According to this article from espn.com (8/26/10), fifty-one year-old Tom Morrison took a long, 29-hour train ride last week from his home in Louisiana to New York City. This would be a long trip for anyone, but for Tom, it was probably even harder. You see, despite being an active chief petty officer in the Coast Guard, Tom was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer in April and has spent most of his summer in a Louisiana hospital. On his doctors' advice, he is prevented from flying, but not even cancer, or all the radiation and chemotherapy he's been through, can stop him from sitting in the stands at Citi Field to watch his son, Logan, play big league ball.

On Wednesday night, August 26, 2010--his twenty-third pirthday--Logan Morrison (pictured, right), the rookie outfielder for the Florida Marlins, singled twice, tripled and scored two runs in the Marlins' 5-4 victory. And, despite all the obstacles, his father was right there for all of it.

Logan was quoted last week as saying, "Baseball has kind of brought the family together," and "He's the reason I'm here," while his father commented that watching his son was "probably the best recreation I have," and "I made him wave at me."

Tom, who apparently played college football at Kansas, is said to watch Logan's games on his computer when he's at home and is planning to go to Florida for the Marlins' final series of the season early next month. He says he wants to spend his remaining time on Earth attending all of Logan's games in person after obtaining a special all-inclusive train ticket that would take him from city to city.

While this is probably a birthday that Logan Morrison will remember for a long time to come, it is the special relationship he has with his father, Tom, that made last Wednesday night and so special. Logan credits his father for influencing his "all-out style of play and perfectionist personality" and notes that "Anytime he's in the stands I kick it up a little bit."

In a culture that sometimes forgets how important that fathers are in the lives of even their grown children, it's nice to see that a Major League baseball player like Logan Morrison understands how much they need their dads.

It's not enough that men don't live as long as women.  It's not enough that, in the Iraq war, 97.5% of U.S. fatalities were men, or that the rate was far higher in Viet Nam and previous wars.  It's not enough that those killed in violent crimes or in on -the-job accidents are overwhelmingly men.  It's not even enough that the MSM routinely elide any reference to the sex of victims of accidents, the dead in warfare or political atrocities as long as those victims are male.

And it's not enough that we've had almost 40 years of proclaiming that "there's no excuse for domestic violence" while pretending that women don't harm their male partners.

No, despicable as all that is, it's not as bad as this.  Overlooking the deaths of men is one thing; promoting them is another. 

And that's exactly what the video linked to does.  It's an advertisement for the Discovery ID show "Wicked Women."  How wicked are they?  The ad shows a swimsuit-clad beauty reclining on the beach.  Languidly she sips champagne and nibbles a strawberry.  We see a closeup of her wedding ring-bedecked finger and quite a rock it is!  But then the camera pans away from her toward the water in whose shallows lies a man's body face down with a knife in his back.  Given the wedding ring shot, we conclude that he was her husband.  She smirks; end of ad.

So it looks like domestic violence is OK after all.  Even killing your husband with a knife to his back is treated as, well, sexy.  Ladies, just murder your husband and you too can have an hourglass figure, great skin and lips to die for.  It's a "You Go Girl!" moment.

In the past, those who have objected violently to any depiction in pop culture that could conceivably be interpreted as a slight against women, have managed to excuse things like the Wicked Women ad.  One excuse is "hey, it's a joke; where's your sense of humor?"  To that, I can only say that exactly those words were said to feminists 30 and 40 years ago.  They were having none of it.  And to this day, let an ad show a woman scantily attired and feminists will rage that it renders her a "sex object."  And yet the Wicked Women ad gets a pass.  Don't believe me?  Let's tune in to the NOW website to see if they condemn it, as they should if they maintain any pretense of gender equality.

Then there's this more recent dodge: "the advertising industry is dominated by men; therefore, since men made the ad, it can't be misandric."  Now, I confess that that excuse is actually so lame as to be incomprehensible, at least by me; it fails on so many levels it's hard to grasp.  Suffice it to say that every expression is either misandric or not regardless of who produces it, and this one clearly is.

And let's not overlook the obvious - that if a similar ad featured a sexy hunk of a man and his dead wife, feminists would never stop screaming.  Where are the voices of those gender-neutrality warriors now?

Sexism is one thing when it's done in ways that don't promote things that the targeted sex uniquely suffers.  In those cases, it may be regretable, but at least the sexism stands on its own.  But Wicked Women's sexism promotes the murder of men, specifically domestic violence against men.  Given that women commit half of all DV and that men die from violent crime of all kinds at more than twice the rate of women, the Wicked Women ad is uniquely offensive.

Someone should tell its producers that killing men is not funny; it's not alluring; it's not acceptable.  Selling your product by promoting the murder of men and husbands is wrong.  The piece should be pulled from the air immediately. 

