Category: Blog

May 2, 2018 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

Here’s the final article in Terry Brennan’s excellent series on fatherlessness (Daily Caller, 4/30/18).  This one’s about the politics of fatherlessness.  Fatherlessness is, to a great extent a matter of public policy and, public policy being mostly a function of the political system, fatherlessness is a political phenomenon.

Brennan has some pretty pithy quotations to offer.

On fatherhood, Democrats pursue a laissez-faire policy that there are different types of families and citizens should marry who they want or not marry at all. When campaigning, both Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton called single mothers “heroines”. Secretary Clinton said:

“Those single moms need even more family support. They need even more of the help that grandparents and aunts and uncles and good friends can provide because, it’s tough, it’s lonely.”

Fathers weren’t mentioned.

Meanwhile, Republicans, those partisans of “family values,” are little better.

While Republicans feel “the issue should be front and center”, on the National level, they don’t oblige.

Someone should ask those Republicans why, if “the issue [of fatherlessness] should be front and center,” the largest political party in the country doesn’t put it there.  After the 2016 elections, the GOP rightly ballyhooed its continued success at both the state and national levels.  Then it held majorities in both houses of Congress, almost two-thirds of state legislatures and almost two-thirds of governors were Republicans.  With such one-sided majorities at the national and state levels, you’d think they’d be comfortable taking on any issue that “should be front and center.”

But as Brennan points out, they didn’t and don’t.  He cites Leslie Loftis of Leading Women for Shared Parenting for the likely reason excuse.

“For the Republican side, I have a theory: the “War on Women” smear hovers ominously over all Republicans, especially men. Republican politicians have been threatened to within an inch of their funding if they mention anything that could be turned into a sexist trope.”

Very true.  But here’s what’s also true: when you’re the country’s largest and most successful political party, you can decide on a narrative that takes the matter of fatherlessness out of that “sexist trope.”  That is, you can do that if you really think the issue’s important as Republicans pretend to.  Indeed, you can frame the issue as one that harms mothers as well as kids and fathers, because it does.

But more importantly, over the past several years, we’ve had a good number of states whose legislatures have considered shared parenting bills.  Just six days ago, the Governor of Kentucky, Matt Bevin, signed into law the first-ever presumption of equal parenting time for divorcing parents.  It passed the state House and Senate with a whopping two “nay” votes.

So where were the gender warriors?  What was their massive impact on legislators?  On the governor?  Which representatives or senators are hiding under their beds, terrified of the “War on Women” trope? 

Nowhere to be found.  The same was true when a combination shared parenting and alimony reform bill passed overwhelmingly in both houses of the Florida Legislature three years ago.  Yes, Florida NOW opposed the bill, but there’s no evidence that their opposition had any impact on the legislature or indeed on the process at all.

As Brennan points out, the issue of fatherlessness has never been more in the public eye and, as always, shared parenting continues to enjoy approval ratings by the public of landslide proportions.  So the notion that Republicans can’t use their massive political capital to promote family court reform as an effort to address fatherlessness rings hollow.

Weirdly, conservatives have spent much time and silver promoting marriage.

For conservatives, while life begins at conception, fatherhood seems to both begin and end at the altar. As such, most conservative policies are formulated by “marriage experts”, focusing on marriage instead of parenthood.

One such policy is “promoting marriage” where $600 million in spending hasn’t helped:

Stated another way, Democrats and Republicans alike create an array of laws that make marriage and children a terrible bet, particularly for men, and then spend large sums of money exhorting men to marry.  Make sense?

The simple fact is that, until law and public policy stop taking fathers’ children from them and plunging them into penury to continue supporting the women who don’t like them well enough to hang around, marriage rates will continue to decline.  Why wouldn’t they?  Reform of laws on parenting time, child support, paternity fraud, adoption, domestic violence and the like won’t alone solve the problem of declining marriage rates.  But until we enact those reforms, marriage will continue to be a bad idea for men.

Brennan’s closing is apt.

Only two questions remain. If not now, when? And if not with current leaders, then with whom?

Tax law prohibits the National Parents Organization from taking sides in political races.  We never have and never will.  But Brennan’s right; if there’s a political component to our crisis of fatherlessness – and there is – then there’s a political way to deal with that component.  Targeting for electoral defeat those politicians who vote the wrong way on issues related to fatherlessness by organizations that can enter the political fray is one good way to let them and others know that the movement for family court reform isn’t not going away and we mean business.

