Category: Blog

January 24, 2018 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

It appears that this writer, Mava Enoka, woke up one day and discovered anti-dad discrimination in a couple of areas of New Zealand life (New Zealand Herald, 1/23/18).  She’s now so expert on the topic that she’s written the linked-to piece advising all of us what needs to be done to make fathers and mothers equal.  Predictably, she gets a lot wrong.  But, to her credit, she gets some things right that need saying.

For me, the first signs that imbalance existed in the perceived roles of mothers and fathers came on the day my son was born. My husband rushed from work to be by my side but after our son was delivered, it felt like he was expected to go home.

The nurse at the hospital seemed to think he was an extra in the scene, perhaps not quite understanding how babies are made. My husband wasn’t allowed to lie or sit with me on the bed, he certainly wasn’t allowed to stay the night with us. He wasn’t allowed to use the toilet next to our room. He wasn’t allowed to be in the room after 11pm. Here is literally 50 percent of the child, my primary support and partner, who was made to feel like he shouldn’t be there at all.

And it was more than his feelings at work.  Apparently the hospital at which their child was delivered has a policy of no dads allowed.  That was even true of one woman who’d had a C-section and couldn’t even get out of bed to see to her newborn.  Dad?  He could have done the job and saved the hospital precious staff time in the process, but he wasn’t allowed on the premises after a certain hour.  As Enoka points out, that delivers an unmistakable message to both fathers and mothers.

Unfortunately, while Enoka understands that the hospital’s policy is wrong in many ways, her article is another that seems to conclude that, with a few tweaks to parental leave policy, everything will be hunky-dory.

Currently in New Zealand a parent is entitled to 18 weeks of paid parental leave, although "paid" is a strong word…

The primary eligibility for paid parental leave lies with the mother. She can transfer all or part of her entitlement to the father, if he’s eligible…

In New Zealand, mothers are usually the ones who take the significant chuck of parental leave. A 2009 report by the Families Commission found that out of 1721 fathers surveyed, 42 percent working full-time and 54 percent working part-time were unable to take any parental leave.

Interestingly, Enoka’s hymn to the wonders of parental leave and the necessity of fathers being equally entitled to it doesn’t extend to her own husband.  By law, she has 18 weeks of leave, any part of which she can transfer to her husband, but he took only 2 ½ days off work to be with his new child.  She explains that by the fact that he’s the primary breadwinner in the family and they couldn’t afford for him to take more time off.

Does it occur to her that the same is true in a great many of Kiwi families?  Does she grasp the fact that, because that’s the case, the law can grant dads all the leave it wants, but most families will be unable to afford for them to use it?  Does she realize that those facts mean that her “solution” to the absence of fathers in children’s lives is no solution at all?

The answers to the above questions are no, no and no, respectively.

Meanwhile, does Enoka once mention family courts?  No to that question too.  In New Zealand, as throughout the English-speaking world and beyond, courts adopt the same anti-dad bias that the hospital demonstrated so pointedly.  But to that issue, she’s deaf.  Perhaps next time she’ll use her space in the NZ Herald to call for parental equality in family courts.  After all, while parental leave has been shown time and again to make little difference in parental behavior, family courts are one of the major reasons why so many children are effectively fatherless.  As such, family courts are uniquely situated to make the biggest impact on that worst of all social problems.

Still, despite the many flaws of her piece, Enoka does deliver some information that every reader needs to know.

Perceptions and stereotypes of fatherhood need to be challenged, too. Specifically, the idea that babies need their mums at home while dads, who are not as innately nurturing, should keep working.

Nathan Mikaere Wallis is part of the Brain Wave Trust and X Factor Education. He has been a lecturer brain development, language and communication. He says there’s nothing inherent that makes women better parents.

"There is no scientific evidence that I’m aware of that genitalia has anything to do with your ability to parent a baby."

It’s about attachment and who pays quality attention to the baby. The human brain is more concerned with finding someone who will provide it with intimacy and language rather than the gender of the person, he explains.

"The stereotype isn’t really true. Men are incredibly nurturing and loving and can have sustained, reciprocal interactions with infants."

I wonder if any family court judges read her article.

 

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.

