The American Coalition for Fathers and Children The American Coalition for Fathers and Children is dedicated to creating a family law system which promotes equal rights for all parties affected by divorce. Contact the ACFC at 1-800-978-3237 or visit them on the web at www.acfc.org.

Parenting Plan Calendar Software Shared Ground (R) is an easy-to-use software program designed for divorced parents to track their parenting plan schedules over many years. Do-it-yourself or let us build your approved parenting plan into a multi-year calendar so that you can print, share, or modify the calendar later. Parents, attorneys, arbitrators and mediators can generate equitable parenting plans, which is especially useful for parents seeking fair division of their children's time. FREE ASSISTANCE TO OUR CLIENTS- $49.95 one-time charge, FREE TRIAL & MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE. Click here for more information.

Reporter Looking for Divorced Dads Who've Remarried, Second Wives

I was recently contacted by a reporter who is looking for men or women who fit either of the two profiles below:

1) You are a divorced dad who has remarried.

2) You are a second wife.

You do not need to use your full name with the reporter. If this is you, please send me your name, phone number, and a brief (100 words max) description of yourself by clicking here.

[Note: Thanks to all those who responded to my request last month for struggling married couples. The show I was recruiting you for was Inside Edition, and the couple from my list appeared on the show January 9. Thanks also to all those who responded to my October request for Texas dads with child support issues. Three of those who responded to our notice appeared on a Fox Houston TV special on dads and child support on November 5. To watch that show, click here.]

A New Thing to Blame Men for--Retiring at Retirement Age

USA Today

According to Block, by working well past retirement age, men can "make up for all the times you came home with beer on your breath, left your socks on the bathroom floor or gave your wife a DustBuster for Valentine's Day."

I guess 40 years of working longer hours than your wife at a job more demanding and hazardous than hers--as most men do--isn't enough.

The article is below. To write a Letter to the Editor of USA Today, email letters@usatoday.com. To contact Block, email sblock@usatoday.com.

Thanks to Nancy, a reader, for sending the article to me. Nancy says she fears that this type of article will lead to a law that "does not allow men to collect social security without their wives' approval or signature." Nancy, please don't give them ideas...

Husbands should consider delaying Social Security benefits
USA Today, 1/15/08

Here's some advice for married men who will turn 62 this year: If you want to make up for all the times you came home with beer on your breath, left your socks on the bathroom floor or gave your wife a DustBuster for Valentine's Day, hold off on filing for your Social Security benefits.

Many men who are eager to retire may chafe at this suggestion. This year, the oldest baby boomers are turning 62, making them eligible for Social Security. About half of those boomers are expected to claim their benefits as soon as they're eligible, even though that means a permanent 25% reduction in benefits.

TURNING 62: Early retirees try to fill gap in health coverage

Retirement experts warn that this strategy could result in significantly lower benefits for boomers who live for a long time. Maybe that's a risk you're willing to take. But if you're the primary breadwinner, claiming benefits early could also jeopardize your spouse's financial security.

Here's why: If one member of a married couple dies, the surviving spouse can continue to receive her own Social Security benefit, or 100% of the deceased spouse's benefit, whichever is more. If your wife earned less over her lifetime than you did, and she outlives you, she'll start receiving your benefits. If you file at 62, she'll inherit a reduced amount of benefits for the rest of her life, says Ron Gebhardtsbauer, senior pension fellow at the American Academy of Actuaries.

Most "break-even" calculators don't address survivor benefits, says James Mahaney, retirement specialist for Prudential Financial. Suppose, for example, that a break-even calculator shows that your break-even age is 77 (you can find a break-even calculator at www.ssa.gov). Based on your benefits alone, that would suggest that you should delay filing if you think you'll live past 77, and file early if you think you'll die before then.

But that calculation doesn't address what happens if your wife outlives you. And there's a good chance that will happen. According to the American Academy of Actuaries, the average 62-year-old man will live an additional 21.9 years, while the average 62-year-old woman will live 25.5 more years.

A women's issue

Some women are the primary breadwinners, of course, but in the majority of couples, husbands retire with higher lifetime earnings than their wives...

To read more and to discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Man, Woman Commit Same Crime--She Gets 6 Months, He Gets 20 Years

It can be problematic to compare sentences in different cases, particularly if the jurisdictions and/or laws are different or if plea bargains are involved. Still, it is sometimes of use, such as in discussing the sentencing disparities between whites and blacks and the sentencing disparities between men and women.

Jack, a reader, sent me the two articles linked below. In one, a woman caretaker scalded a boy (pictured) with bathwater.

His toes may need to be amputated, he may not be able to procreate, and he has severely infected, oozing wounds. Prosecutors say that, after scalding the boy the caretaker forced him to do chores, even though he had first and second-degree burns. She didn't take him to the hospital for several days. Her sentence? Six months.

In the second article, a man did the same thing to his live-in girlfriends' son (minus the chores and with taking him to the hospital hours later instead of days)--and got 20 years.

The story about the woman--and an interview with the boy she victimized--is here.

The story about the man is here.

To read more and to discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

 18-Year-Old Boy Gets Jailed for 'Seducing an Unmarried Woman'?!

Brett, a reader, sent me the incredible blurb below, from the Lansing State Journal (1/18/08). Please read it and tell me if I'm missing something.

"Dontrel Marquis Birge, 18, 2000 block of Stirling, Lansing, seducing an unmarried woman, 120 days in jail, two days credit, 30 months probation, maintain legitimate employment, comply with DNA testing, no indirect or direct verbal/written/electronic/physical contact with victim, $300 supervision fee, $250 attorney fee, $60 state cost, $60 to Victims Fund."

As an aside, the "offender" here is obviously black and I suspect that the "victim" is white.

"Seducing an Unmarried Woman" is a crime? Can anybody make sense of this? Perhaps this was a plea bargain of some kind?