 

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National Parents Organization is a Shared Parenting Organization

National Parents Organization is a non-profit that educates the public, families, educators, and legislators about the importance of shared parenting and how it can reduce conflict in children, parents, and extended families. Along with Shared Parenting we advocate for fair Child Support and Alimony Legislation. Want to get involved?  Here’s how:

• Become an official member of the National Parents Organization team.
• Join our Facebook Page.

Together, we can drive home the family, child development, social and national benefits of shared parenting, and fair child support and alimony. Thank you for your activism.

#fatherlessness

April 30, 2018 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

Here, Naomi Schaefer Riley of the American Enterprise Institute, takes on the issue of child welfare agencies and how they disserve children, the very people they exist to benefit (AEI, 4/20/18). There can’t be too much criticism of those agencies. State CPS do, on balance, a pretty poor job of protecting or providing needed services to kids. But sadly, Riley’s take on her topic is extremely limited and one-dimensional.

It appears in her first sentence and doesn’t get much further.

Why do our courts make decisions about the fate of children on a timeline designed for adults?

It’s a fair question; too bad Riley never answered it or really even tried. The gist of the issue is that kids, particularly very young ones, exist short-term. Obviously, a case that takes two years to resolve is one thing for adults and something else entirely for an infant, a toddler or even an older child. So yes, children could benefit if their situations were resolved more quickly.

Or would they be? Riley uses a single example to illustrate her point, but unfortunately never grasps the limitations that places on her analysis. Briefly, Rachel Schneiter began caring for a newborn whose mother was clearly incapable of caring for it or her two older children.

Schneiter recalls the “terrible conditions” she saw when she arrived at the home (which was part of a supportive housing facility): “There were dirty, stool-filled diapers left on the floor. There was garbage covering every surface.”

So Schneiter became involved with the mother, attended the birth and became the child’s godmother. Soon enough, Erie County CPS took the two older children into foster care and the mother asked that Schneiter be appointed the newborn’s guardian. The little girl spent the first year of her life with Schneiter and her husband, at which point, CPS decided to “reunite” her with her two older siblings. Never mind that the little girl knew nothing about the two older children and had no relationship with them.

So Schneiter went to court to try to convince judges that the child’s best interests lay in a continuing relationship with her and her husband. She succeeded, but the entire process took two years and apparently hasn’t yet been finally decided. Needless to say, taking the child from the Schneiters and giving her to foster parents she’d never met, with two brothers she’d no concept of, and all the while receiving visits from the Schneiters, wasn’t in the child’s interest.

That of course is Riley’s point. But the answer to her initial question – why does it take so long? – never appears. Had Riley ventured to answer it, she’d have produced a much more in-depth and interesting article.

After all, it was just two weeks ago that the Buffalo News ran an article on the catastrophe that is Erie County CPS. I reported on that here. In a nutshell, Erie County’s problems are what we’ve seen time and again elsewhere. Too little money to pay caseworkers means too few caseworkers and too high turnover of those who do come to work. That means the caseworkers on the job are too inexperienced on average to do a good job and, in any event, carry too-high caseloads.

Almost certainly all that played a big part in their incompetent treatment of the little girl in the Schneiters’ care, but not a word of it appears in Riley’s piece.

Laudably, she briefly comes to grips with the impact of a dysfunctional CPS system on foster parents.

Unfortunately, the Schneiters’ story is not uncommon. I hear from foster parents all over the country who are the victims of “arbitrary and capricious” decisions by child welfare caseworkers. It is hardly surprising then that a study from the Foster Care Institute found that turnover rates for foster parents ranged from 30-50%.

There is not much data on why foster parents decide to leave the system. A lot of states don’t seem particularly curious about the answer. But a 2004 survey of New York families who fostered found that of those who stopped, “dissatisfaction with agency” was the second most common reason after “adoption of foster children.”

We’ve seen this before as well. The low funding and general incompetence of CPS agencies affect not only the children they’re supposed to serve, their parents and courts, but foster parents as well. The piece I wrote here back in 2016 about Washington State could apply word for word to the situation in Erie County described by Riley.

[Foster parent Veronica Moody] watched as the children she cared for suffered in limbo, unsure of where they belonged, while the state bungled dealings with their birth parents. Most of the kids’ cases went through at least four caseworkers as they lived with the Moodys, setting back progress by months each time while the new workers got their bearings and developed new plans…

“All the problems the state causes, due to lack of resources and lack of training, make our job as foster parents very difficult,” Moody said. “It burns you out.”…

Foster parents say they’re being driven away by a state agency plagued by heavy workloads and high turnover. Overwhelmed state social workers often don’t return calls or email, leaving parents feeling unsupported and disrespected. Caregivers say they’re treated like “glorified babysitters” instead of team members. If they complain, they say the state opens trivial investigations or threatens to move the kids….

