How to Talk to a Disenfranchised Father

"If you have ever lost someone very important to you, then you already know how it feels, and if you haven't, you cannot possibly imagine it." -Lemony Snicket.

A disenfranchised father is an adequate father who has been unreasonably and unwillingly removed from his children's life. By "adequate", I mean a father like any other, a father who cares for his children, who sees himself as a valuable part of their upbringing and who has invested a significant part of his identity in his role in their lives. By "removed", I mean that he no longer lives with his children, that he is reduced to a visitor in their lives or possibly prevented from seeing them altogether. He has no say in what happens to them. The mother works to keep him out, limits and controls their interactions, she likes it that way. To her, "the best interests of the child" are what she wants, period.

Many believe that the system is supposed to prevent this sort of thing from happening. That if such a father, loathed by his ex, can find no support in the courts, then there must be good and valid reason. These people are sorely mistaken. They have no understanding of the gaping holes in family law. By default they believe that the problem of absentee fathers must be the fault of the fathers themselves, single mothers are saints fighting the good fight against tragic odds and through no fault of their own.

A father who has gone through the worst of this may have "trust issues". He has probably spent a lot of time among supposedly professional people who have examined him closely and found him wanting according to standards impossibly higher than those to which his ex is held (to which nor even should be held any typical parent). People he thought he could trust have lied to him, have given him false hope and have actively worked against him, only for him to realize too late and leaving him with only resentment.

He will have spent a lot of time in an environment where the only appropriate response is outrage and yet any sign of anger from him would have cost him dear. The stress may have been too much and he may have expressed that anger and then seen the satisfied looks of those who look for excuses to do their awful work. An angry word may have been enough, he didn't need to actually get violent (although that would have produced all the more satisfaction and definitive result).

He may seem obsessed, only able to talk about one thing: the betrayal to which he has been subject. Alternatively, he may not want to talk about it, having learned that most people can't take it, can't accept the obvious pain he feels and melt away leaving him alone with it. "I've got my own problems, I can't get involved with that", or "I wish he'd just get over it".

They wish he'd just get over the loss of his children.

He may be a strong enough person that it no longer shows at all. Until you dig a little, if you're so inclined and if he is inclined to let you.

Sometimes, to lose a child like this, especially in the event of a complete lockout, is compared to the loss of a child to death. Not so. That would be what the philosophers call a category error. The circumstances and consequences are completely different. The death of a child is forever, it is final, it is by definition resolved even if the consequences are not, it must be survived, and those who are left behind must try to rebuild their lives without the dead child. Everyone with an ounce of humanity is sympathetic, tries to accomodate it.

Disenfranchisement, by contrast, is ambiguous. The child is not there, but is elsewhere. Many do not know if they should feel sympathy or not. They don't think "there but for the grace of God go I" because they know they're good parents, and there's no risk and, after all, he must have done something wrong, mustn't he? There is always hope, for those who have not had to spend years trying to maintain hope, even after years of no contact, because the child is not dead. If he does have contact, it may be difficult. He may have to run the gauntlet of the ex's bile (as she pockets the child support check - you think she should thank him? That's what the man says he owes her). He gets limited time, perhaps supervised, shoving down his feelings, to engage the child who would otherwise engage by default, whenever he or she was ready. How long do you think he should tolerate it? How long would you? Why should you have to tolerate anything? Why should he? Or his children?

The tiredest cliché a disenfranchised father will hear and keep hearing as long as he lets on what has happened: "Don't worry, they'll come back to you, just wait and see". This is poor comfort for two reasons. First, it's a statement of faith, not fact, and his faith has taken a severe beating. He may have believed in justice, the good motivations of psychologists, the objectiveness of court personnel. But the system that was supposed to prevent this, either did nothing of the sort or actively caused it. The society that touts the value of family life proves itself a deranged lunatic by doing nothing to preserve it. You want him to believe that his children will somehow absorb the importance of a father in their lives while not actually having one around to show them? That it should be somehow instinctive and one day they will wake up and realize this, tell their Machiavellian mother where to shove it and run back into his arms?

The other reason for this "wait and see" being bad advice is that it takes no account of the lost years. In advance, it shrugs them off and resigns to their being lost forever. Not just the normal security that the children should have as they grow in knowing that their father is there by their sides, but also the satisfaction and love that a father should feel in having his children near so he can watch over them and calm and keep them from their fears. All this is lost, not fully appreciated until it is gone, and only really by those who have lost it.

How do you talk to such a man? It depends, in part, on your own resources. How much of his anger are you willing to explore? That may seem odd, why should he get angry at you? Once you show some sympathy, you may find that his anger comes to the fore. He can't get angry at the people who deserve it. They have power over him and his children. Show him some sympathy and he may let that anger show, not necessarily at you, but in front of you. Are you man or woman enough to take it? It's difficult to express anger without offending someone, will you take it at face value or look for the deeper meaning he hasn't the lucidity to express?

Grief? He surely feels grief, and surely you're old enough and experienced enough by now to have been able to comfort the grieving and to have felt some yourself. But what if that grief goes on for years? What if it never really goes away but becomes a permanent wound that won't heal? He can't visit a gravesite, he can't really mourn. What, after all, does he have to mourn but the loss of something that, however improbably, could come back any day? Every time you see him, you will be conscious of his pain, even if he isn't. We all assess each other by what we know to have happened to each other.