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

His Side with Glenn Sacks Radio Commentary: Dissident Domestic Violence Authorities Sponsor Historic Conference

The conference will feature speakers from the National Family Violence Legislative Resource Center--a group of domestic violence experts and authorities who are challenging laws and policies based on the idea that only men commit domestic violence in heterosexual relationships. Many of the leading authorities in the domestic violence field will be speaking at the conference.

To listen to the commentary, click here.

To learn more, see my blog post Group of Domestic Violence Dissidents/Authorities Sponsors Historic Conference.

His Side with Glenn Sacks radio commentaries are broadcast daily on KLAA AM 830, a 50,000 watt talk station in Los Angeles and Orange County. KLAA AM 830 is owned by Arte Moreno, owner of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

From 2003-2005, His Side with Glenn Sacks ran in a syndicated talk show format in Los Angeles, New York City, Boston, Seattle, and other cities. To listen to show archives, click here.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

From Ned Holstein on MLK Day—Do You Respect Yourself as a Father?

From Ned Holstein, MD, MS, Executive Director of Fathers & Families:

Self-Respect, MLK, and Fathers — Do You Respect Yourself as a Father?

Boston, MA–I have a hunch that huge numbers of fathers in America do not respect themselves as fathers. They may respect themselves as employees, as churchgoers, as guitarists, tennis players or friends, but not as fathers.

If men truly respected themselves as fathers, why would so many meekly accept second-class parenthood after separation or divorce? Why would so many watch television shows and ads that insult fathers? Why would so many vote for candidates who insult fathers? Why would so many in intact relationships routinely defer to mom’s judgment about what is best for the kids? Why would so many have children out of marriage, denying them any meaningful legal rights to their children?

I don’t know how many fathers this affects, except that the number is large. And I believe this lack of self-respect is at the heart of why the fathers’ movement is still a marginal force in society.

It was not always so. When the feminists complain about a history of “patriarchy,” they are talking about an era when fathers made most of the decisions about children. And if the parents parted, the children stayed with dad.

Somehow, we have swung from one extreme to another, from patriarchy to matriarchy. We need to find the middle. (I most definitely am not calling for a return to patriarchy. Fathers & Families’ principles are clear: we believe in shared responsibility for children if both parents are fit.)

About two years ago, I gave a short speech at one of our General Membership Meetings, attended by the usual crowd of 90 or 100 people. The topic was “Shame.” I thought it was a topic of mild interest to our members, but worth thinking about. To my astonishment, it generated perhaps the strongest reaction of any talk I have given. Some people were tearful, and many emailed me the next day to tell me how powerfully my words had affected them personally.

I think there is a lot of shame among fathers. And I think it gets in the way of reclaiming our fatherhood. Thus, it causes us to shortchange our children.

This brings me around to Martin Luther King. He was shot in Memphis in 1968. He was in Memphis to support a strike by garbage collectors, who sought better wages. To this day, I remember the photographs of the picket lines: old, forlorn, beaten-down black men carrying signs.

Here is what struck me and has stayed with me. The signs did not say “Higher Wages.” They did not say “More Paid Holidays.”

They said, “I Am A Man.” The men holding these signs wore their Sunday best.

It was a statement of pride among men who were accustomed to shame and defeat.

Our movement today will succeed when men all over the country throw off shame and say with pride, “I Am A Father.”

To discuss this issue on Fathers & Families' blog, click here.

Postcards from Splitsville (Part VII)

The drawings above were taken from Kara Bishop's www.postcardsfromsplitsville.com. Bishop works with Children of Divorce, a class run by Tucson, Arizona-based Divorce Recovery. The class did an art project that included "sending away" the frustrations of divorce. The website is a place where Kara says "children can share their divorce-related feelings anonymously and parents can get a new perspective on how this life-changing experience impacts their children’s lives."

To learn more, click here. Kara can be reached at Kara@PostcardsfromSplitsville.com.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Venus: The Dark Side on Female Sociopaths (Part II)--'She abuses the children by depriving them of their father, because she’s punishing him'

"So obsessed with what she wants, she will ignore or neglect her children while claiming the opposite. She plays the martyr and expects constant attention. Her demanding behavior almost guarantees it.

"If she is divorced, she may have grown to hate her ex-husband more than she loves her children. She abuses the children by depriving them of access to their father, because she’s punishing him for not delivering what she wanted in a husband. She refuses to consider that she played any role in the marriage break-up."

There are male sociopaths and there are female sociopaths, but female sociopaths are rarely discussed. In Venus: The Dark Side, authors Roy Sheppard and Mary T Cleary discuss this important subject in depth. Sheppard and Cleary write:

"She believes she is entitled to everything she desires. With an overdeveloped sense of self, working for what she wants is an inconvenience. Hard work is for everybody else. She wants the fast buck and the short-cut to success. Becoming a social parasite is quicker than toiling for anything. And when she pulls it off, she can then congratulate herself on cheating, conning or defrauding others who may be more intelligent or successful than she is.

"Her every whim must be accommodated. Humility is alien to her. She is self-centered, opinionated and over-confident, and expects to be pampered and treated as superior.

"She has possibly dabbled at shoplifting to feed her sense of entitlement for whatever she wants and for the ‘buzz’. So obsessed with what she wants, she will ignore or neglect her children while claiming the opposite. She plays the martyr and expects constant attention. Her demanding behavior almost guarantees it...

To read more and to discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

(The above contains excerpts from Venus: The Dark Side, Copyright ©Roy Sheppard and Mary T Cleary 2007. www.VenusTheDarkSide.com.)

'I have to pay for 17 years for a kid I will never lay eyes on who may not even be mine'

"Dear Glenn:

"My girlfriend got pregnant after we had known each other just a few months. I was a 1 in 4 possibility as the Dad...She refused to submit DNA when requested by DCSS until just days before a court hearing. I was told if I did not supply DNA that I would be assessed as the father and charged with support. I submitted DNA. DCSS refused to give me full results.

