Category: Blog

During my youth, Jim Palmer (pictured) was pretty much the best pitcher in baseball, with the possible exception of Tom Seaver. He was usually the first starting pitcher we’d draft whenever I played Strat-O-Matic table baseball with my friends. From 1970 to 1978, Palmer went 176-97, and was voted into the Hall of Fame in 1990.

Soon after Palmer was born he had been adopted by Moe and Polly Wiesen. Moe died when he was nine, and the following year his mother married Max Palmer. Jim Palmer tells the following story about his dad in his autobiography, Palmer and Weaver:

“My father loves to tell this story. It was the Little League banquet in California. When it came time to announce the awards that night, I was going to get three trophies, one for the championship we’d won, one for the batting title, and one for the homerun leader.

“But I wasn’t Jim Palmer, I was still Jim Wiesen. My mom had married Max Palmer but I had kept my name. Until that night. I asked the coaches who handed out the awards to announce me by what I decided was my new name, ‘James Alvin Palmer.’

“On his 87th birthday, Max said, ‘Through all these years, that night was the highlight of my life.’

“[Eighteen years later] that was the name that went on my first Cy Young Award. Palmer. My dad Max loved it.”

“Another problem with VAWA is the way that it helps fund domestic violence advocacy groups” political agenda. Whenever we try to push forward legislation to help resolve some of the gross inequities of the family system and to protect the loving bonds children share with their fathers, these groups are out in force in the legislatures to stop us.

“That”s what happened with the California Shared Parenting Bill AB 1307 in California in 2005. The Assembly Judiciary Committee was largely sympathetic to our position–until the domestic violence groups showed up. Funded by your tax dollars, they plied the committee members with horror stories, deceptions, and half-truths, and the bill was soundly defeated.”

Pajamas Media advice columnist Dr. Helen Smith interviewed me recently on the subject of the Violence Against Women Act, the way our legal system handles domestic violence, and related issues. The interview was released today. It is excerpted above and can be seen at Fighting for Men’s Rights (Pajamas Media, 10/8/07).

Readers can comment on their experiences with domestic violence laws by clicking here.

Dr. Helen Smith also co-hosts The Glenn and Helen Show with blogger king Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com. Smith is a psychologist specializing in forensic issues who often has interesting things to say about gender issues and divorce. She can be reached at askdrhelen@hotmail.com.

“There is also substantial evidence that Izquierdo”s little girl is being alienated from him…

“According to Miguel Firpi, the girl”s psychologist, the girl ‘does not want to go to Cuba…she grinds her teeth at night.’ Firpi says the girl tore up a new toy her father had given her. When the girl was angry after a visit with her father, caseworker Maria Zamora said the girl explained that ‘she only had one father, and it’s [the foster caregiver].’

“Where would a normal four-year-old girl get such a strong aversion to her father, and to Cuba? How often does a four-year-old girl decide to destroy a new toy she”s been given? The girl is being taught to fear and dislike her dad.”

My co-authored column, In Controversial ‘Elian Gonzalez II” Case, Cuban Father Should Be Allowed to Take His Daughter Back to Cuba (The Buffalo News, 8/16/07), defends the Cuban father in his battle to get his daughter back from the foster care system and return to Cuba. The article was written shortly after the case was first made public–for my more recent coverage, click here.

In Controversial ‘Elian Gonzalez II” Case, Cuban Father Should Be Allowed to Take His Daughter Back to Cuba
By Mike McCormick and Glenn Sacks

Following an appeals court order, details of a year-long custody battle very reminiscent of the Elian Gonzalez case have now been made public. The battle over a 4-year-old Cuban immigrant girl pits her Cuban father, Rafael Izquierdo, against foster father Joe Cubas, a well-known Cuban-American sports agent, and his wife Maria. Just as Elian”s father Juan Gonzalez faced numerous unfair hurdles to get his son back, Izquierdo is being manhandled by the child welfare system, in part because of the system”s anti-father bias.

In 2005, the girl”s mother, with whom Izquierdo had a brief relationship, brought the girl to Miami from Cuba. The Florida Department of Children & Families removed the girl from her mother”s custody in 2006, after an investigation found that the woman’s mental illness rendered her an unfit parent. She was placed with the Cubas family, and Izquierdo came to the US to bring his daughter home.

Izquierdo, a fisherman and farmer from Cabaiguan, Cuba, has spent the last two months performing the numerous tasks DCF has demanded in order to be reunited with his daughter. Several child welfare experts have asserted that these tasks may be designed to make Izquierdo fail, so DCF can follow through on its stated goal of permanently placing the girl with the foster family.

