Category: Blog

December 27, 2017 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

On one hand, this is a good article on the scourge of fatherlessness in the U.S (Washington Times, 12/18/17). It’s so good of course because – ahem – it reiterates many of the arguments I’ve been making. How could it be otherwise? But seriously…

The writer is Towson University professor Richard E. Vatz. He sees clearly. Vatz gets it that the problem of fatherlessness is the single most important social issue we face. It achieves that dubious distinction because of the many, many aspects of American life that fatherlessness affects for the worse. Vatz doesn’t beat around the bush.

The causal relationship is profound between fatherlessness, single-parent families and the resultant murders, shootings, violence, poverty, lack of upper-mobility, school miseries for teachers and students, flourishing of vicious and brazen gangs (replacing fathers), lost job opportunities, illicit drug use and sales, and general quality of life.

The statistics connecting all of these more or less measurable outcomes are well-established, reproduced and replicated. Just look at one summary statement from just one major study (Marriage and Family Review, 2003) titled “The Presence of Fathers in Attenuating Young Male Violence”: “Data analyzed across the U.S. indicate that father absence, rather than poverty, was a strong predictor of young men’s violent behavior.”…

But there is no root cause more consequential in producing permanent violence, poverty and related life dissatisfaction issues than fatherlessness.

Fatherlessness is as close to destiny as you can get. 

That’s about the size of it, alright, but Vatz’s main point is that no one wants to talk about the issue and policy makers don’t want to do anything about it. Apparently, he’s tried and met with outrage from liberals and passive acceptance from conservatives.

This author wrote a piece on the issue in the Baltimore Sun (“Blame Baltimore violence on a lack of fathers in the home,” July 25). Pursuant to its publication, I received more than a score of positive email responses, including from some of Maryland’s principle conservative politicians.

There were no emailed disagreements on the argument that fatherlessness is a core cause of virtually all societal ills. When I discussed the issue of fatherlessness on the liberal “Marc Steiner Show,” the reaction was anger, personal vitriol toward me, and accusations that I was attacking families due to racial motivation…

Office holders were so offended by Vatz’s suggestion that fatherlessness is an important issue that some refused to even talk to him. Others claimed to agree about the problem but said no one cares. Vatz points out that no one will care until political “leaders” take the issue on in a serious way. Meanwhile of course the press is too busy with sex scandals to take much of an interest.

The issue is the proverbial elephant in the state. The electronic and print media have major comprehensive pieces on violence in Baltimore and elsewhere by its top otherwise perspicacious reporters and yet they almost never even mention fatherlessness as a cause.

It’s jolly good of Professor Vatz to raise the issue. The more people who do, the better. Strike at the problem of fatherlessness and you attack the root of countless social problems.

And yet… Vatz doesn’t really get it.

Anthony McCarthy, head of the communications and public affairs team for Mayor Catherine E. Pugh of Baltimore, became enraged at me on a local talk news show weeks ago owing to my claim that Ms. Pugh did not have the courage to institute a program to engage, monetarily disincentivize and stigmatize fatherless families.

McCarthy of course has no business getting angry with Vatz. But, just as clearly, what Vatz proposed is a dubious way to approach the issue of fatherlessness, plus, he’s talking to the wrong person. Is there any evidence that programs “to engage, monetarily disincentivize and stigmatize fatherless families” work? There’s some work being done on Responsible Fatherhood programs, but the results of those studies are inconclusive at best. There’s certainly no blueprint for any social program with a track record of slowing the growth of fatherlessness in this country or any part of it.

But there’s one obvious place where fatherlessness can and should be addressed – family courts. If Vatz is interested, there’s a strong movement for family court reform that, when successful, will go a long way toward keeping fathers connected with kids. The scandal that is a family court system that routinely separates kids from their dads and does so while hymning “the best interests of the child” is rapidly coming under the public microscope and not faring well. State after state is considering major change to child custody laws and the opposition is well-known to be merely self-interested and entirely lacking in meritorious arguments for its position.

This is something we can do something about. The science is replete and on the side of reform. Organizations dedicated to sensible child custody policies are increasing in number and strength.

So it’s highly ironic that Vatz excoriates others for not dealing with the problem, while, well, not dealing with the problem himself. He ignores perhaps the single most important cause of fatherlessness and the way to end it, while championing a vague notion of a program with no history of success at all.

I appreciate his dedication to such a vital cause. I’d appreciate it more if he acknowledged the best way to deal with 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.

#fatherlessness, #familycourts, #sharedparenting

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

December 26, 2017 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

This continues my takedown of Joan Meier’s letter in the Washington Post that packs a lot of disinformation into a small space (Washington Post, 12/15/17).

