This faith is ignorance, no battle won,
When thousands’, mothers’ hearts have lost their own.
How long a battle or labor of giving,
In months of pain or long hard years of living?
What mother hopes her work will end this way,
Against all war, was the first Mother’s Day.
Authored by an anonymous feminist
This poem was so beautiful I thought I would post it on my blog.
Especially today for Memorial Day, I thought the sentiment expressed was very moving.
I’ve often wondered if men realized how much blood, sweat and tears, how much god-awful, back-breaking work it actually takes a mother to produce every single human being, one at a time, then maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t be so quick to go off to wars and kill one.
Just a random thought on Memorial Day.
Peace on earth.
Monday, May 29, 2006
Swimming Against the Tide of Historic Change
Divorce ruling could apply to old cases
Lords decision means women may go back to court to claim more money
Clare Dyer, legal editor
Monday May 29, 2006
The Guardian
A landmark House of Lords ruling last week could open the way for hundreds of divorced women to go back to court for more money, according to leading lawyers.
The principle laid down by the law lords that women who gave up a well-paid career to raise children were entitled to compensation for their sacrifice has come too late for partners who divorced with a clean break. But those still receiving maintenance from high-earning former husbands could go back to court to ask for a big increase, lawyers said, even if their divorce was years ago.
This week the Law Commission, the official legal reform body, will unveil proposals to give unmarried partners who live together the right to claim limited financial support and a share of property when the relationship ends. The consultation paper, commissioned by the government, will stop short of recommending full divorce rights but will suggest a safety net to prevent hardship. A draft bill is due in August next year.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gender/story/0,,1785195,00.html
My first thought is that this ruling (similar to the recent one which made anonymous sperm donations illegal) was more of the tendencies of Great Britain to hold back the forces of historic change. Men clearly do not wish to be constrained by society in their behaviors. They wish to have sex freely, married or not, and if a pregnancy unexpectedly occurs, they wish to have the sole up or down vote on whether to be an involved father or not, pay child support or not, marry the mother or not, whatever.
Yet there is no obvious advantage for women in any of this.
Thus societies that allow men to avoid the responsibility to provide for womens' security and welfare, while still allowing men legal rights to the children women alone bear, will continue to decline in numbers.
Men just can't seem to accept the fact that this is something that woman is the final arbitrator of: IF, WHEN and how MANY children she'll ultimately bear. The old days are gone FOREVER as reproductive technology changed the equation.
Okay.
Women now control their own bodies, reproductive choices and there isn't anything that is going to change that. If anything as the technology improves, it will get worse. Men will NEVER be in charge of those decisions again. Involvement with children will be a gift women chose to share with men, MAYBE, always contingent upon you being on your BEST behavior.
Okay, just to be clear.
So what to do?
I think the more sensible, but politically more difficult, way to handle it would have been to accept the irreversible nature of the change and allow women, who wished to be mothers but didn't have a husband, to access reproductive services and public benefits freely, openly, and without finger pointing on an as needed basis. This would have had the benefit of keeping women who wished to be mothers happy, the countries' population numbers stable as the idea caught on and having children through anonymous sperm donations lost its stigma.
Most importantly it would have shown men that if they wished to play at being head of a family (becoming a father), they would have to pay (through a marriage). Those who were actually concerned with being fathers would have married to do it as they have in the past and toed the line thereafter. Those who weren't would not have and thus have no rights or responsibilities to any children they carelessly spawned but could keep all their money/property for themselves (outside of taxes) and that would have shut them up.
NOW Great Britian has alienated most men by this ruling and while it has made most women happy, I see it as just a question of time before the law gets subverted by men from its original intent. Which is to provide women with the security that would allow them to bear children (and be a stay-at-home mother to them if they wished) without having to worry about economic penalties at some later date.
I guarantee you that looking back a year or two from now, women will have gained little or no real benefit from this law.
Just my opinion.
But anyway...
