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Custodial Mother Has Her Say about Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott & Child Support

Background: I’ve criticized Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (pictured) on numerous occasions, including my co-authored column When Beating up on ‘Deadbeat Dads’ is Unfair (Houston Chronicle, 1/7/07). Abbott often beats his chest during his frequent crackdowns on low-income fathers he labels “deadbeat dads.”

I get as many complaints about Abbott and the Texas Attorney General’s Office as I do about Child Support Enforcement in all other 49 states combined. To learn more about Abbott and his abuses, click here.

Apparently some custodial mothers aren’t very happy with Greg Abbott, either. The letter below from Mary is an example:

Dr. Mr. Sacks,

I found your website and was very interested in the materials posted about the Texas Attorney General’s Office. I am the custodial parent. The noncustodial parent filed for divorce 12 years ago. I am now owed approximately $27,000. On January 2, 2008, I am heading back to court (this will be the 5th time) regarding: lack of health care coverage on his part, as well as only occasionally sending in his monetary obligation (he has never showed up to any court dates).

The OAG has lost my request so many times I can”t even begin to tell you. I have heard every excuse in the book, including to go ahead and apply for welfare benefits, because they could never serve him. I paid to have him located for them and even found the job that his father found for him…

I am continuously being pushed off and cannot afford legal counsel of my own. Texas OAG is a joke……they post people on their website owing 1/3 of what I am owed…

I just want you to know that I feel bad for the dads that pay and get nothing but heartache, but as a mom, my daughter is finishing her senior year in high school and we are struggling to just get her in college. It is not fair….and Texas OAG keeps it that way…

Mary

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Court Clears Way for Murderess Mary Winkler to Visit Her Children

Background: Mary Winkler–who shot her husband in the back and then refused to aid him or call 911 as he slowly bled to death for 20 minutes–walked away a free woman last summer after serving a farcically brief “sentence” for her crimes. She is currently in a custody battle with Matthew Winkler’s parents, who have been raising their three daughters for the last 20 months.

The Winklers seek to terminate Mary Winkler’s parental rights and adopt the girls. I support their position. In September Mary Winkler was granted supervised visits with her daughters–an important step towards getting custody of them. Shortly afterwards an appeals court blocked the visit after a last-minute application from the children’s paternal grandparents.

To learn more about this horrendous injustice, see my co-authored column No child custody for husband-killer Mary Winkler (World Net Daily, 9/14/07), or click here.

Court clears way for Winkler visits with children
Associated Press
11/27/07

JACKSON, Tenn. — An appeals court has removed a barrier to supervised visits between convicted killer Mary Winkler and her children.

A Carroll County judge ruled in September that Winkler could begin visits with her three young daughters, but the children”s paternal grandparents appealed that order.

The Court of Appeals temporarily blocked the visits while considering the grandparents” request.

But the appeals court ruled in Jackson on Tuesday that the lower court can go ahead with allowing Winkler”s visits while she tries to regain custody of her children.

Winkler was convicted this year of voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of her husband, Matthew Winkler, a minister in Selmer.

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‘I Want to Start a Family with You but God Knows Who’ll I’ll Want to Finish It With’

New Yorker cartoonist William Haefeli often has dead-on observations about men, women, and divorce. A couple examples are above, another is here.

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Postcards from Splitsville (Part I)

The drawing above was taken from Kara Bishop’s www.postcardsfromsplitsville.com. Bishop works with Children of Divorce, a class run by Tucson, Arizona-based Divorce Recovery. The class did an art project that included “sending away” the frustrations of divorce. The website is a place where Kara says “children can share their divorce-related feelings anonymously and parents can get a new perspective on how this life-changing experience impacts their children”s lives.” Kara can be reached at Kara@PostcardsfromSplitsville.com.

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She Killed His Son but He Must Pay Her Alimony

Examples of decent, loving dads being manhandled by the anti-father family law system are legion, but this one has to make the Top 10. A recent New Jersey appeals court reaffirmed a decision mandating that a man must pay alimony to his ex-wife–who killed their son. From Legal tussle: Should killer get alimony? (Bergen Record, 11/22/07):

“A state appeals court on Wednesday refused to automatically bar alimony from spouses who kill a child…The decision was issued in the case of Linda Calbi, who is serving a three-year prison term after pleading guilty to beating her son, Matt, on Aug. 17, 2003, during a violent argument at their home. He died hours later from internal bleeding and cardiac arrest…

“Linda Calbi was originally charged with murder, but the charges were later downgraded to aggravated assault, based on expert reports that medical error contributed significantly to the boy’s death. She was sentenced last year to three years in prison and won’t be eligible for parole until November 2008.

“The Calbis were divorced in 2001 after 15 years of marriage. A few months after Matt’s death, Chris Calbi fell behind on his alimony payments and filed papers in court seeking a reduction or termination of his payment obligations.

“‘She took the life of her oldest son, scarred her younger son for the rest of his life, and tore the fabric of my soul from me,’ Chris Calbi wrote in papers filed in Superior Court in Hackensack. ‘To reward this evil and violent woman by allowing her … to derive a financial benefit from the family she destroyed … can only be described as a perversion of our justice system.'”