"I only received 11 out of 16 markers as a result. I was assessed as a 'Presumed Father' and I am now getting nearly $1000 taken from me via my paycheck each month. DCSS refuses to tell me where the mother or child are or if the child is really mine or even alive. (Child suffered health issues due to mom smoking all through her pregnancy).

"I have no idea where they are. I will have to pay for 17 years for a kid I will never lay eyes on who may not even be mine. No one will help me.

"When I called DCSS to get assistance from the social workers, one told me that I should have 'Kept it in my pants.' Another told me, 'Children belong with their Mothers.' I kid you not."

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Good Samaritans (Part II)

Background: Recently hero father Manuel Jesus Cordova Soberanes gave up his attempt to come to the United States and instead turned himself over to the Border Patrol, all to save the life of an injured nine-year-old American boy.

Cordova found the boy wandering in the Arizona desert after the boy's mother was killed in a car crash on Thanksgiving Day. Cordova, who was promptly deported, was a noble good Samaritan--to learn more, see my recent blog post Illegal Immigrant Hero Father Deserves Medal and Visa, not Deportation.

I was very moved by the story of this good Samaritan.  When I was younger, I pretty much traveled all over the world, generally by myself. (The picture is of me, age 19, visiting Jim Morrison's grave at the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris. The cemetery also contains the "Communards' Wall/Mur des Fédérés" where 147 Communards--among the last defenders of the Paris Commune, the world's first socialist revolution--were executed in 1871.)

While traveling I occasionally ended up in situations where I was dependent upon the kindness of a stranger.  I discussed a couple examples in Good Samaritans (Part I). Another example is below.

Once while traveling in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in the Soviet Union in the early '80s, a factory worker and his wife invited me into their apartment. I had been going around the apartment complex just looking, because I had wanted to see how the average Russian lived and what their lives were like. The factory worker was fascinated by meeting an American (this was in the middle of the great Cold War tensions of the early Reagan years). I spoke some Russian, so we could communicate a bit.

Once in his apartment, predictably, we ended up drinking and, also predictably, I couldn’t come anywhere close to keeping up with him. He proposed some toasts and made a big, emotional, heartfelt toast to Richard Nixon of all people. He told me how much he wanted peace between the US and the USSR, and that he liked Nixon because with Nixon there was peace, and didn’t like Reagan because with Reagan there wasn’t peace.

He had a record player and put on a Rod Stewart record and asked me for translations of the lyrics. I did my best in my weak Russian.

It got very late into the night and he informed me that it would be very difficult for me to get back to where I was staying because at night in Leningrad they raised all the drawbridges so the ships could get through. He insisted I stay with him and offered me a bed.

I got ready for bed and popped my contact lenses out of my eyes. When I popped the first lens out, a hard lens, he started screaming and pointing at me and calling his wife. I couldn’t figure out what he was so excited about. I then understood that he had never seen or heard of a contact lens before and thought I had popped part of my eye out or something. It took a few minutes to calm him down.

Anyway, eventually I laid down in the bed he had offered me and began to fall asleep. A few minutes later there was a little noise and I woke up and discovered that the factory worker and his wife were sleeping in the same room as me--on the floor!

I did my best to explain why this wasn’t acceptable and why we should switch, but the factory worker wouldn’t hear of it.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Waylon, This Is How You Get Into Trouble...

"I'm gonna find me a reckless woman / razor blades and dice in her eyes / Just a touch of sadness in her fingers / thunder and lightening in her thighs"--from "Silver Stallion," by The Highwaymen

I was something of a fan of the former country music super group The Highwaymen (Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson), but I had to laugh when I heard the lyrics above recently. It sounds great Waylon, but usually about five years later guys who do hook up with a woman like you describe are filling out my Family Law Help Form. It's not worth it.

The video of "Silver Stallion" can be seen here.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Man who didn't register for draft sues IRS over firing, claims gender discrimination

"When he turned 18, Michael B. Elgin Jr. was a homeless father of a toddler, trying to get himself through high school while living with friends, relatives and, sometimes, in his car. Elgin did not know at the time, his lawyer says, but by failing to register for selective military service within 30 days of his 18th birthday, he broke the law.

"Last year, Elgin's employer of 18 years, the Internal Revenue Service, fired him, citing a ban on federal employment of men who have not registered, despite his exemplary record and appeals from his supervisors and co-workers. Last week, Elgin, 42, of Stoughton, challenged his dismissal in federal court in Boston on the grounds that it discriminated against him because he is a man. Women are not allowed to register."

I think this guy was treated unfairly. He and his lawyer focus on the fact that there's a gender discrimination issue--men have to register for the draft and women don't. I think that's a fair argument--a burden was put on him as a young man that would not have been put on him were he a woman.

I would add that there are also other fair arguments here.

For one, what about a statute of limitations? The guy failed to register for the draft within a month of his 18th birthday--a punishment 20 years later seems very draconian.

Also, I think he could also make an economic hardship argument.

Thanks to Marc Angelucci of NCFM for the story.

Man who didn't register for draft sues IRS over firing
By Anna Badkhen
Boston Globe
January 5, 2008

When he turned 18, Michael B. Elgin Jr. was a homeless father of a toddler, trying to get himself through high school while living with friends, relatives and, sometimes, in his car. Elgin did not know at the time, his lawyer says, but by failing to register for selective military service within 30 days of his 18th birthday, he broke the law.

Last year, Elgin's employer of 18 years, the Internal Revenue Service, fired him, citing a ban on federal employment of men who have not registered, despite his exemplary record and appeals from his supervisors and co-workers. Last week, Elgin, 42, of Stoughton, challenged his dismissal in federal court in Boston on the grounds that it discriminated against him because he is a man. Women are not allowed to register.

