text:
NPO publishes blog articles to inform and to stimulate conversation about issues of importance to NPO's mission. All blog articles express the opinions of the authors as individuals and do not necessarily reflect the views of National Parents Organization, its Board of Directors, or its executives.
Continuing research by Robert Bauserman, Ph.D., with the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in Baltimore, affirms that children do better in joint custody arrangements. His studies compared child adjustment in joint physical or joint legal custody, with sole-custody settings, with the adjustment characteristics of intact families.
Joint custody is defined as either physical custody, where a child spends equal or substantial amounts of time with either parents or shared legal custody, where a child lives with primarily one parent but both parents are involved in all aspects of the child"s life.Here's the nitty-gritty of Bauserman's latest findings.
Bauserman concludes that living situations are not as influential as the time children are able to spend with each parent. Children from divorced families, who either live with both parents at different times, or spend certain amounts of time with each parent, are better adjusted than children who live and interact with just one parent.
Joint custody children had less behavior and emotional problems, had higher self-esteem, better family relations and school performance than children in sole custody arrangements. "And,' said Bauserman, "these children were as well-adjusted as intact family children. This is probably because joint custody provides the child with an opportunity to have ongoing contact with both parents.'Let's hope family judges read that; let's hope they get the message. In fact, let me encourage each and every one of them to take one sentence out of the quotation, enlarge it so they can read it from several feet away, and tack it up on the wall of their offices. This is the sentence: "[L]iving situations are not as influential as the time children are able to spend with each parent." See, isn't that simple? Children don't want to lose a parent just because the parents want to lose each other. More importantly, they suffer when they do; some of them suffer all their lives. The next time a judge decides custody, it's all but certain he'll be required by law to act in the best interests of the child. Well, there it is. The best interests of the child are served by maximizing time with both parents. Yes, there are parents who've proven themselves incapable of parental responsibility. In extreme circumstances, they should be denied custody or have it strictly limited. But fathers routinely lose almost all parenting time with their children on the thinnest of pretexts or sometimes none at all. A naked allegation of domestic violence made for the first time during a custody proceeding and with no corroborating evidence is more than enough to separate a child from its father at least for a time. And even without that, fathers are shunted off to the role of non-custodial parent for the sin of working too hard to provide support for their wives and children. Failing to be the primary caregiver to the child is usually enough to land a father in non-custodial limbo. If courts truly want to act in the best interests of children, that must change. It is far past time that courts acknowledge what's been know to social science for decades - that fathers desire full relationships with their children post-divorce, that children want to stay connected to their dad and that children do better if that happens. But Bauserman isn't finished.
Joint custody is also better for parents. Couples reported less conflict, possibly because both parents could participate in their children"s lives equally, and not spend their time arguing over childcare decisions. It also gives each parent a break from continuous childcare responsibilities. Unfortunately, a perception exists that joint custody is more harmful because it exposes children to ongoing parental conflict. In fact, the studies in Bauserman"s review found that sole-custody parents reported higher levels of conflict.It's a claim that the anti-dad crowd relies on - shared custody results in increased levels of conflict between parents. The problem is that in most cases, it's just not true. Shared custody takes the stress off the one parent who we'd expect to get sole custody - Mom. Dad benefits because he sees more of his kids than under the usual one-weekend-every-two-weeks arrangement. The kids benefit because they don't lose one parent. I reported recently on the Allen-Brinig study of custody cases in Oregon. They found that claims of domestic abuse utterly derailed the state legislature's aim of increased joint custody under a new statute. That pretty much pinpoints the problem - the use of abuse claims, the overwhelming majority of which are by mothers, to thwart not only fathers' rights to children and children's rights to a father, but public policy as well. Bauserman and countless others have demonstrated the value of fathers to children and shared custody to all concerned. So what needs to happen next is for state legislatures to put reasonable restrictions on abuse allegations. Those restrictions should include requirements of actual proof of actual violence (as opposed to uncorroborated allegations that Mom was subjectively "in fear"). They should also include real penalties for false allegations made for the purpose of gaining an upper hand in the custody case. The anti-dad crowd will scream bloody murder, but that's what has to happen in order to keep fathers and children together post-divorce.
"We do our very best to make sure everyone"s rights are considered,' Assistant Attorney General Amy Guido said during a break between representing the state"s and the mothers" interests in all 56 cases heard Thursday.Notice too that the entire process assumes that the state's interests and the mothers' are the same. If they weren't, one attorney couldn't represent them both; she'd have a conflict of interest. That means that their interests are assumed to be antithetical to those of the fathers. And that in turn makes a difference.
One case was titled Sarah Pena v. Orlando Colon. Pena came to court with a man other than Colon, who never appeared. When her case was called, Pena quickly accepted the results of an independent May 10 paternity test that established someone other than Colon as the father. Assistant AG Guido did not oppose the motion to open the paternity judgment or the finding that Colon was not the father.So what happened was that Pena named Colon as the father. Somehow his paternity was established (otherwise there'd be no reason to reopen the case). That was probably done by default judgment since he "never appeared." Then testing got done on the guy she's with in court and it turned out Colon wasn't the right man after all. In that case, reopening the case was simplicity itself; the AG's office agreed, the mother agreed and the other party, Colon, wasn't present, so the case was reopened. No problem. Gone were the all-but-insuperable obstacles of "fraud, duress or material mistake of fact." Or, more likely, the state and the mother agreed that she made a material mistake of fact and so the case can be reopened. Notice that that happens easily because Mom and State are on the same side. But what would have happened if Colon had wanted to reopen the case and contest the finding of paternity?
"The threshold is very high,' Assistant Attorney General Guido said. A paternity test proving that the man is not the biological father is often not enough.So when Mom gives the nod to the assistant AG to reopen the case because she likes the guy who's been found to be the father, the case is reopened without a blink. If the man who's been found to not be the father wants to do the same, all of a sudden "the threshold is very high." Funny how that works. It doesn't have to be this way. The guys don't have to be given a choice. The state has an interest in figuring out exactly who fathers are and who they're not. So do children. There's not a reason in the world why this first court hearing has to be a court hearing at all. It'd be better and cheaper for it to be nothing more than an appointment for a mouth swab. Once that's done and the results received, the man will either be established as the father or let go. If it's the latter, the mother will have to provide another name and the process will be repeated. That should be what happens in all the cases in which the putative father didn't appear at the hospital for the birth of the child. If he did, he should be tested there and paternity either established or not. As this article shows, genetic testing of all kids and supposed fathers at birth would save a lot of time, money and anguish. In the meantime, at least Connecticut gives some guys a chance to establish with certainty the facts about their paternity. It's better than a lot of states do. It's also not nearly good enough. Thanks to Ron for the heads-up.
[Godboldo's attorneys] said the court order was not valid because a court clerk stamped the judge's name to the order without consulting the judge.
"A judge never looked at this, never saw it," Pitts said. "It has to be an elected authority. This lady took the judge's stamp, stamped the judge's name and off she goes."Well, doesn't that open a window on how CPS operates. What that suggests is that there was never even a hearing to obtain the order. After all, if there had been hearing, the judge him/herself would have simply signed the order. But no. It seems that up to now it's been common practice for CPS to have their pre-typed order stamped with the judge's signature stamp. That certainly streamlines the process, but it's far, far from a constitutional way to deprive a mother of her parental rights. So the entire process was illegal from the start. Likewise, it now seems the police were a little short of evidence for their claim that Godboldo took a shot at them. The judge dismissed the charges against her citing lack of evidence. Godboldo's lawyers are a bit more pointed.
Folmar said Godboldo "never shot at an officer -- period. It never happened."Just last week, police got a warrant to search Godboldo's home for evidence of the alleged pistol shot. That looked like desperation on their part to me. After all, don't you think they looked for evidence when they first took Godboldo and her daughter away? If they didn't find it then, why did they think they'd find it a second time? In the event, they found it neither time. We're getting to the endgame in the Maryanne Godboldo case and it's taught us a lot. It's taught us the extent to which CPS can and does take the law into its own hands. CPS differed with the girl's mother about her medication. There is no way that constitutes abuse or neglect of the child absent some clear evidence given by mental health professionals. So the initial decision to go after Godboldo's daughter was the product of a mindset that has no understanding of parental rights. In this country, under our constitution, parents get to raise their kids as they see fit. Yes there are limitations on what they can and can't do and withholding medication can be one of those prohibited activities. But the decision to intervene and force medical treatment on a child when a parent disagrees can only be taken after careful due process of law. It is that above all that Maryanne Godboldo and her mentally ill daughter were denied. Far worse, it is crystal clear that denial of due process of law is commonplace when CPS chooses to take action against a parent. The whole case reeks of highhandedness, yes, but of entitlement as well. No agency with much respect for parental rights or due process of law would have behaved the way CPS did in this case. Face it, they've gone to Juvenile Court before, handed the clerk an order and gotten it stamped with the judge's signature stamp. They've done it many times, so many that it simply never occurred to them that there was anything wrong with what they were doing. Don't believe me?