#parentalleave, #fatherlessness, #familycourts

A Personal Message from Ned Holstein

National Parents Organization has launched a nationwide search for a new, full time, professional Executive Director! Having an experienced, accomplished, full time, well-paid Executive Director will vastly improve our strength and effectiveness. If you like NPO now, wait til you see 2018!

At considerable expense, we have contracted with a major national executive search firm in New York City that specializes in non-profits. Known as DRG, they have successfully placed high executives ranging from non-profits smaller than ours to behemoths. DRG has thousands of nationwide contacts they can tap to locate good candidates. And they are experienced in how to use social media for maximum effectiveness in recruiting.

We hope to have chosen a candidate and reached an agreement with her/him by the end of January, 2018. We are excited that the Search Consultant we will work with at DRG already understands the family law issues and does not need an education in these matters.

We will be offering a substantial salary, because NPO’s success will hinge on the quality of the Executive Director we are able to attract. Candidates will be able to stay where they currently live, if they so desire. Our key people are already distributed around the country, and we work from a “virtual office.” With growth, we may need to establish a central office, but that is for the future.

Since I work without compensation, this change will cause a substantial increase in our expenses. So we do need you to continue and to even increase the gifts you have made to support this organization.

Imagine: many more media appearances; much more social media action; many more interactions with thought leaders in the areas of family court, child development and justice; much more lobbying; many more online and in-person campaigns; many more state affiliates getting much more support from the national organization; many more meetings and rallies; in short, much more of everything!

That is, much more of everything if you support us, which you can do by clicking here.

If you are interested to learn about this position, click here to see the job posting that has already gone out through multiple platforms. If you are personally interested in the position, please note that you should reply to our Search Consultant, Sara Lundberg, not to me.

Which brings up a personal note. I have been running National Parents Organization off and on since 1998 — with lots of help from many others. During these years, we have also had Dan Hogan, Glenn Sacks and Rita Fuerst Adams as Executive Directors for many of those years. Now we are taking a major step upwards towards more highly paid, experienced and professional non-profit leadership. The time is ripe for renewal, new blood, and change.

I will continue on the Board of Directors for at least one year, to ensure continuity and success with our new Executive Director. I will also lead a few specific projects, with the agreement of the new leader. So you can be sure there will be continuity, effectiveness and dynamism at the top.

We ain’t seen nothing yet!

Looking forward with excitement to the next chapter…

Together with you in the love of our children,

Ned Holstein

January 22, 2018 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

Sigh, another call for employers to do handstands to help mothers in the workplace (Wall Street Journal, 1/4/18). Its author seems to believe that she’s helping women, but in fact is doing the opposite. Any reasonable hiring manager would read Rebecca Johnson’s piece and feel nothing but dread at the prospect of hiring women. According to Johnson, employers of all stripes must essentially remake their workplaces to accommodate mothers and their children.

Here are a few of her demands:

Hands down, the greatest need working mothers articulate is for increased flexibility at work…

[Flexibility] may mean having the ability to work from home, video-conference to a meeting, work fewer but longer days each week, or another arrangement that allows the mom to get the job done without needing to be in the office during business hours every day…

Companies can make organizational shifts to support flexibility—using a project-based, as opposed to hours-based, system of personnel accounting; providing child care on-site to reduce commute time; providing hospital-grade pumps in lactation rooms with locking doors at multiple points across the organization…

More ambitiously, companies could allow employees to “job share” for a time—for example, one employee assumes the local responsibilities for a position, while a different employee covers the travel requirements for that job. Companies might also allow working mothers to “ramp down” at reduced pay. Instead of working on five projects simultaneously, a working mom could work on three until her child enters preschool (or over the summer), then return to her normal load.

So, according to Johnson, if a company contemplates hiring a woman who has a child, is expecting one or is under the age of about 44, it’s in for some serious changes. To accommodate her, it’ll need to allow her to not come in to work at a moment’s notice. After all, kids don’t give two weeks’ notice when they’re going to get the sniffles.

When moms do show up to work, those companies will need to allow them to do so on their own time, not necessarily during the company’s hours. Child care on site is of course a requisite despite the fact that, as Johnson acknowledges, day care doesn’t take children with potentially communicable diseases, so providing it doesn’t address that problem.