One of this week’s top political stories is the news of Middle East peace talks. Skeptism is understandable. Many have tried to broker peace in the Middle East and all have failed. Some say the task is impossible. Some say the deep seeded mistrust and hatred runs so deep, that lasting peace is not possible. To those individuals, I have to admit that you may be right.

When young children are programmed by their parents to hate an “enemy,” as is the case with children in the Middle East, they are likely to carry that hatred for a lifetime. This scenario holds true whether the targeted enemy is of another religion, an enemy of another nationality, an enemy of another race, or an enemy of another household. Parents are far and away much more effective than other factors in programming children as parents exert significant power and control and power over the child.

History has, however, taught us that there is an effective way to negate parental programming – immersion with the “enemy.”

Immersion can be in the form of school integration, activities integration, or in the case of Parental Alienation Syndrome, it can be in the form of parental custody. To really know another human being engenders empathy, trust, and respect. In aggregate, these virtues act as a shield to defend against hatred. The first hand knowledge that the “enemy” is not the evil, vile, retched creature that they were made out to be, goes a long way in helping that child form his or her own opinion. Who knows, these enlightened children might also teach their alienating parents a thing or two.

When we discuss the likelihood of peace in the Middle East, let’s hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Let’s sow a seed. Let’s throw a pebble in the pond. Let’s focus on the children. Let’s teach them to recognize prejudice, lies and fear tactics. If we do this now, then the next generation will be in a much better position to achieve reconciliation and peace.

The City of Tacoma has ended its lengthy discipinary process regarding DV advocate Gloria China Fortson by firing her.  Read about it here (Tacoma News Tribune, 9/2/10).  Hearing Examiner Rodney Kerslake had found that Fortson had violated ethics rules and misused city funds.  City Manager Eric Anderson announced Fortson's firing on Thursday, September 2nd.

Fortson's troubles stem from a domestic violence claim levelled by Keisha Jackson at her husband Kelvin during a dispute over child custody.  The matter was investigated by the police and family court officials who found no evidence to support the claim.  The family court issued an order allowing Keisha Jackson to take the couple's children to Florida for a maximum of three weeks, but Fortson used city funds to rent a van knowing that Jackson intended to remain in Florida with the children. 

All of that became the subject of Kelvin Jackson's civil lawsuit against the City of Tacoma for interfering with his access to his children.  The city paid him $29,000 to settle the suit based on Fortson's behavior. 

For about eight months, during the pendency of her appeal of the findings of ethics violations, Fortson continued to receive her annual salary of $61,000.

The city has not yet decided whether to replace Fortson.  She has filed suit against the city for wrongful termination.

It's my impression that in most cases in which governments are the employers, when an employee gets fired, the stated cause is not the only cause.  It's often the case that an employee begins to look like a bad actor and management develops a file detailing same.  When the firing occurs, management will often hang its hat on one or two of the more egregious violations while keeping the rest in the background.

I dont' know if that happened in Fortson's case, but I wouldn't be surprised.  Whether it did or didn't, Fortson has always struck me as one of the true believers among the set of DV advocates.  That is, she looks like one who, if a woman says she was abused, Fortson believes her irrespective of facts to the contrary.  That led her to take part in Keisha Jackson's scheme to kidnap her and Kelvin's children. 

Lax city oversight of DV funds convinced Fortson that she wouldn't get caught, but when Kelvin Jackson filed suit, the truth came to light.  I suspect - again without knowing - that Gloria Fortson had played fast and loose with city funds before in other cases in which she believed allegations of women claiming victimization.

Those are just guesses on my part, but, now that she's filed her own suit, the City of Tacoma will have to defend itself.  The discovery process may tell us whether my instincts are correct.   

Massachusetts resident Colin Bower lost his two sons thirteen months ago.  At this point, he doesn't know if he'll ever get them back.  That's because his ex-wife, Mirvat el Nady, kidnapped the boys to her native Egypt, and, since that country has never ratified the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of Child Abduction, his remedies appear to be mostly diplomatic.  Read about it here (MSNBC, 9/1/10).

Bower and Nady were divorced in Massachusetts in 2008, with sole custody being granted to Bower.  But last August, he took them to visit their mother.  Two days later, she was in Egypt, having used forged passports for the boys.

Bower has gone to Egypt six times and been granted visitation rights there, but Nady has never allowed him to actually see the children.  If she refuses one more time, apparently she'll be in violation of Egyptian criminal law, but of course I would have thought that forging an Egyptian passport would have done that in the first place.

But whatever the case, she's also a fugitive from international justice.  She's charged in the United States with kidnapping and Interpol has issued a warrant for her arrest.  All of that puts her in hot water, but brings his children not one step closer to Colin Bower.  Egyptian officials apparently know where Nady and the boys are, but so far no one is telling.

Stateside, Bower has involved the likes of Secretary of State Clinton and Bay State Senior Senator John Kerry in his quest to have his children returned, but so far there's been no movement in that direction.