The low morale seeps through the system, and foster parents feel it keenly, according to the results of an annual DSHS survey released in May. The report said foster parents were “significantly less likely than in the prior year to say that workers listened to their input.”

But the deficiencies in Riley’s piece don’t stop there. Having failed to consider why the process for the little girl in her example is taking so long, she also failed to consider why it shouldn’t. Yes, what happened to the child is outrageous and unnecessary. But here are some facts Riley might ponder:

Parents have parental rights. No child protective agency is free to ignore them or give them short shrift, much as they might like to. As a state agency, CPS is required to afford parents the full panoply of constitutional and statutory rights to which they’re entitled. Would Riley deny them those rights (if she could) in order to avoid deciding children’s issues “on a timeline designed for adults?” I doubt it.

And what does Riley know of foster care? In her example, the Schneiters look like far better parents for the little girl than her own mother, but, to say the least, that’s not always the case. Indeed, on average, foster care is far less preferable for kids than is parental care. Whether she knows it or not, Riley’s arguing for CPS agencies to more easily and quickly take children from parents and place them into foster care. As a matter of policy and based on the known data on foster care vs. parental care, that’s the very last thing we should do.

So, if she were queen and ruled by fiat, what would Riley do? Take away parental rights in favor of state care of children just so the process can move forward in “child time?” Riley didn’t take the time to think through her article. I expect better of the AEI.

 

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National Parents Organization is a Shared Parenting Organization

National Parents Organization is a non-profit that educates the public, families, educators, and legislators about the importance of shared parenting and how it can reduce conflict in children, parents, and extended families. Along with Shared Parenting we advocate for fair Child Support and Alimony Legislation. Want to get involved?  Here’s how:

• Become an official member of the National Parents Organization team.
• Join our Facebook Page.

Together, we can drive home the family, child development, social and national benefits of shared parenting, and fair child support and alimony. Thank you for your activism.

#CPS, #AEI, #ErieCounty

April 29, 2018 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

The war among social scientists over shared parenting took on a new front recently with the publication of a special issue of the Journal of Divorce and Remarriage. Its topic is the latest research on a number of aspects of shared parenting. It was edited by Dr. Linda Nielsen and includes articles by such luminaries as Richard Warshak, Michael Lamb, Sanford Braver, William Fabricius, Malin Bergstrom and others.

It is a powerful salvo in the aforementioned war. The issue is another attempt to (a) describe the social science to date on shared parenting and, as any such attempt must also do, (b) clamp down on the disinformation coming from the few remaining anti-shared parenting advocates. Dr. Nielsen wrote a preface to the issue that describes in some detail examples of the non-scientific and in some cases non-ethical contributions to the debate on shared parenting made by those advocates.

Professionals have too often infused these discussions with nonacademic remarks, statements with little to no scientific basis, and tactics that diminish the quality of discourse, obscure the empirical data, and potentially lead to decisions that are not in children’s best interests. One common example of these harmful polemics is ridiculing and rebuking scholars or individuals who support JPC as “fathers’ rights” activists who are waging a “gender war” where fathers’ selfish needs are put ahead of children’s needs.

As I never tire of pointing out, if these people had an argument, why don’t they make it? The notion that, in some way, the existing practice of handing primary custody to mothers almost as a matter of course while consigning fathers to the status of mere visitor is not a “gendered” phenomenon, but attempting to equalize parenting time between the two parents is one is, on one hand, a desperate attempt to deflect attention from the main issue –children’s well-being – and on the other hand, just plain stupid. Scrupulous advocates with something to say that’s worth hearing don’t make such a transparently threadbare claim.

Referring to JPC as a “grand social experiment” that is conducted without knowing how it affects children implies that JPC is haphazardly conceived, lacks research support, and imperils children in ways that should appall or frighten us.

The anti-shared parenting crowd frequently trots out this entirely meritless claim. Reread the above sentence. Be aware that every single word applies to existing practice and not to JPC (Joint Physical Custody). We indeed have conducted a “grand social experiment” over the past several decades. Encouraged by feminist groups, domestic violence advocates, mental health professionals and others, we decided that kids don’t need fathers, only mothers. We’ve known for a long time the disastrous consequences of that ill-advised and ideologically-driven policy. We see it in crime figures, education data, information on addiction, low workforce participation rates, suicide rates, etc.