Even though there may be no nursing mothers employed by the company, it’s still required to provide special rooms (women’s restrooms apparently won’t do) equipped with breast pumps (for some reason, Johnson doesn’t ask the moms to provide their own).

Under Johnson’s tutelage, all companies must, when a female employee has a child, hire at least one other employee who will pick up the slack for hours not worked, business trips not taken, projects not done, etc. Presumably, the company will also be expected to fire the second employee when Mom gets back to a full schedule, if she does. In fairness to that other employee, the company should inform her in advance of the nature of her employment, i.e. it’s at the will of the mother. How many prospective employees would agree to work under those circumstances is anyone’s guess.

What’s also anyone’s guess is the cost of the various requirements placed on companies by Johnson. In a business environment in which costs, particularly labor costs, are the difference between staying alive competitively and shutting up shop, gratuitously adding to those costs won’t to sit well with top management. I can imagine Johnson pitching her ideas to a CEO or COO and having his/her response being “Why hire such a person in the first place? Why not just hire someone who can do the job?”

Interestingly, Johnson has the answer – “diversity.” Of course there’s no evidence that “diversity” improves the performance of any workplace, but Johnson never entertains the idea that “diversity” is anything but an unalloyed good.

Needless to say (because it’s the same with all such articles), Johnson imagines every employee to be a professional, every job to be either professional or in management. Nowhere does she mention the 90%+ jobs that are neither. Imagine a night-shift janitorial service being told by a young woman who may at some point wish to have a child that it needs to provide flex time for her, the ability to (in some way) not come to work, daycare for the putative little one, a special area in which to express milk and, oh by the way, another employee to fill in her slack time. Johnson doesn’t have a clue.

What about the idea that men and women, rather than expecting employers to do it for them, should plan having children in ways that place responsibility for doing so where it belongs, i.e. on them. Nope, Johnson nowhere considers the possibility. The idea that Mom and Dad should have a plan for how to care for little Andy or Jenny and how they’ll provide the money to do so before bringing the little bundle of joy into the world finds no place in her world. For her, responsibility for children isn’t parents’, but employers’.

Add to the list of important considerations not considered by Johnson the idea that fathers might play some role in her drama. According to Johnson, fathers are simply not part of the picture. Apparently, they don’t care for children and so can’t be expected to do any of the work she happily places on employers. But in her world, fathers aren’t just absent from home, they’re absent from work as well. After all, her piece is all about working mothers. Working fathers? They’re entitled to none of the benefits with which working mothers are showered by Johnson’s plan to remake the workplace. Indeed, she never mentions them. Not once.

What’s most obvious about her piece is how powerfully it militates against the very thing for which she seems to advocate – more women in the workplace. No sensible hiring manager would view Johnson’s article with anything other than trepidation bordering on dread. Johnson should read her own statement near the beginning of her article.

If you want women in positions of authority, you have to get comfortable with motherhood.

Given all her requirements of employers, that’s a very, very big “if.”

#mothers, #employment

A Personal Message from Ned Holstein

National Parents Organization has launched a nationwide search for a new, full time, professional Executive Director! Having an experienced, accomplished, full time, well-paid Executive Director will vastly improve our strength and effectiveness. If you like NPO now, wait til you see 2018!

At considerable expense, we have contracted with a major national executive search firm in New York City that specializes in non-profits. Known as DRG, they have successfully placed high executives ranging from non-profits smaller than ours to behemoths. DRG has thousands of nationwide contacts they can tap to locate good candidates. And they are experienced in how to use social media for maximum effectiveness in recruiting.

We hope to have chosen a candidate and reached an agreement with her/him by the end of January, 2018. We are excited that the Search Consultant we will work with at DRG already understands the family law issues and does not need an education in these matters.

We will be offering a substantial salary, because NPO’s success will hinge on the quality of the Executive Director we are able to attract. Candidates will be able to stay where they currently live, if they so desire. Our key people are already distributed around the country, and we work from a “virtual office.” With growth, we may need to establish a central office, but that is for the future.

Since I work without compensation, this change will cause a substantial increase in our expenses. So we do need you to continue and to even increase the gifts you have made to support this organization.