Much of what Izquierdo is going through reflects well-documented problems with the child welfare system. An Urban Institute study released last year found that when a mother and father are divorced or separated, and a child welfare agency removes the children from the mother”s home for abuse or neglect, the system generally refuses to allow the fathers to raise their own children, instead shuttling the kids off into the foster care system.

Child welfare proceedings, including this one, are usually determined by the child welfare agency”s opinion as to what”s best for the child. This represents a tremendous usurpation of parental authority. When an agency has taken a child from an abusive or neglectful mother or father, its only further role should be to determine whether the other parent is fit. If the other parent is not found to be unfit, the child should be given to that parent, and the case closed. Only if there has been a finding of parental unfitness should the child welfare agency permanently place the child with a foster family.

Background: I’ve previously discussed an amazing series of domestic violence public service ads from HomeFront, a Canadian domestic violence agency, which demonstrate the way the domestic violence industry vilifies men. To learn more and to watch the ads, click here and here.

The following ad, produced by film students at the Madison Area Technical College Visual Communications Program in Madison, Wisconsin, was modeled on the HomeFront series. To watch the ad, click here, or see below.

It’s interesting that the ad portrays a man and only a man abusing a child, when the vast majority of child abuse is committed by mothers, not fathers.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0kGEC69S7c]

Shared parenting advocate Stuart Meltzer, Esq. (pictured) is running for Nassau County Family Court Judge in the November 6 election. Meltzer says:

“The best interests of children are being forgotten in Family Court. Parents are being kept in court unnecessarily and decisions are oftentimes unfair to our children. I am the only truly independent candidate. If you want a judge who owes his allegiance to our families and children, not a particular party, you should vote for me.

“As a result of my over 18 years experience in the Family, Matrimonial and Criminal Courts in the New York area, I have witnessed a steady decline in Equal Protection and Due Process rights afforded to litigants. Most disturbing is the fact that those people who have the smallest voice and least amount of power in our society, our children, are losing most. Thus, I view as most important, based in law and forensic study, our children’s right to liberal access to both a father and mother.”

Meltzer is looking for volunteers in the greater New York City area, as well as donors. Contact his campaign at smeltzer@equalparentingparty.com or by phone at 718-532-4300 or 917 698 8784. Donations can be sent to The Friends Of Stuart Meltzer Campaign, 32 Court St., Suite 1408, Brooklyn, NY 11201.

To learn more about Meltzer’s campaign, click here.

Background: Dads of Michigan, the American Coalition for Fathers and Children’s Michigan affiliate, the Family Rights Coalition, and other Michigan shared parenting advocates are fighting to pass HB 4564, a shared parenting bill. They have the votes to pass the bill but are fighting to get it out of committee, where it is bottled up.

In May, the Michigan National Organization for Women put out an Action Alert opposing HB 4564. I discussed NOW’s opposition to the bill and laid out the case for shared parenting in my column HB 5267 Will Help Michigan”s Children of Divorce (Lansing State Journal, 5/28/06), which I co-authored with ACFC Executive Director Mike McCormick. (HB 5267 was the 2006 bill which is identical to HB 4564).

The Editorial Board of the Oakland Press, one of Michigan’s larger newspapers, just came out with a well-reasoned editorial endorsing HB 4564. Jay A. Fedewa, PE, Executive Director of the Family Rights Coalition, is asking that the bill’s supporters email Allan Adler, the editorial page editor of the Oakland Press, to commend the paper and express support for the bill. His email address is allan.adler@oakpress.com. Please remember to be polite and positive.

The Oakland Press editorial is below.

Equal parenting bill worth passing
Oakland Press, 10/6/07

House Bill 4564 seems to make a very reasonable request: It calls for equal parenting time for fit parents.

The bill was proposed by state Rep. Glenn Steil, R-Cascade and introduced with the support of Reps. Fran Amos, R-Waterford Township; Marty Knollenberg, R-Troy; John Stakoe, R-Highland Township; James Marleau, R-Lake Orion; and 18 other representatives. It is currently in the Families and Children”s Services Committee.

It”s a shame a bill like this is needed but historically, dads have been on the short end in court cases involving custody and visitation when the parents divorce.

The “best interest of the child’ should always be the top priority but too often that “best interest’ leaves dads out of the equation.

Judges have expressed concern that the bill may take away some of their “judicial discretion.’ Well, we”re all for judicial discretion, but someone has to stand up for the rights of fathers, those who are “fit’ and more than willing to share parenting duties.