Compared to the dad in this story, Bower should count himself lucky (Southtown Star, 8/26/10).  Frankfort, Kentucky dad Gerardo Serrano's ex-wife kidnapped their son to her native Poland 10 years ago.  A judge in Illinois issued an order that he have custody, but a Polish court issued a competing order in favor of the mother, including that he pay child support.  When that order was sent to the Illinois Division of Child Support Services, it was treated like any other order of child support.  That meant that, since Serrano wasn't paying the woman who'd kidnapped his child, the DCSS garnished his bank account.

Serrano said the state acted hastily in trying to enforce a foreign court's order, which was in conflict with the Cook County judge's ruling, without knowing the details of his case and that his child was kidnapped.

"They (state) just didn't care," he said. "They weren't interested in my story. It's just about getting the highest amount of money and saying, 'Look what we collected.'

Say, where have we heard that before? 

The latest news is that an administrative law judge has ordered Serrano's bank account unfrozen and all amounts garnished returned to him.  Amazingly enough though, Serrano still may not be off the hook.  The Illinois DCSS could still decide at any time to go after him and his money for a child who was kidnapped a decade ago.

Strangely enough, Poland is a signatory to the Hague Convention.  For reasons I can't fathom, that seems to have helped Gerardo Serrano not a whit.

Thanks to John for the heads-up on the Serrano case.

Imagine a nightmare scenario where your children hate you. They tell you repeatedly that they hate you; and worse, their actions leave no doubt that they hate you. Moreover, their hatred doesn’t stop with you; it extends to everyone close to you – including your parents – their grandparents – and even to your pets. Imagine that your children do not refer to you with terms of endearment such as “mom” or “dad” - but with your first name or with horrible vulgarities. Imagine being locked out of your house, having the woodwork in your house gouged, the walls defaced, and having your heirlooms destroyed, all the while your child laughs at you, a taunting maniacal laugh, as the dirty deeds are done. Imagine finding snack foods or cereal strewn about the house, or juice in puddles on the floor. Imagine being kicked in the head as you drive. Imagine, if you can, that your child hates you so much that he or she laces your toothbrush with excrement.

Imagine not being able to have dinner with your children because they refuse to eat anything you cook for them. Imagine not being able to go to a restaurant with your children, because they will move to another table rather than sit with you. Imagine not being able to talk to your children at all. In the house, they will turn away or shut themselves in their room. In the car, they will respond to you with vulgarity and contempt. If they ever do attempt to communicate, they will tell you how much they hate you and how perfect the other parent is in their eyes - while you are your children’s number one enemy, your ex-spouse is considered infallible and beyond reproach.

Imagine that these children who hate you are not teenagers, but just 10 years old. Now stop imagining. Welcome to the hellish world of an alienated parent whose children are affected by Parental Alienation Syndrome.

As a father who has been targeted by a vindictive and malicious ex, to the point where my children refuse to see me or their grandparents, I am oftentimes annoyed to hear psychologists and psychiatrists who don’t really understand the difference between Parental Alienation and Parental Alienation Syndrome. Consider this recent excerpt from a US News and World Report article, “I really get concerned about spreading the definition of mental illness too wide," says Elissa Benedek, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Ann Arbor, Mich., and a past president of the APA. There's no question in her mind that kids become alienated from a loving parent in many divorces with little or no justification, and she's seen plenty of kids kick and scream all the way to the car when visitation is enforced. But, she says, "this is not a mentally ill child." (US News and World Report, Parental Alienation: A Mental Diagnosis? Some experts say the extreme hatred some kids feel toward a parent in a divorce is a mental illness. By Lindsay Lyon, October 29, 2009)

With all due respect to Dr. Benedek, her example scenario provides too little in the way of information to determine if the child in question is in fact merely alienated or is emotionally incapacitated as a direct result of undue and unjust external influences (PAS).

If you have never personally experienced Parental Alienation Syndrome, it is difficult to fathom how a child can become so completely and utterly transformed from a wonderful, caring, loving being to a mean, angry, hateful individual. Here is a firsthand account from one such child, now an adult, “I did everything in my power to make dad happy and destroy my mother… My main mission was to have her suffer for who I thought she was, not for who she was… I thought about her dying and having a party.” Chrissy Chrzanowski, who as a child was programmed to hate her mother. (Chrissy Chrzanowski, live speech at a Michigan rally: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z7gEAnFF84)

Parental Alienation Syndrome is the result of a war having children soldiers. Parental Alienation Syndrome takes a commander-in-chief, foot soldiers and a common enemy. In this case, the commander-in-chief is the alienating parent, the children are the foot soldiers, and the common enemy is the child’s other parent and those closest to him or her. And just like adult soldiers who fight in a campaign of terror, death, and destruction and then end up suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, so too do children of PAS end up suffering from the horrors of war.