The reality is that fathers have been winning far more than mothers for decades and that joint custody or shared parenting is already the overwhelming norm in state family courts.

As I demonstrated last time, the first clause of that sentence is contradicted by every piece of reliable data. That Meier claims that fathers get custody of children more often than mothers simply shows the desperation of her cause. Back in the 80s, a piece like hers might have convinced someone. Not today. There’s simply too much clear, consistent proof of the opposite.

So what about the second clause? We hear this occasionally from family lawyers who are as desperate as Meier to derail the family court reform train, and my response is always the same – “citation?” Where is the evidence that shared parenting is “already the overwhelming norm in state family courts?” After all, the data we have demonstrate the opposite. Data out of Nebraska, North Dakota and Texas show that shared parenting is a rarity. Now, it’s possible that Meier is using weasel words. “Joint custody” can easily refer only to joint legal custody that requires nothing more than that Mom consult Dad on important decisions about the child. It has nothing whatsoever to do with parenting time.

“Shared parenting” is similarly subject to, shall we say, flexible definition. If Dad sees little Andy or Jenny 10% of the time, who’s to say parenting isn’t “shared?” Or 1% for that matter. To the more scrupulous, shared parenting means at least 35% of the parenting time for each parent. So how is Meier defining the term? Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t let on. But however she defines it in the privacy of her own mind, the simple truth is that there’s no evidence that shared parenting is the norm in family courts and there’s much that it’s not.

But Meier’s just getting started. What she calls “the real story” is her attack on the concept of parental alienation. According to her, PA “gives fathers accused of abuse the ultimate weapon: the claim that resistant mothers are just vengeful ex-wives.” Let’s see, how many ways can a person be wrong in so few words? Most importantly, the idea of PA gives neither fathers nor mothers anything. Had Meier bothered to read much of the massive literature on parental alienation, she’d immediately realize that absolutely no one pretends that it’s a gender-specific phenomenon. Fathers can be alienators as well as can mothers. Meier almost certainly knows this, but, in keeping with the rest of her piece, didn’t say so.

How is a claim of PA “the ultimate weapon?” Meier doesn’t explain, but it’s a good question. The simple fact is that proving that the other parent is alienating a child is generally a long, drawn-out and vastly expensive undertaking. It requires lots of attorney’s time and the hiring of expensive expert witnesses. The overwhelming majority of parents couldn’t carry that weight if they wanted to. Few even try.

That’s made abundantly clear by Meier’s own data. She oh-so-coyly refers to a “national study” on this very subject. Unsurprisingly, that study was conducted by her. In it, she and her co-author Google-searched family court cases that have been published online. They were seeking cases in which parental alienation was alleged by one party or the other. Tellingly, she nowhere mentions over what period of time these cases appear in the literature. Do they span one year? Twenty? Thirty? In the U.S. about 1 million divorce cases are filed every year and about two-thirds of those involve children. How many cases did Meier find that dealt with PA? 238. That’s about 0.03% of cases, if all those cases were decided within a single year. But of course they weren’t. The term “parental alienation” has been around since the mid-80s. How many years did Meier’s cohort span? Strategically, she doesn’t say.

Whatever the case, the point is clear – parental alienation is a significant part of an infinitesimally small number of cases. Meier’s claim that “the real story” is fathers using claims of parental alienation to deprive mothers of custody is so much bunk. It is in fact vanishingly rare.

But Meier’s invariable sense of mothers wronged is deficient in yet another way.

A recent national study that focused on cases involving claims of “parental alienation” found that when mothers allege abuse in family court, fathers win more (72 percent compared with 67 percent when no abuse was claimed)…

Again, her study is based on an astonishingly tiny set of cases. But more importantly, does it occur to Meier that, when a father claims alienation, he might be telling the truth? Again, pleading and proving parental alienation is fantastically expensive, so who is likely to go down that costly and emotionally stressful road but parents who have a good case of alienation? It simply makes no sense to fight that battle without a strong probability of victory. Unsurprisingly, fathers who claim PA tend to (a) have the money to fight the fight and (b) have the facts to prove their case.

Those are simple concepts, but for Meier, an astonishingly tiny percentage of cases in which fathers manage to prove parental alienation are a scandal – “the real case” – but the millions of them who are removed from their children’s lives she tosses off with little but a strong sense of grievance.

 

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, #JoanMeier

Everyone at National Parents Organization wishes our members, readers, volunteers and supporters the very best for the holiday season. Christmas is one of those holidays at which we especially feel the value of families. We hope you’re able to have your loved ones close to you this Christmas and that you give and receive the gifts of love and joy.

