Category: NPO in the media

August 14, 2011

Donald C. Hubin, Ph.D., Chairman of Fathers and Families of Ohio’s Executive Committee discussed child support issues on NPR in Columbus, Ohio on Tuesday, August 16.

To listen/watch the show and to comment on the NPR station’s website, click here.

The show is All Sides with Ann Fisher. In studio guests included:

• Kim Newsom Bridges, Director, Ohio Child Support Enforcement Agency Directors” Association
• Susan A. Brown, Director of the Franklin County Child Support Enforcement Agency
• Glenn Harris, Director, African American Male Initiative, Columbus Urban League.

Hubin was invited to appear in studio but had a schedule conflict–nonetheless, he appeared on the show via phone for 20 minutes.

Fathers and Families Executive Director Glenn did a one hour interview on CBS radio in Los Angeles on Thursday July 28. To listen, click here. Glenn and KFWB AM 980 host Bob McCormick discussed numerous subjects, including:

• The abuse of restraining orders and the lack of due process regarding domestic violence accusations
• Paternity fraud
• Alimony abuses
• Default judgments
• Shared parenting
• Problems faced by unmarried fathers
• The distinction between joint legal and joint physical custody
• Child support
• The problems faced by military parents

July 18, 2011

“Fathers and Families has no position on same-sex marriage. But we do have a position on same-sex ‘divorce.’

Once a child has bonded with two adults as her parents, she is deeply and often permanently hurt by the sudden, court-ordered absence of one of her parents, regardless of the parents” sexual orientation…”

Fathers and Families Board Chairman Ned Holstein, MD, MS criticizes the new Ohio Supreme Court’s lesbian partner/child custody decision in his new column Kids with two parents need both, even in breakup (Columbus Dispatch, 7/18/11).

We suggest you write a Letter to the Editor of the Columbus Dispatch, a 200,000 circulation newspaper in Ohio’s capital, by writing to letters@dispatch.com.

We also suggest you comment on the piece by clicking here.

In the piece, Holstein writes:

The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled against Michele Hobbs, a lesbian “social mom,’ in her desire to co-parent the child she helped raise from birth. She and biological mom Kelly Mullen agreed to raise a child together, sought out a sperm donor and shared the parenting from the birth of their now-five-year-old daughter, Lucy. The court”s ruling means that Lucy might never see the woman she calls “momma.’ It is a mistake.

Most of the public sees this as a gay-rights case. The court sees it as a technical issue of defining who is a parent under the law. In reality, it is a best-interest-of-the-child case similar to everyday heterosexual child-custody disputes…

Every day, some divorcing heterosexual parents try to use the courts to drive the other parent, usually the dad, out of the child”s life, ignoring the profound heartache they are causing their child. Too often, as in this case, they succeed. They troubleth their own house, and they inherit the wind: the research clearly shows that their children suffer…

In one heart-wrenching recording, confused little Lucy struggles to explain to Hobbs that her ex-partner Mullen no longer wants her to call Hobbs “momma.’ Lucy is heard to say, “Mommy says don”t call momma ‘momma”… mommy says ‘momma”s not momma, momma”s Michele” but I say ‘no mommy, she”s momma.”‘ How can this be ignored?

Read the full piece here.

June 21, 2011

The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine ran a feature interview Fighting dad (6/18/11) with Fathers and Families” Board Chairman and founder Ned Holstein, M.D., M.S. The piece discussed, among other topics, H02684, our Massachusetts shared parenting bill, which has been endorsed by nearly a third of the Massachusetts legislature. Holstein explained:

Women”s groups are also against [the bill], but they can”t turn out a crowd on this issue. The public understands this is good for children.

The Globe’s Jenna Russell asked “A decade and a half ago, you founded Fathers and Families, now a national advocacy group that lobbies to make shared custody the default after a divorce. What”s been your biggest obstacle?” Holstein replied:

Old-fashioned gender bias. Just as it hurts women in the workplace, we think men and children are hurt in family court by the same bias. Judges still award [physical] custody to mothers by default; fathers still see their children every other weekend and maybe Tuesday nights. It”s a cookie-cutter solution that has outlived its usefulness.

The consequences of this, Holstein noted, include:

There is evidence showing adverse outcomes [for kids]. They feel terrible, they long for the missing parent, and begin to draw conclusions that they”re not worthy.

Russell asked “Is it frustrating to get stereotyped as ‘angry dads’ out for revenge against ex-wives? Holstein replied:

Of course. Opponents attribute all kinds of negative intent, but our idea is so simple: We love our kids and want to help raise them.