The DSM recognizes Post Traumatic Stress as a disorder, which, like PAS, is environmentally trigged. You are not born with PTSD. It is a condition that is caused by external events - a condition that could in fact, happen to the best of us given the right environment and set of circumstances. Despite the fact that PTSD is not a mental condition that one is born with, such as Down Syndrome or Tourette’s, it is rightly recognized in the DSM as a negative condition that requires treatment, even though it is possible to lessen with time and treatment.

PAS is also a condition that is inflicted by environment and circumstances, and which carries negative long term consequences. Additionally, vindictive parenting behaviors are highly likely to resurface in the next generation - as these children become parents themselves. As Amy J.L. Baker, PhD, a noted PAS expert has written, PAS is a condition that requires time to abate. And frankly, this is time that targeted parents don’t have. PAS children can remain immersed in the delusion well into adulthood and oftentimes require third party intervention – generally from his or her significant other.

Here’s where The American Psychiatric Association, as the gatekeeper of the DSM, and the American Psychology Association, as front line care providers, can do the right thing and help put an end to the emotional abuse of children that PAS presents. They can put an end to an era where children are programmed to hate. They can put an end to the emotional scarring for those children who will forever carry a burden of guilt. PAS is a great injustice and it is becoming more widespread in the absence of professional guidance and remediation. But to do what must be done, the APA must put aside the politics and emotion of the debate.

The recognition of PAS is being held hostage by special interest groups. Domestic Violence Against Women Special Interest Groups (DVAWSIGs) have long argued that PAS is nothing more than a tactic. Consider the following quote, “PAS has been used in countless cases by abusive fathers to gain custody of their children." This quote was taken from a television documentary titled “Breaking the Silence; Children’s Stories.” It aired on PBS in October of 2005. In fact, “Breaking the Silence” ended up being discredited as a one-sided, poorly conceived infomercial. PBS received 4,000 e-mails on the subject and 3,500 of them were negative. Here’s what the PBS ombudsman, Michael Getler, had to say on the matter after he concluded his investigation, “"...there was no recognition of opposing views on the program. There was a complete absence of some of the fundamental journalistic conventions that, in fact, make a story more powerful and convincing because they, at a minimum, acknowledge that there is another side....I thought this particular program had almost no balance, and went too far, turning it, at least in my mind, into more of an advocacy, or point-of-view presentation."

This program was then reviewed by the ombudsman for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Ken A. Bode, who further noted, “I agree with everything Getler says, to a point. He allows that PBS editorial guidelines for fairness and objectivity were 'bumped up against and maybe breached,' but does not assert they were clearly breached. I think it is worse than that. There was no alternative point of view presented in 'Breaking the Silence' and the producer admits it was intended to be that way. It might be difficult to find a clearer breach of PBS editorial standards unless one concludes there is only one side to child and spousal abuse issues in the country's custody cases [emphasis added]." (Breaking the Silence Redux, December 19, 2005, Ken A. Bode. http://www.cpb.org/ombudsmen/display.php?id=12)

Still, DVAWSIGs, ignorantly perhaps, misguided certainly, believe that Parental Alienation Syndrome is a tactic and in conjunction, would be misdiagnosed, therefore robbing an innocent parent of custody. But Parental Alienation Syndrome is such an abomination, having unique indicators, that it is relatively easy to diagnose and, conversely, difficult to misdiagnose. A fully entrenched PAS child harbors unreasonable animosity and hatred towards the targeted parent and, due to the programming, will find it difficult to say anything negative about the non-targeted parent. It is a terrible abuse of power, that “so-called” domestic violence groups oppose recognizing the emotional abuse of children caused by a severe and prolonged campaign of alienation enacted by a malicious and vindictive ex spouse.

The “tactic” argument is ancillary to the question of whether PAS should be recognized as a disorder. False claims of abuse by women against men do not invalidate legitimate cases of abuse; neither should false claims of PAS invalidate legitimate cases of PAS. There are, after all, vindictive and malicious parents who poison their children's mind against good and loving parents – should these individuals not be held accountable?

The DSM V committee must not be misguided by special interest groups purporting to have a greater cause. There is no greater cause. Society has a duty to its most vulnerable members – its children. PAS children are psychologically damaged. This is a preventable tragedy and children who exhibit Parental Alienation Syndrome require specialized intervention.

To the DSM V committee, I say to you, the time is now.

How many times have you heard or read the phrase "the best interests of the child?"  If you read much about family law and family courts, the probable answer is "more times than I can count."  Indeed, establish a Google Alert for the phrase and you'll get links to several articles, court cases, op-eds, etc. a day, every day of the week.  In Canada the "best interests of the child" has been raised by the Supreme Court to a level of importance that trumps even constitutional considerations.

So, with the phrase in such common usage and so vital to custody decisions, you might think that it (a) means something and (b) those using it know what it means.