One thing he may need more than anything else (besides his children) is validation. His self-image as a man and as a father has been under sustained and ongoing attack. Powerful people have either found him wanting or not found the spine to help him when they could (or should). The erosion on his sense of self worth is inevitable. All around are conflicting indicators of what he must do - shrug it off, take it like a man, grow a pair, don't give up on them, do everything that you can, fight!, don't fight!, never give up, build a new life, keep calling them, give it up. Whatever he does, it won't be the right thing (and there's no shortage of judges), but he has to do it anyway.

Perhaps the most meaningful thing you can say is: "what has happened to you is wrong", it'd be nice if you believed it.



Tags: Fathers Rights

Exactly how is this supposed to be a consolation?

The other day I found myself traveling for a few hours, one empty seat away from an initially friendly woman of a few years my senior. Our chat led me to give her a brief rundown of my situation to which she reacted with the appropriate scandalized expressions and sympathy. Then she said something rather extraordinary: "Don't worry, they all get their's in the end. Perhaps my story can offer you some consolation."

"How do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, after a horrible five year battle, I won the right to relocate to another state, he had nothing to do with our daughter for the next 12 years. Then he decided he didn't like the way she turned out and got the court to tell me to repay him some money. 'Over my dead body' I said and never paid him a penny, even though there was supposedly a lien against me. Then he was diagnosed with syphilis and died slowly and painfully over two years."

All this said with a considerable air of self-satisfaction and triumph.

I raised my slack jaw and replied that I wasn't sure it was much of a consolation, I was looking at long term isolation from my own child and anyway how on earth does one die of syphilis in this day and age? Apparently it's sufficiently unusual that doctors don't recognize it until it's too late, then it might as well be AIDS.

While she was explaining this, I think she finally realized what she had said. She buried herself in a book of crosswords, those mindless ones with little black-space and one word clues.

I wanted to ask questions. Like, how does her daughter feel, having now lost her father permanently? How did her ex get the court to order repayment, presumably of child support - this is the first I've ever heard of such a thing, it seems highly unlikely. Perhaps it was actually some alienation of affection thing.

Let's recap what this seemingly nice old bat has said. Nasty divorce/custody battle. Yes, well, that's probably no fun for either side and she's got the upper hand anyway. Then she wins a move-away, also known as legalized child abduction, which was presumably against the father's wishes and for whom it is now very much harder to remain appropriately engaged in his daughter's life.

He reacts to this by dropping out of sight for 12 years. This may be easy to condemn, but there is much that we don't know. Perhaps he couldn't afford to travel, perhaps it became just too painful to face up to, perhaps he felt it better both for him and his daughter to stay out of sight. It's not a position I can agree with, but I can see how it happens. Hell, maybe even the courts in the destination state wouldn't grant him any visitation and she puts it that way to land the blame on him.

After those 12 years, he successfully sues Mom for financial restitution because he didn't like the way the daughter turned out. I suspect this description hides a great deal of interesting information. The courts don't order such things just for the hell of it.

Then he dies slowly and painfully of syphilis. Who knows how he contracted it, perhaps it was the result of an affair during their marriage, perhaps it was something that happened years later. Either way, this woman is happy to crow over a tragedy which took the life of her daughter's father. I only hope that he and his daughter had an opportunity for some time together before he died.

I muse on my own reactions to this little tale of woe. At first, I was nodding along in sympathy, expecting, as told, that we would find common ground in our stories. I took at face value the idea that her ex was scum. It wasn't until she seemed to think that his slow, painful death was some sort of deserved retribution that I felt something fishy was going on and balked at the idea of walking along this spiteful road. If it wasn't for my own experience, I could easily have clucked in tacit, unthinking agreement with the whole thing, as, doubtless, have many others.

She took a nap and I looked at her, searching for signs of regret, compassion, worry for her daughter. The whole of her story was of her escape (legalized abscondment?), money and cosmic retribution for her ex. There was no mention of how her daughter was affected beyond her ex's apparent disapproval of how she turned out and the court's siding with him, exacting a financial retribution that was never faced.

When we finally arrived she disembarked without another word nor even a look in my direction.


Tags: Fathers Rights,

The fallacy of child custody

Among others, Glenn Sacks has been commenting on the same-sex child custody case in Vermont in which the biological mother has used the courts to exclude her ex-partner from the life of their child. Glenn rightly points out that this is not an issue of gay rights, although it is usually discussed as such. It is an issue of non-custodial parent's rights since many failed "normal" marriages result in similar problems for the non-custodial parent. Understandably, Glenn sees some irony in the situation, but there really isn't any because the situation is completely predictable, even inevitable.

The equation is very simple, but poorly understood and fundamentally flawed.

In the event of conflict in a separation or divorce, the court seeks “the best interests of the child”. It has long been a core theory of child development that a child must have a strong parent/child relationship with at least one parental figure (it doesn’t even have to be a natural parent). This theory is apparently trivial, except that it does not tell the whole story. It reduces what can be a very complicated, 3-or-more-point problem, to a black-and-white issue of one child/one parent. It is based on very dated, largely Freudian theory, on experience with refugee children from two world wars and on prejudice deriving from societal conditions vastly different from those we have today. There is no comparable body of thought arguing that the child needs a relationship with more than one parent, nor even with natural parents, the clay feet of the accepted theory notwithstanding. Note the phrasing "no comparable body of thought", by which I mean that work has not been done, not that it is not true.

The law and the courts are not, ultimately, complicated thinkers, they take the minimalist step which goes with the flow. They ask a simple question: “what is in the best interest of the child?” and get a simple answer: “one parental figure”. But that is a non sequiteur, it is the answer to a subtly but importantly different question: "what is in the minimum interest of the child" and the result is that custody is reflexively assigned to one parent. If there is conflict, the courts will harden on that position for fear of disrupting the overriding motivation that the child have one parental figure in his or her life.