As a result of this case, Pitts said, there has been a policy change. Court employees are no longer allowed to stamp judges' names on court orders.The only difference between this case and all the others is that this time they got caught. So Maryanne Godboldo is free, the CPS habit of having court clerks stamp their orders is a thing of the past and the case slouches to a close. Godboldo still doesn't have her daughter back, but I suspect that will happen in due course. The girl has been in the care of her aunt, Godboldo's sister, so I don't imagine Mom is having too much difficulty being with her daughter. Soon will come the inevitable lawsuit that I predict will go favorably to Godboldo. Finally, the county will pay Godboldo a hefty sum for the multiple wrongs perpetrated against her and her daughter. How much of that will be paid by taxpayers remains to be seen. Sadly, this case is no more outrageous than countless others against countless parents and children nationwide. We don't always hear about them, but they, like this one are products of a broken system, a system that believes that governmental employees are better equipped and better motivated than parents to decide matters of children's welfare. It's a dangerous system; it's a system that needs to be changed.
1. Presumption of Shared Parenting during Temporary Orders 2. Parenting Time Enforcement 3. Disabled Parents Protection Bill 4. Presumptive Child Support in Shared Parenting Cases 5. Child Support Self-Support Reserve Correction Hubin explained:
Senator Bacon initiated questioning about the presumption of child support in shared parenting situations first, but we discussed all of the issues mentioned [above]...He was attentive and engaged in the conversation and promised to review the materials we gave him. He was helpful in directing us to other legislators who might have a special interest in or be particularly important with respect to some of the legislative initiatives we presented. We will pursue meetings with these other legislators.For more details on these legislative projects, please see Hubin's letter to Senator Bacon here.
As the founder of Free-Range Kids, I often hear from parents being investigated by the cops or child protective services simply because they let their children play outside or walk to soccer practice.With the police and CPSA assuming the power to micromanage family life, it should come as no surprise that they do exactly that. And sure enough, right on schedule, I find this. It seems that, on August 25th, Teresa Tryon of Elizabethton, Tennessee answered a knock on her front door. There was her 10-year-old daughter who was supposed to be in school, with a police officer. But it wasn't the girl who'd done something wrong, it was her mother. What was her crime? Allowing the girl to ride her bicycle to school. The officer told Tryon that "in his judgment," it wasn't safe for the girl to ride her bike to school. So Tryon called the police department to inquire just what laws she or her daughter had violated.
Major Verran of the police department returned Ms Tryon's call. She said he told me, "He had spoke with the District Attorney's office who advised that until the officer can speak with Child Protective Services that if I allow my daughter to ride/walk to school I will be breaking the law and treated accordingly."
She asked, "What law she would be breaking to which the answer was 'child neglect'".Child neglect. I think the Elizabethton police might want to refresh their memories about just what "child neglect" consists of in Tennessee. In fact, I'll help them. Here's the statute.
(a) Any person who knowingly, other than by accidental means, treats a child under eighteen (18) years of age in such a manner as to inflict injury commits a Class A misdemeanor; provided, however, that, if the abused child is eight (8) years of age or less, the penalty is a Class D felony.
(b) Any person who knowingly abuses or neglects a child under eighteen (18) years of age, so as to adversely affect the child's health and welfare, commits a Class A misdemeanor; provided, that, if the abused or neglected child is eight (8) years of age or less, the penalty is a Class E felony.
(c) (1) A parent or custodian of a child eight (8) years of age or less commits child endangerment who knowingly exposes such child to or knowingly fails to protect such child from abuse or neglect resulting in physical injury to the child.In short, section (a) refers to anyone who inflicts injury on a child, section (b) refers to anyone who adversely affects the child's health or welfare and (c) refers to anyone who allows someone else to do (a) or (b). Since Tryon's daughter wasn't injured and her health or welfare wasn't affected, where's the "child neglect?" The answer is that there wasn't any. Tryon was just doing what any normally responsible parent might do - allow a 10-year-old the freedom to take herself to school. But when it comes to kids, Big Brother knows best, or at least thinks he does. Just think of Maryanne Godboldo in Detroit. Big Brother knew she should have given her daughter powerful psychotropic medication, and when Godboldo decided to parent her child differently, CPS came down on her like a ton of bricks. Many weeks later, that case has just about been resolved in Godboldo's favor, but the point is clear - when CPS decides something, regardless of how erroneous, the full weight of the police and courts will be used to support that decision and against the parent. So Teresa Tryon had best listen when Major Rusty Verran tells her she's breaking the law by allowing her daughter to ride her bicycle to school. She's doing no such thing, but neither was Maryanne Godboldo. But that didn't stop CPS from snatching her child or the police putting her in jail. It didn't stop her having to hire attorneys to defend herself. And so it may be with Tryon if she's so intemperate as to insist - as Godboldo did - that she's a fit mother who has the right to decide how to raise her child. Oh, she'll prevail in the end because she's done nothing wrong. But what will happen in the meantime? Police, handcuffs, arrest, jail, courts, charges, lawyers? Where will her daughter be then and how much trauma will it cause her? We all know that Tryon can beat the rap but she can't beat the ride. More outrageously, neither can her daughter. Decades ago, the American family started to fall apart. That scared a lot of people as well it might, particularly because of its effects on children. It didn't take long for us to call the police and CPS to do what we trusted parents to do before. That meant an enormous encroachment by the state into family life of a type and an extent never seen before. Look at the police officer's words to Tryon. In his "judgment" the girl shouldn't ride her bicycle to school. That is, he's substituting his judgment for that of the mother, and his has the weight of the law enforcement establishment behind it. And the horror stories just keep happening. In only the rarest of instances is the state a better parent than the parent. Its decisions are typically made by CPS caseworkers with no ties to the family or the child. The caseworkers are underpaid, undereducated, undertrained and overworked. They owe no loyalty to parents or children and, like most bureaucrats, seek first to cover their you-know-whats. That's a poor combination for ensuring the welfare of children. Sometimes parents abuse their children; sometimes they neglect them to a criminal extent. We've all read the stories. In those cases, the state can't sit idly by; it must act to spare the children further injury. But that's not what went on in the Godboldo case and it's not what's going on in Tryon's. Those cases and countless others exemplify the naked, wholly unjustified exercise of state power at the expense of parents and children. In any society that values freedom and justice, that would be totally unacceptable.
The plaintiffs will have an opportunity to raise their constitutional arguments when their cases are heard before the Probate and Family Court (or other trial court), and to pursue appellate remedies if they are dissatisfied with the outcomes of those cases.Child support obligors struggling with excessive child support obligations in the worst economy since the Great Depression are hardly in a position to fund long, expensive legal battles as individuals. This is the reason why Fathers and Families' Legal Defense Fund filed this case to begin with--we know individual obligors can't afford to fund their own battles, so we're working to change the guidelines for all obligors. What Will Fathers and Families Do? There are several ways Fathers and Families can fight this ruling, including taking a specific obligor's child support case and appealing it, as well as legislative action. What Can You Do? As Dr. Holstein told the media last week, we're not giving up this fight. We want you to:
- Become an F & F volunteer and/or citizen lobbyist to help promote our agenda in the Massachusetts legislature and beyond by filling out our form at www.FathersandFamilies.org/volunteer.
- Legal and political work costs money--help fund the group that fights for you by making a contribution at www.FathersandFamilies.org/give.
- Write a Letter to the Editor of the Boston Globe at [email protected] about SJC rejects challenge to child support rules filed by fathers group (9/2/11) and the Boston Herald at [email protected] about Dads' group seeks child-support reform (9/2/11). Also, use the links in the second paragraph above to comment about the issue on the news outlets' websites.
In one memorable scene, the four fathers are sitting in the living room comparing notes. Two of the men met each other in jail, their ex-wives having successfully filed false harassment claims.
As the meeting is being filmed, the wife of the man in whose house they are seated, is upstairs with the children. She eventually calls the police to try and have her husband evicted. The policeman, shown with his face blurred, arrives at the home and tries to explain he is just doing his job by responding to a domestic abuse report.
In another scene, a father tells the filmmaker that he is about to commit an illegal act. The crime? Visiting his son at a youth sporting event. He is technically only allowed to see his children at the arranged supervised times. "How many days do you think its normal for a father to go without seeing his children?" the filmmaker asks the father. The father replies, "How many days can you go without breathing?"So the false allegations of domestic abuse are there as well as the crazy prohibitions on fathers communicating with their children. Many readers will remember the Australian dad last year who was jailed for sending his child a birthday card in violation of a family court order prohibiting contact. What Israel adds to the anti-father bent of family courts that other countries don't is it's across-the-board award of sole custody to mothers of children under the age of six. In most of the countries I report on, that's the all-but-universal practice, but in Israel, it's the law. And it's that law, that a panel of the Knesset is evaluating with an eye toward change. The same panel is considering whether to punish mothers who make false claims of domestic violence or child abuse in order to deprive a child of its father. Consideration of those two changes to Israeli law is directly attributable to the film. Another practice that will be familiar to those interested in family court reform is that of child welfare agencies ignoring fathers when they take a child from its mother. That too happened to one of the four fathers in the film.
This particular parent is shown in one scene of the film standing outside a youth foster care center where his daughter lived temporarily. Child protective services had sent her to live in the facility after she threatened to run away from her mother's home. In the film, the father laments that social services preferred to send her to a facility rather than have her live with him. The movie ends with the girl's Bat Mitzvah after the father gains full custody.Then there's the issue of child support that in Israel is called mezonot. There as here, the usual draconian penalties apply to failure to pay. There as here, the money is often more for supporting Mom than the child.
A father is legally required to pay the mother mezonot from the minute the separation occurs. If he does not, he is liable to have his pay check frozen, his driver's licence taken away and even be put in jail.
