My new column "Leonard Pitts’ Column Unfair to Black Fathers, Ignores Reasons for Father Absence" (The Southern Illinoisan & others, 3-6-08) criticizes Pitts' (pictured) recent syndicated column Children bear the burden when fathers walk out, which I quoted above.

We argue that while some black fathers walk away, others have been driven out of their children's lives, and the family law system does little to protect their loving bonds with their children.

To write a Letter to the Editor about the piece and the issue, click here. To write to Leonard Pitts, click on lpitts@MiamiHerald.com.

The column, co-authored with family law attorney Jeffery M. Leving, is below.

Leonard Pitts’ Column Unfair to Black Fathers, Ignores Reasons for Father Absence
By Jeffery M. Leving and Glenn Sacks

Leonard Pitts Jr.’s recent column “Man crashes car leaves 5-month-old in backseat” excoriates “selfish” African American fathers who “abandon their children [and] harden themselves against their cries of need.” Pitts cites Larry Patterson, Jr., a 19-year-old black father who, after police tried to pull him over, allegedly sped away, smashed his car, and escaped, leaving his infant daughter in the backseat. Patterson is “unique only in degree,” Pitts writes--for black men today, it’s “Every man for himself.”

Pitts’ generalization is unfair. He is correct that some African-American fathers have behaved irresponsibly. However, he fails to see that many black fathers have been driven away by shortsighted, angry mothers and a family law system which does little to protect fathers' loving bonds with their children.

When citing the reasons for father absence, Pitts mentions “divorce” only in passing. Yet divorce and the breakups of unmarried couples are major causes of African-American fatherlessness.

Despite the stereotype of the feckless and irresponsible male, research shows that the vast majority of divorces are initiated by women, not by men. Even for unmarried couples, it’s doubtful that many dads wake up in the morning and say to themselves, “My child loves me and needs me, my girlfriend loves me and needs me—I’m outta here.” Yes, some mothers have good reasons for these breakups. Yet, as Jonetta Rose Barras, the African-American author of Whatever Happened to Daddy's Little Girl, explains, many black fathers are simply being “kicked to the curb.”

When a divorced or separated mother does not want her children’s father around anymore, she can usually push him out, particularly if the father does not earn enough money to pay for legal representation. Courts tilt heavily towards mothers in awarding custody, and enforce fathers’ visitation rights indifferently. In most states, mothers are free to move their children hundreds or thousands of miles away from their fathers, often permanently destroying the fathers’ bonds with their children.

The system which allows women to easily obtain domestic violence restraining/protection orders was set up to help battered women. However, many mothers instead employ them to get rid of inconvenient husbands or boyfriends. The Family Law Executive Committee of the California State Bar and family law professionals in various states have recently noted that these orders are often issued with little or no evidence or due process. Once in force, a father can be arrested and jailed for violating the order if he visits or even calls his kids. The orders begin as temporary, but are sometimes extended for years at a time.

With divorce or separation comes child support. The Urban League’s 2006 report on the state of black America concluded that the child support system and its abuses often drive African-American men out of their children’s lives, and either underground or into crime.

Half of uneducated African American men ages 25-34 are non-custodial fathers. Many of them are still a part of their children’s lives. Yet the child support they struggle to pay usually does not go to their children, but instead goes to the state to reimburse the cost of public assistance, including welfare, for the mother and children.

Some fathers even live with their children and their children’s mothers, yet their wages are still garnisheed to pay child support to the state, greatly contributing to the breakdown of these fragile families. Democratic Party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton recently acknowledged this problem in her Youth Opportunity Agenda.

The benefits that involved black fathers—even divorced or separated ones—can provide their children are substantial. For example, a recent study of low-income African-American and Hispanic families by Boston College found that when nonresident fathers are involved in their adolescent children’s lives, the incidence of substance abuse, violence, crime, and truancy decreases markedly. The study's lead author, professor Rebekah Levine Coley, says the study found involved nonresident fathers to be “an important protective factor for adolescents."

There are many reasons why some black fathers aren’t there for their kids. Sadly, there's nothing we can do to make the Larry Pattersons of the world into good fathers. But there's a lot we can do to help keep many decent, loving African-American dads in their children’s lives.

This article first appeared in The Southern Illinoisan (3-6-08).

Jeffery M. Leving is one of America's most prominent family law attorneys. He is the author of the new HarperCollins book Divorce Wars: A Field Guide to the Winning Tactics, Preemptive Strikes, and Top Maneuvers When Divorce Gets Ugly. His website is www.dadsrights.com.

Glenn Sacks’ columns on men's and fathers' issues have appeared in dozens of the largest newspapers in the United States. He invites readers to visit his website at www.GlennSacks.com.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Brandweek Again Criticizes Anti-Male Ads, Cites Our Campaigns

"Background: Brandweek Magazine is one of the largest publications in the advertising world, and it has repeatedly covered the problem of anti-male advertising, as well as our efforts to combat it. To learn more about Brandweek's commendable coverage, click here.