But to an astonishing degree, you'd be wrong on both counts.  In fact, the phrase is more intuitive, a shoot-from-the-hip type of locution.  It's like a Rohrschach inkblot test; the interpretation given to it by the user reveals more about the user than about the phrase itself.  That's the point attorney Chris Gottlieb was making in the New York Times recently when she referred to determinations of the "best interests of the child" as being made "subjectively, inconsistently and often erroneously."

Gottlieb's quick and dirty description agrees nicely with what academic researchers have been saying for years.  As I mentioned in a piece not long ago, psychologists O'Donohue and Bradley wrote in 1999 that "[t]here is no useful operational definition of what the best interests of the child actually are."  They went on to say that both state statutes and psychologists themselves disagree on such basic things as what should be considered relevant to determining a child's best interests.  And since the necessary variables aren't agreed upon, appropriate tests haven't been developed with which to measure the best interests of a child.

And yet, day after day, week after week, year after year, family courts continue opining sagely about the best interests of the child.  Undeterred by a lack of much on which to base their opinions, courts continue issuing their orders.  It seems that, when wandering in the wilderness, the important thing is to avoid appearing lost.

But now Canadian academic Paul Millar has published a book entitled "The Best Interests of Children: An Evidence-Based Approach."  As the name indicates, Millar wants to do what should have been done decades ago - bring science to bear on the question of what benefits children when it comes to decisions about custody post-divorce or separation.  That is, he takes the novel approach of examining children's outcomes and attempting to correlate them with things like family structure, gender, parental behaviors, divorce, etc.

His data come from a variety of sources including the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, but most importantly from the Central Divorce Registry of the Canadian Department of Justice.  Apparently, that's not public information because Millar had to obtain it in its raw form via a freedom of information request.  His analysis of the data is "the first... analysis of custody data published to date, and the first attempt at predicting legal case outcomes using multivariate modelling techniques." 

I'll write more about Millar's book in the future, but for now I want to focus on one aspect of his work - gender.  As I said, Canada enshrines the "best interests of the child" as the most important factor in child custody decisions, or at least that's what the courts repeatedly say.  But what the courts repeatedly do is give primary custody to mothers; in fact, about 90% of primary custody in Canada goes to mothers.  As Millar says, the custody data from the Department of Justice "illustrate a pronounced reliance on stereotypical notions of gender roles: parental gender is by far the most important predictor of custody outcomes."  So you'd think that the best interests of children must be highly correlated with gender, specifically the female gender.

But that's not true.  In fact, "psychologists performing custody evaluations regard the gender of the parent among the least relevant considerations in custody decisions."  What Millar calls "simple, bivariate analyses" support the conclusion that using parental gender to make custody decisions is in fact contrary to children's interests.

But maybe those psychologists are wrong; maybe other factors tend to congrue with maternal custody and result in better outcomes for children.  Millar studies those other factors via a multivariate approach and determines that "parental gender is...in fact not a predictor at all of any of the child outcomes examined here; that is behavioural, educational or health outcomes."

Therefore, "there appears to be a disconnect between the theoretical criterion of custody determinations - best interests - and what actually plays out in the context of the justice system."  And given the fact that family courts and family law say one thing - that children's best interests are paramount - and do another - award primary custody on the basis of a factor (gender) that fails to promote children's best interests - "we must abandon the claim that the court has been acting in children's best interests."

Those opposed to fathers' parental rights will make the argument that, if gender isn't related to children's outcomes, what difference can it make that 90% of primary custodians are women?  Or, as Millar asks "if either side of [a] coin is equally good, why then should it matter which side it falls on?"  His answer is nothing more than the obvious - that a judicial bias against fathers rules out half the population of potential caregivers, many of whom would be better than their female counterparts.  That necessarily means that many "children aren't getting the best available parent," which of course thwarts the 'best interests' goal.

Focused on psychology and child wellbeing as he is, Millar omits the other important answer to the anti-dad crowd - parental rights.  If children's outcomes are paramount, as they should be, and the gender of the parent is not an issue in child wellbeing, then the issue of parental rights takes on additional importance.  Since children aren't affected one way or the other, it is both morally and legally wrong to exclude one sex in favor of the other in making custody determinations.

Millar's book deals with much more than just gender and children's outcomes, but on that issue alone, it should result in major policy changes in the way custody decisions are made.  If courts and policy makers truly place the value they claim to on the best interests of the child, they will radically change the way in which custody is decided in Canada.

But, as Millar points out, we've seen something like this before.  In 1986, Canada passed its second Divorce Act which clearly articulated a gender-neutral approach, going so far as to remove all gendered terms such as 'mother,' 'father,' 'husband' and 'wife.'  That came against a backdrop of the establishment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, which itself emphasized gender neutrality.  But,

[p]aradoxically, the introduction of this legislation with its gender-neutrality coincided with a proportionally larger share of sole custody to the mother...  The introduction of modern ideas of gender neutrality has made little discernible impact on this apparent reliance (on gender) despite a manifest policy of the gender-neutral standard that is the 'best interests of the child.'