Our experimentation with the hypothesis that children don’t need their fathers indeed “lacks empirical support and imperils children in ways that should appall or frighten us.” We need to do several things to right the wrong we’ve been committing for so long and shared parenting is the most important. Those who argue against shared parenting as the default position in family courts necessarily argue in favor of poorer outcomes for children. That they use weak, unscrupulous arguments to promote their point of view is beneath contempt.

Meanwhile, reliable science militates strongly in favor of shared parenting where possible.

The consensus of these separate groups of experts and of the children themselves fails to support those who frame JPC as an experiment, contend that fathering time is not high on the list of children’s priorities, or that JPC is not child centered.

That consensus dates from the 1970s, but, for the anti-shared parenting crowd, almost 50 years of research isn’t sufficient.

In that vein, when scholars or policymakers warn that we should not encourage or support JPC until we accumulate “more” research—more than the 60 existing studies that have compared children’s outcomes in JPC and SPC families—we might wonder why they do not issue similar warnings against SPC given the large body of research that has failed to support it.

Among the many outrageous assertions by those who would separate children from their fathers, this may be the worst. Yes, we all want more research. More information is usually better than less. But family court judges can’t defer action on all child custody cases until Robert Emery and his fellow travelers decide to give them the go-ahead. They need to issue temporary and then permanent orders in a timely fashion.

The question then becomes on what basis they make those decisions. Should it be on the non-existent science supporting sole custody or on the rich, bountiful and well-conducted work supporting shared parenting as being in children’s interests? Yes, the latter is incomplete, but of course it always will be. There likely will never come a time when there is simply no question that hasn’t been answered, no new area to consider. Therefore, judges must make their custody decisions on the best science available. And that science overwhelmingly supports shared care absent a proven record of child abuse, unfitness, etc.

We welcome the special issue of the Journal of Divorce and Remarriage. Nothing will ever bring the anti-dad warriors to heel, but for the rest of us, for those with open minds and a true desire to act in children’s best interests, it’s a valuable resource and a telling blow in the ongoing war.

 

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National Parents Organization is a Shared Parenting Organization

National Parents Organization is a non-profit that educates the public, families, educators, and legislators about the importance of shared parenting and how it can reduce conflict in children, parents, and extended families. Along with Shared Parenting we advocate for fair Child Support and Alimony Legislation. Want to get involved?  Here’s how:

• Become an official member of the National Parents Organization team.
• Join our Facebook Page.

Together, we can drive home the family, child development, social and national benefits of shared parenting, and fair child support and alimony. Thank you for your activism.

#sharedparenting, #solecustody, #JournalofDivorceandRemarriage, #Dr.LindaNielsen

April 27, 2018 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

Professor Richard Warshak has a new and thoughtful post on his Facebook page in celebration of Parental Alienation Awareness Day. He does what so many have found the need to do – address the false claims of those who seek to convince others that parental alienation either doesn’t exist or is a sinister ruse by abusive fathers to deny to “protective” mothers the custody of their children.

Warshak lists the five most common claims of PA deniers.

1. Deflect attention from the reality of divorce poison and its destructive impact with debates about whether parental alienation constitutes a bona fide syndrome.

According to this claim, the fact that the DSM-V has no explicit diagnosis called “Parental Alienation,” means, well, something. Amusingly, they never get around to saying just what we’re supposed to conclude from the fact that the DSM-V has several entries that describe parental alienation and/or its effects on children, but never uses the words “parental alienation.” As Warshak points out, “You also will not find “reckless driving syndrome” in the DSM-5. But you would be wise to avoid getting in a car with a driver who has this problem.” Indeed, there are countless examples of bad, destructive behavior that aren’t listed in the DSM-V, but that fact fails to render them any less bad and destructive. These of course are simple and obvious points that PA deniers fail to account for. They don’t because they can’t. That they raise them at all merely highlights the weakness of their arguments.

2. Claim that it is only a speculation, hypothesis, or theory that children can become alienated from one parent when exposed to the other parent’s negative influence.

And yet, just look at yesterday’s post about the two New Jersey lawyers who sought to instruct others of their profession about PA and what lawyers should do to identify and deal with it. They were quite frank about the fact that family lawyers and judges see PA frequently. There’s nothing theoretical about it.