Our campaigns include: Campaign Against Anti-Father Verizon Commercial, Campaign Against Anti-Male Advertising, Campaign Against Detroit News ‘Get Her a Gift or She’ll Give You a Black Eye’ Ad and Portable On Demand Storage Decides to Remove Anti-Male Ad in Face of Protests. The Volvo/Arnold campaign referenced above was the brainchild of advertising guru Richard Smaglick of www.fathersandhusbands.org, and he worked with me on the campaign. To learn more about the problems with the way men are portrayed in advertising, click here.

Brandweek Senior Reporter Mike Beirne gets it right in his new, 2,500 word piece about men and fathers in advertising--Marketers used to venerate the father figure. So why are they making him look like such an ass? (3/3/08). Beirne discusses our campaigns against anti-male advertising and quotes several authorities in the advertising world who sympathize with us. He also details numerous anti-male/anti-father ads, largely the ones we've covered and criticized on this blog over the past year.

The article's only downside is Mike's unfortunate decision to end with a piece of asininity from Mark Tungate, author of the upcoming book Branded Male: Marketing to Men:

"Tungate said men should learn to take unflattering advertising images in stride. After all, he pointed out, it's more or less their turn.

"'One day, women will be happy to be sent up, too,' he said. 'But right now, they're still smarting from all the times they were made to strip in aircrafts, sprawl over car hoods or compare different types of detergent. We've had it our way forever, and we still get paid more. We can take a little ribbing.'"

If readers would like to write a Letter to the Editor of Brandweek and express their views about this piece (and Tungate), go to feedback@brandweek.com.

Marketers used to venerate the father figure. So why are they making him look like such an ass?
By Mike Beirne
(Brandweek, March 03, 2008)

Advertisers have always had a treasure chest of All-American iconography to draw from, and few are as durable—one might even say sacred—as those of Life with Father. Take, for instance, the 1962 State Mutual of America ad with the photo of dad showing his little boy how to line up his tin soldiers ("Some fathers make good generals, too," oozed the copy). There's the classic 1950s ad from Lionel model trains showing father and son bonding at trackside below the confident caption: "One of the best ways men get to know each other." As recently as 1994, an ad for the Krugerrand called "Generation to Generation" pictured a proud father about to give one of the famed solid-gold coins to his college-graduate son. "Maybe someday," mused dad, "he'll show it to his kid when he's trying to get him to do his homework."

What a touching thought. Let's fast-forward to someday . . .It's exactly a decade later, 2004, and a new TV spot for Verizon DSL brings viewers into the family den during homework hour. There's dad (who probably cashed in that Krugerrand to get the house down payment) looking over the shoulder of his young daughter as she sits before a computer. In just a moment, dad will surely lean forward with his pencil to explain that confounding trigonometry problem.

But no. Unfortunately for the little girl, dad is a gaping moron. He stares saucer-eyed at the screen in utter helplessness while his progeny—tearing across the Web with her mouse—wears a look of untrammeled disgust. "Leave her alone," barks mom, who arrives just in time to ward off the dolt she married.

So much for father knowing best. Maybe Robert Young was bound to turn into Homer Simpson eventually, but nowhere is there starker evidence of just how far fathers have fallen in popular esteem than your average piece of major-brand marketing. While recent years still bear traces of the American dad of the Norman Rockwell era (the ad showing a gray-haired patriarch dispensing advice to his son over a tumbler of Dewar's, for example), increasingly common are spots like the contentious trio from Fidelity Investments via Arnold, Boston, which show fathers acting, more or less, like frat boy assholes. In "Kid's Toy," a bored father in a doctor's waiting room becomes entranced by a simple children's toy while real children look on in pity. "Ping-Pong" shows a father utterly demolishing his doe-eyed daughter in a game of table tennis in the garage, then gloating over his victory by pointing his finger at her and laughing.

It's common marketing wisdom that ads which play to emotions can really get the job done, even when those emotions are shock and anger. But at a time when many bemoan the erosion of the family unit and social scientists can clinically prove the critical role of fathers in childhood development, one can't help but wonder: Is it such a good idea to make dad look like a total jerk? Shouldn't marketers know better?

Setting up dad as the punch line is easy in a world where taboos have vanished and entertainment sells everything. But in that same world—one in which traditional gender roles are mutating and men are doing more domestic duties than ever—some say that advertisers who flip the bird at dad are, in effect, doing it at tomorrow's core customer.

Scott Mires, founder and creative director of San Diego ad shop Mires+Ball, points out that inside the average American home "there's been a shift in shared responsibility" that's increasingly putting fathers in the role of "understanding what brands their kids like." In other words, more and more, it's dad who's pushing the shopping cart these days, not mom.