There is nothing so unusual about this ‘new’ law in Great Britain which allows women, who gave up their career to bear children and then become stay-at-home mothers, to be compensated adequately in the event of a later divorce. Frankly I think it makes a lot of sense as Great Britain, which is trying to get their population numbers up like every other industrialized country, has finally seen which sex is directly at fault for their declining birth rates and it’s clearly selfish men.
Women will have few children if they have to charge back to work again immediately after birth, not to mention the constant delays that inevitably ensue if she is forced to jockey for positions in her career choice. Frequently the time involved in this translates into no kids. We only need to look at the successful career women such as Maureen Dowd or Condi Rice in our own society to see the impact this has. As how many men at that ‘uber’ level would be alone with no children???
Anyway, their American cousins and many other countries have been following this formula for awarding alimony for years. Actually it doesn’t impact a lot of people as few couples today can afford to NOT have both parents working. Yet for the high-income men whose wives do stay home to bear and raise their children, then yes, it’s a good thing for those women and children and should be encouraged. Only a stingy cheapskate would be against his kids having their mother around when they are young and then him compensating her for that sacrifice later. Most of these men, who will be impacted by this, are worth millions, so too bad about them if they don’t like it.
In the US only 15% of all divorces include any award of alimony and only half collect (and this includes men who collect alimony as well after contributing nothing unique to the marriage, just because they can collect it), so this won’t be a big issue in most people’s lives. I’m sure Great Britain will follow the trajectory of the US pretty closely in this as it does much else since our societies are similar.
As always, men will now try to latch onto this ruling to benefit themselves and attempt to get alimony from so-called ‘high flying’ women, who frequently are just ordinary women who managed to buy a house before marriage or inherited a small sum from a deceased family member, but the bottom line is this sort of ‘sacrifice compensation’ needs to be limited to women ONLY. The ones who actually bring something unique to the marital relationship, womens childbearing capacity, This should not include some man who just up and quits his job one day and decides to lay around on the couch watching TV 24/7. Tossing a stale potato chip to the kids every once in a while during a commercial should not entitle you to anything.
So that aspect of it needs to be carefully monitored, but otherwise this ruling was ‘spot on’.
The other ruling from the House of Lords, which wasn’t mentioned in this article, pertained to fault being taken into account when settling marital property issues. This law is far more likely to affect ordinary people. Yet again, the Lords were spot on in their decision. The US also takes fault into account vis-à-vis property issues (at least many states do); although fault cannot be used to decide custody. Although frankly I think it should be used in the event of a tie-breaker custody situation, everything else being equal, the one at fault should forfeit custody.
Anyway to use fault to decide property issues is completely just. You’re a bad boy or girl during the life of the marriage and it causes a divorce, you should be ‘punished’ and a hit in the pocketbook seems to be appropriate for a capitalist society to use as punishment. I mean what else can we do, flog them??? Not that some of them don’t deserve it, as I could easily see that Charlie Sheen meriting a good whipping for all the stuff he does; yet we are in a civilized society, so must adhere to the norms of where we live.
Unfortunately in some cases...
Last, but not least the most interesting part I find is what they haven’t done yet, but are just looking into, which is the abililty to treat live-in relationships as if they were defacto married ones. I’m not completely sure this is right, especially if children are involved. Yet if it makes parents stop and think before they carelessly expose their children to a casual relationship by moving in with someone they hardly know, then it could morph into a good thing.
Clearly parents should know better but many don’t. So again what else can we do but hit them in the pocketbook when they exhibit unsavory behavior. Again, this is appropriate for a capitalist society to do. Parents who persist in exposing their kids to one live in relationship after another raise the sorts of screwy, unstable adults that impact all the rest of us negatively, so, the House of Lords could be spot on for three in a row.
These are ALL good rulings.