That paradox is explained by the fact that, coincident with the the new divorce statute, came a squall of bad research purporting to show that, in some way it was mothers - not fathers - who lost out in custody decisions.  Judges were duly "educated" by same and the concept of gender neutrality, so revered in some contexts, went by the boards in that of child custody and remains there.

The point being that, however clear the case may be for equalizing maternal and paternal custody, there will always be those for whom the concept is anathema and who won't hesitate to use bogus arguments and bogus statistics to back up their biases.

The book is "The Best Interests of Children: An Evidence-Based Approach," University of Toronto Press, 2009.  Buy one and send it to your friendly MP or Congressperson, perhaps with some key passages underlined. 

The sins of child protective agencies are many, and many have detailed them at length.  I've tossed my hat in that ring on occasion.  Mostly, CPS agencies tend to over-interfere in families.  I recently ran a piece based on a blog in the New York Times written by attorney Chris Gottlieb.  She's an attorney whose largely thankless job it is to try to defend parents targeted by CPS.  Most of her clients are poor, and they find themselves criticized for infractions as bizarre as feeding the child Chinese take-out and allowing it to play in a sprinkler.

What Gottlieb didn't mention was the fact that CPS agencies across the country have the habit of pretending that fathers don't exist.  When they take a child from maternal care, it often goes straight into foster care, Do Not Pass GO, Do Not Contact the Dad.  The Urban Institute did a study in 2006 and learned that, in some 80% of cases in which a child was taken from a mother, CPS knew the identity of the father, but failed to make any effort to ascertain his fitness as a placement for the child in over half of those cases.

Both of those examples - the intrusiveness into legitimate parental decision-making and the preference for foster care over father care - are indemic in CPS agencies nationwide.  Indeed, in Texas at least, it's gotten so bad that a judge recently issued a restraining order against the agency in one particularly egregious case.

But this article is a new one to me (Los Angeles Times, 8/31/10).  It seems that the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services has been covering up child deaths that are known or suspected to have resulted from abuse or neglect.  That's the conclusion of a recent audit of the agency completed by the county's Office of Independent Review on August 30th.

Beginning on January 1, 2008, the State of California required child protective agencies to make public the circumstances of children's deaths from abuse or neglect, the better to understand and, if necessary, alter the behavior of CPS agencies and caseworkers.  Of course the new law only requires publishing information about deaths from abuse or neglect, not about other fatalities to children.  That distinction opened the door to the DCFS to "interpret" certain fatalities as not resulting from abuse or neglect in one context and as resulting from abuse or neglect in another.

The audit is clear that the statute seeks to "promote public scrutiny" of abuse or neglect resulting in death, and therefore of the actions of the DCFS.  That in turn "might cause criticism of the child protective agency to occur.  Accordingly, there may be... incentives for child protective service officials to adopt a narrow... view" of whether a fatality resulted from abuse or neglect.

That's bureaucratese for "if the public finds out how DCFS screwed up, it'll be critical, so DCFS hides the information."  As County Superviser Zev Yaroslavsky put it,

"The board has been misled, but more importantly the public has been misled and that is really inexcusable," Yaroslavsky said. "There is only one possible motivation here, other than the right hand not doing what the left hand is doing, and that is an intent to withhold information from the public."

Meanwhile, the police seem to like public scrutiny even less than does the DCFS.  In the first year in which the new law was in effect, law enforcement agencies provided full information in almost every one of the cases, but since then, "the stream of information about SB 39 child deaths... has been largely shut down."

CPS agencies are given a difficult job to perform.  Caseworkers are often overworked and underpaid, but are tasked with deciding which children are at risk of injury or neglect and which are not.  They invariably tread a fine line between over-intrusion into private family lives and too little intrusion that can result in child abuse or neglect.  Into the bargain, many of the families they deal with are poor and so caseworkers are required to figure out if particular parenting behavior stems from neglect or simply a lack of resources.  The correct call in those cases is not always clear, I'm sure.  Finally, the CPS system has a built-in bias that encourages caseworkers to over-interfere.  Taking a child from a parent generates few headlines; a child injured or killed generates many.

Mindful of that, SB 39 seeks to shine a light on the doings of LA County's DCFS.  As in most bureaucracies, that's ruffled some feathers, but that's a good thing.  The people of Los Angeles have a right to know what their employees are up to, especially when mistakes are made.  And that's never more true than when children are the victims of those mistakes.

Fathers and Families Board Chairman Ned Holstein, MD, MS debated Massachusetts Senator Cynthia Creem (pictured at right), co-chair of the Joint Committee on The Judiciary, on the subject of family court reform and HB 1400, Fathers and Families' shared parenting bill. We want you to join in the debate--please post a comment to Creem's article by clicking here.