Elgin declined to speak for the record.

His lawsuit is the latest challenge to the Selective Service System, the federal registry of all men 18 and older that would serve as the basis of any future military draft.

"It labels women as second-class, and it imposes a burden and a penalty on men . . . that it doesn't impose on women," said Elgin's attorney, Boston civil rights lawyer Harvey A. Schwartz. Men who fail to register for selective service are barred from ever working for federal agencies or receiving federal loans, and, in 35 states, are not allowed to obtain a driver's license, said Dan Amon, a spokesman for the registry. Violators also can be fined up to $250,000 or imprisoned for up to five years, Amon said, but those provisions have not been enforced since the 1980s.

Schwartz said barring women from registering for selective service is an "anachronism."

Elgin was hired by the Internal Revenue Service in 1991 as a low-level data transcriber in Andover and worked his way up in the agency, according to the lawsuit he filed Dec. 28, naming as plaintiffs Henry M. Paulson Jr., the secretary of the Treasury, and the Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS. Elgin's son grew up and served an 18-month tour of duty with the US Army in Iraq, the lawsuit states.

Elgin received repeated praise and numerous promotions at work, until the agency discovered, during a routine background investigation when he was proposed for a promotion in 2002, that he had failed to register for selective service, the lawsuit states....

To read more and to discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Daddy's Bedtime Story #2: The First Jackie Robinson

Background: I'm starting a blog-based collection of bedtime stories for children, both stories I've told my kids and stories that other parents (and grandparents) tell their kids. If you've got a good bedtime story, please send it to me for consideration in this collection.

The core of these stories will be those I tell my 9-year-old daughter. She's pretty demanding--sometimes I pretty much have to come up with a bedtime story every night, which isn't easy.

My daughter is very interested in racism (which she's studied in school), baseball, and daddy's childhood, so many of the stories reflect those. She's only 9, but she enjoys learning about adult issues. Sometimes if I tell her a story she thinks isn't sufficiently adult, she'll say, "C'mon dad, that's just a baby story."

The stories I tell are usually just things that I remembered, sometimes recent but often from 20 or 30 years ago. Some of them are stories my father told me when I was a kid.

I write these down as I told them, and they are NOT up to my usual standards of journalistic accuracy--given the limits of human memory, many (if not most) probably have at least one factual error in them, sometimes far more. They are also simplistic. I'm not going back and fixing them to make them more accurate or nuanced--they are here as I told them.

If you have a bedtime story you'd like to add to my collection, please send it to me at glenn@glennsacks.com. With your submission, please let me know how you want to be identified, if at all.

Daddy's Bedtime Story #1 was Racism and Little Joe Morgan. In honor of Martin Luther King's Birthday, this story also deals with racism.

The First Jackie Robinson

You know all about the story of Jackie Robinson, but did you know there was a black baseball player before him? His name was Moses Fleetwood, and he played a long, long time ago--in the time of Little House on the Prairie.

After the Civil War, the American government freed the slaves and did a lot to help blacks. Within 10 or 20 years, though, the government backed down and the era of Jim Crow came. Jim Crow wasn't a man--it was system designed to push blacks back down into conditions not that different from slavery. Jim Crow came to baseball, too.

There was a black man named Moses Fleetwood who played baseball at that time--he was a catcher. And at the time one of the best and most influential players in baseball was Cap Anson. Anson was also a manager. Anson was a racist who didn't want to play with blacks. But just as there have always been people who were against blacks, there have always been people who have supported blacks, too. Like you remember that Lou Gehrig said that baseball was for everybody, and that blacks should be allowed to play. Here you'll see another example.

One time Cap Anson's team came to play Moses Fleetwood's team, and Anson announced that he wouldn't play if Fleetwood played. What's interesting is that Fleetwood was injured at the time, and wasn't going to play anyway. But the manager of Fleetwood's team wasn't a racist, and he liked Fleetwood, and he wasn't going to let Cap Anson tell him who he can and cannot play. So the manager decided that Fleetwood would play. Fleetwood explained that he was injured, but the manager said, "I don't care--you'll go out there and play if you have to crawl." And Fleetwood played, and Anson had to back down and accept it.

Unfortunately, within a couple years of this, Anson won out, Fleetwood was driven out of baseball, and no blacks were allowed to play for another 60 years, until Jackie Robinson.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

An Ex-Cop's Perspective on Rape Accusations, True and False

When I found out that "WolfmanMac," a reader, is a former police officer who dealt with many rape claims, I asked him if he'd be interested in writing a blog post for me about his experiences. What he wrote is below. I found it very interesting and would be happy to get a Part II from him, if he's interested.

A Tale of Two Rapes or Why Rapists Love Rape Hysteria
By WolfmanMac

In October of 1992, I embarked upon what was to be one of the most profound experiences of my life – a career in law enforcement. That career would span the next ten years, and in that time I would serve in a cornucopia of positions in the system. Six of those years were spent “on the street,” in direct and daily contact with the public as a police officer. Four of those years were spent in a major urban jail system as a supervisor, in direct and daily contact with what had already been identified by others like me as the “criminal element.”

In that decade, I found that myths and lies about “Violence Against Women,” with respect to both rape and domestic violence, were both de rigueur, and vehemently defended by many who knew good and well they were defending myths and lies, and would privately admit as much. Their justification for this dishonesty was simple and pragmatic - police work is after all, a political job. Anyone who seeks advancement to positions that involve more face time with cute reporters and television cameras than with burglary reports and false alarm calls will keep their ears open for the latest tune being called by the politicians.

“Violence Against Women” has been a buzzword for at least a generation now, and any police officer of any rank that exposes a reality not in concert with the absurd statistics and draconian measures put forth to combat this “epidemic of violence” is unlikely to advance. Those for whom advancement was not a concern overwhelmingly adopted the attitude of “What’re ya gonna do? I don’t make the laws.” Yes, my experiences are anecdotal, like everybody else’s. However, my experiences are not unique.