This logical fallacy is so entrenched, it has become axiomatic.

Thus all the custodial parent has to do to achieve full control of the child and freeze out the other parent, is engender conflict. This is positive feedback, all roads lead to the custodial parent and the slope gets steeper at their will. The non-custodial parent is automatically completely helpless. Fighting back will only make things worse. There is nothing the non-custodial parent can do to make them better. The gender of the non-custodial parent is not relevant.

A presumption of shared parenting is the only way out, and it is no good just showing that it is to the child’s benefit. One must also attack the existing theory and show that it is based, as it is, on bad science and foggy thinking. Many of our world’s worst atrocities have been motivated (or excused) by bad science and distorted reason, especially that which appeals to ignorant prejudice.

Technorati Tags: custody, lesbian divorce, best interest of the child

Feminist-bashing, a rant

A nod to Pook's Mill who points us at Katherine Rake's article in The Manchester Guardian (UK) whose rallying cry to feminists is more of a tired rehash of the reasons why feminism is earning itself a bad rap.

People will stop "feminist-bashing" when feminism isn't deserving of a bashing. When it develops a sense of honesty and egalitarianism, when it stops portraying the few women who are victims as representative of all women, when it stops portraying the few men who are privileged as representative of all men. When it recognizes women's advantages over men and shows a willingness to redress those imbalances as well as those that do not work in women's favor. The "mythological figure of the dungaree-clad, scary, hairy and humourless feminist" will disappear when her obnoxious female-supremicist opinions are not held up as representative of what feminism wants. When it stops defining dissenting opinions as misogyny when from a man, and stupidity when from a woman.

Comparing modern feminism to the suffragettes of 100 years ago is disingenuous and disrespectful of the women who had something to fight for, but weren't intent on destruction in order to get it. I feel quite sure that many of the suffragettes would be embarrassed to be associated with modern feminism. Fighting to close the "pay gap" is all very well, but should one pay a person who is not committed to the long term development of a career in order to safeguard their future, their employer's future and the security of their family the same as one who is? It is right that "rape within marriage" should be illegal, but does that mean one should lift the safeguards that prevent false accusations or that one should consider all sex to be rape? No-one in this day and age thinks that feminism is about clothes and makeup, increasingly those of us out here in the real world think it is about oppressing us and forcing us, men and women, to be something that we aren't.

It is easy to say "violence against women is at crisis levels" and a little harder to quantify it with real data which compare men and women as equals, especially if one defines "crisis level" as any violence at all when it comes to women, and simultaneously blinds oneself to violence against men. If anything, "women's caring roles" are often over-valued. Oh, I don't mean, for example, in the hospitals among the nurses who, as far as I can see, get a lot more positive attention (if not pay) than the stereotyped arrogant male doctor who doesn't seem to care about his patients (which would make one wonder why he became a doctor in the first place, especially given the many years of hard work it took to do so). No, I mean in the court rooms where a mother's "caring role" is a trump card to any rights that the father might want to have when it comes to his own children, I mean in the schools where a man who wants to teach is an object of suspicion.

Picking and choosing and exaggerating the elements of life that they want is seen as the modus operandi of feminism, not its detractors. It is a direct result of there not being any one definition of feminism because this allows feminism's own predators to don the sheep's clothing of a "good cause" while undermining coherent discourse and the seeking of equality for all.

The question as to why "feminism [has] always provoked such hostility?" is trivially answered. It is a political movement. All political movements provoke hostility from their opponents, the more extreme the movement -- all sex is rape, "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" -- the greater the hostility. What's laughable is the rank hypocrisy of so many of feminism's stalwarts - the originator of "a woman needs a man..." is now married, "The Vagina Monologues" promotes statutory rape. Women get payoffs in the millions for the kinds of treatment, albeit inappropriate, that men have withstood for generations. And you wonder why the hostility?

Your agenda not only threatens some of the few men (and, indeed, women) who are in a position of power and therefore invokes their opposition (which is really why they have the power in the first place), but it also undermines the identities and value system of normal men and women who are by and large happy with their lot and just want to live their lives in peace. Are you suprised they get upset when you tell a peaceful man he's a violent brute and a good woman she's letting down the sisterhood because she wants a family? Believe it or not, few men and women see their relationships as a power play, and they wonder at a political movement which seeks to turn them into such "not only in the public sphere, but also, much more trickily, in the private sphere". It's much more tricky because they shouldn't be trying, politics has no place dictating how men and women live together.

Who gets the top jobs in business should be dictated by who is most capable, not what is found between their legs. Who cleans the toilet is no-one's business but who owns that toilet. The fat, lazy, alcoholic husband who lolls in front of the TV while the missus does the washing, laundry, meals and cleans the toilet, is fast becoming a feminist canard with little basis in reality. The feminist reality is that both husband and wife are too exhausted at the end of their respective working days to clean the toilet and they end up arguing about it. Either that, or he comes home after too many hours at the office and she's bored and frustrated and decides to take it out on him by harping on about the stupid toilet, his frustrations had better be left at work or he's asking for the label "abuser".

As to who feels safe (as opposed to who is actually safe) walking home at night, many men don't feel safe walking into their own homes. When do we ever hear feminist condemnation of that? Moreover, it's all too easy now for those men to be victimized by the system when she finally kicks him out and claims he kicked her. He quickly finds out that the "rules of the game" aren't simply changed - for her, there are no rules and for him, if he doesn't follow every rule to the letter he becomes "the deadbeat" and quickly learns that most of his rules are predicated on the idea that he's the bad guy already. If feminists were about "caring for family and others" then why are their's the loudest contrarian voices when it comes to redressing these imbalances? It's got nothing to do with allowing women to lead the same lives that men have for many years, if that were the case, feminism would be as worried about men's shorter life span as it is about its "pay gap". Who's really being "short changed" there?