Imagine: many more media appearances; much more social media action; many more interactions with thought leaders in the areas of family court, child development and justice; much more lobbying; many more online and in-person campaigns; many more state affiliates getting much more support from the national organization; many more meetings and rallies; in short, much more of everything!

That is, much more of everything if you support us, which you can do by clicking here.

If you are interested to learn about this position, click here to see the job posting that has already gone out through multiple platforms. If you are personally interested in the position, please note that you should reply to our Search Consultant, Sara Lundberg, not to me.

Which brings up a personal note. I have been running National Parents Organization off and on since 1998 — with lots of help from many others. During these years, we have also had Dan Hogan, Glenn Sacks and Rita Fuerst Adams as Executive Directors for many of those years. Now we are taking a major step upwards towards more highly paid, experienced and professional non-profit leadership. The time is ripe for renewal, new blood, and change.

I will continue on the Board of Directors for at least one year, to ensure continuity and success with our new Executive Director. I will also lead a few specific projects, with the agreement of the new leader. So you can be sure there will be continuity, effectiveness and dynamism at the top.

We ain’t seen nothing yet!

Looking forward with excitement to the next chapter…

Together with you in the love of our children,

Ned Holstein

January 21, 2018 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

The U.K.’s Department of Welfare and Pensions has announced that it will simply write off some £2.5 billion in child support debt (Independent, 1/14/18). The Department that oversees the Child Maintenance Service that’s charged with administering child support collections and disbursements acknowledged that the debts are uncollectible and that it would cost more to attempt to collect them than any amounts received. The announcement refers to some 475,000 cases.

Part of the problem stems from the days of the erstwhile Child Services Agency that was legendary for its incompetence. The CSA was so bad in fact that the government simply shut it down altogether and established the CMS. But many of the current problems with collections are holdovers from old CSA days.

The CSA left debts totaling £3.7bn when it folded. Most of that figure is owed directly to families by absent parents, while some £1.2bn is owed to the public purse.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is expected to cancel the bulk of the debt under the proposals revealed in a report.

Debts, some of which date back more than 20 years, could be automatically written off if parents don’t reply to official letters within 60 days.

Back in the 80s, the theory was that having a governmental agency handle the receipts and disbursements resulting from child support orders would make the whole process quicker and easier to track. Prior to that time, family courts routinely had to deal with an endless line of mothers who claimed they hadn’t received what they were owed and fathers who said they had. Turning the matter over to a separate agency was thought to make tracking payments a more certain process.

It’s probably done that, at least to an extent, but as ever, there have been unintended consequences. Time and again, those agencies prove themselves to be slow, inefficient and, on occasion, criminal. Stories of employee theft of child support funds aren’t exactly rare and parents routinely complain that they haven’t received what they’re owed even though it’s been paid. Then there are agencies that charge a fee for cutting the bi-weekly check to the recipient. And of course there are the shoddy record-keeping, antiquated computer systems and on and on.

In short, while the old system was cumbersome and faulty, the current one is problematic as well.

But that’s just the collection and disbursement part of the problem. The main problem is that legislatures demand that courts charge non-custodial parents too much, often more than they can pay. In Canada, the formula for calculating child support essentially guarantees that non-custodial parents will be ordered to pay too much for their budget and more than is necessary to support a child.

In the U.S. we’ve long known that, particularly in the case of poor fathers, the chance of falling behind on one’s support payments verges on 100%. That’s because orders are set too high and, again particularly for the poor, modifications all but impossible to get. And for about two decades, state legislatures charged interest on child support indebtedness at rates as high as 12% per annum. Ten percent was the most common figure, far more than the junkiest of junk bonds. Couple all that with a court system that often allocates less than five minutes to hold a hearing into whether a parent is able to pay or is simply not paying for some other reason and we have a scandalously bad approach to supporting the children of divorce.

Does it surprise anyone that the U.K. government is simply throwing up its hands and announcing that an astonishing amount of child support will never be paid? It shouldn’t. From start to finish, the system is designed for exactly that outcome.

Child support formulas should be radically altered to reflect the real costs of raising children rather than the notion that fathers should continue to support mothers, in the guise of supporting children, long after divorce. But more importantly, legislatures should adopt shared parenting laws that, by evenly allocating parenting time would automatically tend to even out the costs associated with child care.