3. Attribute unsupportable, fake positions to parental alienation studies, and then refute the fake positions—a tactic known as “attacking a straw man.” For instance, a recently published study claimed that “the alienation hypothesis” (see denial strategy #2 above) maintains that parental denigration is only unilateral, not reciprocal, and that all children exposed to parental denigration become alienated from the target of denigration. When the study found that a group of volunteer college students reported that both parents denigrated each other, and the children did not reject either parent, the authors of the study concluded that “the alienation hypothesis” was not supported and that parental denigration does not cause children to reject the parent who is denigrated.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that no scholar has claimed that parental denigration necessarily leads to a child rejecting the denigrated parent. Of course many children whose parents badmouth each other maintain relationships with both parents. Rejecting a parent is an extreme consequence, not a common one. Furthermore, anyone who has worked with irrationally alienated children knows that these children are reluctant to admit that their favored parent maligned their other parent— in fact, these children are reluctant to admit anything negative about the parent whom they favor.

Again I say, if PA deniers had real arguments to make, why would they resort to shoddy claims like the straw-man argument Warshak describes? It fairly shouts “We have nothing with which to attack PA.”

4. Ignore studies that fail to support one’s pet theories. For example, while promoting skepticism about the notion that children can be manipulated by a parent to hate the other parent, the authors of the study mentioned above failed to cite the largest study, published by the American Bar Association, that explicitly attributed children’s problems to being brainwashed by one parent against the other. They also failed to cite the volume of scientific evidence about various mechanisms by which children’s attitudes can be influenced and by which negative stereotypes about a parent can be promulgated.

There’s little that can’t be proved as long as one simply ignores countervailing facts. The difference between mythology and science is their different treatment of facts. Mythology ignores disagreeable facts in order to maintain the myth, the story, the narrative. No one believes that Icarus and Daedalus fashioned wings and flew, but, as Coleridge pointed out, the essence of fiction, poetry and myth is the suspension of our disbelief, i.e. the willingness to ignore facts. Science, by contrast constructs its conclusions around facts. Facts that contradict hypotheses demand they be reformulated to fit the facts. Therefore, it’s fair to say that PA deniers are attempting to establish a form of mythology or some other fictional narrative in place of the hard science on PA. Part of that mythology is the “protective mother” movement, but I won’t get into that now.

5. Promulgate, or accept without investigation or critical scrutiny, dramatic and exaggerated claims that the evaluator, therapist, child representative, and judge in a case mistook a child’s justified rejection of a parent for unjustified alienation, or that children removed from toxic alienating environments have been abused by the family court system. Such claims are repeated without considering all the evidence weighed by the court in reaching its decision.

Again, as with all mythology, the facts (e.g. the ones before the court) must take a backseat to the overarching claim that family courts are mostly concerned with doing wrong to mothers.

There is a “bottom line” to all this special pleading, and Warshak nails it.

The fact that some children are able to resist does not obscure the reality that such abuse exists. Professionals who feed denial and skepticism play into the hands of those who want us to look away.

Because deniers and skeptics contribute to a backlash against protecting psychologically abused children from efforts to alienate them from a parent…

Parental alienation is child abuse. Those who seek to deny its existence, confuse others about its reality, excuse alienators, etc. contribute to that abuse.

 

Donate

 

National Parents Organization is a Shared Parenting Organization

National Parents Organization is a non-profit that educates the public, families, educators, and legislators about the importance of shared parenting and how it can reduce conflict in children, parents, and extended families. Along with Shared Parenting we advocate for fair Child Support and Alimony Legislation. Want to get involved?  Here’s how:

• Become an official member of the National Parents Organization team.
• Join our Facebook Page.

Together, we can drive home the family, child development, social and national benefits of shared parenting, and fair child support and alimony. Thank you for your activism.

#parentalalienation, #RichardWarshak

April 26, 2018

Thanks to Kentucky legislators and Gov. Bevin, Kentucky now leads the nation in protecting children’s best interests when parents divorce or separate. The historic moment arrived on Thursday, April 26, when Gov. Matt Bevin signed HB528, a bill stating equal parenting time is best for children.

“April 26 goes down in history as the day Kentucky became the first true shared parenting state in the United States. Kentucky, more than any other state, can now say it does everything it can to give children two loving parents after divorce – just as our children deserve,” said Matt Hale, Chair of National Parents Organization in Kentucky, who led the reform effort for five years. “Research overwhelmingly shows children want and need both parents after separation. Our state lawmakers responded by aligning state laws with the research. This represents a common sense yet unprecedented move. Our lawmakers and primary sponsors Jason Petrie and Kevin Bratcher should be commended.”

The law passed the Kentucky House and Senate before Gov. Bevin signed it – the law takes effect later today.”

