False Domestic Violence Accusations Can Lead To Parental Alienation Syndrome

Written by David Heleniak

Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) is a pattern of thoughts and behavior that can develop in a child of separated parents where the custodial parent causes the child, through manipulation and access blocking, to unjustifiably fear and/or hate the other parent. PAS is more than brainwashing, in that the child comes to actively participate in the degradation of the target parent, coming up with original (often ludicrous) reasons to fear/hate him or her.

Domestic violence (DV) restraining orders are a perfect weapon for an alienating parent. Typically, in addition to removing an accused abuser from the marital home, a DV restraining order also “temporarily” bars the accused abuser from seeing his or her children, and “temporarily” gives the accusing parent exclusive physical custody. And temporary, in the Family Court, has a funny way of becoming permanent.

Obtaining a restraining order based on a false allegation of domestic violence gets the target parent out of the house and out of the picture. A father who can’t see his kids, for example, is unable to rebut the lie “Daddy doesn’t love you anymore. That’s why he left you.” Nor can he rebut the alternate lie, “Daddy is dangerous. The wise judge said so. That’s why he can’t see you.”

Often, if an accused abuser is allowed to see his or her children, it is in a supervised visitation center. As Stan Rains observed in “Supervised Visitation Center Dracula,” “The demeaning of the ‘visiting’ parent is readily visible from the minute that a person enters the ‘secured facility’ with armed guards, officious case workers with their clipboards and arrogant, domineering managers.... The child's impression is that all of these authority figures see Daddy as a serious and dangerous threat. The only time a child sees this type of security is on TV showing prisons filled with bad people.” Not only does visitation in a visitation center send the clear message to the child that the “visiting” parent is a bad person, if children decline to see their parents under such a setting, they are generally not forced to do so. More perversely, if a child is encouraged by the custodial parent to refuse to see the target parent, there will be no significant repercussion to the targeting parent, and, generally, the child will not be forced to see the target parent.

The more time a child spends away from the alienated parent, the worse the alienation will become. As psychologist Glenn F. Cartwright remarked in his article “Expanding the Parameters of Parental Alienation Syndrome,” “the old adage that time heals all wounds, such is not the case with PAS, where the passage of time worsens rather than heals the affliction. This is not to say that time is unimportant: on the contrary, time remains a vital variable for all the players. To heal the relationship, the child requires quality time with the lost parent to continue and repair the meaningful association that may have existed since birth. This continued communication also serves as a reality check for the child to counter the effects of ongoing alienation at home. Likewise, the lost parent needs time with the child to ensure that contact is not completely lost and to prevent the alienation from completely destroying what may be left of a normal, loving relationship.... The alienating parent, on the other hand, requires time to complete the brainwashing of the child without interference. The manipulation of time becomes the prime weapon in the hands of the alienator who uses it to structure, occupy, and usurp the child's time to prevent ‘contaminating’ contact with the lost parent, depriving both of their right to spend time together and furthering the goal of total alienation. Unlike cases of child abuse where time away from the abuser sometimes helps in repairing a damaged relationship, in PAS time away from the lost parent furthers the goal of alienation. The usual healing properties of time are lost when it is used as the primary weapon to inflict injury on the lost parent by alienating the child.” Along these lines, Dr. Richard A. Gardner, who coined the term “Parental Alienation Syndrome” in 1985, maintained: “If there is to be any hope of their reestablishing a relationship with the targeted parent, PAS children must spend significant time with him (her). They must have living experiences that will demonstrate that the PAS parent is not noxious and/or dangerous.”

A parent willing to falsely accuse the other parent of domestic violence would probably be willing to poison a child against him or her. Add to this the problem that a judge willing to “err on the side of caution” by entering a DV restraining order based on a dubious false allegation would probably not be willing to do what was necessary to prevent the development of PAS.

PAS is heart-wrenching and, tragically, common. If the DV restraining order system could be reformed so that only real victims obtained restraining orders and only real abusers were thrown out of their houses, I predict that the number of PAS cases would be greatly reduced. Let’s try to get there.

Connecticut Takes a Step to Protect Men’s Rights

The basic principle of due process is that a defendant whose rights the state wants to limit is entitled to notice of the charge against him/her and a hearing before an impartial arbiter. But in the area of domestic violence law, those two basic rights are usually ignored. The mere allegation of domestic violence can be enough to deprive a person of constitutional rights (refer to my two previous posts).

Connecticut resident Fernando A., whose full name is not released in court records, was divorcing when his wife fabricated the attack story to gain leverage in family court proceedings. He never got a chance to object to the order of protection issued against him that removed him from his house and prevented him from seeing his children. His lawyer, Steven D. Ecker, of Hartford’s Cowdery, Ecker & Murphy, asked for an evidentiary hearing, but Superior Court Judge James Bingham denied the request. Ecker then challenged the denial up to the state Supreme Court.

The Connecticut Supreme Court then ruled an opinion in which states that, in order to award a restriction order, a defendant must be granted an evidentiary hearing at which the state must consider both sides of the story and must prove, by the civil standard of a preponderance of evidence, that the order is necessary. The defendant may testify or present witnesses, and may cross-examine any witnesses against him. The order may be issued initially on little evidence and with no notice to the defendant, leaving the defendant with no opportunity to defend himself, but that order can now remain in force only for a "reasonable" period of time (what constitutes a reasonable time remains gray area).

This is small but very important step towards a fair treatment of those who are accused of domestic violence, which in turn is a step towards a fair custody awarding system, because, as we all know, domestic violence accusations are one of the instruments most commonly used to block fathers from having custody and visitation rights.

This court opinion has its setbacks. Judges have an extremely broad discretion and can emit restriction orders based on little evidence, relying only on the written materials and hearsay to continue their restriction order. How long a defendant may be deprived of his home, his belongings, access to his children, bank accounts, etc., is not specified. The standard of proof required is, instead of the more restrictive criminal standard, the civil one of "preponderance of the evidence," which means that if the prosecution produces barely more than half of the evidence submitted to court, it wins and the defendant's children may face an indefinite time apart from him.

Again: this is a small step, but a small step in the right direction. Hopefully, this Connecticut court opinion will serve as a deterrent against false accusations and as a shield to protect men’s basic constitutional rights. Hopefully this court opinion will save many men from living in constant fear and intimidation.

Review of “The New Star Chamber: The New Jersey Family Court and the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act” by David N. Heleniak. Part 2 of 2

Last week I started a discussion on David N. Heleniak’s text on the terrible legal implications of New Jersey’s “Prevention of Domestic Violence Act.” Today I will focus on his concerns about the constitutionality of the Act. At a 1995 seminar for municipal judges, Judge Richard Russell of Ocean City, N.J., was caught on tape giving the following advice:

“Our job is not to become concerned about the constitutional rights of the man that you're violating as you grant a restraining order, (…) They have declared domestic violence to be an evil in our society. So we don't have to worry about the rights."

Judge Russell’s attitude reflects the general attitude that many family courts judges have towards men. This blatant disregard of constitutional rights has a clear expression in the Act under discussion. Among the deficiencies that make the Act unconstitutional are:

1 - The lack of notice: The Act requires that a summary hearing has to be held within ten days of the filing of the complaint, to determine whether the allegations in the complaint occurred. Ten days is not enough time to prepare a defense. A wife willing to commit perjury can spend years with her lawyer planning to file a domestic violence complaint at an opportune moment in order to gain the upper hand in a divorce proceeding, while the accused husband has only ten days to get ready.

2 - The denial of the right to free counsel: The Act does not provide for the free assistance of counsel for poor defendants, which added to the fact that they have only ten days to prepare their defense, reduces dramatically their chances of a fair trial.

3 - The denial of the right to take depositions: The deposition is usually the most important discovery tool during a trial. During deposition, a defendant's attorney can corroborate the veracity of the plaintiff’s assertions. In a restriction order hearing, a defendant is deprived of this discovery tool because, according to the Chancery Division, allowing the “…alleged perpetrator to depose a victim, (…) perpetuates the cycle of power and control whereby the perpetrator remains the one with the power and the victim remains powerless.” Defendant is therefore unable to anticipate all of the things the plaintiff says at the hearing, is unable to analyze her version of the events alleged in the complaint prior to the hearing, and is unable to test the veracity of her testimony.