"Rape conviction levels are at their lowest ever" invites discussion on two points: what if it were at its highest ever, would you be as outraged (of course you would), and: does anyone know if this is because the meaning of the word "rape" has been rendered so broad that many accusations of rape are not actually rapes at all, but second-thoughts and hurt feelings, or, worse, deliberate attempts to destroy a man? I don't know the answer to these questions, no-one really does and very few seem to be interested to find out. It is easier to howl in vengeful rage that convictions are at their lowest ever than study real reasons why.

Feminism will gain some credibility when it recognizes the responsibility for women making their own bad choices. Some women are truly victims (as are some men), but if they are grouped with others who are choosing plastic surgery over self-betterment, and making themselves as sexually alluring as possible while simultaneously protesting attention from men they themselves are not attracted to, then what credibility can they expect? One is not simultaneously a victim and empowered, and to claim empowerment through victimhood is surely the most pernicious form of self harm.

Yes, feminism could do with a "third wave", a recognition that too much of it has not been about equality and is now being misused to gain unfair advantage in too many arenas. A wave which does not patronizingly suggest that no-one is listening, that men across the board do not understand, that many women who don't support such feminism are not somehow ignorant of reality. If feminism has become an "f-word" it is through its own hyprocisy and frequent unfairness, not because some parts of it are honest and fair, it is because it uses the blunt instruments of stereotype, misdirection, propoganda, and moral intimidation to bludgeon good people into the party line. In short, in many ways, feminism has become its own worst enemy.

The "five key freedoms: power, rights, autonomy, respect and choice" are all gender neutral words. How often does a feminist argue from that position? It is more important that women be in charge, as politicians, as managers of Premiership football teams. This last is compared to a male nursery nurse as an issue of choice as opposed to blunt appropriate reality (how many Premiership footballers are women or ever will be?) and is a prime example of the kind of surreal argumentation we have learned to expect from feminism, that men and women are equal, but only in areas where women want it.

Feminism can no more deliver this world than capitalism can make everyone rich and still provide the poor to do the hard work, that socialism can make sure everyone is protected by the state and still provide the individual freedom to seek one's own potential, which are things that many ordinary, naive men and women want to see. Sure, go ahead, reclaim the "f-word", and do it by removing the reasons why "feminist-bashing" is so easy and so inevitable, not by trying to claim that feminism has been victimized unfairly and that's just not right with a trembling lower lip.



Technorati Tags: Pook's Mill, Katherine Rake, feminism, feminist-bashing, hypocrisy, misandry

The Best Interests of the Child - Part 2

I introduced "The Best Interests of the Child" in a previous post here. in this post, I continue my discussion of this manual of child placement with the preface and first introduction. But first a little more on a couple of the authors.

Anna Freud, a posthumous author, was Sigmund Freud's youngest daughter. She was apparently his favorite and sought to follow at least partially in his footsteps but focusing on the psychoanalysis of children. Wikipedia provides an outline of her life and notes that she "did not have a very close bond with her mother and had difficulties getting along with her siblings". She suffered from depression and eating disorders. She was extensively psychoanalysed by her father and her dreams were featured in his book "Interpretation of Dreams". She was not exactly what we'd call a "normal" child.

She established and worked at the Hampstead Child Therapy clinic which is now named for her. She learned much of the impact of the deprivation of parental care on children from young war victims and particularly concentration camp survivors. I will return to this as, while it was undoubtedly important work, the children concerned are clearly a far cry from those refugees of the modern divorce industry and to implicitly treat them as equivalent would be an egregious error.

As for the other authors, so far I have found only an obitiary for the second, Albert J. Solnit, who was a professor of child development, psychoanalysis and mental health at the Yale University Child Study Center. There's plenty of praise for his long walk through the hallowed halls of the psychiatry of troubled and disadvantaged children but not much to say about the man himself.

I'll keep looking...

The Preface

This is written by one Barbara F. Nordhaus. Google shows up no hits at all, which makes her pretty impressively obscure. But still, she's the one who thinks "it would be difficult to imagine an expert working in the field of child custody or family law in the United States - or in Canada, England, or many other nations - who has not been influenced by [this book]". Her obscurity notwithstanding, this opinion seems to be supported by the inclusion of the book on various family law reading lists.

She also says "This book will reduce the temptation to convert guidelines into an instruction manual" a couple of paragraphs after "Readers will benefit from the new format, which no longer requires them to consult separate volumes in putting together the relationship of invocation, adjudication, and disposition in the decision-making process". From this I take the implication that one need not consult any other books when coming to a decision and it escapes me (much does)how this might be different from an instruction manual, especially given the tone, layout and goals of the book.

Introduction to the paperback edition

Despite my issues with their conclusions, there are, of course, many wise words in this book. The authors have been around and seen a lot, and this is what makes their mistakes, sorry, conclusions potentially all the more dangerous even while their accumulated wisdom makes the basis for much that is positive:

...there is little consensus, in law or in science, about what "best interests" means. In the absence of a clarifying definition, personal preferences of lawyers, judges, and social workers may govern decision-making. And when two adults compete for a child's custody, "best interests of the child" can easily be subverted by being equated with "the best interests of the more 'deserving' adult".