Chris Calbi had been paying Linda $3,183 a month until her incarceration, and may be saddled with that amount when Linda is paroled. Chris is pictured with his deceased son Matthew and his surviving son Dean above. A few comments:

1) Chris Calbi claimed that Linda abused and assaulted him during their marriage, at times employing a kitchen knife and a hammer. The death of the son is discussed in Typical teen meets a tragic end (Bergen Record, 8/20/03), and Linda Calbi sounds like a real sweetheart:

“As [Christopher Calbi’s] company – Robert Christopher Sales – grew, [Christopher] was increasingly away in Europe on business, Linda Calbi said in divorce papers. Though they shared fine dinners, and Christopher Calbi showered his wife with gifts, a physical and emotional distance developed between Matthew’s parents, her papers say.

“Linda Calbi said in the papers that she felt like ‘a highly paid slave.’

“Christopher Calbi countered that his wife subjected him to ‘profanity-laced tirades and ridicule.'”

2) From the same article:

“The couple split in 1999 and – after 15 years of marriage – divorced in July 2001.

“Meanwhile, Matthew was having problems at school, said a woman who worked in the River Vale school system.

“When Matthew was in the special education program at Holdrum Middle School, he regularly came to class with bruises, said the woman, who declined to be identified. The teen always had an excuse for the marks – he was playing with his younger brother, or he fell, the woman said.

“But in April 2002, the woman noticed a strange bruise on Matthew’s wrist, one she thought looked like a defensive wound. She asked Matt to explain, but he couldn’t, she said, so she called DYFS to report the mark.

“As part of the special education program, Linda Calbi met routinely with educators to review her son’s performance.

“But when Calbi showed up, she often smelled of booze, the woman said. ‘You could light the air on fire, she smelled so badly,’ the woman said.

“Linda could not understand why her son wasn’t more successful in school.

“‘She was very forceful when she spoke. Nothing was ever her fault, and of course she was at her wit’s end,’ the woman said.”

3) The father now has to raise the surviving son, Dean, age 12, on his own. Is Linda being asked to pay child support? Isn’t Chris’ ability to provide for Dean negatively impacted by having to pay alimony to the noncustodial parent?

4) Chris also needs to save his money–Linda may be out of prison in less than a year and will be fighting for visitation rights to Dean. In July, 2006, a judge ordered a supervised visitation between Dean and his mother, contingent on the boy’s acceptance.

5) Linda apparently received a lesser charge and sentence for her crime because supposedly there was medical mishandling by the hospital after she assaulted her son which contributed to Matthew’s death. How much of her light sentence is due to the alleged medical mishandling and how much is just the standard female sentencing discount is unclear.

6) It’s amazing some of the things that an attorney will say. Linda’s attorney, Ian Hirsch, said:

“‘Mr. Calbi is using his son’s death to take away any obligations he has,’ Hirsch said. ‘I think he’s trying to take advantage of a tragedy and turn it around to his economic benefit.'”

Yup–dad not wanting to pay money to the woman who killed his son is “taking advantage of a tragedy and turning it around to his economic benefit.” Bad dad–how could he be so rotten?

7) Can you imagine a judge ordering a woman to pay alimony to the ex-husband who murdered her child? In fact, California has a recent law which created a presumption that a victim of domestic violence should not be required to pay support to a violent ex-spouse.

8) Once again we see the link between family violence and substance abuse. Misguided feminists often downplay this link because it contradicts the feminist Duluth/”domestic violence is a function of the patriarchy” family violence model.

The new court decision by the Superior Court of New Jersey’s Appellate Division can be seen here.

A recent CNN report on the case can be viewed here.

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Fathers & Families News Digest, 11-26-07

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

On the home front: Soldier custody battle (WHOTV.com, 11-20-07)

Suspect arrested in playground killing of NYC orthodontist (Associated Press, 11-20-07)

Mom’s boyfriend may face new charges in boy’s death (The Day, 11-21-07)

Divorce rates falling locally and across the US (Kansas City Star, 11-21-07)

High Court backs custody battle dad (UTV, 11-22-07)

Lehigh County to give parents extra time for child support, if commitment is made (The Morning Call, 11-22-07)

New ways of making deadbeats pay up (Daily Herald, 11-23-07)

New Convention on child support targets parents (Associated Press, 11-23-07)

Hogan ‘shocked’ by divorce (Fox23, 11-25-07)

Mom flees with 3 sons (San Gabriel Valley Tribune, 11-26-07)

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‘Single Mothers by Choice’ Behaving Badly (Part II)

