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High-Profile Ohio Lesbian Custody Battle Again Highlights Injustices Faced by Noncustodial Parents
We’ve often discussed the issue of lesbian “social mothers”–women who agreed to employ a sperm donor so that they could have children with their lesbian partners, who are the biological mothers. Disputes between lesbian biological mothers and social mothers are now becoming routine. When the relationship goes sour, often the lesbian biological mom drives her ex out of their child’s life, exactly as heterosexual mothers often do to their ex-husbands.
The most high-profile of the cases is the Lisa Miller-Janet Jenkins custody battle, which Ned Holstein, MD and I highlighted in our MSN.com column With Gay Marriage Comes Gay Divorce: The Rise of Lesbian Custody Battles. Because of Miller’s relentless refusal to allow Jenkins to co-parent the daughter they had together, the Vermont court eventually ordered Miller to surrender the child to Jenkins. Rather than do so, Miller abducted the child and disappeared.
Jenkins discussed the case on ABC a few weeks ago and did a very creditable job of describing how noncustodial parents–male or female, straight or gay–are mistreated. To watch, click here. To listen to Holstein discuss the case on the Mike McConnell Show, click here.
The newest case getting media attention is in Ohio, pitting lesbian biological mom (Kelly Mullen) and sperm donor (Scott Liming) against social mom Michele Hobbs. The child, 4-year-old Lucy Mullen, has resided with Kelly since the breakup of the Mullen/Hobbs relationship.
Liming was originally intended to be simply a sperm donor. However, after the girl’s birth, to his credit, he fell for the little girl and decided he wanted to have an active role in the child’s life. The girl spends every Monday with Liming. Hobbs hasn’t been allowed to see the girl since Christmas.
I have been approached by both sides (Mullen/Liming and Hobbs) in the case, have spoken at length with Liming and Hobbs, and have read some of the case’s documentation. I’ve concluded that Hobbs is correct, for various reasons, including:
1) It is clear from the evidence, and courts have concluded, that 4-year-old Lucy Mullen and Michele Hobbs are closely bonded in a parent/child-type relationship.
2) It is clear from the evidence, and courts have concluded, that Mullen and Hobbs had this child with every intention that they would raise her together.
3) There is nothing in the record which indicates that Hobbs is anything but a fit parent. I listened to Liming’s attempts to malign her and suffice it to say that there’s nothing there, and the vilification sounds exactly like what divorcing mothers and their allies often do to perfectly decent fathers.
4) Like most noncustodial fathers, Hobbs doesn’t seek sole custody nor does she seek to exclude Mullen from their daughter’s life. She simply wants shared custody, but Mullen/Liming have fought a long, expensive legal battle to prevent it.
5) While Mullen/Liming vilify Hobbs, Hobbs freely acknowledges that Liming is a good father and says she wants to preserve his current role in the girl’s life.
Mullen (and perhaps Liming) are also trying to alienate Hobbs from her daughter. Little Lucy calls Mullen “mommy” and Michele “momma,” but Mullen tries to convince her to call Hobbs by her first name instead of “momma.” This is very similar to the way some custodial mothers try to convince their children to call their new boyfriends/husbands “dad” and call their exes by their first names.
In one heart-wrenching conversation which I have the recording of, confused little Lucy struggles to explain this to Hobbs, saying, “Mommy says don’t call momma ‘momma’…mommy says ‘momma’s not momma, momma’s Michele’ but I say ‘no mommy, she’s momma.’”
Of another incident, Hobbs explains:
Once when I picked Lucy up she waited until we were on our way, then she dug deep in her pockets and pulled the toys out and told me she had a present for me, a toy reindeer. It’s heartbreaking to know that a child that young knows that she must hide her thoughts and feelings for one parent from the other parent.
At one point Hobbs was prevented from seeing her daughter for 7 months. According to Hobbs, she was warned by a child psychiatrist that Lucy might not even remember her. Hobbs says, “It was exactly the opposite. Lucy ran up and hugged me and just started talking and chatting like we had never been apart. She didn’t miss a beat.”
Liming was polite but disappointed at the end of his long conversation with me—he evidently felt that because we’re called “Fathers & Families”, we would side with him in this case. But Fathers & Families’ is a family court reform organization whose primary goal is to preserve the loving bonds children share with their parents, regardless of gender. It is not always the mother who is trying to drive the other parent out, and this is one more example, albeit an unconventional one.
I’ve offered Scott the opportunity to give his perspective in writing on our websites, and I will reiterate that offer here. I would also reiterate something else I told Scott—in a couple years, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to get a letter from him telling me that Mullen has done to him what Mullen and Liming are currently doing to Hobbs. In fact, I suspect that in the long run, his chances of staying in Lucy’s life are better if Hobbs wins than if Mullen does...