4 - An improper standard of proof: The Penal Code treats domestic violence complaints as something other than a criminal offense. The result is that family courts can circumvent the protections normally accorded for an accused in a criminal case, including the right to due process of law, and to a trial by jury.

5 - The denial of the right to a trial by jury: The trial by jury is necessary for preventing the abuse of judiciary power. The fathers of the constitution, reluctant to entrust plenary powers over the life and liberty of the citizen to one judge or to a group of judges, insisted that the truth of every accusation should be confirmed by the suffrage of his equals. In our constitutional framework, the jury is expected to serve the people by checking the judge, by protecting us against arbitrary actions by courts. By denying the defendant of his right of a jury trial, the Act denies him of one of the most basic constitutional rights.

In summary, the Act is unconstitutional because it denies defendants due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution provides that no State shall "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." But as we have seen, the Act does precisely that.

And as Heleniak writes, the protection of women does not justify the surrender of civil rights.

Review of "The New Star Chamber: The New Jersey Family Court and the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act" by David N. Heleniak. Part 1 of 2

David N. Heleniak is an attorney in New Jersey. Holding a MA degree in Theological and Religious Studies from Drew University, he is the vice president of RADAR (Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting), a non-profit organization that works to improve the effectiveness of the approach to domestic violence (http://www.mediaradar.org) and the senior legal analyst for True Equality Network, a group dedicated to educating on how the failures of numerous federal programs and the abuses of federal funding systems affect the sovereignty of the American family (http://www.true-equality.org).

He is the author of several works, one of which is titled The New Star Chamber: The New Jersey Family Court and the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act, published in the Spring of 2005 issue of Rutgers Law Review, adaptations of which were published in the New Jersey Law Journal, New Jersey Lawyer, and The Liberator, America's Shared Parenting Quarterly (PDF: http://www.njccr.org/Articles/Heleniak2006NewStarChamber.pdf) (Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwsgT_Yu008). It is this text that I want to summarize on this and next week posts.

The text starts with a disturbing quote by Dean Roscoe Pound: "The powers of the star chamber were a trifle in comparison with those of our juvenile courts and courts of domestic relations." From there, Heleniak develops an exposé on how the family court system, particularly in New Jersey, violates basic constitutional rights.

The title of the text refers to the Star Chamber, so named because of the star pattern painted on the ceiling of the room in Westminster Palace, where the king of England's council met, that was intended to be a more efficient alternative to the common-law courts, but that in fact, it became the embodiment of unfair judicial proceedings. Heleniak argues that through The Prevention of Domestic Violence Act, the New Jersey Legislature has been allowed to create, in the Family Part of the Chancery Division of the New Jersey Superior Court, a modern day Star Chamber.

The Act permits a self-proclaimed victim to file a complaint alleging the commission of an act of domestic violence, and to request a temporary restraining order. If the court determines that an act of domestic violence has occurred, it can authorize any of the following reliefs:

- An order giving the plaintiff exclusive possession of the marital home.

- An order requiring the defendant to make mortgage or rent payments.

- An order restraining the defendant from making contact with the plaintiff.

- Temporary custody of a minor child.

- The suspension of parenting time for the defendant or limitation of visitation to supervised visitations.

- Monetary compensation for losses suffered by the plaintiff to be paid for by the defendant.

- An order requiring the defendant to receive professional domestic violence help.

- An order requiring the defendant to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

- The award of temporary custody of personal property, such as an automobile, checkbook, and other personal effects of the defendant.

The Act also provides for imprisonment for any person convicted of a second or subsequent nonindictable domestic violence contempt. As it is easy to see, the potential for abuse of the Act is immense. The advantages of a restraining order to the complainant are a temptation hard to resist: exclusive possession of the home, temporary and probably permanent sole custody of the children, and the opportunity to make the other person’s life miserable.

The Prevention of Domestic Violence Act authorizes a chancery judge to bar a defendant from ever setting foot in his house again, yet make him pay the mortgage payments; make him pay large sums of money to the plaintiff; bar him from seeing his children; force him to see a psychologist and/or psychiatrist against his will; temporarily give the plaintiff exclusive possession of the defendant's car, checkbook, and other personal effects; bar the defendant from ever speaking to any individual that the plaintiff does not want him to speak to; force him to turn any firearms he has and bar him from ever possessing another firearm in his life; and make the defendant pay a "civil penalty" of $500.00, and if the defendant refuses to comply with any aspect of the judge's order, he can be tried for contempt and imprisoned. Lastly, he is labeled an abuser and his name is put on a list of domestic abusers known as the New Jersey Judiciary's Domestic Violence Central Registry, a societal stigma that will follow him the rest of his life.

Knowing all this, it should not be a surprise that in many divorce cases, allegations of abuse are used for tactical advantage.

British Conservatives and Joint Custody

Robert Franklin published in the online men’s journal Men’s News Daily (http://mensnewsdaily.com) an article titled “British Tories Favor Shared Parenting After Breakup” (http://mensnewsdaily.com/glennsacks/2009/10/13/british-tories-favor-shared-parenting-after-breakup/), on the support of British conservatives of public policies that favor joint custody.

Tim Loughton, UK Shadow Children's Minister, said at a meeting hosted by the charity consortium Kids in the Middle, that his party (the Conservative and Unionist Party, “Tories”) preferred a system that presumed shared parenting following divorce, even if the couples could not reach an agreement and needed mediation to do so. Loughton said:

"At the moment we have got an incredibly adversarial system when parents split up. It is crazy we have so many acrimonious cases. (…) From the start of the process there should be a default mechanism for shared responsibility unless there is a welfare reason not to."

His comments come as a reaction to the growing concerns in British society over the adverse impact of conflict between parents on children. Several issues compound these concerns:

-The generalized rejection to the current adversarial nature of divorce processes.

- The growing acceptance of a presumption of equally shared parenting for custody awards.

- The understanding of the importance of mediation in divorce processes.

-The generalized idea that both parents should be involved in their children’s education.

Even though there is no concrete law project in favor of joint custody in the United Kingdom, the fact that the powerful Tory Party favors joint custody should be considered a milestone in the attainment of one. This should be read as a sign of the profound transformations that family relations and gender roles are undergoing in many countries around the world, transformations that in the end will bring healthier families, happier children, and stronger communities.

I would like to finish this post quoting the last paragraph of the article, on which, after mentioning all the possible barriers against the concretion of a pro-joint custody law in the United Kingdom, says:

“But those are all things to be dealt with, to be fought over when the time comes. Final victory never comes; movement toward greater father-child bonds is always a work in progress. It is now and always will be a process of becoming.”

Colombia: A Law in Favor of Joint Custody and Against False Accusations

The webpage of the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, published last October 15th of 2009 an article by Andrea Linares Gómez titled “Pérdida de custodia por falsa denuncia o si un padre daña imagen del otro, plantea proyecto de ley” (“Law Project Proposes Loss of Custody for False Accusations or If a Parent Damages Image of the Other). (http://www.eltiempo.com/colombia/justicia/perdida-de-custodia-por-falsa-denuncia-o-si-un-padre-dana-la-imagen-de-otro-plantea-proyecto-de-ley_6335647-1). The article discusses the law project that wants to establish joint custody in Colombia. This project responds to a tendency in Colombian society. According to family judge Ana Lucía Suárez, although in the majority of cases is the mother who wants the children’s custody, more fathers ask for it with more frequency.

It is always good news knowing that another country joins the world trend in favor of joint custody, especially if that country is as important and has such an influence as Colombia. However, what catches my attention is that the project establishes that if one of the parents damages his/her children’s image of the other parent or makes malicious sexual abuse accusations against the noncustodial parent, that parent will lose custody of the children. The project also provides for taking custody rights from any parent who physically abuse his/her children.