There are doubtless many among us who are well familiar with this effect. Other potential (and real) failures of the system are introduced:

Failure to recognize and respect cultural differences in the way parents interact with their children may result in removal of children from their parents based on a state agency's culture-bound perception of abuse.

Indeed. But I would take it further. The state agencies have their own culture which is quite different from day-to-day life as any tax payer knows. How real is the life reflected by the tax form manual? Do we really expect the courts to be any different, rule bound and prejudiced? I mean "prejudiced" in the sense of pre-judgement in the expectation that everyone who walks in the door must fit some pre-defined mould just as every dollar that passes through your hands has to have its place in a tax form.

This introduction concludes with 6 points of advocacy:

1. The interests of the child are to be considered separate and apart from the interests of her family as a unit only if and when the family fails to provide [care] according to minimum cultural standards. Until then, the state must leave parents to minister to the child's needs as they see fit...

I have put "her" in bold face because this is the first instance in the book where the authors refer to a generic child. As far as I can tell, they continue to use only the female gender for this purpose throughout the book. There are no boys other than in specific cases. This practise, as far as I can see, is never explained and it stands out like a sore thumb.

I could doubtlessly be criticized for latching onto this on the basis that the predominant use of male pronouns in English literature in general means that an example of the use of female pronouns is not mere political correctness but a small attempt to redress an imbalance. However, I maintain that when it comes to discussions of human nature, it is highly inappropriate, whether the choice be male or female pronouns. It is one of the unreasonable excesses of radical feminism to claim that men and women, boys and girls are the same and should be treated the same. Simple common sense, never mind vast arrays of scientific results show that this is not true.

By sticking to "she" and "her" throughout their book, the authors set a tone which does injustice to fully half of their intended wards. Each time it appears, we imagine a little girl in her summer dress waiting to learn her fate, but not a handsome young boy with scuffed knees similarly bereft.

What are we to conclude? Are the authors pandering to a prejudiced audience? Are they just being trendy? Is there a difference? Are all of the three books written like this? Why could they not have used "his or her" and "she or he"?

2. Once the family ceases to function adequately for a child - if the child is abused or abandoned or when separating parents cannot agree on custody - the state should intervene.

This is interesting - parents arguing over custody are, in this sense, automatically considered together with neglectful and abusive parents. Is that appropriate? Parents are quite capable of fighting over custody while not neglecting nor abusing the children. Oh, I know what they mean, but precision of language is important here and this already exposes an assumption that goes unquestioned. Is this the first point of entry for the wedge? Is it possible to set up laws which require intervention only if there is neglect or abuse? What if there was a default of joint and equal custody and access and to interfere with that or to fail to step up to one's responsibilities to be considered as abuse or neglect? Hmmm. Something to think about...

3. Once the state intervenes it must put the child's interests first, over and above that of even the most "deserving" of adults. Placement of a child must never be used to compensate an adult who has suffered misfortune or injury or injustice at the hands of another adult or the sate; otherwise respect for the blood tie can only too easily be turned against the child's interests.

When this book was written, the term "parental alienation syndrome" did not exist. The authors seem appropriately concerned that child placement should not be used as reward or (but they don't say) punishment for a parent. OK, I can cope with that, but I have something of a problem with the didactic tone. "Must never"? Why not "should not" or "it is an inappropriate basis for child placement..."? This is a book of guidelines after all, and not an instruction manual.

I'll skip ahead to the sixth and last item which says "The placement should be unconditional", and they really mean it. Later on in the book, they argue that the courts should not even assign visitation to a non-custodial parent. Their position is that unless neglect or abuse can be shown, all decisions regarding the disposition of the child should be left entirely up to the custodial parent, apparently for fear of undermining that parent's authority in the eyes of the child. It seems that the custodial parent's attitudes, motivations and actions are to be considered above reproach. I have yet to find any suggestion that obstructing the child's relationship with the non-custodial parent or undermining his or her parental authority is to be considered abuse or neglect.

Remember, it is "difficult to imagine an expert working in the field of child custody or family law ... who has not been influenced by [this book]".



Tags: Fathers Rights, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Child Placement, Divorce, Child Psychiatry, Visitation.

The Best Interests of the Child - Part 1

One of the difficult issues that I have had in trying to deal with my disenfranchisement is that no-one has ever been able to give me an adequate explanation for it. To many, it has almost seemed like a question they cannot understand. Why is your son being taken from you? Well, that's just the way the system works. This is begging the question and every time I've heard it, or something like it, besides amplifying my distress, it has produced a kind of intense, speechless frustration in me. I recognise it as a retreat away from blame, shirking of responsibility and an appeal, or deferral, to forces beyond anyone's control. The situation is unpleasant, complicated and beyond normal human resolution, so we hand over to the courts and the courts do what they always do. They make a decision, you might not like it, but that's what you get.

This doesn't help me. I want to know why, in the face of manifest injustice, the courts decide what they do. I want to know their reasoning.

Just recently, a book fell into my hands which goes a long way to giving me at least a partial explanation. The blurb on the back reads: "What principles should guide the courts in deciding the fate of hundreds of thousands of children involved every year in parental divorces and family breakdowns? What should justify state intrusion on the privacy of family relationships? How should professionals - judges, lawyers, social workers, psychiatrists, and psychologists - conduct themselves in pursuing 'the best interests' of children who have been abandoned, neglected or abused?"

These are all excellent questions, although what I'd like to know is what principles do guide the courts, what does justify state instrusion, and how do professionals conduct themselves in the pursuit of 'the best interests' of children? Therein lies the rub. These are not normally stupid people, the courts run on principles of law, the professionals are schooled in ethics, but I have had a hard time identifying what exactly is the framework in which they operate.