In ten years of keeping company with other police officers, I found few who would privately disagree, or profess experiences different from my own. That a report of a rape is in no way presumptive evidence that a rape has actually occurred is common knowledge among police officers. My experiences are no more or less “anecdotal” than a story told by a self-proclaimed rape survivor. Finally, I regard the use of “anecdotal evidence” as a dismissive epithet to be an admission by the user that I must be a person of unique and truly remarkable experiences that mine would so contradict the prevailing wisdom. I do not believe that I am, or ever was anything more than an average guy and an average police officer, doing average police work in an average town. Therefore, it does not logically follow that my experiences there would be anything more than average. If they are more than that, it is all the more reason they should be carefully considered before being dismissed.

It is practically an impossibility for me to even attempt an estimate of rape complaints I have responded to in a ten year career, which ultimately spanned two separate police departments. I can say that, contrary to what one might be lead to believe by hysterical statistics put forth by special interests, such complaints are not everyday occurrences. But they happen often enough to be a routine feature of the landscape. If an officer asks a friend what he is working on and the friend responds, “a rape,” it is not really remarkable. The officer who asked the question in the first place will then invariably ask, “a good one?” In this context, “good” means “one in which a rape may actually have occurred, in which case tell me how I can assist you.” If the answer is “yes,” that is remarkable...

To read more and to discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Fathers & Families News Digest, 1-22-08

Below are some recent articles and items of interest from Fathers & Families' latest News Digest.

Lawyer defends his monthly $14K child payments (Atlanta Journal Constitution, 1-14-08)

Separating the dads from the real deadbeats (The Oregonian, 1-15-08)

Child support can't buy peace of mind (Valley Morning Star, 1-16-08)

A $1.2 million penalty for child support denial (Pioneer Press, 1-17-08)

MAWAD: NFL champ fights to be a father (Bluefield Daily Telegraph, 1-18-08)

A father's battle, a father's love (Old Colony Memorial and Plymouth Bulletin, 1-18-08)

The life after (The Monitor, 1-19-08)

Helping your child cope with divorce (Bradenton Herald, 1-19-08)

Divorce mediation program (The Observer-Dispatch, 1-20-08)

Divorce raises finance issues (Detroit Free Press, 1-21-08)

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here, or visit the Fathers & Families blog here.

But I Bet Dad Still Won't Get Custody...

Mom leaves the country for six weeks, leaving her 14-year-old daughter to fend for herself rather than allow her to be cared for by her ex-husband. When confronted with this, she "apportioned blame for the situation on everybody else apart from herself." And check out her excuse for leaving the girl with only £100.

Anybody want to bet she retains custody of the girl?

The story is below--thanks to Malcolm, a reader, for sending it.

Girl 'home alone for six weeks'
BBC NEWS, 1/18/08

A woman abandoned her 14-year-old daughter for six weeks with just £100 and a fridge full of food while she traveled abroad, a court has heard.
The woman, who cannot be identified, was visiting her boyfriend in 2007.

She told Welshpool magistrates she had arranged for a neighbor and her ex-husband to look after her daughter.

The woman denies willfully causing her daughter to be neglected and abandoned. The case was adjourned until 8 February.

The court heard the woman had stocked her fridge and freezer with pizza, oven chips and microwave meals before she went abroad between April and June.

Of her £100 allowance, £60 was spent almost immediately on school dinners for the period her mother was away.

She spent most of the remaining £40 on clothes and CDs, magistrates were told.

Social services were alerted to the girl's situation after only two days and arranged for her father, also the woman's ex-husband, to look after her for the remainder of her mother's holiday.

He said he was unaware his daughter had been left home alone...

To read more and to discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Tennessee Child Support Enforcement Abuses Innocent Dad

For some examples, see my coverage of the outrageous Herbert L. Chalmers case, as well as Child Support Enforcement Accuses Teenage Boy of Fathering Child When He Was Three from Australia, and some of the cases I document in my co-authored column Memphis Commercial Appeal, Chest-Thumping Sheriff Humiliate Hard Luck Noncustodial Parents (Tennessee Tribune, 4/27/06).

Knock me over with a feather--here's another abusive Tennessee child support screw-up. The Tennessee Department of Human Services tries to shake down an innocent father for $50,000 for some other guy's kids, and even years later the problem has not been straightened out.

DHS's defense? "The children's welfare is the No. 1 concern." Of course.

Man Involved In ID Mix-Up Over Child Support
1/15/08
NewsChannel5.com, Nashville, TN

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - Imagine being told you owe $50,000 in child support for children that aren't yours.

That's what's happening to a Murfreesboro man.

The Tennessee Department of Human Services has thousands of names of parents that owe child support. One of those names is Dennis Joe Brannon.

No one knows where he lives, but the state does know where Dennis K. Brannon lives.

They apparently want him pay for the other guy's children.

"I've been married happily over 21 years and it's just not possible that I've got kids in another county," said Dennis K. Brannon of Murfreesboro.

Brannon has letters from the state demanding he pay child support.

"It's in the sum of $50,000," he said as he looked at the latest letter.

The letter came from the Attorney General's office in Huntsville, Tenn., which is northeast of Knoxville.

The state is looking for Dennis Joe Brannon, but Dennis K. Brannon is receiving the threatening letters.

Initially, Brannon and his wife thought the mix-up was funny.

"We kind of made a running joke about this, but then it gets aggravating after awhile," he said. "After two or three years, it's time to get it straightened out."

He claims he's called several times.

"Well I'm sure if he's been in contact with our office, we would do whatever we needed to do to rectify the situation and make sure we have the right person," said Lori Jones, Assistant District Attorney of Child Support Division.