Federico Cardona, president of the Colombian organization Fundación Primero la Infancia (Infants First Foundation), that gathers noncustodial fathers and mothers, states that false accusations are the most common problem among separated couples. These false accusations are used as an instrument to alienate the other parent from his/her children and to create in them a negative image of the noncustodial parent. This dynamic, as we all already know, is typical in Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) cases.

The problem of false accusations during custody disputes is a very serious one. In countries like Puerto Rico and Chile, the phenomenon reaches epidemical proportions. The main reason of this proliferation of false accusations is precisely its impunity: in family courts, anyone can accuse another of any atrocity, knowing that courts, with the excuse of protecting minors, will ban any contact between the accused and his/her children, knowing also that when accusations are proved false, the bond between children and the absent parent would have been weakened, and the accuser will not be liable for his/her malicious accusations. The achievement of this piece of legislation is that, as many pro joint custody groups have been asking for a long time, at last would exist a juridical figure through which the malicious accuser could be brought to court and be judged.

I hope that this pro joint custody law will be approved in Colombia, and that other Latin-American countries follow this example.

Signe Wilkinson, Fatherlessness, and Schools

Signe Wilkinson (born in 1959 in Texas) is an editorial cartoonist best known for her work at The Washington Post and the Philadelphia Daily News. She was the first female cartoonist to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. She was served as president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists from 1994-1995.

In one of her cartoons, published last September 29th (http://glennsacks.com/blog/?p=4273), on which she depicts a classroom where every student chair has been labeled with one of the causes of American school system failure, and the most prominent has been labeled with the word “Dadless”. The fact that such a mainstream voice points out fatherlessness as one of the factors of the current school system debacle (right now, the US schools’ performance compares to those of third world countries) is an achievement in itself, but that that voice points in as the most relevant, is a true accomplishment.

We teachers know (I was an elementary school teacher for nineteen years) that schools are microcosms of the communities and societies where they stand. It is true that fatherlessness is one of the main social sources of student failure at schools, it is also true that fatherlessness is one of the sources of failure in life for so many children who have been risen without their fathers.

Very recently, the Sundance Channel aired a five episodes series titled “Brick City,” on the current struggle to revitalize the once extremely vital, now extremely violent city of Newark. In one of the most telling scenes, a teacher, in a classroom full of high school boys, asked them to raise their hand if they had little or no contact with their fathers; the vast majority raised their hands.

There is an admonition in this: If we want our societies to fail, the only thing that we have to do is to remove fathers from the lives of their children. But if what we want is give our world a chance to succeed and survive, let us allow that fathers to be an integral part of the lives of their children.

We, the believers in joint custody, have already chosen what we want.

What Would Happen If The Fathers Sue?

I recently read the article “Dad Gets Custody; Sues Oklahoma Dept. of Human Services and DV Shelter” (http://glennsacks.com/blog/?p=4209) by Robert Franklin, Esq. This article is worth reading, due to its particular approach to the problem of domestic violence and to what Franklin calls the “domestic violence industry.”

Domestic violence is an extremely delicate matter. On one hand, domestic violence is a real problem that is suffered by both genders and that causes numerous deaths every year. On the other hand, during child custody disputes, domestic violence accusations (along with sexual misconduct) are often used as means to exclude one of the parents from their children’s lives and to eradicate from the process any chance of fair treatment. Because many divorcing parents know that courts follow the official policy of “shoot now, ask later,” they accuse the other parent of domestic violence to isolate them from their children. And since making false accusations is a crime everywhere except in family courts, the accuser knows that even when the accusations are proven false and malicious, even when in many times the other parent has done time in jail, nothing will happen to them and they would have achieved their goal of planting a physical and temporal barrier between the other parent and his/her children.

It is from the acknowledgement of this complexity that Franklin’s article should be read. The article starts stating Franklin’s concerns regarding the way battered women shelters deal with the problem of domestic violence. Quoting a study done in Germany, he sustains that many shelters work as centers of radical feminism indoctrination, where they teach women that only men are perpetrators and only women are victims. That view assumes that domestic violence is a political act of power and oppression, not the result of a psychological disorder. These shelters, more than making an effort to actually help victims, their goal is often the separation, whether by divorce or otherwise, of the woman and her husband/partner.

Is in this context that the case of Crystal Hall should be understood. Mrs. Hall, who suffers from a form of mental/emotional/psychological impairment, contacted Safenet Services, a shelter for victims of domestic violence in Oklahoma, claiming that she and her five children had been abused by her husband, James Hall. Safenet, through its executive director, Donna Grabow, suggested her divorce as the only solution to her situation, telling her that the court would be sympathetic to a woman claiming abuse.

Over the course of 28 months, Mr. Hall underwent seven evaluations by various state agencies, all of which found him to be a fit and loving father with no evidence of abuse of either his wife or his children. The court ordered the children placed in his custody and further ordered his wife to pay child support, given that she is mentally capable of, and is in fact, working.

Since this ordeal started, there has been no discernible improvement in Mrs. Hall's psychological health, and she has become seriously co-dependent on Grabow and Safenet, who come to her house three times each day, seven days each week to make sure she takes her medication. Furthermore, although the court granted her visitation rights, Mrs. Hall has made no effort to visit her children for over a year. Even more worrying is the fact that the Oklahoma family court judge has forbidden Safenet staff from contacting the Hall children, who feel harassed by the organization.

Franklin assess Hall case as the case of “a mentally unstable woman who fell into the hands of a more or less typical DV shelter.” Because the shelter religiously followed the ideology of men are abusers and women are victims, they accepted unquestioningly Mrs. Hall’s claims, and urged her to divorce with the promise of the custody of her children. And from then, the mess that followed.

Now Mr. Hall has filed a civil suit for damages against the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, Safenet Services, Inc. and Donna Grabow. I have always wondered what would happen to the family courts system if the fathers who suffered their abuse counterattack with legal actions, not against their spouses as they usually do, but against the court system itself. Mr. Hall is probably one of the firsts, if not the first, of a new breed of fathers that should propagate fast.

Tom and Rita’s Story

I have written before about the evils of parental kidnapping, and how it is used as a weapon against parents who have won joint or full custody of their children. The gloomy procession of heart-breaking stories is never-ending: parents who have their lives destroyed because one day their children just disappeared, taken away in an act of vengeance and hate; children taken from their homes, taken to other states, other countries even, many times with their names and identities changed, children who lost one of their parents forever, unnatural orphans of living parents.

Because most of these stories have a sad ending, finding one with a happy conclusion is an uplifting experience. Recently I found one of those stories (Cabbie Hailed for Donating Kidney).

Tom Chappell, a Phoenix, Arizona cab driver, had to drive for the same always bad-humored client for a period of two months. Every time this client, named Rita, called the agency for a taxi, it was Tom who was dispatched. But when he realized that he was always driving Rita to a medical office to receive dialysis, he understood that her constant bad humor was the result of a severe kidney condition and the therapy she had to undertake in order to survive.

When he learned that Rita needed a kidney transplant, and that none of her friends or family was a suitable donor, Tom offered himself as a donor. Although Rita believed that Tom probably would not be a match, the required tests were run, and when the results came back, as Tom quotes, the doctors told them that “…if it was any closer we’d be siblings”.

Two important things resulted from this experience. First, that the surgery is planned for later this year and Rita will have the kidney that she so desperately needs. Second and most important, through the tests that were done for the transplant they discovered that the closeness between Tom and Rita was not accidental: they are father and daughter. Thirty years ago, after an ugly divorce, Tom’s ex wife took their daughter and disappeared. Now, thirty years after, and thanks to Tom’s act of generosity, father and daughter found each other precisely in a moment when, in Tom’s words, part of the reason he offered Rita his kidney in the first place is because he figured he did not have a whole lot more to live for anyway. But as he told Rita, “This has not just given you a new life. It’s given me another life.”

Never give up. Never lose hope.

The Poisoned Well

These days, life has reminded me, in a violent way as it always does to me, that struggles like mine never end, that every overcome test is nothing more that the preparation for a bigger test, that every battle won is nothing more that the preamble for a greater battle, more brutal, bloodier.

Life is a hard and unending training.