It's not a simple issue of ideology, because their ideologies are varied, many are left wing, but many too are right wing. As I have argued before, I don't believe in a conspiracy theory wherein there is some sort of dark cabal committed to the destruction of families in the interests of radical feminism. I think it's much more simple than that - it is fallible human beings working in an environment where they must follow certain rules to solve difficult problems. Sometimes the problems are so difficult that they fall back blindly on whatever rules seem to apply and thoughtful justice dies.

So what are the rules and where do they come from? The law alone does not explain it. An obviously unjust law doesn't last long in a democratic country and what laws there are allow for quite a lot of leeway. For example, in many jurisdictions, there is nothing in law to prevent a judge allowing what would be effectively joint custody even if the law itself does not require its presumption. The courts could come down harder on custodial parents who interfere with visitation but they seem to prefer tormenting non-custodial parents over child suppport while simultaneously insisting that one has nothing to do with the other. Why is this?

It's not just the "professionals" as few would be prepared to claim that a non-custodial parent is a bad parent just because the custodial parent says so. They are educated people, they are expected to maintain some level of objectivity. Some don't, but I would have thought that most do. Or they at least try.

I'm not a lawyer, nor a psychologist, but I fancy that I have above average powers of observation and understanding, I ought to be able to figure out what they think they're doing.

Perhaps this book I have in my hand will help. It seems to be a manual of sorts, although it repeatedly uses the word "guidelines" to explain itself. A little research shows that it pops up on a variety of reading lists for family court law courses and professionals at large. Indeed, the preface claims "it would be difficult to imagine an expert working in the field of child custody or family law in the United States - or in Canada, England, or many other nations - who has not been influenced by [this book]". On the back, a professor of psychology at Yale demands "Without question, it should be compulsory reading for judges, lawyers, social workers and clinicians". The ABA Juvenile and Child Welfare Law Reporter is quoted: "Essential reading for anyone charged with the protection of children in the legal process."

Could this be the smoking gun, the missing piece of the puzzle to explain why the courts won't help me and my son?

Possibly, or at least in part, because a book so directly to the point of what I am concerned about, with the pedigree it has, its long-term presence within the relevant circles and its apparently objective and reasonable, indeed scholarly, tone must have something to do with it.

Alright, enough teaser, it is:

"The Best Interests of the Child - The Least Detrimental Alternative" by Joseph Goldstein, Albert J. Solnit, Sonja Goldstein and the late Anna Freud.

It is a compendium of three previous books: Beyond the Best Interests of the Child, Before the Best Interests of the Child, and In the best Interests of the Child. Originality in titles has not been their speciality, but that's the point, they clearly have just one thing to discuss, one very important thing. On the back, the authors' credentials are summarised as follows:

Joseph Goldstein is Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Deral H. Ruttenberg Professorial Lecturer in Law at Yale University.

Sonja Goldstein is of counsel to the law firm of Eric I. B. Beller, P.C. and lecturer at the Yale University Child Study Center.

Albert J. Solnit is Sterling Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics and Psychiatry and Senior Research Scientist at the Yale University Child Study Center and School of Medicine, as well as Commissioner of Mental Health and Addiction Services for the state of Connecticut.

Anna Freud was Director of the Hampstead Child-Therapy Clinic in England until her death in 1982.

Yes, and Anna Freud is one of those Freuds, the youngest daughter of Sigmund himself and by many accounts his favorite.

Do you see what I mean about pedigree? If you were a court professional who wanted an authoritative text to help you decide (or decide for you) on what to do with a child caught up in a nasty divorce, who could be a better set of authors than those who cover the psychoanalytical study of child development and emminence in family law? A genuine Freud can only clinch the deal.

The books have been around for a while too. First published in 1973, surely a propitious time for any serious work in the placement of children of divorce, they have gone through multiple editions and this now consolidated edition is still very much available at Amazon.com.

The short review at Amazon.com points out: "Many conclusions...are controversial." Which ones? Well, just a moment, and let me remind you that this has been an authoritative and mainstream book of guidelines for professionals in legal child placement for over thirty years. Got that? Good. The controversial conclusions that bother Amazon's reviewer are: "rejections of custodial arrangements involving forced visitation and the unquestioned primacy of birth parents".

Yes, well, I'd say that's pretty damned controversial. Wouldn't we consider a book on property law that advocated the death penalty for stealing sheep to be controversial? Would we not expect such a book to have been dropped from reading lists long ago? Perhaps I get a little hyperbolic with that analogy, but it seems to me that we should be equally shocked by the idea of explicitly stripping one parent of any and all rights with respect to his or her children in the event of a divorce and that is exactly what this book endorses.

The argument, as Amazon says, is tight and well presented, one might even say seductive, unless, that is, you're a parent looking straight down the barrel.

That's enough for now. In future posts, I plan to take this book apart, page by painful page, present its arguments and point out precisely where I think they're profoundly wrong, for all their emminence, experience and education, so please check back once in a while.

Read Part 2 here

Tags:Divorce, Fathers' Rights, Child Placement, Child Custody, Freud, Parentectomy, Visitation

The First Step Towards Destroying a Parent Is Made By Law

Parental Alienation Syndrome, or PAS, has a credibility problem. For starters, it is not yet recognized by the American Psychological Association and does not appear in the DSM-IV which appears to be the ultimate authority for anything that might go "wrong" in anyone's head. I put "wrong" in quotes because not everything that is contained in the DSM-IV might be considered a problem under any given circumstance (sometimes, a personality disorder is a distinct advantage to getting ahead in the world).