Speaking to Scottish news outlet The Sunday Post, John Fotheringham, a family law solicitor for Edinburgh-based legal firm Morton Fraser, said: “There will be a lot of anger about this.

“The mother, and it usually is a mother, has had to bring up these children without money which the Government has said they should have, and money the Government promised they would go and get for them – and then didn’t.”

Those promises should never have been made. Shared parenting would obviate the need for most of the child support apparatus. The government does a poor job of what should be simple – collecting and paying out child support. But for the most part, child support should be unnecessary. Among its manifold benefits, shared parenting would greatly cut down on the need for taxpayers to fund unwieldy, inefficient and mostly unnecessary child support agencies.

 

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.

#childsupport

A Personal Message from Ned Holstein

National Parents Organization has launched a nationwide search for a new, full time, professional Executive Director! Having an experienced, accomplished, full time, well-paid Executive Director will vastly improve our strength and effectiveness. If you like NPO now, wait til you see 2018!

At considerable expense, we have contracted with a major national executive search firm in New York City that specializes in non-profits. Known as DRG, they have successfully placed high executives ranging from non-profits smaller than ours to behemoths. DRG has thousands of nationwide contacts they can tap to locate good candidates. And they are experienced in how to use social media for maximum effectiveness in recruiting.

We hope to have chosen a candidate and reached an agreement with her/him by the end of January, 2018. We are excited that the Search Consultant we will work with at DRG already understands the family law issues and does not need an education in these matters.

We will be offering a substantial salary, because NPO’s success will hinge on the quality of the Executive Director we are able to attract. Candidates will be able to stay where they currently live, if they so desire. Our key people are already distributed around the country, and we work from a “virtual office.” With growth, we may need to establish a central office, but that is for the future.

Since I work without compensation, this change will cause a substantial increase in our expenses. So we do need you to continue and to even increase the gifts you have made to support this organization.

Imagine: many more media appearances; much more social media action; many more interactions with thought leaders in the areas of family court, child development and justice; much more lobbying; many more online and in-person campaigns; many more state affiliates getting much more support from the national organization; many more meetings and rallies; in short, much more of everything!

That is, much more of everything if you support us, which you can do by clicking here.

If you are interested to learn about this position, click here to see the job posting that has already gone out through multiple platforms. If you are personally interested in the position, please note that you should reply to our Search Consultant, Sara Lundberg, not to me.

Which brings up a personal note. I have been running National Parents Organization off and on since 1998 — with lots of help from many others. During these years, we have also had Dan Hogan, Glenn Sacks and Rita Fuerst Adams as Executive Directors for many of those years. Now we are taking a major step upwards towards more highly paid, experienced and professional non-profit leadership. The time is ripe for renewal, new blood, and change.

I will continue on the Board of Directors for at least one year, to ensure continuity and success with our new Executive Director. I will also lead a few specific projects, with the agreement of the new leader. So you can be sure there will be continuity, effectiveness and dynamism at the top.

We ain’t seen nothing yet!

Looking forward with excitement to the next chapter…

Together with you in the love of our children,

Ned Holstein

January 19, 2018 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

A soon-to-be-published survey of Arizona family court judges, attorneys, mental health providers and mediators drives a stake into the heart of two of the common objections to shared parenting laws raised by (usually) family attorneys. The survey was designed and led by Dr. William Fabricius of Arizona State University, a long-time researcher in the area of shared parenting and children’s well-being. It will soon come out in the Journal of Divorce and Remarriage.

Dr. Fabricius has now weighed in on the debased and debunked editorial in the Washington Post opposing a presumption of shared parenting on which I commented here (Baltimore Post Examiner, 1/18/18). In his rebuttal to the Post editorial Fabricius explains the methodology and results of the survey.

Most importantly, in 2013, a new parenting time statute went into effect in Arizona. The purpose of Fabricius’ survey was to learn how the new law has affected outcomes in those cases. First, Fabricius describes the changes to existing law produced by the new statute.