I say this, because as many that have been or are now in my situation have already discovered, solving in court the problem of the custody of our children is not the end of the war, but the beginning of an incessant sequence of big and small skirmishes, which only purpose is to sabotage the initial victory, to prove that joint custody does not work by making sure that it will not work (and so think the evil ones: if we suspect that our prophecy will not be fulfilled, we will force its fulfillment).

I say this, because in the same fashion of the wars of antiquity, on which and army poisoned the water that would be drunk by the other one, so many people, when they lose the sole custody of their children and see themselves forced to share it with their ex-spouse, from that moment on they commit themselves to provoke, to defy, to make the other parent’s life as miserable as possible.

I say this, because we cannot give up.

Always Dad, by Paul Mandelstein

The book Always Dad: Being a Great Father During & After Divorce, by Paul Mandelstein, is a very useful book for divorced fathers. Finalist for The Publishers Marketing Associations Benjamin Franklin Award, this book aspires to be a guide for those fathers who want to remain being fathers during and after divorce.

Mandelstein, a divorced father of three, founded in 1999 the nonprofit organization Father Resource Network (www.father.com), where he serves as chairman and executive director. This network helps divorced fathers, facilitating workshops and lectures focused on fatherhood in the 21st century.

In his book Always Dad, Mandelstein distills his years of experience working with divorced fathers into down-to-earth ideas and strategies to guide fathers to continue playing a crucial role in their children's lives.

Following is a summary of the chapters of the book:

Introduction - Lemons into Lemonade: Divorce as a chance for growth as a persona and as a father.

Chapter One - Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: On keeping healthy bonds with our children after divorce.

Chapter Two - Creating Your New Home: On how to make a new home and how to make room in it for your kids.

Chapter Three - Daily Life as a Single Dad: A typical day in the life of a single dad.

Chapter Four - The Non-custodial Dance: Establishing the grounds for raising children in two different homes. Earning the trust of your children in the new situation.

Chapter Five - Ex-Communications: 10 Ways to Make Talking to Your Ex Easier: Advice on how to communicate with your ex.

Chapter Six - Settling Up: Legal and Custody Issues.

Chapter Seven - Let's Get Real About the Kids: On becoming the parent you want to be for your kids.

Chapter Eight - Keeping Yourself Together: On recognizing and managing stress and depression.

Chapter Nine - Birthdays and Holidays: Tips for sharing birthdays and holidays with your ex.

Chapter Ten - Kids, Friends, Dating, and Lovers: On how to start dating again, and how doing this relates to your kids and your ex.

Chapter Eleven - Taking a Chance on Love Again: On remarriage and blending the new families.

Shared Parenting, by Burrett and Green

Jill Burrett, a psychologist who helps divorced parents as a counselor and mediator, and Michael Green, a lawyer who runs a private mediation practice, have published the book Shared Parenting: Raising Your Child Cooperatively After Separation.

These two experts, each one with over 30 years of experience, wrote this book as an handbook for separated or divorced parents who want to develop a a successful shared parenting strategy. The authors emphasize the importance of children having significant time with both parents so they can maintain meaningful relationships.

They cite supporting research, which indicates how important it is for children to continue healthy relationships with their parents after family breakdown. They sustain that once a good shared parenting arrangement is working, all the parties involved receive emotional benefits: mothers becoming more comfortable with sharing the children, fathers learn to be truly involved in their children lives, and children are happy for being able to be with both parents. The authors write:

“We don’t think fortnightly weekend parenting is meaningful shared parenting. We think that shared parenting means having real chunks of time engaged with your children for a flexible 35–50 percent or more of their available time.

Sole-mother ‘custody’, with mother doing all the parenting and father merely paying the bills and popping into the kids’ lives from time to time, isn’t really good enough for children – and often not for mothers – in either separated or ‘intact’ family situations”.

Some of the most interesting chapters of the book are:

Chapter 1 Parenting after separation: Shared parenting can produce happier children and more satisfied parents; a few guidelines for making it work.

Chapter 5 Sorting out your motives: How parent’s feelings can interfere with their parenting, and how they can get past their hurt and anger and focus on approaches that will benefit their children.

Chapter 8 Designing a parenting plan: How to design your own parenting plan.

Chapter 9 Sample parenting plans.

Chapter 10 Communicating between households: Tips for communication between divorced parents.

This book than can help all of us who have shared parenting schedules and want them to be successful.

The Absence of Agreement between Parents Is Not a Valid Reason to Deny Joint Custody

Many divorced parents reject the concept of joint custody, and there are many of them who not only reject joint custody, but who also reject arrangements that are usual in sole custody cases. In Pascale v. Pascale (140 N.J. 583, 1995), the case that led to a revision of the child support guidelines in New Jersey, established that:

…many traditional custody arrangements… will include more than one night of parenting a week for the secondary caretaker of the children. 140 N.J. 611 (1995)

These parents reject even what would be considered a small variation of the traditional arrangement. Having said this, it should be said that in Beck v. Beck, the landmark joint custody case in New Jersey, the mother also rejected the idea of a joint custody arrangement, but that fact was not an obstacle to grant joint custody. To the objections to a court ordered joint custody, Dr. Clark, one of the experts used as consultants, replied that:

…the ideal joint custody arrangement would be one arrived at by agreement between parties. Nevertheless, in the absence of such an agreement, joint custody could successfully be carried out by Court decree, provided the parents put the best interest of the children first and were provided with certain “ground rules” governing the custody arrangement. 86 N.J. 492 (1981)

If both parents are responsible parents, joint custody will work, no matter if this arrangement has been ordered by court. Beck v. Beck dissipates any doubt that a court ordered joint custody could arise:

Although joint custody may be less likely to succeed if ordered by the Court than if achieved by the parent’s agreement, court-ordered joint custody is likely to be no more prone to failure than court-ordered sole custody following a divorce custody proceeding. 86 N.J. 498 (1981)

What the child will gain from a joint custody arrangement is so much, and what this child would lose in a sole custody arrangement is so much, that the Court should put all its effort to lead the divorcing parents to a joint custody arrangement, even if one of them disagrees.

Rhonda Gale

I recently read the blog post titled “Dads Are Winning Custody of their Children” by Rhonda Gale (http://mother-2-mother.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html), on which, with admirable motherly spirit and solidarity, celebrates the recent advancements of fathers on the matter of the custody of their children, and points out in a brief but accurate way the factors that have allowed this achievements to happen.

Two things called my attention in a special manner. First, that the author of the text is a woman that writes in a blog for women. Many times, we the men who fight for the cause of joint custody, tend to forget that there are many women who are also fighting for the cause, women who are wives, grandmothers, aunts, friends, in summary, women who although are not fathers, see and suffer the harmful effects that the current family laws have in their children and their families.

Second, it surprised me the simplicity and the clarity with which Gale enumerates those causes of the advancements of fathers and children rights. I now summarize those that I consider more important:

• Fathers are becoming more involved in their children's upbringing.

• Fathers are educating themselves on how to win the custody of their children, convincing the judge that they are just as fit as mothers are.

• Fathers are using their intelligence and emotional stability to win their cases.

• More men are willing to invest the money on attorney fees preparing for the legal battle.

• Men are forming support groups and learning from other fathers who have won custody of their children.

Take note.

Rejoice with me!

My friends:

God has visited me, again.

You all know how much I have fought for the joint custody of my daughter Sofía.
Last July 17 of 2009 I went court again, and although the judge did not grant me joint custody, he added another overnight a week to the one that I already have, what makes the current parenting schedule a de facto joint custody arrangement. From next week on, Sofía will have dinner with me on Tuesdays and go to her mom’s house afterward, and on Thursdays, I will pick her up at school and will bring her to her mom’s house on Saturday night.

The judge also awarded me vacation time, which I did not had until today (now I can visit my family in Puerto Rico), and at my request, the judge set a schedule to start disclosing to Sofía the fact that she is adopted, an issue that really worried me.

I want to point out two things that should be remarked. First, that during the hearing, both my attorney and the judge acknowledged the major advancements of fathers’ rights in recent years. Although it is true that these changes have not come at the speed that we would like them to come, they are coming, and in sustained and clear pace.