Creem is currently in the middle of a hotly contested electoral battle to save her state Senate seat. The Creem-Holstein debate began last week with Dr. Holstein's column Senator Creem and Mr. Rudnick, Help our children (Newton Tab, 8/24/10). Yesterday Senator Creem fired back at Holstein with her column Acting in the best interests of children of divorce (Newton Tab, 8/31/10). Creem wrote:

Sharing custody equally can be hard, especially when parents live a great distance apart, or where limited incomes make it difficult for both parents to maintain a home for the child. Some find that consistency and stability for the child is more important than a rigid 50-50 split of parenting time. Often, even parents who reach an agreement voluntarily don’t opt for shared physical custody.

In those situations where parents can barely speak to one another, simply applying a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all solution — one that depends for its success on mutual respect and cooperation — is a recipe for more problems and more conflict, not the harmony that children need. Numerous psychological studies have shown that when relations between parents are contentious, shared parenting offers children no benefit.

Holstein responded that it isn't our shared parenting bill that is the "cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all solution." He explains:

Actually, what we have now is a one-size-fits-all solution -- courts order sole physical custody to one parent over 90% of the time -- and the Fathers & Families bill would bring far more variety to the outcomes, tailoring the parenting schedule to the needs of each individual child.

Creem's belief that shared parenting should be voided when the parents "can barely speak to one another" amounts to an acceptance of what's known as the Hostile Parent Veto. In a state like Massachusetts, which overwhelmingly awards child custody to mothers over fathers, when a custodial mother doesn't want to shared custody, all she has to do is manufacture "conflict" and the courts often throw up their hands and say "we can't have shared parenting if there's conflict."

To Creem's credit, she does express a willingness to work with Fathers and Families on certain aspects of family court reform, and she did call Dr. Holstein in June to open a dialogue with F & F about HB 1400. In her new piece, she writes:

I filed legislation last year to make a simple yet powerful change to the law on custody and visitation. Under my bill, emotionally charged words like “custody” and “visitation” could be replaced with terms such as “decision-making responsibility” and “residential responsibility” and “parental rights and responsibilities.”

In such conflict-laden circumstances, little things can make a big difference, and I truly believe that this bill would go a long way toward de-escalating custody battles, allowing more parents to reach agreements...Ned Holstein shares my view on this, and I hope that we can work together to see it become law.

Similarly, I share his view that children are generally better off when they have continuing, positive relationships with both parents — something that can happen with or without a presumption for shared parenting. Where I disagree is only in how best to achieve that, because I do not believe that any court — now or under the shared-parenting approach — has the power to give children what they need most: two parents who can set aside their personal differences to act responsibly in the best interests of their children.

The response from Dr. Holstein (pictured at right) to Creem's column is below. Again, we want you to join in the debate by posting a comment to Creem's article by clicking here.

It is refreshing that Senator Creem has now engaged on the issue of family court reform. Mr. Rudnick should now do the same, given the intense interest in this issue among voters.

The Senator and I do have a few areas of agreement, such as a change in terminology that would do away with such words as visitation. After all, a parent is a parent, not a visitor. Sadly, this bill was not voted out of the Judiciary Committee, of which she is co-chair.

Unfortunately, Senator Creem does not address the one issue that constituents care most about -- that as a practicing divorce attorney, she has a strong appearance of a conflict of interest when she blocks reform of archaic traditions of the family courts that breed high conflict divorces.

It is also dismaying that she has not reported Fathers & Families shared parenting bill accurately. I cannot help but wonder whether she took the time as Co-chair of the Judiciary Committee to actually read the bill. Readers can see our bill for themselves at http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/house/186/ht01pdf/ht01400.pdf

Here are some of the non-issues that Senator Creem unfortunately raises:

1) That reformers want to change the best interests of the child standard. Not true. Fathers & Families shared parenting bill would retain this standard. Shared parenting would not be ordered if sole custody were in the child's best interests.

2) That shared parenting would be imposed in every case. Our bill is very clear: the judge could still order sole custody to one parent in any case in which that would be best for the child. The only thing the judge would have to do to depart from shared parenting would be to write down the reasons why.

3) That the bill would mandate a rigid 50-50 split of parenting time. On the contrary, the bill instructs the court simply to endeavor to maximize the exposure of the child to each of the parents so far as the same is practicable. I'd say that's pretty flexible.

4) That shared parenting is a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all solution. Actually, what we have now is a one-size-fits-all solution -- courts order sole physical custody to one parent over 90% of the time -- and the Fathers & Families bill would bring far more variety to the outcomes, tailoring the parenting schedule to the needs of each individual child.

5) That shared parenting would be imposed in cases in which parents can barely speak to one another, or live a great distance apart. Not so. See 2 and 3 above.