Read Press Release…

“Keep your eye on Missouri shared parenting HB1667! National Parents Organization’s MO Affiliate Chair, Linda Reutzel, and her members spearheaded the effort to introduce this issue to Rep. Kathy Swan back in 2014, and continued their campaign to educate the public and legislatures about the need for shared parenting and the need to pass this important bill.  We applaud Rep. Swan for her support of HB 1667. NPO will continue to watch as this moves up to the Governor’s Office for final signature.”
https://themissouritimes.com/50574/shared-parenting-bill-moving-through-legislature/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Alisha Shurr

JEFFERSON CITY, MO. — A bill establishing the presumption that equal parenting time in custody arrangements is in the best interest of the child is moving through the Missouri legislature.

HB 1667, sponsored by Rep. Kathryn Swan, was heard in the Senate Committee on Seniors, Families and Children on Wednesday morning. The House approved the bill 137-7 at the beginning of April.

The legislation is a follow-up to an “equal parenting bill,” HB 1550, that become law in 2016 that supporters say is not being properly enforced in some courts.

The current bill would establish the presumption that equal parenting time in custody arrangements is in the best interest of the child. Supports said this would help ensure fair treatment for all parents.  

“I am basically relegated to being a backseat father and a part-time dad,” Jeffrey King said. Under the current system, he only has custody of his children every other weekend and one night a week.

During the separation period between his now ex-wife, they shared custody of their children fifty-fifty. Unable to agree on which school district to enroll their children in, a judge award primary custody to King’s ex-wife.

Multiple fathers stepped up to share their stories. It took Mark Ludwig 204 days to get access to his son. Eric Edwards just wants to be “treated as an equal” in the eyes of the court.

Those testifying repeatedly called this a “pro-family bill” that didn’t just help fathers or mothers but also the children.

“Research overwhelmingly supports this principle,” said Linda Reutzel. “Equal shared parenting is in the best thing for children…Common sense and research show that the worst thing you can do to a child experiencing the divorce of their parents is to take one of them away.”

Opponents of the legislation disagreed with that assessment, stating that the research doesn’t back that assessment up.

“I am seeing a trend of fifty/fifty but it is having consequences,” said Elizabeth Miranda, a therapist who has a “front row seat” to what is happening with children in custody arrangements.

She described a situation where a child was anxious, stressed, and depressed because of who her parents handled the co-parenting arrangement.

There was also an instance of a male with domestic violence convictions being awarded fifty/fifty custody, according to Miranda. This — the potential for a rapist, an abuser, or an unfit parent to be awarded equal parenting time — was the main point of opposition to the bill. Supporters said that’s not what the bill does.

Those in opposition to the bill also pointed out that the court already takes into account what is in the best interest of the child and that this bill shifts the focus to the parents.

“I am against any law that presumes one parenting arrangement is best for all of Missouri’s families,” an attorney from Kansas City said. She called the legislation “at best damaging, at worst dangerous.”

Those testifying in support countered the claims saying the bill doesn’t take away a judge’s discretion but simply starts the conversation at fifty/fifty custody. The committee took no action on the bill.

The equal time shared parenting movement is happening nationwide with dozens of states passing laws that are similar to Missouri.

Alisha Shurr is a reporter for the Missouri Times and Missouri Times Magazine. She joined the Missouri Times in January 2018 after working as a copy editor for her hometown newspaper in Southern Oregon. Alisha is a graduate of Kansas State University. Contact Alisha at alisha@themissouritimes.com.

April 26, 2018 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

And who better than Warren Farrell to explain why fatherlessness is so important (Daily Caller, 4/24/18)?  Farrell of course is the man who’s been sounding the alarm about that very topic for longer than anyone else on the planet. Farrell’s piece comes within the context of Terry Brennan’s DC series on fatherlessness. 

It just so happens that Farrell’s just published a book entitled The Boy Crisis, so his information is nothing if not up to date.

When I began the research for The Boy Crisis some eleven years ago and discovered that boys in more than 60 of the largest developed nations were falling behind academically, and in mental health (e.g., suicide; shootings); physical health (e.g., sperm count, IQs); and in preparation for employment, I naturally wondered why this was the case. I was able to identify 10 causes. But one cause consistently surfaced as more pivotal than the others: minimal or no father involvement. What I came to call “dad-deprivation.”

Farrell isn’t the only one to identify fatherlessness as the common denominator of a range of personal and social pathologies.  As was widely noted after the tragic slaying of high school students in Parkland, Florida, 26 of the 27 deadliest mass shooters grew up father-deprived.  Astonishingly, dad-deprivation comes from public policy.