Second, that persistence and faith pay. If I had given up, as many people, including friends, had told me to do, this victory would never have happened. It was my faith in God and my will to fight what gave me the strength an the vision to keep on insisting on the rights of my child and my rights as a father.

So, God has smiled at me and life is good.

Vidal

One Step Forward, One Step Backward: Canada and Australia (2 of 2)

During the past decade, the Australian court system, by means of the Family Law Act of 2006, has supported joint custody as an important way of maintaining family life after divorce. The Act, which surveys in Australia have shown has high levels of support among Australians, presumes that joint custody is the arrangement that works best for both children and parents, and establishes shared parenting as the norm for post-separation custody arrangements.

Recently, an organized movement, formed mainly by government bureaucrats, feminist extremist and the family law industry itself, has opposed these advancements and has requested changes to family law, changes that in practice would bring Australian family law to the previous anti shared parenting policies. This movement argues that the current shared parenting laws put children in harms way, using as example several recent cases on which children have been murdered during visitation time with their fathers.

Several issues have to be discussed here. First, as recent horrendous cases have tragically proved, violence and filicide are not the exclusive realm of fathers. There are violent fathers, but there are many violent mothers too. Second, if the current law has loopholes through which inadequate parents have contact with their children, those loopholes should be corrected without removing the shared parenting concept, as the anti joint custody movement is requesting right now. Being the proved best option for children of divorced parents, shared parenting should be protected always. If we follow the logic of the anti joint custody movement, we would abolish marriage because many married women have been killed by their husbands. Of course, we should not, because marriage, as joint custody, has proved that its benefits for the whole society are far more numerous and important than its setbacks.

This type of step backwards is not new in history. In New Jersey, women were granted the right to vote in 1776, bust they lost it again in 1807, when the right was restricted to white males only, with the excuse of avoiding electoral fraud and simplifying the electoral process. As long as a right is not accepted as right but as a concession, there will be always a chance the forces against it would find a way to take it away.

The case of the Australian Family Law Act proves something important for the shared parenting movement. Having a pro joint custody legislation approved is not, I repeat, is not end of the road. It is just the beginning. Once a country has a good family law, we should stay vigilant, knowing that a law that is not enforced is dead, and that many retrograde forces will try to move back to the previous regime.

Sadly, many people like to live in the past.

One Step Forward, One Step Backward: Canada and Australia (1 of 2)

On June 16 of 2009, Maurice Vellacott, member of House of Commons of Canada, submitted Bill C-422, for a presumption of equal parenting. This bill, if passed, will direct courts to make equal shared parenting the presumptive arrangement in the best interests of the child. On its Preamble, the bill states that among its purposes are to:

(b) encourage divorcing spouses to assume more responsibility for their affairs, with less reliance on adversarial processes,

(c) promote joint responsibility and joint decision-making by spouses in respect of ongoing childcare, nurturing, and development,

(d) establish that the interests of the child are best served through maximal ongoing pa- rental involvement with the child, and that the rebuttable presumption of equal parenting is the starting point for judicial deliberations…

This historic bill is the result of the efforts of many pro joint custody organizations in Canada, especially of The Canadian Equal Parenting Council (CEPC, www.canadianepc.com). The Council is a coalition of 38 pro joint custody organizations encompassing a range of issues related to family and social justice in Canada. In its mission statement they write:

The primary mission of this organization, and the movement it represents, is to secure every child’s right to be equally parented when the relationship between the father and the mother breaks down.

Last week we rejoiced for the triumphs of Amor de Papá in Chile. Now we have to rejoice for the triumphs of our Canadian brothers and sisters. If Bill C-422 is passed, the fight for the right of our children to have two parents would haven achieved a historic milestone.

A Victory in Chile

Amor de Papá (Father’s Love, www.amordepapa.org), a pro joint custody organization that fights to reform family laws in Chile and to avoid Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), has achieved an important victory in court (www.amordepapa.org/declaracion_20090708_David_Abuhadba.php).

Last June 30th of 2009, a Chilean court declared admissible a Motion of Inapplicability for its Unconstitutionality of Article 225 of the Civil Code, submitted by the President of Amor de Papá. This motion requested the court to declare unconstitutional this article, that states on its 1st and 3rd sections that: “If the parents live separated, the personal care of the children will be awarded to the mother", since that precept is considered is contrary to Article 19 No. 2 of the Chilean Constitution, that states that: “Equality before the law. In Chile, there is no privileged person or group. In Chile, there are no slaves and anyone who steps on its territory is free. Men and women are equal before the law. No law or authority could establish arbitrary differences.”

The motion affirms that "the imperative of l article 225 section 1A of the Civil Code results discriminatory regarding men, since for the processes and activities of ‘personal care of the children’, in other words, those processes by which the parent or parents should adopt decisions that allow to secure the best spiritual and material fulfillment possible of the minor, as to secure that children can exercise the essential rights that emanate of human nature (…) it has not been proven, nor determined that women are necessarily in a better position than men or that they have an expertise, abilities, capacities or aptitudes different from other gender to do so.”

David Abuhadba, president of Amor de Papá (see picture), affirmed that “this resolution is historic in Chile. It is the first big step to end the daily violation of the human rights of children and fathers at the family courts of our country.”

The fight for the rights of our children is one that is built day by day, step by step, battle by battle. Victories like these are the ones that will give us the final victory, and the ones that encourage us to keep on fighting.

To the brothers and sisters of Amor de Papá, congratulations for their achievements, that are many already, and a hug in solidarity. Keep on fighting.

Kidnap As an Instrument of Punishment

Recently it has become notorious the case on which a Brazilian woman, Bruna Bianchi Carneiro Ribeiro, who lived and was married in New Jersey, kidnaps her child and takes him to Brazil (http://www.redbank.com/blog/sean-goldman-usa-parental-abduction-brazil), forcing the father to engage in an intense international legal fight to recover his child. Thanks to this sad case, there is now a public discussion of the great problem of parental kidnapping.

Although there are international laws against parental kidnapping, these are poorly enforced and frequently manipulated for the convenience of the kidnapping parent, who usually takes the child to his/her country of origin. Ironically, in the above quoted case, Bruna remarried in Brazil, this time with an attorney specialized in family law, who has even spoken at The Hague on the issue of parental kidnapping. Bruna dies and is this attorney who has stopped the child of being reunited with his father. Human nature never ceases to be perverse.

I also say that we should use this opportunity to discuss the negative effect that the physical distance between separated parents has on the children and on the bond between them and their parents, specially with their fathers. I say this, because in very few states (I only know the case of Pennsylvania) there are laws that stop that a parent with joint custody could leave the state where he/she lives, putting this way distance between the children and the other parent.

Kidnapping their children is a tactic that many women use once they loose the custody of their children to their father. And moving out, sometimes thousands of miles away, is a strategy frequently used by mothers once joint custody is awarded to the father of their children. What is the difference between kidnapping children and taking them to where it will be impossible for them to stay in contact with their fathers?

In the movie Jarhead, there is a scene on which the soldiers, already in a camp in the desert, put something like a wall of shame, on which they put pictures of the women that that have betrayed them. One of the pictures show a women with a child, with the words: “I loved her and she took my kid and disappeared.”

Next time your ex-spouse tells you the she will take your children where you cannot see them, do not ignore her. Maybe it is not a threat. Maybe it is a plan.

Joint Custody and Adopted Children

Let me start with clear and unquestionable truth: Sole custody endangers the bond between adoptive parents and adopted children.

For us, parents of adoptive children, divorce after adoption brings a special kind of tragedy that adds to the already tragic condition of living without our children. I have referred to Beck v. Beck case before in this blog for several reasons. This case set a precedent for joint custody cases, stated the primacy of physical custody as the factor that defines parent-child relationships, and stated that a children have equal need of their fathers and mothers. However, I have another reason far more personal. In this case, what is in dispute is the custody of adopted children.

While having children is always a blessing, being, like in my case, incapable of having biological children and receiving the gift of an adoptive child, is a very special privilege. This child is never an accident, an unplanned consequence: this child has been chosen by the love of his/her parents. I will not try to explain here how many and beautiful are the dreams of a parent who adopts a child. Neither will I try to explain the profound and tender love that adoptive parents develop for their children. Nevertheless, I will certainly try to highlight the importance of physical custody for the parents of adopted children.