The full interview can be seen here.

June 20, 2011

F & F”s Glenn Sacks debated the new dad-bashing ‘Married Single Moms” survey on MSNBC Live on Friday, June 17. The survey’s promoters, ForbesWoman.com and TheBump.com, claim in their highly-publicized press release that many mothers feel their husbands do so little that, though married, they’re really like single mothers who have to do all the work. To watch the debate, click here. In the show’s opening we’re told that 92% of mothers feel “overwhelmed” and 70% resent their husbands. Alison Bernstein, Senior Editor of TheBump.com, then explained that “even working moms feel like they’re taking the majority of work on their shoulders.” Sacks replied with three points:

1) Studies have repeatedly shown that when both work in the home and work in the job market are counted, men contribute at least as much work to their homes as women do. Sacks has detailed this research in the past in columns in the Chicago Tribune here, World Net Daily here, and others.

2) Re: Bernstein’s complaint “even working mom feel like they’re taking the majority of work on their shoulders,” even comparing men and women who both work fulltime, men still work an average of eight hours a week more than women do.

3) In the social science field the kind of survey MSNBC is promoting is known as a “SLOP’–a Self-selected Listener Opinion Poll. SLOPs are a widely discredited methodology, because generally the people who take the time to fill out the survey are those who have a reason to be angry–exactly the response the “Married Single Moms’ survey promoters claim its survey revealed. This data cannot be credibly applied to the average mother or family.

In response, Bernstein changed her position, stating that the survey isn’t about “pitting moms and dads against each other.” This is a far cry from her organization’s press release, which announced in all caps that “Both working and stay-at-home moms feel like a ‘married single mom’,” and that mothers’ “feelings of resentment dominate.” Sacks later noted:

One thing that’s missing in all this regarding the stay-at-home moms who feel like “married single moms” is gratitude that they had the chance when their kids were young to spend that time with their kids. I’m one of the few men who actually had that chance. For the first couple years of my daughter’s life I had a chance to stay home with my baby daughter and my son. It was the greatest experience of my life.

I have my whole life to work but I only had a couple years to be with my kids when they were young. Yes, there’s stress being a stay at home parent, I had it too, but there’s also a hell of a lot of good there.

Bernstein responded that “women are absolutely grateful, we heard from our audience who are completely grateful…” This again is quite a change–there is no hint of this alleged “gratitude” in their press release nor in her statement in the beginning of the segment. To watch the MSNBC Live video, click here.

June 17, 2011

Fathers and Families” Board Chairman Ned Holstein, M.D., M.S. condemned family courts’ “special interests and archaic teachings” and contrasted family courts’ them with the overwhelming public support for shared parenting on The Jeff Katz Show on AM WXKS 1200 in Boston on Friday, June 17. Holstein noted that when F & F brought the issue to Massachusetts voters in a 2004 ballot initiative, shared parenting won overwhelmingly. He noted, “History is on our side, and we’ll change this.” Katz was sympathetic and called the current Massachusetts family court practices of awarding sole custody to mothers and failing to enforce fathers’ visitation rights a “despicable situation.” To listen to the show, click here.

June 1, 2011

Fathers and Families of Ohio Executive Committee Chairman Donald C. Hubin discussed HB 121 on NPR affiliate WKSU on June 1. To listen to Hubin, click here–the interview begins at 2:05.

HB 121 is a bill to protect military parents’ child custody rights which is modeled in part on AB 2416, which we helped pass in California last year. The bill recently passed the Ohio House of Representatives.

To learn more about the bill, see Hubin’s op-ed column Custody agreements should survive deployments (Columbus Dispatch, 4/6/11).

May 5, 2011

Fathers and Families Executive Director Glenn Sacks discussed NV AB 313 and SB 284, bills to address many of the family law/child custody problems faced by Nevada’s active duty and reserve service members, on The Heidi Harris Show on KDWN in Las Vegas on May 5. Harris became interested in bills after seeing Sacks’ column Protecting parents who serve (Las Vegas Review-Journal, 5/1/11). Harris (pictured) criticized family courts for being “biased against men.” Harris. a child of divorce, condemned Parental Alienation and visitation interference, and said that during her childhood, “I was lucky–my parents weren’t jerks about it.” We also discussed the Miller/Jenkins lesbian child custody battle–to learn more, see F & F’s column MSN.com column With Gay Marriage Comes Gay Divorce: The Rise of Lesbian Custody Battles (10/15/09).