"A father ends up becoming a second class citizen. The laws discriminate against men. He has to pay child support regardless of his wife's income." Halpern gives the example of Shari Arison, the owner of Bank Hapoalim and heir to Carnival Cruise Lines. "She is technically entitled to child support by law. Even if her ex-husband were bankrupt and homeless, he would have to pay. Even men who gain custody sometimes have to pay child support to the ex-wife. If a father does not pay child support, one can by law can sue his parents. But on the other hand, the grandparents are not guaranteed visitation access to see the grandchildren."Director Halpern calls fathers' rights in family courts a "human rights issue," which it assuredly is, as is the issue of false claims of abuse made against dads. Part of that is the uniform unwillingness of courts to punish those who level false allegations.
The issues of false claims of child abuse, sexual molestation or domestic violence are currently being debated in the Knesset as a result of the film. "In Israel, the courts will not prosecute a woman on false claims or false testimony for lying about sex offenses," Halpern says. "It's carte blanche (a white card). Any woman can make any claim about any man, and she doesn't have to worry that she will get in trouble for it."Indeed, recent research in the U.S. has shown that claims of abuse are the single major factor thwarting the Oregon legislature's statutory enactment aimed at greater shared custody. That research showed that the vast majority of the claims were made by mothers. Other research has shown that abuse claims filed in the course of custody cases are often false, with estimates ranging from 20% to 80%. Family attorneys across the country have for years bemoaned the use of abuse claims to gain an upper hand in custody matters. Apparently Israel is no different. Interestingly, the film seems to have already made one convert.
Another significant change, as depicted in the film is that of the National Welfare Officer for Family Affairs at the Ministry of Social Welfare. In the beginning of the film she is shown to be against joint custody. But as the film portrays, she eventually hears requests of the fathers and changes her opinion.
Women who divorced in the past 12 months were more likely to receive public assistance than recently divorced men (23 percent and 15 percent, respectively). Looking at household income, women who divorced in the past 12 months reported less income than recently divorced men. For example, 27 percent of women who divorced in the past 12 months had less than $25,000 in household income compared with 17 percent of recently divorced men. Similarly, women who divorced in the past 12 months were more likely than recently divorced men to be in poverty (22 percent compared with 11 percent, respectively).So men are over 50% less likely than women to receive welfare following divorce and are half as likely to live in poverty. Since the children in the survey were over 2.5 times more likely to live with their mother after divorce than with their father, it should come as no surprise that they too are more likely than other children to live in poverty.
Overall, 1,100,401 children, or 1.5 percent of children in the United States in 2009 lived in the home of a parent who divorced in the last year... Children living with a parent who divorced last year were more likely to be in a household below the poverty level (28 percent) compared with other children (19 percent). Children living with a parent who divorced last year were also more likely to be living in a rented home (53 percent) compared with other children (36 percent), and were more likely to be living in households headed by their mothers (73 percent) compared with other children (23 percent). The greater likelihood of children to live with mothers following divorce could explain why a greater proportion of such households were in poverty.Of course as a general rule, women in the U.S. are less likely than men to work for pay at all and far more likely to work part-time if they do work. That's because they're more likely to spend their time caring for children than are men. The result, as the ACS data suggest is that, when they get divorced, they're more likely than men or their undivorced counterparts to suffer serious financial consequences. When divorce happens, women are more likely to be caught with no job or with only a part-time one. So getting back into the workplace in a job and at a level that pays a living wage is harder for them than for men. They're paying the price of taking on the primary caregiver role. All of that suggests a couple of fairly obvious responses. First, as I've said many times before, if women would turn over some of the childcare to men, they'd free themselves up to earn more, they wouldn't lose contact with the workplace or the job market, so divorce wouldn't be such a financial blow to them. I encourage women to bargain with their husbands/partners for more time at work and men to bargain for more childcare time. Failing that, it must be said that the pro-mother bias of family courts continues to put children in poverty. Year in and year out, mothers receive 84% of the sole and primary custody in this country. That means, as the Census Bureau reports, that children of divorce are more likely to live in poverty than are children of married parents. Children who live with mothers are also more likely to live in poverty than are children who live with fathers. That should raise an obvious question for family courts - "why are you making custody decisions that result in children living in poverty?" There's no evidence that poverty is good for children and much to the contrary, but family courts still intone the mantra of the best interests of the child, while sending them off to live in seriously straitened circumstances. Why not give primary custody to dads who are better equipped to support the children they bring into the world? Better still, why not award equal custody? That would ameliorate the relative absence of maternal earnings and keep both parents active in the child's life? I've kvetched a lot about judges who penalize fathers for having their audacity to work hard to support their families. When it comes to divorce and custody, those fathers are shoved to the side in favor of mothers who've done more bathing and diapering but who can't earn enough to keep their kids out of poverty. This makes sense? It's far past time for fathers' unique contributions to be honored by courts in their custody decisions. That's partly for the good of fathers, but mostly for the good of children. As I said, we've known this for a long time; the Census Bureau report just reinforces what we already know. Now it's time for courts to pay attention and act.
Since the 1988 decision of the High Court in M v M, even if a judge cannot find an allegation proved on the balance of probabilities, having regard to its seriousness, the court may still refuse to make an order for contact between a child and a parent if that order would expose the child to an unacceptable risk of abuse. That is because the court is ultimately deciding what is in the best interests of the child, not whether abuse can be proved to have occurred.Read that carefully, and understand that it's existing law in Australia and has been at least since 1988. Understand too that it is that law that the anti-dad crowd deems insufficient to accomplishing their aim of cutting fathers out of children's lives. Justice Bryant tells us some noteworthy things. First, when a family court judge hears evidence regarding domestic violence or child abuse, he/she does so under the evidentiary standard "the balance of the probabilities," which we in the U.S. would call "preponderance of the evidence." That is, a litigant must prove her case by producing merely a smidgen more than 50% of the evidence in favor of her claim. That done, she wins the case. It's the lowest standard anywhere in law. Second, notice that even if she fails to prove her case by the lowest possible standard, she can still win. That is, the court can "still refuse to make an order for contact between a child and a parent if that order would expose the child to an unacceptable risk of abuse." In other words, a mother can allege child abuse by the father, fail to prove her case and still have the judge exclude the father from the child's life. "Based on what?" you ask. Well, based on the judge's theory that the father poses "an unacceptable risk of abuse." But if the "balance of the probabilities" tip against his ever having done so (as they must, since the case wasn't proven), on what would the judge rest his/her decision that the father posed an unacceptable risk? That's hard to know, but Justice Bryant teases us with this hint: "having regard to [the allegation's] seriousness." That is, the more serious the allegation, irrespective of proof, the more likely a judge should, under applicable precedent, refuse contact between the father and the child. The lesson? The more serious the allegation, the more likely a mother is to prevail, even if she has no proof. That's the law in Australia as explained by the Family Court's Chief Justice. Moreover, it's the law that the anti-dad crowd has managed to convince all and sundry is too lenient on fathers, too likely to lead to contact between abusive fathers and children. It's hard for me to imagine a law more likely to come between fit fathers and their children than this one. It plainly violates the most basic notions of fair play between spouses. For a father to be denied access to his children despite having found not to be abusive by the court that heard the evidence is outrageous. For the law that allows that to be considered insufficiently abusive of fathers' rights to children and children's rights to their fathers would be beyond belief if we didn't read about it so often in the news.
Watching the parliamentary debates that have been taking place in the Japanese Diet, it is difficult to believe that Japan intends to abide by the Hague treaty in good faith.To date, most debate within the Japanese Diet has revolved around creating "exceptions" under which Japan would not have to return abducted children. These telling debates are in obvious opposition to the spirit of the Hague treaty in which signatories purport to want to return a child to his or her home following an abduction. The article's author, Paul Toland, is the national director of Bring Abducted Children Home. He lists several concerns his organization has that have the eerie ring of truth.
First, members of BAC Home are gravely concerned that the Japanese government will not be willing to address the current cases of parental abduction (since the Hague treaty is not retroactive).
Japan owes it to these children and the parents who have suffered for years from this grave injustice to provide a bilateral framework solution to promptly return these abducted children to their habitual residence without delay.
Second, Japan must utilize standard rules of evidence when domestic violence is alleged. Allegations alone are not adequate to prevent the return of a child. Evidence, originating in the child's country of habitual residence, must be utilized to rise to the Hague treaty's legal burden of proof standard of "clear and convincing" evidence required in domestic violence allegations.
Currently, abductors in Japan are able to cut off all access to the Left-Behind Parent through unsubstantiated hearsay allegations. Facts and evidence are optional, but not necessary under Japan's proposed system for Hague Return Denial, and this is unacceptable...
Additionally, the Japanese government seems concerned that international child abduction is considered a crime in many other nations, and has vowed to not return abductors who are labeled as criminals or charged with a crime. This is not a determination for Japan to make. Japan cannot simply exonerate its citizens who break the laws of another nation while residing in that nation.Then there's the ubiquitous "best interests of the child" shibboleth that Japanese courts use to justify child abduction by Japanese mothers.