So you wanna insult him? Brands that "leave out men as a whole category," Mires said, "are really missing a big opportunity."

Mister Mom

The psychology behind poke-fun-at-dad marketing is easy enough to understand. After all, virtually since the invention of the United States, dad's been the breadwinner and mom's been the shopper. For the baby- boomer generation (whose fathers imbued in them a fiscal conservatism forged in the Great Depression). it only made sense to treat dad like the tightwad and mom as the spender, and focus most all marketing efforts on the lady of the house.

Back in the old days, ads that focused on dad focused on the handful of things a guy would buy for himself: a shaving razor, perhaps, and of course the family car. In those spots, dad was king, and he was a damn smart guy, too. He was, for instance, the man in a 1970 print ad for Mercedes who said people thought he was crazy for paying more than $8,000 for a car. The photograph in the ad pictures a woman driving the car in a bad storm with two children tucked into the back seat. "But when my wife and kids are out there on a day like today," echoes the sage patriarch, "that car is the best investment I ever made."

That ad almost still coaxes an emotional sigh. But in truth, the domestic model it represents is roughly as accurate as a Leave it to Beaver episode. While statistically, mothers still assume the heavier childcare burden, fathers have slipped out of their tasseled loafers to be more mom-like than ever before. According to a University of Michigan study, while fathers in the 1970s spent only a third as much time as their wives in child-rearing duties, that time had risen to 43% by the time of the college's 1999 report. In 2007, when Waterbury, Conn.-based Harrison Group asked men about the time they spent sharing household work with their wives, 56% of them said they split it right down the middle. Perhaps most telling of all: When Monster.com recently asked dads if they'd be a stay-at-home parent if money were no object, 70% of them said they would.

Yet dumping on dads persists. A Pizza Hut spot from BBDO, New York, portrays a proud male who's just "prepared" dinner for his family—by ordering in from the Hut ("Who says I can't cook?" proclaims goofy dad). T-Mobile's ad "26" stars a father whose life skills do not include the ability to multiply 5 times 5. And a spot for the iRobot Roomba vacuum features a wife complaining that her house is a mess because "my husband is a jackass." (Full disclosure: The wife only nods toward the donkey's ass when referring to her husband.)

So, what gives? What were the account creatives thinking when they decided to poke a finger in dad's eye? Well, don't expect them to tell you. Arnold declined to comment about the Fidelity campaign. BBDO and Pizza Hut also declined to comment for this story.

Some argue that marketers, ever desperate for a laugh, are simply taking the path of least resistance. "Lazy ad agencies love gags," said Mark Tungate, author of the upcoming book Branded Male: Marketing to Men. "Slapstick is the easier form of humor, and men are the safest victims. It's acceptable to slam Justin Timberlake in the balls, but adland would never dream of beating on a woman." (Tungate, who's based in Paris, added that dumbo-dad marketing tactics are hardly the sole possession of American advertisers. "I can assure you that men are the butt of most of the jokes on this side of the pond, too," he said.)

Others claim that a kind of reverse psychology is in play. "Part of branding is storytelling, and a good story has someone playing the fool to make [someone else] look good by comparison," said Jim Twitchell, a marketing professor at the University of Florida, Gainesville, and author of Where Men Hide, an analysis of male camaraderie. "So whoever makes the women or the kid look smart is the doofus."

Making Dad Mad

Others are clearly of the opinion that the doofus title belongs with the brand, not the man. One of them is Rose Cameron, svp and planning director at Leo Burnett, Chicago, who maintains that "when advertisers push portrayals of men as buffoons, they really anger men—who already are not on strong footing."

Another of them is Glenn Sacks.

The newspaper columnist, talk show host blogger and commentator led a 2004 grassroots campaign to get Verizon to yank its "Homework" spot off the air. He succeeded, too. In fact, Sacks' effort got ink from 300 publications nationwide.

For its part, Verizon claimed that "Homework" had simply finished its scheduled run. Sacks' response: Yeah, sure. "We clearly had an impact," he said. "Because a Verizon pr person asked me to take down the page [on my blog] about that campaign. I told her, 'We're keeping it up there.' "Last year, Sacks joined with FathersAndHusbands.org in a grassroots effort to persuade carmaker Volvo against keeping its advertising account with Arnold during a review because of the agency's portrayal of men in the Fidelity ads. More than 3,000 people supported that campaign by contacting Volvo. (Incidentally, RSCG's Volvo ad "Rosi," a European campaign, is one that Sacks lauds for being "touching" for its portrayal of a sensitive father.) In response, the carmaker sent a letter to Sacks promising to run family-friendly commercials. Volvo ultimately kept Arnold.

