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Fathers & Families’ Holstein, 2 F & F Members Appear on Fox Child Support Special
 Fathers & Families founder Ned Holstein, MD, MS and Fathers & Families members John Gagnon and Brian Ayers appeared on a Fox Boston report on Massachusetts’ new child support guidelines yesterday.
In 2001, Fathers & Families won changes in Massachusetts law which lowered child support by 15%. Our victory saved noncustodial parents over $1 billion—$200 a million a year over five years. That’s $1 billion that non-custodial parents were able to spend on their children themselves.
 The opposition struck back by stacking a special committee with reliable votes for increasing the child support amounts, ignoring the data Holstein presented them showing that the proposed new child support orders were far too high for middle class people to pay. Holstein sat on this committee and prepared a Minority Report detailing the problems with the new Guidelines.
Last year Fathers & Families filed a highly-publicized lawsuit against Massachusetts’ new child support guidelines. Our lawsuit has been covered by the Associated Press, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Newsweek, Psychology Today, and numerous other publications, as well as by CBS radio, NPR, WRKO, and many other radio stations. So far our legal actions against the guidelines have been unsuccessful, but we are still weighing other legal options.
From Fox’s report Are child support rules unfair to fathers? (2/28/10):
“I went back to live at my parents, I had to, from a cost standpoint, until I could afford to live in a decent place, and then you feel kind of like a second class citizen because your kids are coming to a small place when you’re used to mom’s nice house,” says John Gagnon, who has been paying alimony and writing out child support checks for eleven years.
He now says he pays $2,700 a month for his teenaged daughter. He says she stays with him nearly half the time and his 19-year-old son lived with him full time before going off to college this fall. He feels the guidelines don’t take into account how much time he spends with his kids.
“It really didn’t matter from a child support guideline standpoint if they had stayed one night a month, or zero nights. I would have paid the same as having them 13 nights,” Gagnon says…
“We want kids to be well supported. We want kids to have enough support, but we don’t want to create this huge windfall prize that creates conflict between the parents,” says Dr. Ned Holstein, the founder of the father’s rights group “Fathers & Families”. He sat on the task force and says the system is still unfair. For instance, he says some states pro-rate support according to parenting time spent with the child. He also says judges in Massachusetts may order both child support and college expenses until age 23.
“We have a long way to go, but the worst thing is the pervasive gender bias in family court. Men are still looked at a breadwinners, and women are still looked at as nurturers of children,” Dr. Holstein says.
To read the full article and watch the video, click here. To join in the vigorous debate in the Fox's comments section, click here and scroll to the bottom of the page.
A few comments on the Fox piece:
1) Fox misidentifies Fathers & Families as a “fathers’ rights group.” We are, in fact, a family court reform organization. As Holstein is fond of saying, F & F isn’t asking for anything for fathers that we don’t also want to ensure for mothers: protection for the parent-child bond; both parents sharing roughly equal physical time with their children; both parents treated fairly financially; the abused protected from abuse and the innocent protected from false allegations of abuse; and similar principles.
When mothers are mistreated by the system, wherever it be military moms like Vanessa Benson, lesbian noncustodial moms like Michele Hobbs and Janet Jenkins, or moms like Joyce Murphy who were legitimately acting to protect their children from the fathers’ abuse, we sympathize and defend them. We are named “Fathers & Families” because it is usually fathers who are pushed to the margins of their children’s lives after a divorce or separation, but we resolutely defend all fit parents’ loving bonds with their children.
2) Ayers’ child support is stiff but not necessarily outrageous–the real problem is that he’s a good, loving father who is being prevented from exercising equal parenting time with the infant son who adores him. I don’t know what the child’s mother earns, but when both parents earn roughly the same income, are fit, and are equally willing to care for the children, parenting time should be split roughly equally and child support is largely unnecessary.
3) Gagnon’s case is really unfair–he pays a stiff amount in child support for children who have spent as much time with him as with their mother.
4) Fox reports on the case of Crystal Arnhold, a “single mom who relies on her child support checks.” According to Fox:
She says she receives just under $250 a week to raise her 2-year-old son, and 5-year-old daughter with Down’s Syndrome.
“I work what I can and still just barely make it. Like this month, I have $29 to get food for the next two weeks,” Arnhold says.
She works part-time at night while her mom watches the kids, but money is tight. She says under the new guidelines, she stands to lose more because she’s trying to work.
“I’m not greedy by any means, I just want to try to get for my kids what they need,” Arnhold says.
Fox portrays her sympathetically, and as a whole she probably deserves that sympathy. Still, we certainly don’t know that she’s being treated unfairly. She receives about $1,000 a month, which isn’t a lot for two small children, particularly when one has Down’s Syndrome. But we don’t know what her ex makes–he may well only make $2,000 or $3,000 a month before taxes, in which case the child support he’s paying is quite a strain on him financially.
Also, we’re not told whether, as is often the case, the father wants to care for the children himself half the time, and the mom won’t allow it. But if Crystal Arnhold's ex makes a good income and isn’t willing to share parenting time with the kids equally, I agree that she’s not being treated fairly.