That isn't the case, Brannon said.

"They told me I'd have to come up there and do a DNA test and prove I'm not the father of these children," he said...

Read the full article here.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Heroic Father Gunned Down While Saving His Little Daughter

"The capacity to love is a vital, rich and all-consuming function...you can find nobility and sacrifice and love wherever you may seek it out..."--Rod Serling

Most fathers would do anything to protect their daughters, and here's another example. Like hero father James Kim, Albert Collins gave his life to save his family. According to the San Francisco Chronicle:

"Collins' last act was to throw his body over the top of his daughter to shield her from the barrage that would leave him dead, his daughter with a graze wound and two brothers injured...

"A cousin held Collins' head. Nash said she watched helplessly, as her son made what would be his final requests. 'He told his sister to look out for his son and his daughter.'"

The story is below--thanks to Brad Smith, a reader, for sending it to me.

A father gets gunned down saving his daughter
Jaxon Van Derbeken
San Francisco Chronicle
Sunday, January 6, 2008

On New Year's Eve morning, Albert Collins took his 9-year-old daughter, Mariah, to pick out a treat at a candy house in the Sunnydale public housing project.
It was a fatal errand.

For years, candy houses have been makeshift havens in crime-plagued neighborhoods where residents sell and buy candy and other items in safety - rather than venture to liquor-dealing corner stores that are often magnets for trouble.

Collins, 30, had recently gotten a job through Goodwill Industries and was staying with his mother at the Sunnydale public housing project in San Francisco's Visitacion Valley. By all accounts, he was trying to make a better life for himself, his daughter and his 13-year-old son, Albert Jr., whom he took custody of after the boy's mother had recently been jailed in Oakland.

But he didn't get the chance.

As Collins stopped on the way to the candy house to talk to friends - two brothers who lived in the neighborhood - they were hit with gunfire at 11:40 a.m.
Collins' last act was to throw his body over the top of his daughter to shield her from the barrage that would leave him dead, his daughter with a graze wound and two brothers injured.

"He turned and sensed something was happening and grabbed her," said Inspector Michael Gaynor of the San Francisco police homicide detail. "At some point, he saw the guy with the gun - that was when he grabbed her."

With that, Collins became the last of the city's 98 homicides in 2007, the highest yearly death toll in more than a decade. According to police, he may have been an innocent victim in a gang-related shooting, by gang members firing at rivals nearby.

Read the full article here.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

George Orwell: 'Women Never Condescend to Men Poorer than Themselves'

George Orwell is one of my favorite authors, particularly his writings about the Spanish Civil War and the politics of the 1930s and early 1940s. His 1933 book Down and Out in Paris and London is his semi-autobiographical account of living in poverty in both cities.

Orwell's observations on the issue of gender and homelessness and of the enforced celibacy of poverty-stricken men are interesting. Orwell wrote:

"[Beyond hunger] The second great evil of a tramp's life--it seems much smaller at first sight, but it is a good second--is that he is entirely cut off from contact with women. This point needs elaborating.

"Tramps are cut off from women, in the first place, because there are  very few women at their level of society. One might imagine that among destitute people the sexes would be as equally balanced as elsewhere. But it is not so; in fact, one can almost say that below a certain level society is entirely male... at the [poverty] level men outnumber women by something like ten to one.

"The cause is presumably that unemployment affects women less than men; also that any presentable woman can, in the last resort, attach herself to some man. The result, for a tramp, is that he is condemned to perpetual celibacy. For of course it goes without saying that if a tramp finds no women at his own level, those above--even a very little above--are as far out of his reach as the moon...but there is no doubt that women never, or hardly ever, condescend to men who are much poorer than themselves.

"A tramp, therefore, is a celibate from the moment when he takes to the road. He is absolutely without hope of getting a wife, a mistress, or any kind of woman except--very rarely, when he can raise a few shillings--a prostitute...

"There is degradation worked in a man who knows that he is not even considered fit for marriage. The sexual impulse, not to put it any higher, is a fundamental impulse, and starvation of it can be almost as demoralizing as physical hunger. The evil of poverty is not so much that it makes a man suffer as that it rots him physically and spiritually. And there can be no doubt that sexual starvation contributes to this rotting process. Cut off from the whole race of women, a tramp feels himself degraded to the rank of a cripple or a lunatic. No humiliation could do more damage to a man's self-respect."

Thanks to Callum, a reader, for bringing this to my attention.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

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 'This is my home, I don't want to leave'

My nine-year-old daughter, normally a very happy little girl, listened to this for a minute or two and then burst out crying. She kept saying, "This is my home, I don't want to leave." She loves our house, but obviously it symbolizes far more for her--her happy family, her happy life, her comfort and protection, her home. I hadn't seen her so distraught in quite a while.

I took the letter away from my wife, handed it to my daughter and said "Here, tear it up and throw it in the trash, we're not moving anywhere." She did it, and then sat in my arms and sobbed for another five minutes.

I'm certainly not going to say that the average kid is going to react like this--families move all the time and it's no big deal. Still, I couldn't help but wonder if she and other kids like her react like this to a comparatively minor change, how would they react to a divorce? And how traumatic is it for the average nine-year-old to have his or her home torn apart by a divorce?

Everybody always says, "Oh, kids are resilient, they'll get over it." Maybe, or maybe not.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

He Was an Attorney and a 'Fantastic Father' but It Wasn't Enough and She's Glad to Be Rid of Him

The woman describes her late husband as being a "fantastic father," and he was also an attorney, but somehow he didn't contribute enough to the family to meet her needs. Now that he's dead and she has his life insurance money, she says she's happier without him. What a sweetheart.

The story is below--thanks to Patrick, a reader, for sending it.
 