Developed nations, it turns out, were indirectly fostering dad-deprivation in two ways: More permission both for divorce, and for children being born to unmarried mothers.

Warren Farrell is the kindest and gentlest of men.  In this case, he’s too kind and too gentle.  “More permission… for divorce” is one way of putting the matter.  “Financially incentivizing mothers to leave their husbands and take the kids free of any adverse consequences” is another.  “Lauding single motherhood as heroic while it damages both boys and girls” is still another.  Farrell’s not wrong, but I wouldn’t mind seeing him take off the gloves once in a while.

There seems to be a theory that contemporary readers can’t absorb anything printed on a page if it’s not in numbered, bullet-point form.  So Farrell obliges:

So what are the five “must do’s” for a biological dad and mom (whether married or not) to give their child (boy or girl) the best chance of doing well?

1. Approximately equal time with both parents (more important when not married);
2. Married parents living together, or unmarried parents living within about 20 minutes of drive time from each other;
3. No bad mouthing (especially if divorced);
4. Consistent couples’ counseling (especially if divorced);
5. “Checks-and-balance parenting”

Yep.  Kids need both parents equally, whether they’re married, living together or neither.  If we truly care about kids’ interests the way we say we do, we’ll drum that into everyone, adults and children alike from dawn to dusk for the next 20 years or so.  That way a generation will have gotten the message and we’ll see what they do with it.  Whatever the case though, our current policies and pop culture that frankly lie about the need for fathers need to change and change fast.

And let’s be clear; fathers aren’t mothers.  Dads do parenting differently than do mothers and that’s a good thing.  Humans are a bi-parental species so our kids benefit from the different style each sex offers.   The two together create a sort of synergy that teaches children that they’re special and loved unconditionally (mother), but that there are limits to acceptable behavior and that respect must be earned (father).

Checks-and-balance parenting means giving equal credence to the natural tensions between mom style and dad style. For example, most of us already know that mom style is more likely to involve considerable nurturance, vigilance and protection of the child. Few of us know dad style, or its importance.

Dad-style more often includes these ten behaviors:

1. walking a fine line between safety and risk-taking
2. juggling the roles of player and coach during play
3. being creative, spontaneous, and silly
4. being less likely to set boundaries, but more likely to enforce the boundaries they set
5. Immersing children in camping and nature, and encouraging independent exploration while providing a safety net
6. Roughhousing
7. Letting children wrestle, climb trees or do other activities that could result in minor injuries, while protecting against major injuries
8. When playing with their children, allowing them to lose when they are not trying to their maximum capacity;
9. Challenging the kids’ limits;
10. Teasing

It’s very hard for children to become complete adults without the active input of both parents.  We’re humans; it’s how we evolved.

When both a mom and dad hear each other’s best intent with equal respect, and then negotiate the best blend for a given situation, the result is the checks-and-balance parenting that becomes their child’s best inheritance.

That’s a pretty good description of what ought to happen in divorce, but often doesn’t.

 

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National Parents Organization is a Shared Parenting Organization

National Parents Organization is a non-profit that educates the public, families, educators, and legislators about the importance of shared parenting and how it can reduce conflict in children, parents, and extended families. Along with Shared Parenting we advocate for fair Child Support and Alimony Legislation. Want to get involved?  Here’s how:

• Become an official member of the National Parents Organization team.
• Join our Facebook Page.

Together, we can drive home the family, child development, social and national benefits of shared parenting, and fair child support and alimony. Thank you for your activism.

#fatherlessness, #WarrenFarrell, #child’sbestinterests

April 25, 2018 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

Today is Parental Alienation Awareness Day. As such, it’s with great pleasure that I read this article by two New Jersey family lawyers about PA (New Jersey Law Journal, 4/23/18). The two grasp the fact and nature of parental alienation, understand that it constitutes a virulent form of child abuse and urge their colleagues and judges to take action to stop it when they first see it happening. Well done, Stephen P. Haller and Jennie L. Osborne.

From their position as family law practitioners, Haller and Osborne have seen how pervasive efforts to alienate children have become.

The theft of a child’s affection by one parent (or grandparent) from the other parent occurs frighteningly often. Most family practitioners have seen these cases at oral arguments on motion days, and many of us have represented a parent targeted by an alienator.

But, as we’ve seen all too often (most recently in a British case discussed by John Bolch on the Madelyn Stowe Blog) courts are far too slow to recognize PA and do something about it.