For years the Japanese government has used the subjective phrase "best interest of the child" to justify abductions by its citizens and deny access to left-behind parents... Typically in Japan,the judge individually defines "best interest" without standards or guidance, using the "best interest" of a child as a "catchall" to justify judicial rulings preventing the abducted child from being returned to the left-behind parent. In one reported case, custody of a child was given to a mother because the "best interest" analysis required that she live in a house with a Japanese garden, which the mother had and the left-behind father did not.Here as elsewhere, "the best interests of the child" is a group of words in search of some meaning. Here as elsewhere, the words are a thinly-veiled excuse for judicial or cultural bias. Here as elsewhere, that bias is pro-mother and anti-father. There's little to suggest that Japan's signature on the already-proven-to-be-ineffective Hague Convention will make one bit of difference to its traditional mistreatment of fathers generally and non-Japanese fathers in particular. Maybe Michael Sanchez's idea isn't such a bad one after all.
It's been the case since the 1960s. Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote about poorer African-Americans in the '60s -- you may be familiar with the Moynihan report, where he talked about the so-called breakdown of the family in inner city areas and the increase in single parent families among poor African-Americans. Since that time, the same developments have spread to the middle class. If you look at statistics overall, about 2 out of every 3 black women are unmarried. A minority of black men are married, as well. These figures are most pronounced among the poor, but they actually extend throughout the socioeconomic spectrum. College educated black women are about twice as likely to be unmarried as college educated white women by age 40.Banks is interested in individual people and the impact on their lives of the marked changes in marriage rates over the last 40 or so years. That is, he's more interested in adults than in children and more interested in individuals than in large populations. That's where his empathy comes in. He listens to what women say and reports it.
Women now have more freedom than ever to live life on their own or as they see fit because they're able to work and bring in an income, so they don't have to depend on men for economic support. The pressures to marry aren't as great and people can imagine not being married. At the same time, it is the case that most black women imagine their life with a partner. This is true for most people. They may not want to marry just anyone. They may not want to marry early. They may not be desperate to marry, but did they envision that they would be 35, unmarried, and childless? No. That wasn't the plan and it's not the life that women want, and black women in particular are not able to realize that desire.But actually listening to the desires and aspirations of black women holds no interest for Salon.com's interviewer. For him, the ideology that holds that marriage and children are measures meted out by a patriarchal society for the oppression of women is the only legitimate view of the matter. So he asserts, "A lot of people would consider the notion that happiness and fulfillment is (sic) contingent on marriage and childrearing to be offensive and retrograde." Now of course Banks said no such thing, nor did he suggest that "happiness and fulfillment is contingent on marriage and childrearing." That's strictly a product of the interviewer's imagination. What Banks did was listen to and respect what the women said they desired. They said they wanted marriage and children and were disappointed when they didn't get them. To the interviewer, those values are "offensive and retrograde." I wonder if the women know. It turns out that Banks, being an academic at Stanford, had some experience of his own with people who shared the interviewer's biases. And in his circumspect, academic way, he dealt with them.
I've talked about this with a lot of academic white feminists at Stanford, and I've heard a lot of them ask, "Why do women need to be married? Why can't they have children on their own? And who am I to impose some moral code on women?" My response is that when I went out to interview people, I thought I was going to find a lot of black women who were so happy they didn't have to be married. But I didn't find that. To the people who say black women are leading the charge in being unmarried and we should applaud them rather than subject them to scrutiny, I would say they're really missing the experience that a lot of black women are having. A less charitable take is that it's doing a disservice to black women to manipulate their experience for the ideological ends of feminism.In Banks's experience, feminists, when faced with women whose needs disagree with feminist ideology, toss the women over the side rather than alter that ideology. As many people have pointed out before, ignoring actual women is a curious way to be an advocate for them. It's particularly curious for a movement that claims to honor almost above everything else, the personal stories of (particularly minority) women. But the interviewer isn't finished with his brief that marriage and children are tools of oppression. Eschewing questions, he states, "If so much of these women's ideas about happiness are tied to marriage and motherhood, doesn't that suggest that our culture is putting too much value on those two things? " I don't have room to point out all the ways that statement doesn't make sense, so I'll just let Banks do it.
It would be ironic to make that characterization because there is so much less pressure now to marry or have children than ever. There was a time long ago when women in particular had no choice but to marry and have children. We're beyond that point now. The overwhelming majority of people do want to have children because they do want to nurture a young person and project themselves into the next generation. I think an even larger number of people want to have a partner. Maybe they don't when they're in college or just after college, but as they get older, most people tend to want to have an ongoing, intimate relationship with someone. In every civilization we know of, there has been a relationship that was something like marriage, so I get a bit impatient when people talk about marriage as though this is a social construction that is oppressing people and we should just cast it off -- because the issue is not formal marriage, the issue is that people want a partner.The Salon.cominterviewer is happy to flaunt his misandry. When confronted by Banks with the fact that young black women have surpassed young black men educationally and economically, his question "how could that possibly be a bad thing?" accomplishes little more than to reveal his bias. Likewise, Banks gives him the information that, in couples in which the man earns less than the woman, both sexes are discomfited by the fact. But the interviewer is impervious to the fact that women aren't comfortable in such a relationship, having a preconceived notion of the man as the primary breadwinner. To him, there's only one wrongdoer in any relationship and it's the one with the Y chromosome.
To me, the fact that so many men can't handle women outearning them points to a crisis of masculinity more than anything else.Well, that may be true, but if he'd pay attention to the rather well-known facts, he'd have to conclude that there's equally a crisis of femininity, but his worldview has no room for facts that contradict his precious preconceived notions. Given that the interviewer has plainly drunk the Kool-Aid of women's studies programs, it's no surprise that his antipathy for men extends to marriage as well.
So many people have healthy, if not better, relationships outside of marriage -- so why care about the institution in the first place?Of course, if he means to suggest that non-marital relationships are in some way healthier or better than married ones, in this country at least, he's just flat wrong. In fact, non-marital unions are far more fragile than marital ones, breaking down much more rapidly. But again, the interviewer has no intention of letting facts interfere with his opinions. He's got his story and he's stickin' to it. Because Banks is more interested in adults and their relationships, he never even touches on the vast sea of data that tells us that children do better in married relationships between biological parents than in any other situation. But it's interesting to note how powerful the motivations are to marry and procreate even after so many years of being told that both are "offensive and retrograde." The whole piece is a fascinating reflection of our ongoing debate about marriage, families and children. It's a scene of scientific knowledge fighting to be heard over a din of radical ideology that's so wrong-headed as to ignore the desires and aspirations of women "for their own good."
Winston said it"s just as important for a man to know that he"s not the father as to learn that he is.
"There are a lot of different situations where the father found out after he had a child that the child wasn"t his,' and yet he still had legal responsibility for the child, said Winston, who"s 39. Fathers who acknowledge paternity officially or ignore legal notices of paternal responsibility often have great difficulty undoing that determination--despite a negative paternity test.
"We want to make it so fathers can get testing early on before it gets to that situation,' she said.So her store front walk-in lab promises results within 48 hours. For people who can't afford the $400 price tag, she offers time payments and discounts. The woman's on a mission to do what states should have started requiring long ago - genetic testing of every child and putative father to establish actual paternity early in a child's life. Winston's New Haven community has noticed and applauded.
"When I saw the sign I thought, `Go progress,"' said Dresha Grier, who owns an eponymous hair salon around the corner from the clinic. "Why go through the waiting and the overpaying when you can find out right here in the community?'
Steven Stewart, 54, who sells newspapers across the street from the clinic, praised the location. "It"s the right spot--across the street from a high school in the 'hood, as they say,' Stewart said, adding that a paternity test "can provide a lot of closure on a tough subject.'
Willie Penn, 44, and Greg Carter, 45, who were visiting a relative who lives down the block from the clinic, said there is definitely a need for such testing.
"A lot of my friends found out when their children were 20 or 25 years old they were not the father,' Penn said. "At the point the baby was born they didn"t bother to find out because they didn"t want to disrespect the mother. But it"s better to know at the beginning.'
Carter agreed: "Little kids become part of your life. You develop a bond and then you find out you"re not the father. It"s hard.'
...Lance Carpenter also had a personal reaction to the clinic across the street from where he sells newspapers alongside Stewart. The former Marine said he never knew who his father was. "My mother told me three different men were my daddy,' Carpenter recalled. The 54-year-old said he made sure he knew he was the father of his four children. "People should know about their background,' he said, adding "we need it in the community.'All of that is important in a state like Connecticut that makes it hard for men to "reopen" a case if they acknowledged paternity at the hospital or in court. I wrote recently about the procedures used by Connecticut courts and, once a man claims he's the father, he's pretty much stuck with that decision irrespective of genetics. Basically, the courts look to how long he's been involved in the child's life and whether the child looks at him as his father. If so, the court will be loath to overturn the man's previous acknowledgement. On the surface, that looks to be, if not fair to the father, at least fair to the child. After all, why rip up a child's relationship with its father based on DNA? The child neither knows nor cares about that; he/she only cares about continuing the love and care of the man called "Daddy." That of course makes sense until you realize that we daily contradict that very precept - that stability for the child is all-important. Indeed we do so thousands of times a day. It's called divorce. The U.S. Census Bureau tells us that in the year preceding its 2009 American Community Survey, over 1 million children's parents divorced. In every one of those cases, a child's life was torn apart, its world turned upside down by the simple fact that (in 84% of those cases) he/she wouldn't be seeing much of Daddy any more. Moreover, many of the mothers of those children remarried, if not sooner then later. In so doing, they brought into the child's life another man who the child didn't think of as "Daddy," but who would try to play that role. And of course the child's previous "Daddy" was marginalized by the entire process of divorce and custody that left him an every-other-weekend visitor with the child. Was that upsetting to the child? You bet it was. Time and again we learn and relearn the profound emotional/psychological effects divorce has on children. That's partly due to divorce itself and partly to the loss of their father. However it's done, children suffer when their parents split up. We would never dream of restricting parents' rights to divorce and remarriage. That's true despite the fact that all the arguments against allowing a man to opt out of his role as father when he learns he's not the dad are equally valid against divorce and remarriage. Those arguments carry the day in the former case but are considered too strange to even mention in the latter. All of which is to say that, for men and for children, it's far better to do genetic testing as soon as possible. Finding out the truth about paternity prevents a host of problems, misunderstandings, hurt feelings and sometimes permanent emotional trauma down the road. States should require it at the birth of every child. Failing that, stop by Joyce Winston's testing lab. It's right there on the street. Whatever the results, you'll be glad you did.