Our courts say they are doing this now, but judges admit that in the past, the tendency has been to side with mothers, giving them more custodial and/or visitation rights.

If the courts are truly doing this now, then why do so many fathers and their supporters feel the need for this legislation?

We think anything that helps “good fathers’ stay “good dads’ is worth passing. If the law has to be tweaked so that some judges don”t feel so put upon, then make the necessary changes.

But it”s time dads had some rights, too.

What don”t family court judges know?  An awful lot. For instance, a child”s heart.

I am always struck that judges, along with attorneys, are so often asked what is best for children. They have not the slightest training in child development. They have never counseled a distraught parent, or hugged an agonized child.

As a physician accustomed to rigorous scientific scrutiny of what works and what doesn”t, it is inconceivable to me that judges have been put in charge of our lives based on their seat-of-the-pants guesses about what is best for kids.

 And here is the ultimate disqualifier:  they have no means of learning what happened. Without follow-up, they continue as blind as the day they put on the robe. In medicine, we study what happened, and we correct our mistakes of the past. That”s why we don”t still apply blood-sucking leeches to cure typhoid fever. But the judges are still trapped in the 18^th century, when there was little alternative but to give sole custody to one parent (in those days, it was the father).

 A member of ours wrote movingly about what happened after the decision of a Massachusetts family court judge to allow his daughter to move to Delaware. This is what the courts never see.

“Heather is almost 10 and has lived in Delaware since October of 2005.  And what is ironic is that I am sure the courts would consider this move a success.  She is doing well in school, has adjusted and made friends, and, overall, is doing very well.  The big problem?  She never wanted to go and hates having her parents so far apart.  We miss each other each and every day.  She tells me, “Dad, when I am in Delaware I miss you and when I am in Massachusetts I miss Mommy.”   

“I just got back from my seventh or eighth trip down there.  I don’t think that it’s fair for her to have to fly back and forth every month so I break it up by going down there every few months.’   

“The courts would see our situation as a success story.  The problem is, Heather and I both hate the way things are.  And we are the only ones who ever have to make sacrifices.  Her mother gets off easy.  Justice served?  Hardly.’

This man feelingly describes his child”s heartache – something the courts will never know.  So they”ll make the same mistake the next time  —  until we do something about it.

The myth of the “deadbeat dad” is pervasive in our society–in some circles, “divorced dad” or “noncustodial dad” are practically synonymous with “deadbeat dad.” One malignant outgrowth of this can be seen when divorced fathers try to install financial responsibility in their children by linking school performance or behavior to money provided for cars or consumer items. The letter below in a column from Annie’s Mailbox last year is a good example.

“Dear Annie: I have a 16-year-old son whom I love very much. I have been divorced from his mother for eight years, remarried for the last six. ‘Brendan’ lives with his mother in the same city, so I see him a lot.

“We had a good relationship until recently. I told Brendan I would give him a car and pay for the insurance if he kept his grades up. He agreed. His first report card, he got a D in one subject. The car stayed at my house. Four weeks later, he got another D on his mid-term.

“The day after he received his grades, Brendan gave my wife and me a very impressive presentation, with charts and everything. He promised to work hard, do extra credit and show us his test scores every week. We caved and let him have the car. Well, he had an excuse every week why he didn’t have his test scores. When his grades came, he had two Ds.

“I told Brendan to bring back the car, and he said I needed to talk to his mom, my ex. Naturally, she took his side and wanted the car to stay at her house, and didn’t care that Brendan and I had an agreement. The car is now back at my place, but Brendan is angry with me, and my ex is probably going to buy him a car.

“I want my son to learn that there are consequences for being irresponsible. Am I wrong? — Worried Dad

“Dear Dad: You are not wrong. A car is a privilege, not a right, no matter what some kids think. You kept your end of the bargain, and if his mother buys him a Porsche, let it be HER problem. Your ex is teaching Brendan that he doesn’t have to work for anything and that it’s OK to renege on agreements. We hope you will keep trying to teach him otherwise, Dad.”

One can almost hear 16 year-old Brendan fuming to his friends that his dad is a cheapskate. I wonder who helped teach him to think that way about his dad?

“Of course there were areas of safety; nothing could get at me if I curled up on my father’s lap, holding onto his ear…All about him was safe.”–Naomi Margaret Mitchison, Scottish Novelist and Poet

I think all of us hope our daughters will have the same type of memories of us…