From all the gang at National Parents Organization, Merry Christmas!

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

December 22, 2017 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

The anti-shared parenting crowd has really reached a new low with this short piece by Joan Meier (Washington Post, 12/15/17). Meier’s an intelligent person, so she clearly must know better, but her article gives no indication that she does. This one’s somewhere out in space, doubtless in a galaxy far, far away. I haven’t seen these claims, well, possibly ever. Her article is desperation writ large.

Meier’s first claim, astonishingly enough, is that fathers get primary/sole custody of children not only more often than do mothers, but much more often. No really, that’s what she claims.

The reality is that fathers have been winning far more than mothers for decades and that joint custody or shared parenting is already the overwhelming norm in state family courts.

Her factual backup for either of those claims? For the first, she reaches back to unnamed studies in “the 80s” that found fathers routinely winning custody, in one study 94% of the time. It’s true that the anti-dad crowd back then stooped to some pretty dishonest means to justify their claims, but the long-debunked notion that all dads have to do is ask for it and they get custody is so much nonsense and known to be so for a long, long time.

The most responsibly-done study back then was by Macoby and Mnookin in 1992. It found that, when mothers requested sole or primary custody, courts gave it to them in 60% of cases. When fathers requested the same, they succeeded 18% of the time.

Meanwhile, what does Meier do with the huge dataset maintained and updated every two years by the United States Bureau of the Census? She ignores it completely, for what should be obvious reasons. From 1993 to 2013, primary maternal custody has run between 82% and 84%.

What does she do with the data compiled on behalf of the State of Nebraska by Michael Saini in 2013? Meier ignores those too. There, in all cases in which either sole or primary custody was ordered for one parent or the other, mothers received one or the other 84% of the time and fathers 16% of the time.

The data compiled by Leading Women for Shared Parenting regarding North Dakota were similarly ignored by Meier in favor of dicey studies done 30+ years ago. It found that judges award sole or primary custody to mothers in 47.1% of cases and fathers in 9%.

Dr. Phillip Greenspun’s study of Massachusetts custody cases? Nope, nothing from Meier on that either. He found that, in sole and primary custody cases, mothers won 91% of the time.

What about researchers Margaret Brinig and Douglas Allen’s finding, after reviewing some 40,000 cases in four different states that mothers file for 70% of divorces and they do so because they know to a virtual certainty that they’ll get custody? Not a peep out of Meier.

What about the fact that 90% of parents paying child support are fathers? That would seem pretty unlikely if fathers are the ones getting custody, right? Right. That’s why that fact too went unmentioned by Meier.

Then there are the multiple studies demonstrating strong pro-mother/anti-father bias on the part of family court judges. How is it that judges many of whom candidly admit to that bias give the lion’s share of custody to fathers? Meier’s silent on that subject too.

All of that and so much more escaped mention by Meier. Clearly, she’s got snake oil to peddle and telling the truth about what’s in it isn’t her stock in trade. Just remember, the idea that fathers don’t win custody the overwhelming majority of the time is a “myth” according to Meier. Really.

Skeptics might ask why, if fathers are making out like bandits in custody matters, so many people buy the notion that they aren’t. Ah, but Meier has the answer:

Because it ensures that courts will continue to believe that preferring fathers furthers equality. And because it gives fathers accused of abuse the ultimate weapon: the claim that resistant mothers are just vengeful ex-wives.

Silly me. Why didn’t I think of that? It’s so obvious. You see, courts don’t know what they do regarding custody. They think they’re giving custody to mothers most of the time when in fact they aren’t. That misguided notion means that they have to stop giving custody to mothers, which they aren’t doing in the first place and start giving it to men which they’re already doing. And all of that is kept secret from them, or, in Meier’s language, courts “continue to believe that preferring fathers furthers equality.” They believe they’re doing one thing when in fact they’re doing another. Got it?

More on this tomorrow.

 

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.

#childcustody, #sharedparenting, #JoanMeier, #WashingtonPost

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

December 21, 2017 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

In my last two posts, I took on the outrageous and in some cases downright untrue claims of divorce lawyers Henry Gornbein and Diana Raimi in their opposition to the shared parenting bill currently before the Michigan Legislature. Among many other things, I remarked that sole/primary custody sets parents at each others’ throats and, in the process, increases lawyers’ fees. Shared parenting, by closing that winner-take-all arena, reduces conflict, makes divorce easier and quicker and of course reduces the take-home pay of lawyers. That’s why no family law section of a state bar has ever supported a shared parenting bill, regardless of how worded. It’s naked self-interest.