Paul Robinson, the beloved, long time advocate for children and custody reform, has died after a long illness in northern Virginia. Paul leaded Fathers United for Equal Rights and Women's Coalition for more than 30 years. He held regular meetings of his support group at a church in northern Virginia every two weeks, and helped thousands of dads, moms and grandparents who attended those meetings to help their children and grandchildren.
Paul also gave enormous time and energy in meetings with individual parents, and going with them to court when necessary. He also opened his home as a "halfway house" for parents to live in from time to time, in their hour of most desperate need.
After my separation from my first wife, I immediately realized that I needed help. I was a copyright lawyer, but knew nothing about custody. This was about 31 years ago. I found out about Paul's support group and started attending meetings. At the meetings, I met John Bauserman Sr., Michael L. Oddenino, Elliott Diamond, and others who became the nucleus of the Children's Rights Council. Paul's group became a chapter of CRC. he attended all of our 16 national conferences, and other CRC events.
On a personal note, Paul could spot a phony a mile away. During the course of any non-profit organization, there are always people who do not understand the mission and try to cheat the organization. Paul would spot them and interrogate them mercilessly to get at the truth. It is his absolutely honest, straight-arrow approach to life, and integrity, as well as his unflagging commitment to helping reform the legal system in this country, that I and those who loved him so much will most remember.
The memorial service for Paul Robinson was held at the Accotink Unitarian Universalist Church in Burke, Virginia -- a church Paul helped to found 30 years ago. Perhaps 100 people were there -- family, friends, and divorced parents.
Paul's younger brother David gave the family background, explaining why Paul was so interested in social justice, determined, and a capable flyer of small planes from age 16.
Speakers included other family members, neighbors, CRC members, and representatives from Fathers United for Equal Rights and Women's Coalition, which Paul ran for more than 30 years. Paul's mother was known for feeding strangers who came to her door in the early 1900's, sometimes inviting them to sleep in the family's basement; but she would ask them to work for an hour or two. That must be where Paul got his idea of opening his own house to parents going through ruinous custody battles, inviting them to stay there for weeks or months at a time.
Common threads of Paul's life were devotion to his family and his pursuit of the truth and facts, often asking people, "What do you mean by that?" and "How do you know that?"
God Bless You, Paul.
The study carried out by Erin Pougnet, a PhD candidate in the Concordia University Department of Psychology, and associates, used data from the Concordia Longitudinal Risk Project, an intergenerational longitudinal data set collected in inner city areas of Montreal...
One hundred and thirty-eight children and their parents from lower to middle income backgrounds participated in two waves of data collection: at ages 3 to 5, and again at 9 to 13 years old.
The children were given IQ tests, while their mothers completed questionnaires on spousal conflict and the home environment.
The children"s teachers contributed to the research by observing and reporting the child"s behavior at school.
"Teachers were a somewhat more independent source of information than mothers, fathers or children themselves,' Pougnet said in a press release from Concordia University, "because a father"s absence can result in home conflict, maternal distress and child distress.'
The study found that, "Compared with other children with absentee dads, kids whose fathers were active parents in early and middle childhood had fewer behaviour problems and higher intellectual abilities as they grew older -- even among socio-economically at-risk families...'
The study also found that girls were more affected by absent fathers than boys.
"Girls whose fathers were absent during their middle childhood had significantly higher levels of emotional problems at school than girls whose fathers were present,' said Pougnet.It's the study, not the results, that's news. We've known this for decades now, and much more about the value of fathers to children. We've known, for example, that a father's active presence provides benefits to children across all socio-economic strata. In fact, whatever the race, religion, class or geographical location, father presence helps and father absence hurts. And what that means - or should mean - is that governments and courts should be bending heaven and earth to make sure that fathers take an active role in their children's upbringing. Not surprisingly, that's exactly the message the researchers in the Quebec study want to convey.
The research team suggests that the findings of their study not only contribute to the body of research connecting fathers and childhood development, but should also be used by governments to establish policies that support the role of fathers in their families and society.
"These findings add to the increasing body of literature suggesting that fathers make important contributions to their children"s cognitive and behavioural functioning,' the report concludes, "and point to the benefits of developing policies that encourage fathers to spend time with their children (i.e., parental leave for men) and promote positive fathering and involvement through parenting courses.'Of course that last sentence is a bit paltry. After all, the reason there aren't more fathers actively involved in their children's lives isn't the lack of parental leave for men or too few parenting courses. Those would be nice I suppose, but they hardly go to the heart of the problem of children without fathers. No, if you want to get at that problem, you have to profoundly change the behavior of mothers and family court judges. Someone might point out to the researchers that a man can't be an active dad when a court has barred him from all contact with his child due to false allegations by the child's mother. So one place to start would be to make mothers prove that fathers have actually posed a risk to a child in the past before denying or limiting contact. They should be required to do so with actual, verifiable evidence as opposed to just their say-so. The risk should be of actual violence, instead of some vague claim of being placed "in fear." As we've recently learned, in the late 1990s Oregon amended its family law to promote joint custody, but the effort entirely failed. Why? Domestic violence claims by mothers against fathers. Attorney's have for years pointed out that allegations of violence and abuse are now routinely made for the sole purpose of gaining the upper hand in custody matters. And why not? Those claims, when made by mothers, work like a charm, as indeed they must given the astonishingly low levels of "proof" required to get a court order separating a child from its father. But even in the absence of false claims of abuse, fathers are still denied any meaningful parenting time with their children as a matter of course. I've pointed out many times that, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 1993, 84.2% of custodial parents were mothers. By 2007, that figure stood at 83.6%. In short, despite a mountain of evidence promoting fathers' involvement with children, courts haven't changed in the least. Now, the researchers say that even fathers who don't live with their kids can have a positive effect on them. That may be true, but surely we can all agree that fathers with more contact with their children have a better chance of having that effect than fathers who see their kids for two days every two weeks, the standard "visitation" schedule. But custody and false abuse allegations aren't the only reasons dads don't see their kids. As I've pointed out many times, our legal system gives Mom the power to decide whether Dad will get to see or even know about his child. Until we start requiring mothers to inform fathers about their children and give them the opportunity to be the type of parents the Quebec researchers describe, fathers and children will remain separate. And then there's the matter of education. When and where in all our systems of education, whether at home or in schools or elsewhere, do we tell girls that, when they grow up, it's not OK to use their legal power to remove Dad from his child's life? When do we tell them that maternal gatekeeping is morally wrong? The answers are obvious; we never tell girls that. Indeed, we tell them the opposite. As long as the legal system gives mothers a free pass to lie, commit paternity fraud, etc., the message to all is loud and clear. Then there are the politicians who call loudly for "responsibility" on the part of fathers. Translation: if dads weren't so worthless, this "absent father" problem would be solved. The great irony is that it's not the dads who are irresponsible (although surely many are), but the politicians who want to pretend they're addressing the problem while ignoring the hard changes required to actually bring fathers and children together. Face it, privileged mothers and absent fathers go hand in hand. Until we admit that fact and change our laws, millions of children will go to sleep every night wondering where their fathers are. And those same children will grow up to be less happy, less secure and less intellectually developed than they could be. As Walter Cronkite used to say, "and that's the way it is." Thanks to Mike for the heads-up.
Court of Queen's Bench Justice Joanne Veit called Effert's actions "a classic infanticide case -- the killing of a newborn after a hidden pregnancy by a mother who was alone and unsupported."
"I try very carefully not to exaggerate, but I do think that"s an apt comparison,' said Sarah Geraghty, the attorney handling the Georgia case for the Southern Center for Human Rights.
"And I think anyone who went down and watched one of these proceedings would agree with me. … You see a room full of indigent parents -- most of them African-American -- and you have a judge and attorney general, both of whom are white. The hearings often take only 15 seconds. The judge asks, 'Do you have any money to pay?" the person pleads and the judge says, 'OK you"re going to jail,"' she added.That's a scene few people envisage when thinking about child support indebtedness and those who go to jail because of it. The news is full of "deadbeat dads" with plenty of money who don't pay support because they're irresponsible. That's the narrative we've come to accept and there are just enough of those parents to keep the myth alive. What we never seem to see in the news are the people Geraghty sees every day - the poor who will never have the resources to pay in full and who go to jail because of it. Those people often don't have a lawyer to represent them and now, with the Supreme Court's decision in Turner v. Rogers, states know they don't have to provide an attorney for those too poor to hire one themselves. Up until Turnerwas decided, only six states refused to appoint representation to indigent child support contemnors. But with state budgets growing ever tighter, it will surprise no one if other states follow suit. After all, the Supreme Court has told them they don't need to pay attorneys to represent the poor in child support cases, so why would they? The Court's majority opnion in Turnerdemonstrates no comprehension of the everyday realities of the process that Geraghty describes. According to Justice Breyer who wrote the opinion, it's acceptable for states to rely on judges to make the type of inquiry necessary to ensure that only those truly able to pay go to jail. No lawyer is required. Breyer imagined an in-depth investigation by the judge of a father's ability to pay, replete with explanations of the man's rights, etc. Breyer should get out more. The reality that Geraghty sees every day is a 15-second "hearing" that has one goal - to get the case off the court's docket and the father behind bars. Not surprisingly, both are accomplished in the blink of an eye. And that's one of the most interesting things about Brunker's article. Like the contrast between the reality of child support contempt cases versus the one imagined by the Supreme Court majority, Brunker contrasts that reality with what those who support the current system would have us believe. Compare Geraghty's statement quoted above with this:
Judge Janice M. Rosa, a supervising court judge in New York"s 8th Judicial District and a board member of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, said the system in her state adequately protects non-custodial parents by guaranteeing them a court-appointed lawyer if they cannot afford one and carefully determining that they have the ability to pay.