As a researcher who studies the effects of divorce on children, I led the landmark reform of Arizona’s child custody statute, and the evaluation study. Both were large, team efforts, crafted by the people who live and work with the realities of child custody, including judges, attorneys, court staff and mental health professionals who provide mediation and evaluation services to parents, domestic violence experts, and mothers and fathers who had gone through the old system and could offer their perspectives on how it should be fixed…

The new statute was carefully worded to promote equal parenting time while still requiring judges to weigh the traditional children’s best interest factors, such as parental mental health, that might disqualify either parent. We removed the traditional factor that gave preference to the parent who had provided primary caretaking in the past, and added a new one stating that “absent evidence to the contrary, it is in a child’s best interest to have substantial, frequent, meaningful and continuing parenting time with both parents.” The statute states that “consistent with children’s best interests, the court shall adopt a parenting plan that maximizes the parents’ respective parenting time.”

By not giving any target numbers, the law puts the focus on providing the child with as close to equal parenting time with both parents as possible for that family.

So the new law states that the best interests of children is still the gold standard of custody and parenting time orders, but adds that courts are required to maximize parenting time for each parent. The survey found that, as a practical matter,

All four groups agreed that the courts are interpreting and applying the law as a de facto presumption for equal parenting time and that as a result, good dads are highly likely to have their petitions for equal parenting time awarded.

In short, there’s no actual presumption in the law, but judges treat it as if there is one.

Now, one of the issues raised in opposition to shared parenting by the Post editorial is one we see all but invariably by those similarly opposed, i.e. that maximizing parenting time for each parent constitutes a “cookie-cutter” approach to custody and parenting time. That is one of the shibboleths the Fabricius survey puts an end to once and for all.

This law thus provides a very strong test case of whether a parenting time presumption constrains judicial discretion and exposes children to harm.

The findings show that the Arizona law does neither. On average, the four groups of family law professionals rated the law positively overall, and positively in terms of children’s best interests. The survey also allowed participants to express their own ideas about what is good and bad about the law. Judges seldom said anything about their discretion to individualize parenting time being constrained by the law. On the contrary, they often said that they had to correct some parents’ misunderstanding that the law was a one-size-fits-all rule.

So, if judges’ discretion is hamstrung by Arizona’s shared parenting law, they’re not aware of it. Plus, those surveyed have a generally positive response to the new law. And, perhaps most important, it hasn’t exposed children to an increased risk of abuse. That of course lays waste to the argument by the domestic violence establishment that routinely claims that allowing children to see their fathers post-divorce means they’ll become victims of domestic violence.

The claim has never made a particle of sense. In the first place, if a parent doesn’t abuse the child during marriage, why would he do so following divorce? If he does, shared parenting statutes invariably provide an exception for child abuse. Plus, for many years now, data submitted to the Administration for Children and Families demonstrate mothers doing about twice the abuse and neglect of children as do fathers. So the DV establishment’s claim has never held water.

Interestingly, one group surveyed by Fabricius wasn’t enthusiastic about the law. Guess who. That’s right, about half the lawyers polled had a negative view of shared parenting. Ever the circumspect academic, Fabricius suggests that might have something to do with financial disincentives.

It is not clear why they differed from the rest of their colleagues, although perceived financial interests among some private professionals can’t be discounted.

Indeed they can’t be.

Fabicius ends by urging Maryland’s lawmakers to pass a presumption of shared parenting. After all, it’s been the law in Arizona for four years and the sun still rises every morning and sets at night. Moreover, the usual arguments against such bills have all been put to rest. Kudos to Dr. Fabricius for making clear that the concerns voiced by those opposed to shared parenting have no basis in fact.

Maryland lawmakers should take heed. In fact, so should those of every other state.

 

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.

#sharedparenting, #children’sbestinterests, #Arizona, #childabuse 

A Personal Message from Ned Holstein

National Parents Organization has launched a nationwide search for a new, full time, professional Executive Director! Having an experienced, accomplished, full time, well-paid Executive Director will vastly improve our strength and effectiveness. If you like NPO now, wait til you see 2018!

At considerable expense, we have contracted with a major national executive search firm in New York City that specializes in non-profits. Known as DRG, they have successfully placed high executives ranging from non-profits smaller than ours to behemoths. DRG has thousands of nationwide contacts they can tap to locate good candidates. And they are experienced in how to use social media for maximum effectiveness in recruiting.