As if to draw a line under my comments, this arrived (Sydney Morning Herald, 12/13/17). Of course the case and the judge reported on are part of the Australian family court system, not ours in the U.S. But, when it comes to Justice Robert Benjamin’s comments, he could have been talking about any family court in this country. Indeed, he could be talking about the courts in which Gornbein and Raimi practice their craft.

A Family Court judge has delivered a blistering judgment on the "culture of bitter, adversarial and highly aggressive family law litigation" in Sydney and blasted two law firms for charging "outrageous" fees.

In a judgment published on Wednesday, Justice Robert Benjamin said he regularly heard cases filed in the Sydney registry of the Family Court and was "increasingly concerned about the high levels of costs charged by the legal profession in property and parenting proceedings"…

The Hobart-based judge took aim at the "win at all costs, concede little or nothing, chase every rabbit down every hole and hang the consequences approach to family law litigation" he had observed in Sydney.

Sound familiar? “Bitter, adversarial and highly aggressive family law litigation?” Check. “Win at all costs?” Check. “Outrageous fees?” Also check. Again, the system of sole/primary custody that both countries cling to essentially guarantees that parents will fight like cats and dogs to keep from being chucked out of their children’s lives. Shared parenting promises that, except in unusual situations, both parents will maintain meaningful relationships with their kids. So what’s to fight about? Lawyers like Gornbein and Raimi take that fear of losing the children straight to the bank.

Of course most people don’t have the money to enrich lawyers even if they wanted to. They’re the ones who agree on custody and property, submit an order to the court and go their separate ways. They need little if any assistance from a lawyer. But the few couples with money to spend are considered fair game and many lawyers are happy to fan the low fire of animosity into a roaring blaze. I’ve seen it happen too often to pretend otherwise.

Justice Benjamin, it turns out, isn’t kidding around.

He asked the Legal Services Commissioner to investigate whether the fees charged by the solicitors acting for a former couple fighting over parenting arrangements and property could constitute professional misconduct.

The feeding frenzy has gotten that bad. Plus, in the latest case, the parents seem to have been far from wealthy when their divorce began. And they’re a lot less so now.

Justice Benjamin said the couple, given the pseudonyms Mr Simic and Ms Norton, had spent an "eye-watering" $860,000 in the proceedings and "these amounts are, on their face, outrageous levels of costs for ordinary people involved in family law proceedings".

My guess is that everyone reading Benjamin’s remarks has been shocked at the figure quoted – everyone, that is, except family lawyers. I suspect they consider that $860,000 fleeced from ordinary people to be less “eye-watering” than mouth-watering.

And lets’ not forget that lawyers like Gornbein and Raimi want us to believe that their concerns are only for the children. Really, they do. Well, Justice Benjamin has something to say on that subject too.

"The children of these parties depend upon the income and assets of their parents to support them," he said.

"Yet, in this case, the costs of the proceedings have taken a terrible toll on the wealth of the parties and consequently their ability to support and provide for their children."

Yes, the same family lawyers who regularly shout to the heavens about children’s need for monetary support don’t bat an eye at taking as much of their parents’ ability to do exactly that as they can get away with. The hypocrisy is mind-boggling, even for lawyers.

It’s always instructive to see, “up close and personal,” just what the lawyers who invariably oppose shared parenting actually mean by their opposition. In the case Justice Benjamin reported to the Legal Services Commissioner, it meant years of bitter animosity, stratospheric legal fees and a crippling blow to the parents’ ability to support their children. And all so the lawyers could make their Lexus payments.

Remember all that the next time a divorce lawyer inveighs against shared parenting.

 

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.

#divorce, #sharedparenting, #lawyers

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

December 20, 2017 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

The Michigan divorce bar continues with its slipshod opposition to shared parenting (Hometown Life, 12/17/17).  Diana Raimi writes regarding H.B. 4691:

It could have retroactive effect, opening the door for thousands of parents to return to court for another trial long after their cases concluded.

No, that’s not a “retroactive effect.”  It’s in the nature of custody proceedings.  As Raimi and every other divorce lawyer in Michigan knows, family court judges maintain continuing jurisdiction over the cases they decide.  They do so because child custody and support orders are ongoing; they require certain behavior of the parents, not just once, but again and again over several years.  As such, they may be modified, so a judge who issues a “final order” in a divorce case may find him/herself listening to the same lawyers and the same parents trying to alter that order.  So courts have continuing jurisdiction.