"No one here is going to jail when a factory closes down and you"re one of hundreds looking for a job,' she said. "… Every state has said that debtors" prisons are illegal, and you have to give these people a way out. You can only put them in jail if they have money and won"t pay.'Hmm. Well, maybe in her court that's true, but not in the ones Geraghty sees. But of course Rosa is a judge; what are the chances she'll admit to ignoring a father's inability to pay and sending him to jail just to keep the line of cases moving? My guess is they're not good. Even in states that appoint lawyers for indigent parents, those without the ability to pay can still go to jail.
A 2009 study by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan policy think tank in Washington, D.C., found that only half of the child support debtors in California prisons had reported income in the two preceding years. And the median net income of the others was a mere $2,881.That dovetails with data from the Office of Child Support Enforcement that show that 63% of all child support debtors (not just those in jail) reported yearly income of $10,000 or less. The same OCSE report excoriates judges for setting child support payments too high in the first place, a practice Geraghty has seen first-hand.
Geraghty, the Southern Center for Human Rights attorney, said part of the problem is that courts often order poor parents to pay too much for child support in the first place, increasing the likelihood that they will fall behind on payments.
"One of my former clients worked at the Piggly Wiggly (supermarket) and they were taking 65 percent of her paycheck,' she said. "It left her in a position where there was simply no way that she could survive on the amount that she had left.'And it's not like the threat of prison has much effect. Oh, I'm sure it does for those parents who really can pay but don't. But those are the exceptions; the rule is otherwise. As I've reported before, every six months, the State of New Jersey conducts a "sweep" of child support debtors. That is, police and sheriff's departments get arrest warrants and go out and haul in parents behind on their payments. Usually they arrest close to 1,000 parents. But, faced with jail or payment, those parents produce one cent on the dollar owed. The most recent sweep grossed payments of one percent; the previous one took in 1.1%, strongly suggesting that those arrested simply didn't have the money to pay. The entire child support industry is far more complicated than the news would like us to believe. Thanks to Mike Brunker and MSNBC for doing much to educate the public and dispel the myths. Thanks to John for the heads-up.
1) Longer payment periods. 2) Recipient is no longer required to look for work or get career counseling. The only requirement now is that they show they need alimony to provide for their minimum reasonable needs. 3) Limits on levels of payment has been raised. 4) Makes an exception for DV victims, who now need not provide proof that they need alimony to provide for their minimum reasonable needs. Family law attorney Moises Rios gives the details here. It should be noted that Texas alimony law generally has been fairer to obligors than those of most states, and is certainly more equitable than Massachusetts, California, or Florida law.
I stayed home with my children, first when they were babies, then as toddlers. I bought the latest Baby Einstein crib mobiles and educational toys. I never forgot to pack an extra hat and kept an ample supply of organic graham crackers in the diaper bag. I would spend hours researching what kind of diapers or sunscreen to buy. I made baby food and froze it in convenient serving sizes in the ice cube tray. I subscribed to Family Fun magazine. I felt confident in my role of Super Mama for over eight years.Van Buren was body and soul a mother. She lived and breathed that reality, that role, that self. But she discovered her husband's infidelity about the same time he lost his job because of it (how that happened, she doesn't explain). That meant not only divorce, but a radical shift in how she lived. She had to go to work. Meanwhile, her husband who was no longer going to the office every day, found childcare to his liking. So the pair split up, but since she was earning and he wasn't, he kept the kids. Soon enough, they were sitting across from each other deciding that he would have the kids weekdays and she weekends. It was a simple arrangement that fit both their schedules. Eventually, her ex remarried and his new wife liked his children and seems to be a perfectly sensible, loving step-mom. But all of that was an assault on Van Buren's sense of herself as mother first and everything else second.
Unfortunately, I failed to see the repercussions of what amounted to a handshake deal. Our new set up would come to tear at the very fabric of my concept of motherhood and my identity. I also hadn"t thought ahead about how other people would view me as a woman and mother.There it is - not only the value she placed on motherhood, but the importance attached to it by others - friends, relatives, neighbors - by society, by popular culture. Freeing herself from that was a steep hill to climb and would be for any mother. It requires a shift in one's values and one's self-concept. Here's how Van Buren did it.
I asked myself -- what if being a responsible and good mother now means that I need to work outside the home instead of flipping pancakes and shuttling the kids to school and practice every day? Ultimately, I decided that it was my turn to bring home the bacon, and their father"s turn to be the caregiver. I decided that I would have to let go of what everyone else would think and pay attention to what my children"s practical needs were instead.In short, she's a mother who put her children's needs before her own. When she did that, it was easy enough to refigure her own role. She was no longer the stay-at-home, but the go-to-work mom and that's what was best for her kids at that time. Far from abandoning her nurturing role, she was reinventing it in another form, a form that fit her and her ex's situations and her children's needs. Again I say, if all divorcing parents were as child-centered and sensible as Van Buren, we'd all be so much better off. Shared parenting would work the way it's supposed to. As if to prove the point, Van Buren's blog recently received an email from a woman she calls Melissa. Melissa is divorced and she's upset about the fact that her daughter who's three and a half has taken to calling her step-mother "Mommy." Melissa thinks that title rightly belongs to her and wants Van Buren's advice. Here it is and it should be emblazoned on the wall of every family court in the country:
"Melissa, let me ask you this question -- how is whatever name your child calls her stepmother adversely affecting the well-being of this child?That's a woman with her eye on the ball. She knows what's important and what isn't. She knows it and she puts it into practice.
At this point, I encourage you to always use this lens to judge matters involving your kids and your situation. Again, it's very difficult and it will take a while to get used to it, but that's what I've taught myself to do and I really believe it is a big reason why my kids are well-adjusted, when, on paper, you would think that they would be torn in half.It's how shared parenting works. It's the best we can do for children of divorce.


text:
Property Details
Fraserview VE
18 2885 KENT AVENUE NORTH, Vancouver East, BC, V5S 3T9, Ca
Great Heritage style townhouse complex overlooking Fraserlands, near the Champlain, Killarney, Fraserview, New River District neighbourhoods--- on the quiet south side of South East Marine Drive. Just steps away from a leisure stroll by the Fraser River. Updates: changed Hot Water Tank in 2013, Fridge and Microwave in 2012, Roof in 2010. Featnres bay windows, 2 parkings, 1 locker, nice mouldings, insuite laundry, southern exposure, gas fireplace, bike room and clubhouse. Only 20 minutes to downtown, Richmond, New West and Burnaby. Open House Sat/Sun Feb 6/7
Bike Room, Club House, In Suite Laundry
Listing Provided By
Macdonald Realty Westmar
Copyright and Disclaimer
The data relating to real estate on this web site comes in part from the MLS Reciprocity program of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver. Real estate listings held by participating real estate firms are marked with the MLSR logo and detailed information about the listing includes the name of the listing agent. This representation is based in whole or part on data generated by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver which assumes no responsibility for its accuracy. The materials contained on this page may not be reproduced without the express written consent of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver. Copyright 2020 by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, Fraser Valley Real Estate Board, Chilliwack and District Real Estate Board, BC Northern Real Estate Board, and Kootenay Real Estate Board. All Rights Reserved.
- Simon Poon Personal Real Estate Corporation
- 604-780-4888
- 604-434-1431
- email@example.com
- Multiple Realty Ltd.
- 2298 Kingsway
- Vancouver, BC

subset: commoncrawl


text:
At first the police had no idea who the victim was. So they began canvassing the area in an attempt to discover her identity.
Soon several women had come forward and identified her as a woman known as "Polly" who had been living at a nearby lodging house at number 18 Thrawl Street.
Meanwhile, Inspector Spratling had noticed the mark of the Lambeth Workhouse upon her petticoats, and later that day a resident of the workhouse, Mary Ann Monk, was brought to the mortuary and shown the victim's body.
She immediately recognized the victim as, Mary Nichols, a fellow resident at the workhouse up until May 1888.
Mary, or "Polly" Nichols, was a 43 year old prostitute who had begun the morning of her death drinking in the Frying Pan pub on the corner of Thrawl Street, where she was seen at 12.30am.
From there she had walked along Thrawl Street and, a little the worse for drink, had tried to get a bed in the lodging house at number 18 Thrawl Street.
But, she didn't have the required four-pence, so the deputy keeper turned her away. "I'll soon get my doss money," she told him as she left, "see what a jolly bonnet I'm wearing."