Child Who Was Abducted, Forced to Live Inside Wall of House Finally Reunited with His Father
"My little boy is moving in with me officially today." - Mike Chekevdia
It was only supposed to take five weeks; instead it's taken five months. But at last, Mike Chekevdia has gotten custody of his seven year old son, Ricky. Read the latest here (WSIL, 2/21/10).
Ricky's mother, Shannon Wilfong, abducted him when he was four and kept him out of sight at the house of her mother, Diane Dobbs. At the time, a court had just given temporary custody to Chekevdia. Two years later, when Ricky was finally discovered by police, Wilfong claimed child abuse by Chekevdia. That claim was investigated and found to be entirely unsubstantiated.
During his two-year abduction, Wilfong and Dobbs often hid Ricky inside the wall of their house in a secret space about 12 feet long, five feet wide and three feet high. He was allowed outdoors only rarely and did not attend school with other children.
When police finally found him, they were alarmed at his demeanor. At the time, one officer said,
"We let him out of the (patrol) car and he ran around like he'd never seen outdoors. It was actually very sad," Illinois State Police Master Sgt. Stan Diggs said. "He was very happy to be outside. He said he never goes outside."
Wilfong has been charged with felony child abduction, but still has not gone to trial. Currently she has no attorney in her criminal case despite being ordered by the court to employ one.
She's also involved in a custody dispute over Ricky. The judge in that case has already branded as "neglect" her abduction and hiding of the boy, and said she's "unfit at this time" to act as a parent. She's discharged her first attorney who said her client was "hostile" and didn't seem to understand the proceedings. Wilfong has undergone court-ordered psychiatric evaluation, the results of which are imminent. Her current attorney says,
“She seems like a normal mother who's extremely concerned about her son."
Currently Wilfong is entitled to only limited supervised visitation. During the past five months during which Ricky has been spending more and more time with his father, he's prospered, gaining nine pounds and growing three inches.
Chekevdia says he supports contact between Ricky and his mother, but with the criminal charges yet to be resolved, how much of that there will be remains to be seen. Apparently the family court intends to monitor the custody situation. There's still a state-appointed guardian for Ricky and there's another hearing scheduled for July.
But Mike Chekevdia finally has his son and Ricky has his father. It's not the end of this sorry tale, but slowly everyone is finding their "angle of repose."
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Action Alert: Ask DSM to Include Parental Alienation |
Round 2: We've Made Progress, but Need Your Participation Again
Fathers & Families wants to ensure that the DSM-5 Task Force is aware of the scope and severity of Parental Alienation. To this end, in December we asked our supporters to write the Task Force to urge them to consider including Parental Alienation Disorder in DSM-5.
As usual, your response was overwhelming. It also helped lead to progress--while as expected the newly-released draft version does not specifically include Parental Alienation Disorder, the DSM-5 Task Force has now listed Parental Alienation Disorder among the "Conditions Proposed by Outside Sources...that are still under consideration by the work groups."
The Task Force says it "welcome[s] your comments on whether available evidence indicates that the following [disorders] should be included in DSM-5." Fathers & Families is asking its supporters to write to the Task Force and again emphasize that Parental Alienation Disorder is a large-scale problem--to do so, please click here.
As in Round 1, Fathers & Families will print out your letter and send it by regular US mail to the three relevant figures in DSM-V: David J. Kupfer, M.D., the chair of the DSM-V Task Force; Darrel A. Regier, M.D., vice-chair of the DSM-V Task Force; and Daniel S. Pine, M.D., chair of the DSM-V Disorders in Childhood and Adolescence Work Group.
Many observers have noted that hundreds of mental health professionals, doctors, educators, family law professionals and prominent citizens endorsed our campaign. If you belong to one of these groups and would like to be publicly listed as an endorser, please see our endorsement statement in the right-hand column of the campaign page and submit your name, title, city and state to us at
GlennSacks@FathersandFamilies.org.
Again, write to the DSM-5 Task Force by clicking here.
Together with you in the love of our children,
Glenn Sacks, MA
Executive Director, Fathers & Families
Ned Holstein, M.D., M.S.
Founder, Chairman of the Board, Fathers & Families
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Kids and Dads |
Hall of Fame Baseball Player Reggie Jackson: 'My Dad Is Almost a Mythical Figure to Me'
Hall of Fame baseball player Reggie Jackson was raised by a single father. In his 1984 autobiography, Jackson describes his dad:
[As a kid] I thought I was special because I was my dad's son. To this day, my dad is almost a mythical figure to me...you're lucky if you've got a father who always seemed tougher and quicker on his feet than you could ever be. Or would have to be.
"You always have to show initiative, Reggie," he'd tell me. "You've got to have ambition. Or you won't amount to a hill of beans."
To this day I'm an early riser. That comes from dad always saying, "Off and on," meaning "Off your ass and on deck." He didn't like us lying around; we had to be productive.
Jackson is pictured above hitting one of his 5 homeruns against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1977 World Series, setting a record.
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