hampton Roads reported last week, in the registry’s first year of operation, a grand total of 64 men in Virginia availed themselves of this splendid opportunity to create an official record of their sexual activities.

Oh, I suppose it’s possible that a few more than 64 men had sex with women not their wives, and perhaps some of those relationships resulted in the birth of a child. Indeed, the Daily Press says that in the most recent year for which statistics are available, 33,681 nonmarital births occurred in Virginia.

Which would suggest that this law is not exactly entirely all about protecting the rights of men who might want to take care of children whose existence they may not even be aware of. No, it seems quite possible that the primary motivation here is to absolve the state or adoption authorities of the task of trying to find missing fathers…the state [shouldn’t] be able to use a legal trick to strip all putative fathers of their parental rights without making some effort to find and contact the fathers.  

Los Angeles, CA– Some good tax news for dads from Mike McCormick, Executive Director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children. Mike writes:

The IRS has issued a new revenue procedure ruling allowing non-custodial and non-primary (aren’t these terms offensive, I’m not a non-anything to my kids) residential parents to count children not living with them as dependents for purposes of providing benefits through HSA and MSA accounts.

In a recent article from the publication Tax Notes Today called “IRS Broadens Definition of Dependent to Ease Use of Medical Savings Accounts,” reporter Amy Elliot explains:

In a move praised by many practitioners, the IRS has taken a step toward expanding the number of taxpayers who would be eligible to use medical savings accounts (MSAs) and health savings accounts (HSAs) to provide benefits for their children.

Rev. Proc. 2008-48, released August 19, provides an exception to the definition of dependent in family situations involving divorce or separation, allowing a child to be the dependent of both the custodial and noncustodial parent under sections 105(b), 106(a), 132(h)(2)(B), 213(d)(5), 220(d)(2), and 223(d)(2). (For Rev. Proc. 2008-48, see Doc 2008-17946 [PDF] or 2008 TNT 161-4.)

“This is the IRS’s recognition that the modern family is not what it was 15, 20, and 30 years ago,” said Michael McCormick, executive director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children. “The IRS is recognizing this changing dynamic and saying we want to incentivize people to take care of their dependents regardless of what the particular structure or makeup of the family is.”

In cases in which parents are divorced, separated, or living apart, the IRS allows only one parent to claim an exemption for their dependent child. Previously, if the noncustodial parent wanted to claim the child as a dependent for MSA or HSA purposes, the custodial parent would have to release his or her claim to the exemption by filing a Form 9332 with the IRS.

Now both parents can take advantage of such benefits. The revenue procedure “allows non-custodial parents to provide medical benefits for their children using pretax dollars through HSAs and MSAs whether or not they are able to claim the dependent exemption,” McCormick said.

Continue reading “Some Good Tax News for Dads”