Evidently she intended to resort to prostitution to raise the necessary money and considered that the bonnet would be an irresistible draw to customers.
Her belief may not have been ill-founded, for she seems to have had reasonable success.
The last person to see her alive, apart from the murderer, was her good friend Mrs Emily Holland, who met her at 2.30am outside a grocer's shop at the junction of Osborne Street and Whitechapel Road.
Mary was obviously drunk and was leaning against the wall.
Emily Holland tried to persuade her to return to the lodging house, but Nichols refused, boasting that she had made her lodging house money three times over but had spent it.
She was off, she said, to make it one last time. "It won't be long before I'm back," she told her friend and, so-saying, staggered unsteadily off into the night.
At some stage in the next hour and fifteen minutes, Mary Nichols would meet her murderer and go with him to the dark gateway towards the top of Buck's Row.
There he would suddenly clasp his hand across her mouth, probably asphyxiate her by strangulation, ease her onto the ground and there cut her throat with a strong bladed knife.
And despite the fact that several people were either sleeping lightly or lying awake in premises that either adjoined or stood opposite the site, none of them would hear a thing or even be aware of the final moments of Polly Nichols.
Not Mr Purkess, the manager of Essex Wharf that stood on the opposite side of the street directly across from the murder site.
Not his wife who spent a restless night and who may well have been pacing up and down their bedroom - the window of which looked over at the gateway - when the murder occurred.
Not Mrs Emma Green who was, by her own admission a light sleeper, but who had slept on, undisturbed, until awoken by the police in the aftermath of the discovery of the body.
Not the keeper of the Board School, the towering walls of which still gaze down on the now vanished site of the murder, the only remnant in the vicinity from that long ago night.
Not even the Police Constable who had been on duty at the gate of the Great Eastern Railway Yard, some fifty yards from where the body was found.
The killer had committed his crime with ruthless and silent efficiency, and had then melted, unseen and undetected, into the night.
He had probably skirted the Board School into Winthrop Street, and dived down one of the narrow passageways that headed out onto the busy Whitechapel Road. Here he could lose himself in the crowds that thronged it, even at that early hour.
As the Coroner observed in his summing up at the inquest:-
"It seems astonishing at first thought that the culprit should have escaped detection, for there must surely have been marks of blood about his person.
If, however, blood was principally on his hands, the presence of so many slaughter-houses in the neighbourhood would make the frequenters of this spot familiar with blood- stained clothes and hands, and his appearance might in that way have failed to attract attention while he passed from Buck's-row in the twilight into Whitechapel-road, and was lost sight of in the morning's market traffic.
As the day progressed the police continued their investigations throughout the district, desperate for a breakthrough.
There appears to have been a general consensus amongst the police, press and public throughout that Saturday that the murder was the work of one of the local gangs, and that the same gang had been responsible for the previous murders of Emma Smith and Martha Tabram.
The Evening News informed its readers that:-
"...these gangs, who make their appearance during the early hours of the morning, are in the habit of blackmailing these poor unfortunate creatures, and when their demands are refused, violence follows, and in order to avoid their deeds being brought to light they put away their victims.
They have been under the observation of the police for some time past, and it is believed that with the prospect of a reward and a free pardon, some of them might be persuaded to turn Queen's evidence, when some startling revelations might be expected."
Meanwhile the police had also been busy tracing relatives of the deceased, and had located her father, Edward Walker, as well as her estranged husband, John Nichols.
In the early hours of the 1st of September, John Nichols was taken to the Old Montague Street Workhouse to view his wife's body.
Genuinely distressed by what he saw, he shook his head disbelievingly and whispered to her "I forgive you, as you are, for what you have been to me."


text:
According to Transparency Market Research (TMR), the Asia, Europe, and South America anti-aging market have a highly competitive landscape. Some of the key players operating in the In order to remain dominant in the market, these players are focusing on the new product innovation and launching cost-effective products.
According to a report by Transparency Market Research (TMR), the Asia, Europe, and South America anti-aging market is expected to expand with a CAGR of 9.30% from 2014 to 2020, to attain the value of US$30.9 bn by the end of 2020 from US$15.3 bn in the year 2012. In 2013, the anti-wrinkle product segment accounted for the larger share in anti-aging market presence in Asia. The anti-wrinkle product segment gained more than US$8.1 bn in Asia in 2013. Among these regions, Europe accounted for the larger share in 2013, with increasing demand for hair restoration treatments.
Increasing Number of Personal Aesthetics to Fuel Adoption
Signs of aging such as appearance of dark spots on skin, dullness, lines & wrinkles, sagging skin, and patchy skin. Along with increasing geriatric population globally is boosting adoption of anti-aging products which is likely to drive the growth of the anti-aging market. Developing products that promise restoration of youthful skin and reversal of signs of aging have been the biggest motivating factor cosmetologists and healthcare professionals in the anti-aging market. This task is leading to huge investments in the research and development (R&D) activities from numerous companies. Development of comparatively affordable services and devices is augmenting the growth of the anti-aging market presence in Asia, Europe, and South America regions.
The number of personal aesthetics is increasing as well as the rising desire of looking good is augmenting adoption of the anti-aging products. This high adoption is bolstering the growth of the anti-aging market presence in Asia, Europe, and South America regions. Additionally, raising awareness about the presence of numerous treatments and anti-aging products is boosting demand for anti-aging market.
Technological Advancements to Create Opportunities
Despite these growth prospects, the skepticism described by other consumers are restraining growth of the anti-aging market. In addition, increasing consumer preference for natural and organic products over cosmetics which contain chemicals is hampering growth of the market. Nevertheless, technological advancements in the products and some of the stringent regulations have helped to regain the trust and belief of their consumers. This developed trust is leading to create lucrative opportunities for growth of the market. Additionally, launch of new and advanced products are expected to augment growth of the anti-aging market.
This information is encompassed in the new report by TMR, titled "Asia, Europe, and South America Anti-aging Market (Products - UV Absorbers, Dermal Fillers, Botox, Anti-stretchmark, Hair Color, and Anti-wrinkle; Services - Anti-pigmentation, Anti-adult Acne, Breast Augmentation, Liposuction, Abdominoplasty, Chemical Peel, Eye Lid Surgery, Hair Restoration, and Sclerotherapy; Devices - Anti-cellulite Treatment, Microdermabrasion, Laser Aesthetic, and Radio Frequency) - Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2014 - 2020."
Asia, Europe, and South America anti-aging market has been segmented as:
By Products:
- UV Absorbers
- Dermal Fillers
- Botox
- Anti-stretchmark
- Hair Color
- Anti-wrinkle
By Services:
- Anti-pigmentation
- Anti-adult Acne
- Breast Augmentation
- Liposuction
- Abdominoplasty
- Chemical Peel
- Eye Lid Surgery
- Hair Restoration
- Sclerotherapy
By Devices:
- Anti-cellulite Treatment
- Microdermabrasion
- Laser Aesthetic
- Radio Frequency
By Geography:
- North America
- Canada
- Europe
- Germany
- France
- Spain
- Italy
- Rest of Europe
- Asia Pacific
- China
- Japan
- Australia
- India
- Rest of Asia Pacific
- Latin America
- Brazil
- Mexico
- Rest of Latin America
- Middle East & Africa
- South Africa
- Saudi Arabia
- Rest of Middle East & Africa
About Us
Transparency Market Research is a next-generation market intelligence provider, offering fact-based solutions to business leaders, consultants, and strategy professionals.
Our reports are single-point solutions for businesses to grow, evolve, and mature. Our real-time data collection methods along with ability to track more than one million high growth niche products are aligned with your aims. The detailed and proprietary statistical models used by our analysts offer insights for making right decision in the shortest span of time. For organizations that require specific but comprehensive information we offer customized solutions through ad hoc reports. These requests are delivered with the perfect combination of right sense of fact-oriented problem solving methodologies and leveraging existing data repositories.
TMR believes that unison of solutions for clients-specific problems with right methodology of research is the key to help enterprises reach right decision.
90 State Street, Suite 700
Albany, NY 12207
Tel: +1-518-618-1030
USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Website: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com
7 of 10 large enterprizes view our ToC to take the right decision.View Report ToC


text:
From select Dates
Toselect Dates
Rooms & Guests
A very bright and airy holiday apartment located in the heart of Malta's favourite tourist location – Sliema.
The property enjoys 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, an open plan kitchen, living and dining area and is fully air-conditioned.
It is ideally located a few minutes away from the seafront, restaurants, cafes, rocky beaches and the shopping district of Sliema.
Malta Holiday Lets - Where to stay in Malta ! Offering self catering accommodation, holiday apartments in st julian's, villas with pool and property for rent!
Welcome to Maltaholidaylets.com.mt your one stop shop website for where to stay in Malta. Whether you are visiting Malta for a holiday, to carry out business or to learn English, you will definitely find the rental holiday apartment or villa where to stay in Malta, that is just right for you!
Read More


text:
Recording engineer, mixer and producer
I'm George, a recording engineer, mixer and producer based in London. Over recent years I've worked with a wide range of artists including You Me At Six, Maximo Park and Clean Bandit.
Since 2016 I have assisted Grammy Award winning engineer/producer Adrian Bushby. Together we have made records for artists including The Darkness, Young Guns and Black Peaks.