The fact that allows people to adopt as their own other’s people children, is that what really makes a child your child is that he/she is raised by you, and what makes someone your parent is that he/she raised you, and by raising I refer to the day to day type of contact that only physical custody can provide.

Even when adopted children get to know their biological parents, the children will consider parents only the ones who have raised them. This fact implies a truth that should be considered here: that in the absence of a bloodline between a parent and a child, like in the case of adopted children, sharing the dynamics of day-to-day life is what creates the bond between them. For an adoptive parent, the physical custody of his child is not one of the ways to create a bond with his child, it is the only way. Beck v. Beck affirms this singularity of adopted children, stating:

…that because the girls were adopted, they needed “the benefit, contact, and security of both parents.” 86 N.J. 489 (1981)

Beck v. Beck admonished against endangering this attachment between the adopted girls and their father:

Viewing the issue in terms of the importance of fatherhood in the lives of the two girls, it (the court) concluded that the lack of real contact with the father would have negative developmental effects, particularly because the girls are adopted. 86 N.J. 492-93 (1981)

Depriving adopted children from one of their parents, as family courts usually do in custody cases, takes away for the second time what life has already taken once: the love, comfort, and security that only their father and mother can give them.

New Data on Fathers and their Children

Two recent articles on the relationship between fathers and their children give new data on this important issue. The articles are Our Fatherhood Crisis , by Glenn Sacks and Robert Franklin, published on June 21, 2009 in The Washington Times (http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/21/our-fatherhood-crisis/?feat=home_commentary), and Obama’s Father’s Day Criticism of Dads Misses Mark by Glenn Sacks and Robert Franklin (http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-life/family-parenting/article.aspx?cp-documentid=20440872&page=print). I want to quote some of the most relevant facts that appeared on these articles:

1 - Professor Rebekah Levine Coley lead a recent Boston College study of low-income minority families, and found that when nonresident fathers are involved in their adolescent children's lives, they worked as an important protective factor, decreasing markedly the incidence of substance abuse, violence, and delinquency.
Writing about this study, MSNBC health and science writer Linda Carroll explains that:

"When it comes to preventing risky teen sex, there may be no better deterrent than a doting dad. Teenagers whose fathers are more involved in their lives are less likely to engage in risky sexual activities such as unprotected intercourse, according to a new study...While an involved mother can also help stave off a teen's sexual activity, dads have twice the influence."

2 - Professors Kathryn Edin of Harvard and Timothy Nelson of the University of Pennsylvania conducted a study of low-income, unmarried fathers and found that most strive to be good parents but often are thwarted by the children's mothers' interference. They found that these dads provide what monetary support they could, but focused on the non-financial aspects of fatherhood. These aspects include educating their daughters about relationships with males and teaching their sons how to defend themselves.

Ms. Edin's soon-to-be-published subsequent studies (Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing) found that when mothers move on to have new partners their actions are "strongly associated with increases in the probability that the biological father will have no contact with his child.” When fathers move on to have subsequent partners and children, they largely retain their desire to be in their original children's lives. According to Ms. Edin: "The evidence points more strongly to the role of mothers 'swapping daddies' than it does to the role of fathers 'swapping kids.'" A single mother's new partnership "may provide strong motivation [for her] to put the new partner in the 'daddy' role." The biological father is then less likely to be involved because the mother is more likely to exclude him and/or because he may feel he's now redundant.

When a mother wants to exclude her children's father from their lives, she can push him out easily. Family courts usually award custody to mothers, and are extremely lazy enforcing fathers' visitation rights. In most states, mothers are allowed to move their children thousands of miles away from the children's fathers, destroying the fathers' bonds with their children.

3 - Dr. Perry Crouch is a gang intervention specialist in Los Angeles. He states that only about half of one percent of the gang members he deals with have fathers in their lives.

4 - Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, after examining hundreds of pre-sentencing reports detailing the family histories of convicted criminals, found that the common denominator of those cases was that one parent, usually the father, was missing from the home.

5 - In Growing Up With a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps, sociologists Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur analyzed data from five different studies and concluded that children of single parent families are more than twice as likely to drop out of high school as their peers with two parents, they're also less likely to go to college if they do finish high school, and more likely to be both out of school and out of work, proving that fathers and educational performance are also strongly linked.

6 - The Urban Institute report titled What About the Dads? tells that even when fathers inform child welfare officials that they would like their children to live with them, the agencies seek to place the children in the foster care system instead, pushing fathers away from their children.

Readers should also check out the statistics on these issues gathered by the people of Fathers and Families: http://fathersandfamiliesorg.siteprotect.net/site/infores.php

The singularity of fathers

On this Father’s Day, first I want to congratulate all those fathers who read this blog and who fight for the cause of joint custody. Second, I want to use this celebration to highlight the singularity of fatherhood.

In days like this, always someone, in all good faith, approaches us to congratulate us for being father and mother at the same time. Although I almost understand the goodness behind this congratulation, I should object it because it is born from a radical confusion between the roles of the father and the mother. Being father and mother simultaneously is impossible. Those of us who believe in joint custody, we do so precisely because we know that the roles of father and mother are not, I repeat, are not interchangeable. A child needs to have a father and a mother, and if one of them is not there, no matter how much the other could try to fill his or her space, filling it is impossible. Fathers and mothers bring absolutely different but equally important elements to the lives of their children.

Another face of this confusion is that many expect that fathers to be nothing more than a mother with testicles. The differences between men and women are not a mere cultural construction, but they are born at the root of male and female natures. Men are and should behave like men, in the same way that women are and should behave like women. We should not feel less for being men.

The fact that sole custody decisions are usually awarded to mothers indicates that in many cases courts tend to forget that in the development of a child, both parents have different but equally important tasks. One of the most important statements of Beck v. Beck, the 1981 case that set the foundation for joint custody in New Jersey, is:

…that although defendant’s care of the girls was more than adequate, she is limited by an inability to be both a father and a mother. 86 N.J. 493 (1981)

In other words, fathers are only capable of being fathers, but also mothers are only capable of being mothers, and their children need both: “there is a real purpose in fatherhood as well as motherhood.” (86 N.J. 493)

When courts award sole physical custody to mothers, the mother, they only repeat a gender biased prejudice that should be eradicated from the courts, especially when they are deciding the well-being of the children these courts are supposed to protect.

Padres Sí Somos (We Are Fathers)

At this moment, when after so many years of struggle, Puerto Rico at last is at the doors of having a so needed law of joint custody, appears the pro-joint custody group Padres Sí Somos (www.padressisomos.org). The organization has the purpose of grouping Puerto Rican single fathers to serve them as support, bringing them orientation and help to deal with the daily problems and situations that they confront as head of family, in summary, to promote the development of men in their role as fathers.

The group was established by José Raúl Morales. Morales is a single father who is raising his son 7 years old son Arnaldo Raúl Morales since his first year. The problems that he has confronted as a single father served him as motivation for the creation of the organization. Currently, Morales seeks to establish alliances with diverse government agencies so they could help to provide professional services for the fathers who his group represents.

This group is an important effort that could crystallize advancements in the struggle for equality between fathers and mothers. Apart from its function as support for fathers, the group has assumed a star role in the lobbying in favor of the law of joint custody that is now under the consideration of the Senate of Puerto Rico. Padres Sí Somos is part of a new paradigm in the Puerto Rican society, paradigm that assigns equal importance to fathers and mothers in the raising of their children. In a country like Puerto Rico, where divorce is a true social epidemic, efforts to integrate divorced fathers to the lives of their children are urgently necessary.

It amazes me the wholeness of their approach and strategy. The services that the organization offers include orientation, meetings in support groups, contacts with health professionals, contacts for legal assistance, lectures, family recreational events, and workshops. Even at the purely geographical dimension, the group as structured its expansion in stages, being the first one the metropolitan zone and its surroundings (San Juan, Bayamón, Carolina, Guaynabo, Toa Baja, Trujillo Alto, Cataño, and Caguas).