6) That we are fathers rights activists. The Senator knows that we do not seek any special rights for fathers. Readers can look at our website and see that the wellbeing of children is our primary concern and that Gender Equality is a core principle: http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/?page_id=1204

And while Senator Creem quotes the Boston Globe about shared parenting correctly, she leaves out other parts, such as the Globe's belief that F & F's goal of shared parenting is "a goal with great merit."

I would feel better about Senator Creem's claim that she supports divorce law reform if there had been evidence of this during her years in the Senate. Or if she had devoted this column to the joy children feel when they do not have to lose a parent in a divorce, rather than using most of the column to attack an imaginary bill that no one has filed.

But to her credit, at least she is engaging with the voters on an issue they care about. This requires courage when one feels unfairly attacked. But Mr. Rudnick remains silent. Mr. Rudnick, where are you?

If you're interested in getting involved in Massachusetts family court reform activism, please fill out our volunteer form here.

"In all honesty, a lot of the guys have a fear of the system," said Mike Rogers, the program's co-coordinator, adding the court sets realistic payments for the most part. "It's justified terror, I guess. They really lock people up at the drop of a dime down there."

The 'system' he refers to is the child support system in Allegheny County (Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania, and as Rogers says, it's justified.  Face it, there's a major recession that's affected all parts of the country and isn't going away any time soon.  Male unemployment stands at over 10% nationwide and is much higher than that in many parts of the country. 

But the procedures used by courts to issue and modify child support orders haven't much changed.  Courts still err on the side of increasing support levels and that's in the face of the Office of Child Support Enforcement's frank statement that they tend to set levels without much regard to ability to pay.  And if a non-custodial parent loses a job, has a major health problem or can't work for some other reason, he (84% of NC parents are fathers) still has to wait months to get a hearing on modification.  During that time, arrearages build up and penalties and interest kick in (in most states).  By the time his hearing date rolls around, he's probably far enough behind that ever catching up in this bad economy looks all but impossible.

I've argued before (and will again) that counties should adopt summary prodedures for child support modification, either up or down.  A parent should be able to get a hearing quickly, no attorney should be required, a trained layperson should be authorized to adjudicate the matter and types of acceptable and unacceptable evidence should be made readily available to both spouses.

But it's not just me.  The Office of Child Support Enforcement has been saying the same thing for a long time.  For example here:

The best way to reduce the total national child support debt is to avoid accumulating arrears in the first place.  The best ways to avoid the accumulation of arrears are to set appropriate orders initially, modify orders via simple procedures promptly when family circumstances change, and immediately intervene when current support is not paid. (Emphasis mine.)

Those changes would make the child support system more responsive to changes in the circumstances of parents which would help to avoid the draconian punishments like incarceration, loss of licenses, etc.  Those punitive measures do nothing to assist cash-strapped parents support their children and in fact do the opposite.  How incarcerating someone for failure to pay assists the child in receiving payment I've never understood.

But this article out of Pittsburgh tells us that Allegheny County is taking a couple of tentative steps toward sanity in its child support enforcement (Pittsburgh Tribune, 8/29/10).   First, courts are starting to set support at levels that NC parents can actually pay.  I know that seems like an obvious thing to have been doing all along, but in the Kafkaesque world of child support enforcement, it's often not.  The U.S. Office of Child Support Enforcement has been saying that since at least 2004, so it's taken Allegheny County a while to get around to taking action.

"The court has recently been more interested in setting an order that is realistic to pay," said Judge Kathleen Mulligan of the Family Division.

Second, it's getting away from incarceration and moving toward job training and assistance.

Allegheny County's Family Division now works with agencies that sponsor programs for noncustodial fathers to help them find jobs and stay out of the "underground" economy, where pay goes unreported.

"We were never in the job business before and now we are, extensively," Quinn said.

"Work is the key. There's no point sitting in jail because you can't pay your support."

The Father's Program at the Hill House Association in the Hill District accepts referrals from the Family Division, and helps young, mostly noncustodial fathers such as Scott prepare for and secure jobs.

It's always struck me as odd that so many child support enforcement mechanisms have more to do with punishing non-payers than with getting support to children.  Professor Sanford Braver and many others have found that most dads want to pay and do so promptly as long as (a) they're able to do so, i.e. they have a job and haven't had a health crisis, and (b) Mom's not interfering with visitation.  But child support enforcement law and practice assume the opposite - that dads who don't pay are "deadbeats," i.e. that they can pay but refuse to for no good reason.  And judges show little inclination to enforce fathers' visitation rights.

Enforcement of visitation orders would go a long way toward upping child support collection.  Fairness and rationality in setting orders and enforcing them would too.  Add easy-to-understand, prompt and inexpensive procedures for modification and you'd have a pretty reasonable child support system.

In short, we've got a long way to go, even with Allegheny County's efforts.