We hope to have chosen a candidate and reached an agreement with her/him by the end of January, 2018. We are excited that the Search Consultant we will work with at DRG already understands the family law issues and does not need an education in these matters.

We will be offering a substantial salary, because NPO’s success will hinge on the quality of the Executive Director we are able to attract. Candidates will be able to stay where they currently live, if they so desire. Our key people are already distributed around the country, and we work from a “virtual office.” With growth, we may need to establish a central office, but that is for the future.

Since I work without compensation, this change will cause a substantial increase in our expenses. So we do need you to continue and to even increase the gifts you have made to support this organization.

Imagine: many more media appearances; much more social media action; many more interactions with thought leaders in the areas of family court, child development and justice; much more lobbying; many more online and in-person campaigns; many more state affiliates getting much more support from the national organization; many more meetings and rallies; in short, much more of everything!

That is, much more of everything if you support us, which you can do by clicking here.

If you are interested to learn about this position, click here to see the job posting that has already gone out through multiple platforms. If you are personally interested in the position, please note that you should reply to our Search Consultant, Sara Lundberg, not to me.

Which brings up a personal note. I have been running National Parents Organization off and on since 1998 — with lots of help from many others. During these years, we have also had Dan Hogan, Glenn Sacks and Rita Fuerst Adams as Executive Directors for many of those years. Now we are taking a major step upwards towards more highly paid, experienced and professional non-profit leadership. The time is ripe for renewal, new blood, and change.

I will continue on the Board of Directors for at least one year, to ensure continuity and success with our new Executive Director. I will also lead a few specific projects, with the agreement of the new leader. So you can be sure there will be continuity, effectiveness and dynamism at the top.

We ain’t seen nothing yet!

Looking forward with excitement to the next chapter…

Together with you in the love of our children,

Ned Holstein

January 18, 2018 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

In Australia, a court has ordered a mother to repay the child support she received from the man she falsely convinced was the father of her child (Herald Sun, 1/17/18). For reasons that escape me, the mother, man and child were referred to pseudonymously by the court and therefore by the article. The judge ordered the mother, “Ms. Fielder,” to pay despite her claims of domestic abuse and being too frightened to tell “Mr. Hallis” the truth about her child’s paternity.

“Ms Fielder” — a court given pseudonym — portrayed herself as the victim of her ex-partner’s “aggressive and intimidating behaviour”.

Ms Fielder claimed “Mr Hallis”, her partner of two years, was aware he was not child “X”’s father and concocted a deception about the circumstances surrounding the two year-old’s conception “because it suited him,” to spare himself embarrassment and avoid upsetting his family’s feelings.

Although Ms Fielder knew this was wrong, she said she was too frightened to say no to Mr Hallis.

The judge didn’t buy it because her story was dubious at best. In fact, the two had been to court several times to separate and then later when Ms. Fielder began limiting Mr. Hallis’ access to the child he believed to be his. That of course means that Fielder had not only lied to Hallis and to the true father, Mr. L, but to the court. In her pleadings and testimony (or affidavit) she’d have been required to state who the child’s father is. The fact that she named Hallis as the only possible father instead of informing the court that either Hallis or Mr. L was the dad, means she lied to the court as well.

Plus, it seems that, prior to the child’s birth, Hallis attempted to break up with Fielder.

He alleged he separated from Ms Fielder because of her reactive and manipulative personality and told the court that in an attempt to persuade him to return, Ms Fielder texted him a photo of her wrist with a hospital admission tag on it, claiming she had attempted suicide by ingesting Panadol.

Ms Hallis said they spent the night together on her release partly because he felt guilty that she had apparently become emotionally distraught at the end of their relationship. It is on this occasion that Mr Hallis believed X was conceived.

Unbeknown to Mr Hallis, around this time, Ms Fielder also had sex with Mr L.

Confronted with that and the fact that, in a heated moment, Fielder blurted out to Hallis that he wasn’t the child’s father, the court ordered genetic testing of the child and the truth, laboriously and expensively, was finally established.

Hallis then asked the court to order Fielder to repay him the child support he’d paid her as well as his attorney’s fees. The court did exactly that.