Currently, the organization has 300 members, and is growing fast. I firmly believe in the power of organizations, and I have insisted from the beginning that those of us who believe in the equality of fathers and mothers should get organized in order to articulate efficiently our efforts. Organizations like Fathers and Families (www.fathersandfamilies.org) in the United States and Amor de Papá (www.amordepapa.org) in South America have been determinant factors in the advancements that the cause of joint custody has had in the recent years. I encourage all to support those groups like Padres Sí Somos that make effort to organize fathers in their struggle for our children.

A Message for Inés Quiles

Last May 14th, the political analyst Inés Quiles, in her radio show “Si no lo digo, reviento” which is aired Monday to Friday from 10:00 to 12:00 in the morning by the Puerto Rican radio station Radio Isla 1320 (www.radioisla1320.com), Inés interviewed senator Carmelo Ríos, proponent of avant-garde joint custody law before the legislature of Puerto Rico. After the interview, the microphones were opened to the public and one listeners, a father who has the custody of his children, called to criticize the law and to oppose joint custody, on the grounds that a child can not healthily adapt to life between two houses. To answer this unfounded argument, that same day I wrote Inés the following e-mail:

Inés:

I hope that you and your loved ones are well. I am Vidal Guzmán, a Puerto Rican architect resident in New Jersey, pro joint -custody activist, and knowing your commitment to our children and to joint custody, I have contacted you previously to comment on issues related to our cause.

Listening to your show today, I heard one of your listeners saying several dangerous mistakes about joint custody. I tried to call your program to correct the listener, but it was impossible to me to get in, and for that reason, I am sending you this message.

The listener, from the comfortable position of a father who has the custody of his children, said that all the studies on the subject affirmed that moving regularly a child from the house of a parent to the house of the other was harmful for the child. That, as we would in my “barrio” Mamey of Guaynabo, was invented from air. Those studies do not exist. We should not confuse the opinion of a professional with the scientific studies done by a professional. And every study has proven once and again that if there is something really harmful for a child is the absence of the father. In fact, every statistic study done to date point out that the most certain predictor of depression, criminal conduct and social inadequacy in the adult life of a child, is having being raised by a single mother. The following link connects to a brief bibliography on the subject:

http://hijosdemamaypapa.blogspot.com/2009/02/una-bibliografia-de-la-orfandad.html

The listener should read the book by Ann Coulter, Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America (Crown Forum, January 6, 2009), on which the second chapter is dedicated to demystify single motherhood and to show how this supposed victims are in fact victimizing society and causing irreparable harm to their children. That chapter is rich in bibliographical references.

For a child, dividing his/her week between two homes, far from being a trauma, is an adventure that brings them fun and consolation from the real trauma that is the divorce of their parents. The listener should read the article titled “How I divide my life between my divorced parents' homes”, http://www.newsweek.com/id/174698), written by Charlotte Juergens, a 14 years old girl raised under a joint custody arrangement. In that article, she narrates how her parents divorced when she was only two years old, and how from that age until today, she sleeps at each parent’s house every other day, spending equal time with each one.

The listener complained also that joint custody would force the child to get used to two very different styles. I should remind the listener that that is was is supposed to happen in any traditional family, where father were men and mothers were women and therefore, those of us who had the privilege of having being raised by both of our parents, we developed under the guidance of two human beings distinct but equally important for our formation. Because the only way of having being raised by two parents of similar styles is having being raised by two parents of the same sex, what I see as totally acceptable, and even then there would have been differences between them. The idea of having a father and a mother is precisely to have the opportunity of receiving education from two human beings that are radically distinct, and that distinction is one that allows the development of human being that are complete, educated and used to the glorious complexity of the human race.

Feel free to share this e-mail with your listeners, and to air my phone 862-596-0118 and my e-mail vidalg@yahoo.com, in case that someone wants to contact me to discuss more about this issue.

Always at your orders,
Vidal Guzmán

Book Review, 4 of 4: Lang and Lankford-Moran's Why a Daughter Needs a Dad

Authors Gregory E. Lang, a family therapist, and Janet Lankford-Moran, photographer, published in 2002 the beautiful book Why a Daughter Needs a Dad: A Hundred Reasons (Cumberland House Publishing, March 18, 2002), as part of a series of equally good books that include Why a Son Needs a Mom: 100 Reasons, Why a Son Needs a Dad: 100 Reasons, and Why a Daughter Needs a Mom: 100 Reasons.

Following the format of picture books, each page has a black and white picture of a girl or a woman and her father interacting with one another, along an inspiring phrase about that picture. Among my favorites pages is the one that shows an adult woman holding the picture of her deceased soldier father, with the moving statement “A daughter needs a dad who will influence her life even when he isn’t with her”, and the one that has the picture of the hands of a father and his baby girl accompanied by the wonderful statement “A daughter needs a dad to be the safe spot she can always turn to”.

The book explores the rich and complex relationship between father and daughter. The experiences shared by both, the games, the laughter, the comfort of familiarity, all of it creates a common history for dad and daughter, providing strength and security for their daughters, as she grow into womanhood. A healthy bond between a father and his daughter can make the difference between a healthy and happy woman and one that's not, and it also shows her what to expect from her future adult relationships.

One of the best features of the book is that it make us fathers feel pride about being a fathers and about our role in our daughters’ lives, affirming a wide range of the ways that we influence positively the outcome of their development into adulthood. The book will inspire and encourage fathers to embrace their important role in educating, guiding and supporting their daughters.

“The first time I read what I had written,” writes Lang, “I saw a list of what a daughter might ask her father to do for her. The second time I read it I saw a list of all that I hope to do for my daughter.”

An excellent present to any father, this book is a great reading in particular for those of us who have been blessed with daughters.

Book Review, 3 of 4: Meeker's Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters

Meg Meeker is a medical doctor and psychiatrist who practices pediatric and adolescent medicine, and counseling in Traverse City, Michigan. Dr. Meeker is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a fellow of the National Advisory Board of The Medical Institute. She is a popular speaker on teen issues and is frequently heard on nationally syndicated radio and television programs in the USA.

After more than twenty years of counseling girls, Dr. Meeker believes that fathers, more than anyone else does, set the course for their daughters’ lives. Based on that belief, in her book Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters10 Secrets Every Father Should Know (Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2006), Dr. Meeker has written a manual for fathers who want to find ways of connecting positively with their daughters. Directly challenging the feminist attack on traditional masculinity, this is not a book that tells men to act more like women, but a well-researched book with real-life examples that underline her points.

She is convinced that the relationship between girls and their fathers is of central importance for their development, that the most important person in a girl’s life is her father. To become a strong, confident woman, a daughter needs her father’s attention, protection, courage, and wisdom. Dr. Meeker demonstrates using personal experience and scientific data how a strong bond between father and daughter is the best protection against eating disorders, failure in school, early sexual activity, STDs, unwed pregnancy and drug or alcohol abuse. It is also the best predictor of academic achievement, successful marriage and a satisfying emotional life.

The subtitle of the book is 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know, because Dr. Meeker shares ten secrets that every father needs to know in order to establish a strong and healthy relationship with his daughter and shape her life for the better. These secrets are structured into the chapters with titles as interesting as “Protect Her, Defend Her (and use a shotgun if necessary), “Be the Man You Want Her to Marry” and “Teach Her to Fight. Among the issues discussed in the book are:

• The essential virtues of strong fathers, and how to develop them.

• How daughters take cues from their fathers on everything from drug use, drinking, smoking, and having sex, to self-esteem, moodiness, and seeking attention from boys.

• Why girls want you to place restrictions on them (even though they will complain when you do).

The importance of becoming a hero to your daughter.

•Te fact that girls actually depend on their dads’ guidance through, and even beyond, their college years.

• Why girls need God and how your faith, or lack thereof, will influence her.

• Essential communication strategies for different stages of a girl’s life

Dr. Meeker's book is a call to fathers to realize their potential to positively influence their daughters' lives, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Excuse my Absence

In a sudden and unexpected way, during the last weeks the breath of God has blown in my direction, showing His wonderful favor towards me.