Background: A few weeks ago I debated the issue of “Single Motherhood by Choice” on the BBC. The producer emailed the guests the 2006 London Times article Focus: Going solo (6/4/06), and among those I was debating was Viki Matten, who is discussed in the piece as an early pioneer in the “Single Motherhood by Choice” movement. A poll of 5,000 women conducted for That”s Life! magazine in the United Kingdom found that 42% of women say they would lie about contraception in order to get pregnant, regardless of the wishes of their partners. Reading this article, I can believe it.
In this blog post and in Part I, I’m pointing out some of the bad behavior of some of the women in the article. A couple examples: 1) “[Men] are often handed a maintenance bill for a child they didn”t know they were going to have. One woman, who admitted to pursuing a man purely for his sperm and now receives a £346.50 monthly ‘bonus’ from him, says: ‘It means he can”t get a mortgage, but I don”t care, he wasn”t very nice to me — if he”d behaved better I might have let him stick around.'” 2) “According to Lucy Beresford, a psychotherapist at the Priory hospital in Roehampton, southwest London, more and more women are resorting to sometimes dubious tactics to achieve motherhood. “‘You could call them ‘sperm catchers”,’ she said. ‘This is being driven by career women in their mid-to-late thirties who find that having a baby is rising to the top of their ‘to do” list. It is happening increasingly. If they haven”t a partner, they”ve got the basic kit and they decide to go it alone’… “‘Sperm donation is messy and legally fraught,’ said a 34-year-old advertising executive who is privy to such discussions. ‘They”ve changed the law so that the donor can potentially come back to haunt you. Adoption takes for ever. The old-fashioned option — a one-night stand, is the least complicated way of getting pregnant. It”s quick, you get to view a prototype and it”s free’… “One woman, who did not want to be named, said she found that 21st century metro-man is now frustratingly aware of ‘shared responsibility’ when it comes to sexual encounters, and her attempts at impregnation became farcical as she attempted to find a man who would mate au naturel.”

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‘My Boyfriend’s Ex Had Her Child 2 Months ‘Premature’-He Was Young and Didn’t Realize She Was Already Two Months Pregnant When She Met Him’

A letter from Tracy, a reader. Sad to say, I’m not even surprised. Tracy writes: Dear Glenn: I was sitting in the Atlanta airport stuck overnight due to layovers, while I was there I saw you on TV and scribbled your name down, hoping I wrote it down correctly. My family needs some help, I have done everything I can to help my boyfriend Curt, but everywhere we turn there is just another door slammed in our face. Curt, the father of my son and unborn child coming in March, is the best father you could ever ask for. He is my best friend. You could not ask for a better person to be with.
Well, he met the wrong women when he was in his early 20s. She told him she was pregnant a few months into the relationship, and he started working three jobs so she would not have to work. It’s too bad for him he was working so hard, he missed appointments, etc, but he was there for the birth. This lady had her child two months “premature” at 7 lbs and some odd oz. Curt stuck by her side and, being young and not knowing anything about pregnancy, did not realize this woman was taking him for a ride–she was already two months pregnant when she met him. She knows who her child’s father is, yet he is stuck paying support. He could not get a drivers license, open a bank account, get a loan, or a job until he had caught up on his back support. He has been blackballed for unpaid support. It’s all caught up now and has been for eight years, but it still shows on his credit report. We both have to work and when we are short that at the end of the month and have to send the child support out to child that is not his, and our kid has to go without, it hurts. I don’t know how he just keeps paying it–if I were in his shoes I would have let them put me in jail. He keeps on paying her, the courts tell him too bad. THEY HAVE NEVER EVEN LOOKED AT THE DNA TEST. He paid for the test out of his own pocket. The child is not his, she has even told him who the father is. What’s really not fair is for that child, he is growing up hating Curt for not being around when he has his own dad out there that does not even know he has a child. If that man is like my boyfriend, when he finally does find out he is going to be so upset that he has missed watching his little boy grow. Curt just wants this support stopped, I want to be able to go buy our kids what they need and not have to worry about supporting other people’s kids. Every year they fight to have Curt’s child support increased.

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A Sad but True Commentary on Modern American Families

New Yorker cartoonist William Haefeli’s recent cartoon above says a lot about modern families.

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‘Single Mothers by Choice’ Behaving Badly (Part I)

A few weeks ago I debated the issue of “Single Motherhood by Choice” on the BBC. The producer emailed the guests the 2006 London Times article Focus: Going solo (6/4/06), and among those I was debating was Viki Matten, who is discussed in the piece as an early pioneer in the “Single Motherhood by Choice” movement. The article unintentionally reads like a laundry list of bad behavior by “single mothers by choice.” A couple examples: 1) “[Former Spice Girl] Geri Halliwell (pictured) last month gave birth to a daughter, Bluebell Madonna, conceived during a six-week fling with the screenwriter Sacha Gervasi.
Early on in the pregnancy Halliwell fell out with Gervasi — apparently when he questioned whether the hasty conception had been an accident. The hapless 40-year-old was then reportedly reduced to hanging around London”s exclusive Portland hospital hoping to catch a glimpse of his baby, having found himself superfluous to Halliwell”s requirements.” 2) “Some women, of course, don”t want to stop at one child. Clare, a 35-year-old criminal law paralegal from Berkshire, has done a ‘double Geri’, resulting in Charlie and Mia. She got pregnant by her then lover in 2003. Shortly after the baby was born, the relationship fell apart. She then plotted with her best friend to set up her unsuspecting ex a second time. “I seduced him in a pub car park when I knew I was at my most fertile,’ she says. ‘I put on a little floral dress and a bit of makeup. I had a lucky shot, and that was it.'”