In 2018 I began working with legendary composer/producer Jeff Wayne, contributing to various projects, including the best-selling Audible production "Jeff Wayne's The War of The Worlds: The Musical Drama".
Available to work on a freelance basis, I am currently working between London and my private mix studio at Vada Studios in Worcestershire.


text:
DIY kit containing materials to make your own terrarium.
You will receive:
one glass terrarium, measuring 3.5" x 2"
1 healthy air plant (choice from 3 different varieties)
assembly/direction sheet
You may receive some materials/plants slightly different from the above photos, but all care will be taken to notify buyer of major differences in materials/plants
Inside decor.
Bright, filtered light.
Warm temps.
Light misting 1-2 times per week.
In hotter temps, plants will benefit from being removed from the terrarium and completely submerged in water for an hour.


text:
Corona Community Veterinary Hospital
Ivan Yevseyenko, D.V.M.
Now open 6 days a week: Monday - Saturday from 8AM - 8PM
(951) 279-7387
Contact Us
New Clients
Corona Community Veterinary Hospital is located in the heart of beautiful Corona, California on historic Grand Boulevard. We've been caring for animals from Corona, Norco, Riverside, and the surrounding areas for over 20 years.
We are a full service companion animal hospital with a commitment to provide quality veterinary care throughout the life of your pet. Our services and facilities are designed to assist in routine preventive care for young, healthy pets; early detection and treatment of disease as your pet ages, and complete medical and surgical care as necessary during his or her lifetime.
Here at Corona Community Veterinary Hospital, we understand that your pet is a member of your family. Our veterinarian Dr. Ivan, and our veterinary staff are committed to providing your pet with the best medical care available, while continually striving to foster a family-centered relationship with you. Our goal is to practice the highest quality medicine and surgery with compassion and an emphasis on client education. Our entire health care team is committed to providing personal attention to the unique concerns of each individual pet owner.
Here at our site, you will find information about our practice philosophy, our services, helpful forms and links to assist you and an extensive Pet Medical Library for you to search for additional pet health care information.
Thank you for taking the time to read about our veterinary practice and the services we offer. Please feel free to contact us any time with your questions, comments, or suggestions.
We thank you for the opportunity to serve you and your pets!
423 E Grand Blvd,
Corona, CA 92879
Tel: (951) 279-7387
Follow Us on Facebook!
Now Open
Six days a week!
Monday - Saturday


text:
Routine Maintenance
The obvious way to avoid this can be by hiring an expert roofing contractor, and by performing frequent routine maintenance. Regular servicing done by a commercial roofer has become the leading cause of an extended life of a commercial roof. Annual roofing inspections and repairs are paramount to a roof's longevity. An in-depth inspection should be carried out at the very least once a year by a qualified roofing contractor.
Metal Roofing
Any time you're thinking about a metal roofing installation, the standing seam steel roof is a great, durable, safe selection. Reduced slope structural steel roofing is usually referred to as standing seam roofing and is made up of interlocking panels that operate vertically together on the roof surface. These panels typically have a painted mill end or a transparent acrylic end. A standing seam refers to the elevated seam that locks sheet metal panels together. Ordinarily, shingles and roof panels lie flush towards the roof, making them extra vulnerable to rust or penetration by water at their seams. In a standing seam metal roof, the elevated (or standing) seams operate vertically from the roof ridge for the eaves, without horizontal seams. Also, the fasteners becoming a member of the metallic panels and together are concealed, delivering even much fewer alternatives for water or dampness to develop.
Do It Yourself Roof Inspections
Whether or not they wish to save money or feel it might be exciting to do some work on their property, some homeowners have an interest in doing their very own roof maintenance. This task is simple for those who know what they're doing, but we wouldn't recommend it someone with little or no experience in roofing. Climbing around on a roof can be a dangerous proposition for an inexperienced individual. One wrong move and a fall can result in severe injury or even death. It's just a better idea to leave the roofing inspection to the professionals.


text:
Do you need to put oil in a nonstick pan or bakeware? Or butter? Some manufacturers advise using a small amount of oil, others say no oil. What's best? Here I look at some of the myths and more about using oil in nonstick pans including bakeware.
Using Oil In Nonstick Cookware
Do you need to put oil in a nonstick pan? Theoretically, no. Most manufacturers will claim their product provides fat-free cooking.
Tips On Cooking Nonstick (No Oil)
If you choose to cook without oil in these 'no oil' frying pans, you need to maximize the nonstick performance.
Maximize the nonstick performance
You do this by preheating the pan. Use low to medium heat to warm the pan before adding the food. Never use high heat with nonstick cookware.
Cook one side slightly before flipping
When cooking meats, eggs, or halloumi (or other protein foods) allow the food to cook slightly (like a minute or two) before trying to flip or move the food around the pan.
The food will be less 'sticky' after the proteins coagulate (or set) from that bit of time given to the cooking process.
Tip: never use metal utensils on nonstick ware – see my article on how to care for ceramic nonstick cookware.
Tips On Cooking (With Oil Or Butter)
While all of the above is true, many recipes involve using oil in the cooking process. And…you may want to use oil or butter to add flavor.
So, to the bit about cooking with oil or butter…
Why use oil or butter? Apart from adding flavor, another main reason is that cooking with oil or butter helps heat the food and cook parts that aren't in contact with the pan surface.
Cooking with oil helps with frying the food rather than burning it. And some people like to add butter to certain recipes for the flavor it adds.
But…Can you use vegetable oil with non stick cookware? Yes, vegetable oils such as olive oil and canola oil are popular choices in using nonstick cookware.
Much less oil is required, however, when using nonstick pans than with other cookware, usually. Just modify the amount of oil stated in the recipe, starting with less and adding more if needed.
The disclaimer here is to check the manufacturer's instructions for the specifics regarding your appliance. You may want to do this for warranty reasons.
What Oil to Use on Non Stick Pan
There is much advice out there on avoiding cooking oil sprays. Why? The reason given is that the fine aerosols falling onto the pan form a polymer layer and over time this layer harms the nonstick performance.
Again, check the manufacturer's instructions.
But, the most popular options in cooking oil or fats for nonstick cookware and bakeware are olive oil, canola oil, grapeseed oil, coconut oil, sunflower oil, and butter.
Can You Use Olive Oil On Ceramic Pans?
Olive oil is a source of bioavailable phenolic compounds that can protect us from chronic diseases. So it makes sense that people choose olive oil in cooking.
Best Olive Oil For Cooking
What is the best olive oil for cooking? Cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil is the best as a healthy choice to use in cooking as it is high in omega 9 fatty acids, which are good for your heart and reducing inflammation. Being
Some people, however, may choose extra light olive oil as the best because it has a neutral flavor.
Does Olive Oil Ruin
Non Stick Pans?
Olive oil is considered a viable cooking option to use with nonstick pans. Whether it will ruin
More often I've seen olive oil recommended for use with nonstick pans. Some users claim that olive oil extends the life of a nonstick pan but warn to steer away from vegetable oils with soy that will lessen the nonstick life.
This is the thing…Using excessive heat with any oil can leave a varnish-like coating on the cookware and with nonstick cookware, such a coating would certainly reduce its performance.
How To Use Olive Oil With Non Stick Pan
In this regard, extra virgin olive oil is best used at low to medium heat settings. The smoking point is 331°F, so extra virgin olive oil is fine to use in the normal heating of nonstick pans of low-to-medium heat (never higher).
See the table below for the smoke point of other oils.
What is the smoke point of oils? The temperature at which the oil stops shimmering and starts smoking is the smoke point of that oil.
Using a minimal amount of oil is best with non stick cookware.
Again, you should always follow the manufacturer's instructions. This will cover you for warranty claims. If it says specifically to avoid olive oil then it makes sense to not use olive oil when cooking.
Smoke Point Of Oils
You should consider the smoke point of oils that you intend using so as to avoid harming the surface of your pans with deposits of black carbon or a varnish-like coating.
It also helps to avoid destroying the goodness of the food, which deteriorates when the oil is overheated. The heating of oils above their smoke point also creates harmful free radicals.
So, the smoke point of oils is an important factor to consider for health reasons as well as caring for your pans.
When cooking with high heat, which you can with cast-iron pans, for example, you need to look for oils with high smoke points.
About 'Healthy Oils'
I mentioned the health benefits of olive oil earlier, but, coconut oil is also considered a healthy choice because of its polyphenolic properties that purportedly play a role in protecting us from inflammation and heart disease.
While extra virgin olive oil and virgin coconut oil are considered healthy choices, you need to watch you are not using high heat settings, since their smoke points mean they are not suitable for this temperature range.
Greasing Nonstick Bakeware
Do you have to grease non stick baking pans? No, you don't need to grease non stick baking pans. Basically, the same applies to nonstick bakeware as it does to nonstick cookware. That's the whole reason for buying them, right!
However, check with the manufacturer's directions.
And, never use a knife to slice that loaf in the baking pan (always remove the cake or loaf from the pan before cutting). Using metal utensils like this will damage the surface and the nonstick performance of the pans.
Final Thoughts
The main recommendation with nonstick pans is to avoid the nonstick sprays and stick with the low to medium heat settings. Non stick bakeware should not need greasing. If it does, it might be time to use baking paper to line it or look for a replacement. Check out my article on ceramic bakeware.
And, just to reiterate, follow the manufacturer's instructions.
Info Sources
- Anova Culinary Complete Guide To Cooking Oils And Smoke Points accessed 6 Jan 2020.