I’m happier since he died
The sudden death of her carefree husband left a reader in shock. Then she found that, financially and emotionally, life was easier
The Times (UK)
1/16/08

When Stephen died it was the speed of it all that stunned me at first. He’d been feeling tired and generally under the weather and I’d told him to see the GP, convinced that he had diplomatic flu (he was fed up at work). He was referred for further investigation immediately, which should have made us suspicious, but it took talk of an operation to make us realize that this was serious.

In the three weeks from his first visit to the doctor until the night he died, we didn’t face the possibility of his cancer being terminal, reassuring each other that something could be done. We were scared, but more of the treatment that lay ahead and how it would disrupt our lives before everything got back on track than fear that he would die.

Our families and several friends were in the house that night, as they had been regularly once we told them that Stephen was ill. His brother was helping him upstairs for a lie-down when Stephen called to me so urgently and desperately that I dropped the baby in my mum’s lap and ran to him. He just died there, at the bottom of the stairs, with his brother and me holding him.

You don’t expect someone to die at 30; it seemed totally unreal, telling our three-year-old daughter that Daddy had gone to heaven. Our son was still a baby and our family and friends, who were equally shocked, looked after everything for me to begin with. My grief was genuine, as was the shock. But the greatest shock of all soon followed, so shocking that I find it hard to write: I now prefer life without him.

Stephen and I met at university. Despite being totally different, we were inseparable instantly. I adored his relaxed attitude to life (I’ve always been a bit of a control freak). We worked well together, me getting him to his lectures, him persuading me that student life involved more than just studying. He proposed the day we graduated and we decided to get married the next summer, which meant a lot of organizing. Suddenly we were doing very grown-up things. Or rather, I was, and Stephen was hovering in the background.

I had assumed that Stephen would become much more focused once we began working. I was doing my doctorate as well as working, but Stephen, a lawyer, never felt that he should help out more or focus on his career. His sick record (usually because of hangovers) was dreadful. He got annoyed when the first firm he worked in didn’t offer him a partnership. He moved to another one; two years later the same thing happened. He couldn’t grasp the connection between still living like a student and not being taken seriously. Perhaps I colluded in this, as it was easier for me to manage the finances and organise things. We were delighted when I became pregnant. He was a fantastic father to our children and still irresistible to me most of the time, except when I was too tired to appreciate a spontaneous bottle of champagne. When he died I thought it was the end of the world.

Then the second shock came: I realized how comfortable we now were financially. The mortgage was paid off instantly and Stephen’s pension kicked in. I’d had both of us insured to the hilt, and we now had a lot of money in the bank...

Read the full story here.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Friends Describe Feminist Icon Bella Abzug as Violent, Aggressive

"'I couldn't stand the screaming,' historian Amy Swerdlow remembers about Bella Abzug. 'She was just so aggressive -- assertive doesn't do it -- aggressive and carrying on.' That from Gloria Steinem. Journalist Doug Ireland recalls 'those volcanic eruptions of Abzugian temper.' 'She got so angry that she punched me,' colleague Ronnie Eldridge reports...This is how the feminist congresswoman's friends, the ones who stayed loyal to her all her life, remember her....

"She served, flamboyantly, for three terms, focused mainly on women's issues and world peace. (Although how you fight for peace while punching and yelling remains an interesting question)...Bella Abzug screamed and yelled and hit people. She was appalled when both her daughters grew up to be lesbians."

In the book review below, feminist Carolyn See reviews a biography of late feminist icon Bella Abzug. Turns out that Abzug had something of a violent streak. Imagine that.

Woman's Work
By Carolyn See,
Washington Post
December 7, 2007

BELLA ABZUG
An Oral History
By Suzanne Braun Levine and Mary Thom
Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 320 pp. $25

"I couldn't stand the screaming," historian Amy Swerdlow remembers about Bella Abzug. "She was just so aggressive -- assertive doesn't do it -- aggressive and carrying on." That from Gloria Steinem. Journalist Doug Ireland recalls "those volcanic eruptions of Abzugian temper." "She got so angry that she punched me," colleague Ronnie Eldridge reports, "on Fifth Avenue in front of De Pina's. That was the only time she ever really hit me." This is how the feminist congresswoman's friends, the ones who stayed loyal to her all her life, remember her.

Abzug was born in the Bronx of Russian Jewish immigrants who told Bella and her sister they could do anything they wanted when they grew up, and Bella took this seriously. She raised money for the Zionist state-to-be when she was just a little kid, trolling the subways with a Mason jar. When her father died, she went to the synagogue every day for a year to sing kaddish, the Hebrew prayer for the dead. Except that only guys are supposed to do that, and she was a girl, and only 12. She went on to Hunter College, where she excelled, and then to Columbia Law School -- one of the first women to be admitted there, and she was Jewish to boot.

From the very beginning of her adult life, she had trouble working for anybody and soon set up her own office. She experienced insults about her appearance (she was chunky, and put on more weight as she got older), about her abrasive voice and her abusive personality, but it seemed to roll right off her most of the time. "I'm Bella's oldest friend," Mim Kelber, her speechwriter, remembers. "She liked herself too much, but I think you need that. She was very self-confident." Except that later on, when she was a successful member of the House of Representatives, she broke down in tears at a political "roast," when a man dressed up like her with a fat, padded fanny, and another man, impersonating her long-suffering husband, came out in a frilly apron.

She began her career working as a lawyer for progressive causes that often were doomed to fail. She represented a black man who was accused of raping a white woman in Mississippi. (He said they were having a consensual affair.) The jury deliberated for a full 2 1/2 minutes and, of course, he was eventually executed. After a few disheartening events like this, Abzug got a clue. She wanted to change the world and thought she could. She ran for the House from a section of Manhattan. She served, flamboyantly, for three terms, focused mainly on women's issues and world peace. (Although how you fight for peace while punching and yelling remains an interesting question.) Then she decided -- despite good advice -- to run for the Democratic senatorial nomination against Daniel Patrick Moynihan. She made some wiseass, ill-considered remarks and lost the primary to him. She also lost a mayoral primary election and then another House election. It looked like a disastrous losing streak, but maybe it wasn't. She just kept going higher and wider, operating as a celebrity-feminist-organizer, always sporting her trademark hat, traveling all over the world addressing women's conventions, addressing the United Nations. She was ubiquitous...

