Another Year, Another Battle

This week begins year 2009. When a new year starts, is natural that we set new goals to ourselves. In our case, these goals must be not only those that we set in our personal level, but also those collective goals that lead us to achieve those rights that we look for our children and for us. I propose the following ones:

To affirm our public presence, a loud presence, visible and defiant, that makes clear that to everyone that the current state of thing will not be accepted with resignation and in silence.

To multiply the forums on which we can expose our cause, to talk at schools and at colleges, at churches, at civil groups and workers unions meetings, in radio and TV shows, to write in newspapers and magazines, in the Internet, in summary, to use every venue that we could use to reach new audiences.

To highlight publicly the singularity of fatherhood, proclaiming that the each parent supply different but equally necessary elements to the healthy development of their children.

To promote a continuous dialogue, a debate even, between the fathers that have been denied of their children and their rights and the rest of society, in such a way that our cause will not be forgotten or demoted to an issue of secondary importance.

To establish an organized network of fathers, a network that would serve as support to those fathers that are fighting now for the custody of their children, and to those fathers that are not in that situation now, but want to avoid being in it in the eventuality that in the future their children could be at the mercy of the family courts.

Keep on fighting. Our children are waiting.

Two articles on Newsweek

I want to call your attention on two articles that appeared in the prestigious magazine Newsweek, on its December 15th issue. One is a panorama of the most recent developments in the relationships between divorced parents and their children. The other one is a personal testimony of a 14 years old girl, raised on a joint custody arrangement.

In “Not Your Dad's Divorce. How changes in child support laws, and a push by fathers for equal time, are transforming the way this generation of ex-spouses raise their children” (http://www.newsweek.com/id/174790), Susanna Schrobsdorff starts narrating how she and her ex-husband agreed a joint custody arrangement of the two daughters at the moment of their divorce (in their case, the arrangement included that the girls would spend several nights a week with their Dad), and how this arrangement, albeit sometimes complicated and demanding, has proven to be the best for their daughters.

From that point Schrobsdorff summarizes the advancements, slow but sustained, in custody laws, towards joint custody arrangements, as opposed to the “every other weekend wit Dad” of the traditional formula. The author quotes Dr. Leslie Drozd, editor of the journal Child Custody; skating joint custody arrangements are far more frequent now than 20 years ago.
Although nationwide, the proportion of divorced spouses who have joint physical custody is a low 5 percent, in California and Arizona , where statutes permitting joint physical custody were adopted in the 1980s, a decade earlier than in other states with similar statutes, the joint physical custody rates reach up to 27 percent.

A very interesting point in this article is that it links the increase of joint custody arrangements to state readjustment regarding child support. I have already establish the link between them, and I firmly believe that the current child support laws are the financial support to the current state of gender discrimination at the family courts The laws governing child support have also evolved and affected child-custody arrangements. In the last 15 years, most states have passed legislation that ties child support payments to how much time a child spends with the non-custodial parent.

Another crucial point of this article is that it points out that many fathers don’t fight in court their children’s custody because the legal system and their lawyers discourage them from doing so (I have been in that situation, and it seems to me a serious ethical problem for the lawyers that take that position), because the process is too long, too expensive and results are uncertain. All this, even though that the numbers show that those men eager to fight for the sole custody of their children are wining in the same proportion than women.

The article finishes saying that the only way to end the horrors that litigation imposses to fathers seeking the custody of their children, is that courts Stara with the presumption that joint physical custody will be the first option, mainly because evidence shows that a majority of kids who have grown up in joint physical custody arrangements prove to be healthy and satisfied with the relationship with their parents, as oposed to those raised under sole custody regimes.
The second article, less academic but far more moving, is 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 on a joint custody arrangement. In this article, she tells how her parents divorced when she was only 2 years old, and how from that moment until today spends her nights at each parent house every other day, spending equal time with each one.
She believes that this arrangement has made possible that she is a healthy person, because in a certain way she has lived as she would have if her parents had lived together, seen them every day.

I advise everyone to read both articles in their entirety, so you can feel like I felt, encouraged to keep up the fight.

We cannot stop. Our children are waiting for us.

Keynes, Germany and Domestic Violence

In 1919, the British economist John Maynard Keynes published The Economic Consequences of the Peace. In that book, Keynes sustains that the reparations imposed to Germany after its defeat in World War I would have the effect of an unstable German economy, which in turn would have unpredictable terrible consequences. The book includes the ominous prophesy:

"But who can say how much is endurable, or in what direction men will seek at last to escape from their misfortunes?"

Keynes knew that it was impossible to dispossess a nation and to stop this nation to eventually seek revenge for the affronts suffered: the economical situation to which the defeated Germany was submitted after World War I was the foundation of the German aggression of World War II.
“Respecting other’s people rights is peace,” says the Mexican patriot Benito Juárez, and His Holiness Paul VI said, “If you want peace, work for justice.” Only justice, equal rights, the opportunity to live with dignity can ensure a life without violence. It is no accident that the poorest social classes are the ones that generate more violent and criminal behavior. It is no accident that in the South Africa of the apartheid was rich in urban violence, violence that was exacerbated during the immediate years after the apartheid was abolished; violence that now that the equality of rights has matured has decreased enormously.