Despite being well-intentioned and exercising their best efforts, courts do not always spot alienation at its early stages, adequately penalize it when it occurs, save the children who are being victimized by an alienator, or correct the misbehavior of the alienating parent whether by coercion or other means.

Indeed, in the aforementioned British case, the judge actually saw clearly the mother’s alienation of the children and called it by its proper name – abuse. Even so, she left the children in the mother’s care for about nine months. If that case is any indication, far more than judicial education is required to remedy the problem of parental alienation occurring under a judge’s nose.

Haller’s and Osborne’s article is for lawyers practicing in family courts.

As advocates for a parent being targeted by a spouse or partner, we must alert our clients to the early telltale signs of alienation. The very first time a young child with a previously good relationship with a parent states that he or she no longer wants to stay overnight for some amorphous or inexplicable reason (or for an adult-phrased reason), warning bells should be sounding. A child who refuses to speak to a parent by telephone for no reason whatsoever, is a budding problem. A parent who refuses a child the freedom to talk to the other parent in privacy, is a major problem.

If PA is suspected, how can it be addressed?

We must try hard to show the court some “proof.”

Proof can be objective or circumstantial. Circumstantial proof is, at the outset, more likely than not the only evidence available. The circumstantial proof of resistance to contact, parroting of adult concepts, a cooling or stiffening of relationships and general avoidance of a parent without just cause, are all circumstantial indications that alienation is occurring. Objective proof may come later: Seek the services of an expert either partisan (but with an impeccable reputation for honesty and fair reporting) or court appointed. Objective indications of alienation often come from an expert who can, in a non-argumentative fashion, place before the court cogent conclusions, to a reasonable degree of professional certainty, as to whether or not alienation is occurring and if so, by whom.

The problem being that, by the time the necessary evidence is accumulated, the alienation may have passed the point of no return. If that’s the case, the targeted parent finds him/herself in a legal and financial bind.

The targeted parent, assuming he or she intends to fight for the child’s right to have two parents in their life, is facing a Hobson’s choice: Does the parent accept a drastically constricted relationship with the child, if any? Does that targeted parent spend what often amounts to copious amounts of money on lawyers, experts, reunification programs and the like without any assurance of success? What becomes of those parents who lack the funds to fight for their children’s rights? We call attention not just to the victimization of children by their alienator but also to the oppression of the targeted parent, the favorable resolution of which depends upon dedication, persistence and willingness to adopt a “long view” since results often do not come quickly. It also requires good lawyering, and a considerable war chest.

In short, as things stand now, only fairly affluent parents have the resources to defend against a campaign of alienation by the other parent. That means that less well-to-do parents can do nothing but sit back, suffer and watch their children do the same. The judicial system offers them no recourse.

Obviously, family courts have a lot of work to do to stem the tide of parental alienation. First, judges and lawyers must be trained to spot parental alienation. A lawyer who allows a client to promote the alienation of the other parent should be seen to have committed an ethical violation. After all, lawyers are ethically obligated to withdraw from a case if they know a client intends to perjure him/herself. And parental alienation is certainly a form of perjury. It tells the court a known lie – that the child’s animus against the targeted parent has an appropriate basis when it in fact does not.

And judges need to understand that PA relies on the glacial pace of court proceedings to do its work, establishing a fait accompli, i.e. a child who refuses contact with the targeted parent. That being the case, judges need to expedite hearings on parental alienation and take steps, such as changing custody, awarding attorney’s fees, etc. early on in an effort to stop the alienation before it proceeds too far.

Haller and Osborne have another idea.

Why could there not also be a dedicated “parent alienation court”? Judges could be specially trained and sensitized to these issues in a way that general judicial education cannot match. The resources necessary to combat alienation could be concentrated in each vicinage.

That’s not a bad idea. But whatever the case, parental alienation must be seen for what it is – child abuse – and courts and lawyers must be tasked with putting a stop to it.

 

Donate

 

National Parents Organization is a Shared Parenting Organization

National Parents Organization is a non-profit that educates the public, families, educators, and legislators about the importance of shared parenting and how it can reduce conflict in children, parents, and extended families. Along with Shared Parenting we advocate for fair Child Support and Alimony Legislation. Want to get involved?  Here’s how:

• Become an official member of the National Parents Organization team.
• Join our Facebook Page.

Together, we can drive home the family, child development, social and national benefits of shared parenting, and fair child support and alimony. Thank you for your activism.

#parentalalienation, #childabuse