Now, it’s a bit unclear as to why it did so, but my guess is that it considered the matter one of equity that prohibits a litigant from profiting from her own wrongdoing.

Judge Brown found Ms Fielder had, at least, a moral obligation to inform Mr Hallis of the possibility that he was not X’s father but had instead decided to deceive him.

“Sad to say, I consider that she has raised allegations of family violence to protect herself from the implications of her own falsehoods. This is not to her credit.”

In short, it seems the court ruled that a mother who commits paternity fraud is equitably estopped from receiving a man’s child support that’s based on that fraud. Something similar was ruled in California on which I reported here.

In that case, a mother who’d abducted the couple’s two children for many years later decided she wanted the child support the father had been unable to pay (because he didn’t know her whereabouts) plus interest. Both the trial court and the appellate court didn’t mince words in refusing her claim. Because of her abduction of the children, she was equitably estopped from receiving his child support.

In Canada a similar set of facts again resulted in the rescission of a child support order, albeit not for equitable reasons.

Now we seem to have equitable notions used to require a mother to repay child support fraudulently obtained. Unstated by the article, but nonetheless true, the child will not lack for support. Mr. L, the actual dad will of course be required to do that going forward, despite the fact that Fielder’s fraud prevented him from knowing about and forming a relationship with his child.

Given his obligation to support the child, Mr. L will be given some minimal visitation rights in the way we’ve come to expect from Australian courts. That way, he’ll have the dubious pleasure of having a long-term relationship with Ms. Fielder who, as you’ll recall, was accurately described by Hallis as having a “reactive and manipulative personality.” I wish Mr. L luck, while being glad I’m not in his shoes.

Still it’s good to see a bit of sanity applied to child support cases. Equity – it’s a valuable tool in fighting some of the most outrageous and, yes, inequitable practices of family courts.

 

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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.

#paternityfraud, #childsupport, #equity

A Personal Message from Ned Holstein

National Parents Organization has launched a nationwide search for a new, full time, professional Executive Director! Having an experienced, accomplished, full time, well-paid Executive Director will vastly improve our strength and effectiveness. If you like NPO now, wait til you see 2018!

At considerable expense, we have contracted with a major national executive search firm in New York City that specializes in non-profits. Known as DRG, they have successfully placed high executives ranging from non-profits smaller than ours to behemoths. DRG has thousands of nationwide contacts they can tap to locate good candidates. And they are experienced in how to use social media for maximum effectiveness in recruiting.

We hope to have chosen a candidate and reached an agreement with her/him by the end of January, 2018. We are excited that the Search Consultant we will work with at DRG already understands the family law issues and does not need an education in these matters.

We will be offering a substantial salary, because NPO’s success will hinge on the quality of the Executive Director we are able to attract. Candidates will be able to stay where they currently live, if they so desire. Our key people are already distributed around the country, and we work from a “virtual office.” With growth, we may need to establish a central office, but that is for the future.

Since I work without compensation, this change will cause a substantial increase in our expenses. So we do need you to continue and to even increase the gifts you have made to support this organization.

Imagine: many more media appearances; much more social media action; many more interactions with thought leaders in the areas of family court, child development and justice; much more lobbying; many more online and in-person campaigns; many more state affiliates getting much more support from the national organization; many more meetings and rallies; in short, much more of everything!

That is, much more of everything if you support us, which you can do by clicking here.

If you are interested to learn about this position, click here to see the job posting that has already gone out through multiple platforms. If you are personally interested in the position, please note that you should reply to our Search Consultant, Sara Lundberg, not to me.

Which brings up a personal note. I have been running National Parents Organization off and on since 1998 — with lots of help from many others. During these years, we have also had Dan Hogan, Glenn Sacks and Rita Fuerst Adams as Executive Directors for many of those years. Now we are taking a major step upwards towards more highly paid, experienced and professional non-profit leadership. The time is ripe for renewal, new blood, and change.

I will continue on the Board of Directors for at least one year, to ensure continuity and success with our new Executive Director. I will also lead a few specific projects, with the agreement of the new leader. So you can be sure there will be continuity, effectiveness and dynamism at the top.

We ain’t seen nothing yet!

Looking forward with excitement to the next chapter…

Together with you in the love of our children,

Ned Holstein