Moreover, various people are determined to "prove" to the world that PAS doesn't exist. I put "prove" in quotes because it's pretty obvious that they can't. We already know that children can be persuaded to make the most outrageous claims with a little clever persuasion. It doesn't take much effort to imagine a child being bribed, cajoled, pressured, or threatened by one parent into bad-mouthing the other at a convenient time, such as a custody hearing. If the pressure brought to bear is high enough, I don't see any problem with thinking of PAS as "Stockholm Syndrome" for kids (and Stockholm Syndrome is in the DSM-IV). If you find it impossible to believe that no custodial parent anywhere would ever attempt to destroy a child's relationship with the other parent in order to control and torment that parent, then I put it to you that you're wearing rose-tinted spectacles, and I have this terrific bridge going cheap. If you want to learn who thinks PAS doesn't exist, I suggest you go and look for yourself - I don't see why I should advertize for a deluded or self-justifying opposition in this blog (why would you promote a lie unless you believed it or had a vested interest in its acceptance?).

PAS is "trendy". Recently on the public's radar, and the subject of ongoing controversy, it suffers from the same sort of credibility issues as does, for example, Paris Hilton, although I hope not as badly and I know not as deservedly. Either way, we have to recognize Ms. Hilton, for all her crassness, as a human being in her own right and worthy of recognition for her good points (whatever those may be). Likewise, PAS has sufficient clear applicability to real life that it deserves close consideration before it might, foolishly, be dismissed.

Like Paris Hilton, PAS has forebears that have fallen out of vogue and there is some suspicion that PAS may go the same way. We no longer hear about Malicious Mother Syndrome, for example, and yet it is well within the spectrum of behaviors covered by PAS. Does that mean that these behaviors never existed, or no longer occur? Not very likely. I'm sure they still do and are still gotten away with. On the other hand, in our genderism-sensitive times, MMS was flawed by its failure to recognize its partner Malicious Father Syndrome which surely also exists.

But perhaps PAS's worst enemy is itself. It just isn't very well defined. It is used to describe a whole bunch of possible behaviors in more than one person. It is the description of a pattern of behavior on the part of one parent and the pattern of responses in one or more of their children that is induced by the former. This makes it the description of a situation, a dynamic if you will, as much as it is a description of a pathology. I am not aware of a similar condition that is of similar concern to psychologists (or judges). Terms like "group hysteria" or "mass hallucination" come to mind as dynamics affecting multiple people, but the selection of the group involved does not have to be specific.

PAS is in danger of falling between the cracks. It does not affect just one person so does not lend itself to individual treatment according to psychology's default model, nor is it something which affects the population at large and hence can be easily "educated out". In its purest form, PAS refers in particular to the behavior of the brain-washed child, but it can also be used to cover the behavior of the manipulating parent, and discussions of PAS incorporate the specific term "target parent" which, while obvious in its meaning, does not find common use elsewhere. Thus, at least three people are necessarily involved and it can be extended to grandparents and other family members, both as targets and perpetrators.

Most perversely, PAS is open to abuse as a method of gaining control of children through false accusation. There are surely children out there who have good reason to fear one parent and are not making it up at the behest of the other. A child who does not want to spend time with a parent may not be suffering from any "syndrome" at all, but could be quite healthily trying to protect themselves. That would not stop the unwanted parent from claiming that the other was trying to alienate them from their children and perhaps making the accusation stick under the guise of PAS, ultimately gaining control of the children and using them for their own nefarious aims. These kinds of machinations contribute to the uncertainty and suspicion of PAS.

Finally, it is not in the best interests of the perpetrating, alienating parents to recognize the existence of PAS, and these people will be some of its most vocal detractors. If PAS does exist, then these people will also be some of the most deceptive and manipulative people around, they will be good at convincing you that it doesn't exist. Remember, in the words of Verbal Kint: "The devil's greatest trick was to convince the world he didn't exist".

It is not my intention to provide a critique of PAS and so enable its detractors, rather I wish to point out the array of problems with its acceptance and to argue for some degree of urgency in sorting these problems out. Why urgency? Because it is a much more common problem than many realize, even its more ardent supporters. In fact, it is nearly universal in child cusody disputes. Yes, I really mean that, and I am not mongering hysteria. It is subtly enshrined in social and legal systems throughout the western world and probably further. The courts cannot see the wood for the trees, and they are sewing the seeds themselves. The first step in PAS is not taken by either parent, it is taken by law.



Like most of my age group, I grew up being told that, as a man, I needed to help in making the lot of women more equitable with my own. I grew up being told I had advantages in the workplace, socially, in just about every walk of life just because I am a man. Much of this seemed to make sense. There were fewer women than men in many workplaces, women were frustrated at being expected to look after the home while men worked at their careers. In college, I knew intelligent, resourceful women, it seemed entirely reasonable to me that they should be able to choose what they wanted to do with their lives, just as I had been convinced I could. I proudly counted myself as a feminist. Some of my female friends insisted that I had a male chauvinist streak, but I worked hard to supress it insofar as I could identify it. In my naiveté, I felt certain that as I strived to treat women as equals, they would strive to treat me the same way.

I grew up, went out into the world, got married and had a child. My wife didn't have a career, as such, when I met her. She worked, yes, but not with any apparent long term aim. I didn't think much about it at the time, I was in love, nothing else mattered. Throughout our marriage, I tried hard to give her the things she wanted, including supporting her as best I could in various attempts at starting one career or another. I tried hard to share in housework, and particularly to share in the care and raising of our child, just as I had seen my own father do with me.