Inequality and injustice give birth to violence. I have always asked myself why no one has connected the la violence that many men inflict on women during and after divorce, and the conditions to which divorce impose on men in many countries. I have always asked myself why government agencies, professional organizations, and higher education institutions do not produce statistics that try to explain this terrible phenomenon. Everybody complains about the tragedies, everybody says that they want to solve the problem, but nobody looks for its roots.

In Cuba exists an efficient law of joint custody. I understand that the cases of domestic violence are almost inexistent.

To Whom It May Concern

One of my purposes in writing this blog is to encourage other parents to share their stories about their ordeals with the family courts system. To lead by example, allow me to share my story.

On August of 2002, I moved from Puerto Rico to New Jersey with my ex-wife. During the last months of 2003, due to my infertility, we started an adoption process. In April 18 of 2004, my daughter Sofía was born, and ten days after her birth she moved with us; the following year, on July 21 of 2005, the adoption was completed. The following month, on August 28 of 2006, my ex-wife tells me that she wanted to end our marriage. My ex-wife deserted me and abandoned the apartment shared by us on March 18 of 2006, taking with her our daughter, without my consent. Since then, I have tried to convince her that the joint physical and legal custody is the best for our child and for us, but the she rejects the idea, since she does not believe in the concept of joint custody. To break the impasse on which we were, on September 22 of 2006 I submitted a motion asking for a court order for a Best Interest Evaluation and a Custody Visitation Evaluation. I hoped that this evaluation would have given the Court reasonable criteria to decide the award of custody. The motion was denied on October 20, and unexpectedly since custody was not in question, that same day judge Claude Coleman decided the custody and awarded joint legal custody to both parents and physical custody to the my ex-wife. I appealed the decision on December 1rst of 2006, and my appeal was denied by the judges Gilroy and Lihotz of the Appellate Division on August 9 of 2007. I then filed a petition for certification to the Supreme Court, and it was denied on February 4 of 2008, with Judge Stuart Rabner as witness.

I object this decision for several reasons. First, the custody award ignores the state policy favoring joint custody. Second, the order shows that the trial court disregarded or ignored the basic facts of this case. Third, the fact that Sofía is adopted makes physical custody indispensable to create a healthy parent-child relationship.

The public policy of the State of New Jersey is to favor joint custody arrangements. My case meets the conditions for such an arrangement: both parents are fit, both have a close relationship with the child, they live close to each other, both can cooperate with each other, and both are willing to accept custody. To deny a parent the custody of his/her child, that parent has to be proven unfit, and this is not the case. On the contrary, the very same court that denied me joined custody, affirmed the fitness of both parents.

The decision awarding physical custody of my daughter to my ex-wife was based on an absolute lack of knowledge about the case. In the Final Dual Judgment of Divorce (January 2007), the trial court’s judge, Claude Coleman, refers to the my ex-wife as “the natural mother” of Sofía, who had breastfed her, when since the very beginning of this process has been stated clearly that Sofia is an adopted child and therefore, my ex-wife was not her natural mother, and it was biologically impossible for her to breast-feed Sofía. Furthermore, the trial court made up speculations on who had been the primary caregiver of the child before the separation, and on how strong was the bond between my daughter and me. This erroneous affirmation reveals one of three equally terrible things: that the judge lied about the case, that he had no knowledge whatsoever about the case he was dealing with, or worst than that, he did not care enough to get that knowledge. All these choices require the reversal of a custody award based on such incompetence and lack of knowledge. Evidence of this was submitted to judges Gilroy and Lihotz of the Appellate Division and judge Rabner of the Supreme Court, and they deliberately ignored it, following the unwritten law of “one hand washes the other.”

The fact that Sofía is an adopted child makes this situation especially delicate. 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. Since Sofía is an adopted child, depriving her from one of her parents will take away, for the second time, what life has already taken once: the love, comfort, and security that only her father and mother can give her.

There are even ethical connotations that the Essex County Bar should consider. Judge Stuart Rabner, who served as witness when the petition for certification that I filed to the Supreme Court was denied, has the same last name as one of the attorneys of my ex-wife, Rabner, Allcorn, Baumgart and Ben-Asher.

I have never asked sole custody of my child. I haven’t because I truly believe that sole custody is a something that harms children by depriving them of one of their parents, something that should be avoided and that should be granted only if one of the parents represents a danger to his/her children. What I ask is for the joint physical custody of my daughter, so that my daughter could stay with each parent the same amount of time.

At this moment, since custody cases are never closed, I am still looking for a new opportunity to present again my request for joint custody before another judge, a judge sensible and compassionate enough to award a custody arrangement that protect the well-being of my daughter. I ask for a change of judge, because judge Claude Coleman, who has been in charge of the case since the very beginning, has shown no interest whatsoever on dealing responsibly with it, even when his decisions have no relation with the facts of the case, even when my ex-wife has taken our daughter out of state, even when my ex-wife has broken the parenting schedule, even when my ex-wife has moved our daughter out of town without discussing the issue with me.

I will never give up in my fight for joint custody. I cannot. My child is waiting for me.