Alter years of struggle for the joint custody of my daughter, today I find myself at the doors o fan agreement that would give my daughter and me the opportunity of having the healthy father-daughter relationship that we always should have had. Signal of this is that this weekend I had m daughter with me from Friday to Sunday. God is smiling at me.

Due to this, I have had to postpone for next Sunday the third part f my series of book reviews. But I am sure that my brothers and sisters Hill understand me and Hill rejoice with me. So, until Sunday.

Book Review, 2 of 4: Bronwstone’s Tug of War

Harvey Brownstone, a Toronto family court judge with fourteen years of experience, published recently a book titled Tug of War: A Judge's Verdict on Separation, Custody Battles, and the Bitter Realities of Family Court (Ecw Press, January 2009).

This book, the first ever written by a family court judge on these issues, has been written not in legal but in layman’s language, provides much-needed information for separated couples contemplating going to family court to resolve parental disputes. It explains complex family law concepts and procedures, including detailed explanation on what family courts are, what they are not, and how they work.

The book also offers easily understandable case examples to show the reader how harmful family court is for families, and how bad litigation is for children.
Because Judge Brownstone believes that family courts are always damaging and should be used only as a last resort, he describes several "alternative dispute resolutions" to litigation that may help prevent families with children from entering the legal system to resolve disputes, alternatives such as mediation, collaborative law, counseling, and binding arbitration, all of them aimed at helping families reach agreements out of court.

Analyzing all parties involved in family law issues, judges, lawyers, mediators, parenting coaches, psychologists, family counselors, and social workers, Brownstone demystifies the role of lawyers and judges, and attacks the idea that parents can represent themselves in court, strongly encouraging to seek legal representation from a lawyer who specializes in family law.

The book examines each parent’s responsibility to ensure that post-separation conflicts are resolved with minimal damage to the children stuck in the middle of parental disputes.

"The whole message of this book is that family court is bad for families and litigation is bad for children. That's what people need to know," says Brownstone, "there are a lot of people out there in pain and they come here thinking it will get better," "but there's no winning in family court – there are only degrees of losing. People get that when they come here, but it's too late by then."

This book is a "must-read" for every separated and divorced parent. Readers should also look for Brownstone article “"That toxic tug-of-war". (www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090425.COESSAY25ART1958/TPStory/National/?pageRequested=all), published on April 25 of 2009 in the webpage of the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail (www.theglobeandmail.ca), on which he discuss the same issues, with emphasis in the concept of the “Parental Alienation Syndrome” (PAS).

Book Review, 1 of 4: Cordero’s That's Just the Way It Is

This is the first of four book reviews that will be published in four consecutive weeks, this one on Cordero’s That's Just The way It Is, and the next three on Brownstone’s Tug of War, Meeker’s Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, and Lang and Lankford-Moran’s Why a Daughter Needs a Dad.

Author Bobbie Cordero has been a school teacher for over 48 years, and through her professional experience she got familiar with the struggles of children of divorced parents. She just published a children book titled That's Just The way It Is (Eloquent Books NY NY), precisely on the subject of the relationship between divorced parents and their children. After doing research on the issue, Cordero discovered there were almost no children books on divorce and custody issues viewed from a child’s perspective, and decided to write this little book to fill that void.

This story is told with the fresh and simple style of a five year old little girl and describes the strong bond that exists between a little girl and her divorced dad. Due to that situation, the girl has to live in two separate homes with her divorced parents. When she asks her dad why she has to live her life that way, he replies "That's Just the Way It Is." Through the book the little girl learns to accept that the way she lives her life is just another, different but valid, way of living.

This story is designed to show that in post-divorce situations, both parents usually love their children equally, and that in particular the father's impact on his children lives can remain constant and positive, raising them happy and healthy.
An easy-to-read book which can be enjoyed by kids as well as grown-ups, filled with bright, colorful illustrations, That’s Just the Way it Is helps children to learn to deal with divorce, and that living in separate homes can be okay after all. So, for us divorced parents, or for those who know children of divorced parents, this book would make an excellent present, fun and helpful. To people like me, who fight for the cause of joint custody, finding a book that starts with the idea that the children of divorced parents will live in the two houses of their parents, this book is a sweet relief. We need more children books like this.

Child support as a dissuasive for fathers

In this very moment, in Massachusetts there is a legal battle on the laws regulating child support payments.

On January 1, 2009, Massachusetts instituted new guidelines which incremented child support payments, even though this state already had among the highest guidelines in the United States.

The new guidelines raise substantially child support payments in almost all cases, in many cases increasing them by 20%, but in some cases tripling them. Under these new guidelines, if a recipient and payer earn the same amount of money, the recipient will enjoy a standard of living almost double that of the payer.

In 2001, Fathers & Families, the national organization that advocates for a family court reform that would establish equal rights and responsibilities for fathers and mothers (www.fathersandfamilies.org), won changes in Massachusetts child support laws that lowered payments by 15%. The new guidelines are, in fact, the anti-father forces counter attack to this victory. In response, Fathers & Families filed a lawsuit in federal and state courts. They presented their case in federal court in January and in state court April 13, and are currently awaiting a decision.

This case should be followed closely by all non-custodial parents. While we all joyfully recognize our financial obligations towards our children, we also know very well that child support is widely used by custodial parents (and by the courts that represent them) as a weapon against non-custodial parents. Many times, when fathers think about claiming their rights, they think twice before going to court, because they fear that if they do so they will be punished by incrementing their child support payments. In these cases, the state instates itself as the guardian of gender inequality by implementing child support laws as a fear tactic for preserving the status quo. It can do so because child support laws tend to be imprecise, and in many occasions, unfair. And since the punishment for not paying child support is prison, you can all imagine how many people use this weapon just for the fun of seeing their ex-spouse in jail.

I strongly believe that the current state of child support laws is the fuel that powers the current state of child custody laws. In places like Puerto Rico, where I am from, it has triggered a whole industry based on child support money. The legal battle in Massachusetts is an extremely important battle in the struggle for our children.

On the Virtue of Patience

Turbulent river, fishermen gain.
Hispanic proverb

Provoking your enemy to make mistakes is an ancient war tactic used by strategist throughout history. Illustrious generals have done actions against their enemies with the only purpose of forcing them to react in a disorganized manner, allowing them to use that disorganization in their favor. A surprise attack or an act of exemplary humiliation has many times been the difference between victory and defeat.

But this tactic has many applications beyond the battlefield.

Muhammad Ali used to insult and to slap his opponents with harmless blows, just for making them lose their patience. During this moment of chaotic reaction, his opponent would lose also the rational control of his actions, making mistakes that under normal circumstances he never would have made, and Ali would perform then an attack that he had planned thoughtfully, wining easily over an extremely difficult opponent.

This tactic is no stranger to the field of family relations, especially when the subject under discussion is the custody of children. Many divorced men have been lured into situation of disorganized reaction with the only purpose of using their reaction to block their contact with their children and, ultimately, to cancel their possibilities of having their custody.

The most common avatar of this tactic would be as follows: A divorced father meets his ex-wife for any reason (picking up their children for parenting time or bringing them home after, a phone call between parents, etc.), his ex-wife inflicts him some kind of physical or verbal violence, the father reacts accordingly in an analog manner, the ex-wife goes to court to place a restraining order because the father was violent and threatening, the father cannot get near his ex-wife, and since she has custody of their children, he cannot get near his children neither. Mission accomplished. Her real purpose was never putting barriers between her and her ex-husband, but between her ex-husband and their children.

Be aware. Expect the hidden snake.

Though I know that it is easy to say and hard to do, the only adequate response is the old virtue of patience. Having your children in mind, envisioning the happy future that you will have with them, realizing that the current moment is just an entrapment to make you loose everything that you love, will make think twice before reacting to any provocation, to any challenge. And if you are Christians, and even if you’re not, meditate on Jesus’ words:

A woman has pain when her time to give birth comes. But after the child is born, she doesn't remember the pain anymore because she's happy that a child has been brought into the world. (John 16:21)

Patience. It will come a day when everything that you are suffering now will seem little, even laughable. Live for that day.