Then the marriage failed.

It failed spectacularly. My very own Titanic, my personal World Trade Center, my Hiroshima.

The details don't matter, but suffice it to say that she got custody and my life became hell. I discovered Parental Alienation Syndrome. I thought about it. I read about it. I checked out the arguments for and against it, and I concluded it was real despite all the weaknesses I have discussed. I became unable to understand the arguments against PAS - wasn't it obvious? - then I realized that vested interest was at work and an argument against could not be objective. "There are none so blind as those who will not see." The only objective position was to recognize the problem and try to figure out how to solve it.

I do not know how to solve it. I do know at least one way to stop it starting. This may, in itself, cause other problems, I don't know. What I do know is that the relationship between a child and each of his or her parents is something vital, something necessary, something sacred. This relationship can be broken by the parent, through abuse, through neglect, through indifference. It won't be broken by the child, unless that child is brought under malicious pressure, unless that child is forced to choose between one parent or the other.

Who would do such a thing? As long as the parents see eye to eye, most likely nobody, but once a marriage falls apart, the parents are no longer as one, they are two people with divergent lives. This puts the child in a vulnerable position. With whom should the child go, and why? Who should make the decision?

Often, the parents can manage to sort it out for themselves, although neither might be entirely happy with whatever compromises they have to make. There may be some degree of coercion about the agreement, for all its apparent consensus, for fear of the alternative. Even so, sometimes they can't sort it out between themselves and that alternative kicks in. Someone must intervene. Someone must make the decisions for them. Enter the courts, the judges, the lawyers, the paralegals, the psychologists, the Guardians ad litem, the cops, the security guards, the restraining orders, the disappearing friends, the new, predatory "friends", the arguments, the heartache, the tears, the pain, the divorce, the child support, the fees, the property division, the custody order.

There it is. The custody order. One parent, usually the mother, has custody, the other, usually the father, has visitation rights. That fellow in the wig, who sets so much store by the rules which he himself must follow, said so. The first step along the road to Parental Alienation Syndrome is made by law.

Alienation of a parent is his or her devaluation in the eyes of their children. To alienate a parent is to show the children that one is more important than the other. What could be a clearer exposition than to declare one parent in charge of their lives and the other a visitor, there only on the court's recognizance? That's the first step towards PAS. Subsequent steps can be made by either parent - the non-custodial parent (NCP) can slowly drift away, unable to integrate what remains of their old family into their new life. The custodial parent has much more scope, and can contribute by driving the NCP away, by not cooperating with visitation, by leaving the area, by making false accusations of abuse, by abducting the children, by turning the children against the NCP. The custodial parent has much greater opportunity for mayhem than the non-custodial, much of it unconstrained by the courts.

How do we avoid this? It's not rocket science, it's not even algebra, it's very, very easy. Don't choose one parent over the other. Here, I'll say it again. Don't choose one parent over the other. Is that clear? Make equality mean equality. Don't give the vindictive parent the opportunity; don't just nip it in the bud, don't plant the seed in the first place. Joint custody must be the default, or if not, then as much effort and force of law must be put into making sure the non-custodial parent has a part in the children's lives as is put into making sure that he or she pays the court ordered child-support. Do it, and do it now.

Tags: PAS, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Child Custody, Custody, Joint Custody, False Accusation

Conspiracy theories

Many detractors of Men's Rights Activists (MRAs) seem to enjoy portraying them as paranoid conspiracy theorists, convinced that there is some sort of conscious campaign to defame, demonize and destroy men. I don't think a conspiracy theory is needed. Simple self-interest suffices. Angry Harry does a good job of outlining the problem. He doesn't mention any conspiracy theory, but then he doesn't say there isn't one, or that there doesn't need to be one and the incredulous reader might be inclined to dismiss him in these terms.

There is money to be made by putting down men in the name of empowering women. As long as it is entertaining to see a pretty woman kicking a man in the balls, or appealing to a frustrated female ego to see a man dominated (and many times I've heard this leveled criticism with the genders reversed), it will be a staple of the entertainment and advertising industries. Portraying women as the perpetual victims of dominating men will always appeal to chivalry in men and the empathy of women. These are long term, and positive, characteristics of our society. (BTW, how often do we think in terms of women being chivalrous or men being empathic?) We don't need any conspiracy theory. We don't need to hypothesize the existence of a conscious, controlling force driving this.

There isn't a room full of all-powerful people anywhere deciding how to drive men into marginality and put women to the fore. The people who make TV commercials and sitcoms aren't thinking about the social consequences of what they show us, they're just trying to make something we'll watch. As long as we'll watch, they'll make it.

The people who are trying so hard and so admirably to control violence against women aren't thinking about the negative consequences of the stereotypes they present, they're trying to do what they can to protect women. In fact, they're fighting against a stereotype they believe to be true. How often do we think about the need to protect men per se? Even the more rabid MRAs don't talk in those terms. It's just not in the mindset.

Anyone can be exploited, anyone can be denigrated and both of these are means to power over others. It is simply easier, today, to denigrate and exploit men (well, OK, it seems that way to me). If there is fertile soil for a plant to grow, then it will do so. If there is a suitable environment for a mechanism to power to develop, it will do so. However, plants that grow too big destroy their own environment and die. Likewise, power, as they say, corrupts. Corruption destroys, so there are natural limits to how far any ideology, explicit or emergent, can grow. As I wrote yesterday, I try to have faith that justice will prevail, eventually. In the meantime, we have to find and look out for who is getting hit in the crossfire.