"It's not my summer job in life to find ads and pretend to be offended by them," said Sacks. "Some ads are funny, and I don't rip apart every ad that shows a guy in a less-than-flattering way. I don't think there's anything wrong with poking fun at men. But it's getting real old when you see so much of that over and over."

It's getting real old for the men, too. In 2005, Leo Burnett released its "Man Study," which had interviewed more than 2,000 men from 13 countries about their self-perception and their societal roles. When it came to images of the male in advertising, 79% of respondents said those media portrayals were out of touch with reality.

"Unfortunately I think a lot of ads are directed at ourselves, the marketing community, rather than the consumer," said Burnett's Cameron. "Also, one of the great markers [society] looks to about the intelligence of a woman is her choice of husband. So if advertisers position men as idiots in the husband scenario, then you're commenting on her smarts. Women have told us, 'If you want to get on my good side, you do not show my husband as the idiot.'"

Read the full article here.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here. 

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.

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'Now my husband, whom I formerly targeted and I, his former alienator, work together to heal our family'

"Now my husband, whom I formerly targeted and I, his former alienator, work together to heal our family and help other families with what we are learning. It has been quite a process, unraveling the web of lies that I had spun. I apologize to our kids and now work to tell the truth to them and others."

I recently received this amazing letter from Gaye, a reader, about Parental Alienation. She is a former Parental Alienator who turned her life around and is now trying to make amends. I salute her.

To learn more about Parental Alienation, see my co-authored column Protect Children from Alienation (Providence Journal, 7/8/06) or my blog posts on it here.

Nine U.S. states and the British territory of Bermuda have declared April 25 "Parental Alienation Awareness Day." To learn more, visit www.Parental-Alienation-Awareness.com.

Now my husband, whom I formerly targeted and I, his former alienator, work together to heal our family
by Gaye

My husband and I met while in college and married shortly after I graduated from college. After our 2nd child was born, my parents came to visit. My husband was still finishing college and was working also. I rarely saw him and there were some problems, although minor. I made the mistake of sharing those problems with my parents when they visited. Their solution: “We’re taking the kids, you can come if you want.” So I left without saying goodbye and fled across country with a 20 month old and a 1 week old. It was very much like a kidnapping.

Once we settled, my parents pressured me to divorce my husband, based on a 1 year separation. My parents then proceeded to try to destroy my relationship with our kids. They projected all of the behaviors they had onto my ex and myself, saying we were abusive, crazy, horrible parents. Out of my pain, I in turn then worked at destroying our kids’ relationship with their dad. By that time, he had moved across the country to be near us, got a job, bought a house, and established himself in a community so he could see the kids and pay child support regularly, which he did. This went on for 16 years.

My life disintegrated drastically because of all of the anger and bitterness that I harbored and manifested towards my ex. I only thought I was hurting him by working at destroying his relationship with his kids. I didn’t realize I was hurting the kids. By 2004, I had been in the hospital 4 times with life threatening illnesses, lost my job at a law firm, gained so much weight that I was morbidly obese, and was addicted to Methadone, prescribed by doctors for the extreme pain that I was experiencing.

Unknown to anyone but our kids, my parents had also been abusing me for years...physically, verbally, and sexually. The turning point began when our daughter called the police the last time my mother beat me. We got out of the house. A former boss and a family member got me into detox and rehab. By that time, I was on 18 different prescribed medicines.

During the detox and rehab process, I was introduced to the 12 step program, through which I studied one of the steps that talked of thinking of ways you may have hurt others and God. Another step talked of asking God to forgive you and to make amends, where possible with others. I also received extensive counseling one on one, small group and large group while inpatient and outpatient. I was able to realize that I was wrong in keeping our kids from their dad. I decided to apologize and ask his forgiveness. I tried to contact him by phone first and he ignored me. I drove to his house and he wasn’t home. I left a note spelling out the apology and left a phone number. We had not seen each other or spoken to each other in 10 years, except at our daughter’s high school graduation. He was very wary of me at first, not trusting me that I had honestly changed and would not take him to court anymore or lie about him.

Over a period of several months of talking on the phone and dating me, he could see I was genuinely sorry and that I had begun the process of changing and telling the truth. We remarried. Then I began the process of reuniting him with our kids. I was shocked to discover it was not that easy. That was when I realized all the damage I had done to our kids. It took some time to figure out that also my family continued to work to destroy our relationship with our kids and still do, to this day. But, I persist and our son now calls his dad “dad,” which he never did before and tells him he loves him.

Our daughter is starting to ask questions about her dad, but still will not talk to him. Now my husband, whom I formerly targeted and I, his former alienator, work together to heal our family and help other families with what we are learning. It has been quite a process, unraveling the web of lies that I had spun. I apologize to our kids and now work to tell the truth to them and others. I have a real burden to help others that are now targeted to give them hope for reconciliation and healing.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.