If H.B. 4691 becomes law, parents will have the right to revisit their orders if they think the change in the law might require a change in them.  And of course, that’s exactly what we want them to do.  After all, if the legislature changes the law in favor of shared parenting, don’t we want parents to seek exactly that?  Don’t we want them to act in accordance with public policy?  Surely we do, but Raimi and Gornbein are so desperate to oppose shared parenting and so lacking in real arguments against it that they come up with the claim of “retroactive effect.”

It provides a powerful “bargaining chip” for domestic abusers to control and intimidate their spouses or partners, using the children as pawns in the process.

Utterly and obviously untrue.  As with every similar bill, H.B. 4691 maintains already-existing exceptions for domestic/child abuse.  The bill requires a court to order equal or nearly-equal parenting time,

UNLESS THE PARENTS CONSENT TO ANOTHER AGREEMENT OR 1 PARENT DEMONSTRATES BY CLEAR AND CONVINCING EVIDENCE 1 OF THE FOLLOWING:

 (A) THE CHILD HAS BEEN EXPOSED TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THE VIOLENCE WAS DIRECTED AGAINST OR WITNESSED BY THE CHILD, INCLUDING VIOLENCE THE CHILD MAY BE EXPOSED TO BY A FAMILY MEMBER OR AN UNRELATED PERSON WHOM THE PARENT ALLOWS TO HAVE CONTACT WITH THE CHILD.

(B) THE CHILD WOULD LIKELY BE SUBJECTED TO CHILD ABUSE OR 6 CHILD NEGLECT AS THOSE TERMS ARE DEFINED IN SECTION 2 OF THE CHILD 7 PROTECTION LAW, 1975 PA 238, MCL 722.622.

It’s there in black and white.  Raimi and Gornbein aren’t telling the truth.

It ignores the reality of the child’s experience in deciding a parenting schedule, focusing instead on parent-centered factors like financial contributions.

I actually have no idea of what this means, if anything.  First, parents are at all times free and encouraged to make their own arrangements for parenting time.  Second, if a child is old enough, courts are required to listen to their preferences about custody and parenting time.  Third, pages 4 – 6 of the bill contain a long list of items to be considered by judges in evaluating a child’s best interests and therefore parenting time.  Last, one of those items is this:

(xi) (l) Any other factor considered by the court THAT MAY MATERIALLY COMPROMISE THE STABILITY OF THE HOME OR THE HEALTH, SAFETY, OR WELL-BEING OF THE CHILD.

In short, judges are in no way hamstrung by this bill and are certainly not required to “ignore the reality of the child’s experience,” to the extent that means something.

As to H.B. 4691 “focusing on factors like financial contributions,” I truly can’t guess what Raimi is talking about.  Suffice it to say that there is no such focus in the bill.  The phrase looks more like random mutterings than any sort of principled criticism of the bill.

It gives unrelated roommates, or live-in boyfriends or girlfriends, the same rights as parents when a military parent is deployed — even if that person would normally never have the right to ask for parenting time.

OK, this one actually has some merit.  Yes, it’s written in rather lurid language and no it doesn’t give those individuals “the same rights as parents,” but the section could be improved.  Here’s what Raimi’s referring to:

IN ORDER TO ENSURE AND MAINTAIN THE ESTABLISHED CUSTODIAL ENVIRONMENT AND STABILITY FOR THE CHILD, THE PARENT ON DEPLOYMENT MAY DESIGNATE A THIRD PARTY WHO MAY EXERCISE THE DEPLOYED PARENT’S PARENTING TIME WHILE THAT PARENT IS ON DEPLOYMENT.

Now clearly, that section is meant to refer to, for example, a step-parent, a grandparent, etc.  But it’s not limited to those and should be changed to allow a parent to object to the substitute person designated by the deployed parent.  That way a judge can decide whether the person is an appropriate alternative.

Having embarrassed themselves by blatantly attempting to mislead readers with what they did say, it’s appropriate to note what Raimi and Gornbein didn’t say.  Nowhere do they mention the science that overwhelmingly supports shared parenting.  Nowhere do they mention the almost entire absence of any science to the contrary.  Nowhere do they mention the terrible problem of fatherless children or how family courts contribute to it.  Nowhere do they mention states like Arizona, Utah and Kentucky that have laws encouraging shared parenting and yet report no ill effects thereof.  And nowhere do they mention the 84% of Michiganders who, in a recent survey, said they support a change in the law in favor of shared parenting.

Naturally, there’s a reason for those omissions.  Raimi and Gornbein, like Schaefer before them, haven’t a leg to stand on.  Their opposition to shared parenting is not only a matter of naked self-interest, but also one in support of which they have no principled argument.  So they make unprincipled ones.  After all, without parents at each others’ throats, how’ll the lawyers make their Lexus payments?

 

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