To read more and to discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Wedding Called off After Man Refuses to Agree to Pay Billionaire's Lawyer Daughter Alimony

"We're middle-class people with middle-class values. We came to Palm Beach for what was supposed to be the best day in the lives of two human beings, and ended up with two full days of crass negotiations for a prenuptial agreement.

"It was like a business transaction. That attitude is foreign to us. There was such urgency on Fisher's part, it bordered on desperation."--Joe Bailer, the groom's father

A man refused to go through with the wedding to his lawyer bride after the woman's billionaire father "demanded he sign a last-minute amendment agreeing to pay the woman alimony, no matter how much she inherits from her dad." Story below.

Billionaire's daughter's wedding called off at last minute as father objects to pre-nup
Daily Mail (UK)
January 15, 2008

The wedding of a billionaire's daughter was called off at the last minute because of a change to the prenuptial agreement.

The bride and groom along with 300 guests were left in limbo as the society wedding of the season ground to a halt.

Three ballrooms had been reserved for the million-dollar celebrations at the exclusive Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida.

In the end, the two families ended up having separate parties in adjoining hotels to 'celebrate' the wedding that never happened.

Late in the evening, the bride, Alexandra Fisher, put in a brief, tearful appearance among her family, dressed in black.

Meanwhile, the groom, Josh Bailer, glumly nursed a drink with his best man and his 80 guests.

They had been dating for three years and engaged for 18 months.

Miss Fisher, 28, is the lawyer-daughter of American hotel tycoon Jeff Fisher.

Mr Bailer, 33, is a Wall Street trader, wealthy in his own right, but not in the same league as Mr Fisher who last year sold his Innkeepers hotel chain for nearly £1 billion.

Three days before the wedding, the couple happily signed a prenuptial contract in which it was agreed that if the marriage failed, both sides would walk away with no alimony payments.

But on the wedding day, Mr Bailer's father, Joe, said Mr Fisher demanded that Josh sign a last-minute amendment agreeing to pay Alexandra alimony, no matter how much she inherits from her dad.

Read the full story here.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

An IRS Double Standard for Men & Women on Alimony

Fred, a reader, recently wrote me with an interesting piece of information on how the IRS treats alimony and legal fees. Fred writes:

"IRS Publication 504 (Taxes for Divorced Individuals) states on page 20:

"'FEES FOR GETTING ALIMONY...Because you must include alimony you receive in your gross income, you can deduct fees you pay to get or collect alimony.'
 
"This means that all legal fees the ex-wife pays in association with her receiving alimony are deductible as a Miscellaneous Deduction on Form 1040, Schedule-A. It doesn't matter whether she is trying to retain the alimony she is now getting or if she initiates the proceedings to obtain more alimony. The legal fees are deductible to her, but your legal fees are not deductible to you. Even if the legal fees were just to defend yourself from having to pay more alimony."

This seems rather unfair--any accountants out there know more about it?

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

A Male Engineer's Perspective on Women in Male-Dominated Fields

Background: In my recent blog post Hillary Clinton's Candidacy--Female Scientist Says 'Women's opinions aren't taken seriously', Betsy Barton, a scientist who frequently reads and comments on this blog, wrote an interesting blog comment response to my recent blog post Gloria Steinem: 'What worries me is that some women hope to deny the sexual caste system'. Barton wrote:

"Women and their opinions are often not taken seriously...in my profession, powerful women are very few and very far between. Unfortunately, 90% of the successful women in the 40 and 50-something generations in my field are criticized all of the time, in personal and extremely offensive ways.

"Many men claim that this is not because they are women but is only because of their particular, individual personalities. But how can that be the case? Nowhere near 90% of the powerful men are criticized in this manner. If successful women have strong opinions, they are demonized and considered you-know-whats. The weak, wishy-washy women are sometimes promoted, and in my opinion this may be because they are not threatening. The most strong, successful, and able women are almost never promoted to positions of real power..."

In response, I asked:

"I would also ask this--for women who work in male-dominated professions, do Betsy's observations ring true? And for men who work with a few women in male-dominated professions, have you seen women endure the sexist treatment Betsy alleges?"

Dave K., one of my most articulate and intelligent readers, is an engineer and wrote the response below:

Engineer Dave K's Perspective on Women in Male-Dominated Fields

I've been an Engineer for going on 20 years now, and I've worked at companies with no female engineers all the way to the large multinational I now work for where roughly 30%-40% of technical coworkers are female. I've also recruited on and off over the years, and I've seen discrimination in both directions in roughly equal measure.

Most large companies have diversity programs, and those programs encourage business groups to maintain a diverse workforce (gender, race primarily). I think this is a healthy goal, and certainly makes for a more interesting work environment, but it often results in pressure to choose candidates based more on diversity considerations than on merit, and this causes a cascade of problems for companies. (Which is why they keep these programs VERY quiet). I'm on the fence regarding the wisdom of such decisions... but I can say for sure that one result of this is a backlash against those benefiting from such programs.

At one notable college recruiting trip I was told straight out by a female soon to be BSEE that she was expecting an offer $10k over what any of her male candidates were expecting solely because she was one of the few women in the graduating class. The sad part is that she wasn't wrong, the company I worked for had relatively narrow salary bands for new engineering grads - but there were two bands, one for men and one that was about $6k higher for women or targeted minorities (even more if the candidate was female AND a minority)...

To read more and to discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Best Wishes,
Glenn Sacks
GlennSacks.com

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