5) Family law attorney Marilynne Ryan, who sat on the child support task force with Holstein and others, disputed Holstein’s assertion of anti-father family court gender bias. She said:
Nothing could be further from the truth. We have 24 female judges on the probate court and 24 male judges on the probate court. To suggest that everyone has grouped together and is biased against the fathers, it simply doesn't happen.
This is hardly a reasonable response–Holstein never asserted that anti-father gender bias was caused specifically by female judges–if anything, we sometimes find that female judges treat men more fairly than traditional, chivalrous male judges do.
F & F Responds to Criticism in Sacramento’s Capitol Weekly over Parental Alienation
 In Parental Alienation must be excluded from all custody hearings, (Capitol Weekly, 2/18/10), Preston Thymes, the head of public relations for the domestic violence service provider Shelter Outreach Plus, criticizes efforts by Fathers & Families and others to promote recognition of Parental Alienation. Thymes writes:
Parental Alienation is a perilous accusation that should never be recognized in courts or viewed as particularly compelling in cases deciding the custody of a child…
[V]ocal proponents of Parental Alienation Syndrome such as Glenn Sacks, Executive Director of Fathers and Families, are captious…We fully support AB 612, which is coming up vote in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to ban Parental Alienation Theory...
In our new column Preventing courts from considering parental alienation will harm kids (Capitol Weekly, 2/25/10), Fathers & Families’ legislative representative Michael Robinson and I respond to Thynes and lay out our case why courts should take Parental Alienation seriously. We also detail the problems with AB 612, whose passage Robinson was instrumental in blocking last year.
To post a comment on the column, please click here and scroll down to the bottom of the page. To write a thoughtful Letter to the Editor of the Capitol Weekly concerning the issue, please write to letters@capitolweekly.net.
Fathers & Families Member Fred Clough’s Alimony Case Featured on PBS
 Longtime Fathers & Families member Fred W. Clough was the featured guest on Greater Boston with Emily Rooney on PBS affiliate WGBH last week.
Clough was married for 11 years but is forced to pay thousands of dollars a week to his ex-wife for a period of 19 years. In Massachusetts, alimony is often ordered for life, and even older men don’t have the right to retire. Instead, they must continue to work to pay alimony to their ex-wives, even when the ex-wives are perfectly capable of supporting themselves.
Rachel Biscardi of the Women’s Bar Association, an opposition guest, cited women’s lost income and earning potential as a result of their role as their children’s primary caregivers. Biscardi isn’t necessarily wrong—Fathers & Families does acknowledge that alimony is sometimes needed in marriages where one partner sacrificed income to care for the children, and the disparities in their income are large. However, many alimony orders are unfair or outright abusive, particularly in Massachusetts.
To watch the show, click here and search for “Re-thinking alimony.”
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What's Happening? |
F & F Testifies Against Bill That Would Marginalize Noncustodial Parents in Their Kids’ Medical Needs
“Fathers & Families opposes any bill that would cut either parent out of the information loop concerning the occurrence, nature and costs of the child’s medical care.”–Fathers & Families Deputy Director Melissa Hodgdon
Fathers & Families Board Chairman Ned Holstein, MD, MS and Deputy Director Melissa Hodgdon testified Thursday before the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Financial Services in opposition to a bill that would further marginalize noncustodial parents in relation to their children’s medical needs. The bill, HB 930, is supported by the Massachusetts Women’s Bar Association.
Holstein is pictured above testifying--to read his and Hodgdon's testimony, click here.
We will be following the HB 930 closely in coming weeks and will keep our members and supporters informed.
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In Irish Courts, Child Access is Hard to Get and Hard to Enforce
Senator Harry Reid Wrong in Remarks on DV
Wrestler Ric Flair's Wife Charged with DV
Australian Family Court: 2006 Reforms Don't Mean What We Thought
Paternity Fraud Victim: State 'Rewarding Adulterous Liars'
Nevada Supreme Court Upholds Verdict Against Darren Mack in Slaying of Estranged Wife
Dr. Helen: Suze Orman ‘Tells women to divorce their husbands for perceived financial mistakes’
A Great P & G Olympic-Themed Ad, Except Someone’s Missing…
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Kids & Dads |
‘At the end, when he was too ill to talk, she’d play her violin at her father’s bedside, letting the melodies speak’
“Afterward, Melanie took the stage to describe the proud father who waved like a maniac from a balcony in Carnegie Hall the first time she played there."
"At the end of his life, when he was too ill to talk, she would bring her violin to his bedside and play for hours, letting the melodies speak for them both…”
Feminist journalist Joanne Lipman, founding editor in chief of Condé Nast Portfolio magazine, has written an extraordinary piece about Jerry Kupchynsky, her childhood music teacher.
Kupchynsky was a beloved teacher and father who was honored by his students in an emotional, inspirational show reminiscent of the closing finale of Mr. Holland’s Opus.
Read Lipman's full piece here.
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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. |
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 Fathers and Families is a family court reform organization with a comprehensive strategy, an impressive history of legislative and fundraising success, and the largest reach of any advocacy group of its kind:
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