Men don’t like it, don’t marry, don’t have kids, actually go live on a desert island somewhere so you can just die off and not impact anyone else with your behavior. But don’t think that the societies that allow you to become as wealthy as you are will continue allowing you to use them for all your benefits, while giving nothing back but aggravation.
Of course, as I said above, these rulings were the lesser of two evils that the British lords chose to go with, since anything else would have caused too much unheaval in their society over the short-term.
Long-term these laws will just delay the inevitable change that has followed the advent of reproductive technology which has swung the balance of power in favor of women for the first time in history. It's application plays to womens' ONE essential strength, which is that we are the ONLY ones who are the bearers of life and can chose to quite simply not bear any. Thus, we can as passive/aggressive as we wish and still hold all the aces up our sleeves. It's called Anne Boleyn's Revenge for those history buffs out there: ie., "You're never going to have a son Henry or any other kids because me and my girlfriends just decided to form a bowling league and I can't bowl and be pregnant at the same time. Or a shopping league or need to be at work early everyday for the next decade. Truly sorry old bean. Why not get a little dog to play with instead?"
Women don't need to start any wars or invent some new destructive technology to wield this power either, that's the beauty of it.
Men, unable or unwilling to accept womens new status are the source of much of the current unroar, yet they will just have to get over it...
Lords decision means women may go back to court to claim more money
Clare Dyer, legal editor
Monday May 29, 2006
The Guardian
A landmark House of Lords ruling last week could open the way for hundreds of divorced women to go back to court for more money, according to leading lawyers.
The principle laid down by the law lords that women who gave up a well-paid career to raise children were entitled to compensation for their sacrifice has come too late for partners who divorced with a clean break. But those still receiving maintenance from high-earning former husbands could go back to court to ask for a big increase, lawyers said, even if their divorce was years ago.
This week the Law Commission, the official legal reform body, will unveil proposals to give unmarried partners who live together the right to claim limited financial support and a share of property when the relationship ends. The consultation paper, commissioned by the government, will stop short of recommending full divorce rights but will suggest a safety net to prevent hardship. A draft bill is due in August next year.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gender/story/0,,1785195,00.html
My first thought is that this ruling (similar to the recent one which made anonymous sperm donations illegal) was more of the tendencies of Great Britain to hold back the forces of historic change. Men clearly do not wish to be constrained by society in their behaviors. They wish to have sex freely, married or not, and if a pregnancy unexpectedly occurs, they wish to have the sole up or down vote on whether to be an involved father or not, pay child support or not, marry the mother or not, whatever.
Yet there is no obvious advantage for women in any of this.
Thus societies that allow men to avoid the responsibility to provide for womens' security and welfare, while still allowing men legal rights to the children women alone bear, will continue to decline in numbers.
Men just can't seem to accept the fact that this is something that woman is the final arbitrator of: IF, WHEN and how MANY children she'll ultimately bear. The old days are gone FOREVER as reproductive technology changed the equation.
Okay.
Women now control their own bodies, reproductive choices and there isn't anything that is going to change that. If anything as the technology improves, it will get worse. Men will NEVER be in charge of those decisions again. Involvement with children will be a gift women chose to share with men, MAYBE, always contingent upon you being on your BEST behavior.
Okay, just to be clear.
So what to do?
I think the more sensible, but politically more difficult, way to handle it would have been to accept the irreversible nature of the change and allow women, who wished to be mothers but didn't have a husband, to access reproductive services and public benefits freely, openly, and without finger pointing on an as needed basis. This would have had the benefit of keeping women who wished to be mothers happy, the countries' population numbers stable as the idea caught on and having children through anonymous sperm donations lost its stigma.
Most importantly it would have shown men that if they wished to play at being head of a family (becoming a father), they would have to pay (through a marriage). Those who were actually concerned with being fathers would have married to do it as they have in the past and toed the line thereafter. Those who weren't would not have and thus have no rights or responsibilities to any children they carelessly spawned but could keep all their money/property for themselves (outside of taxes) and that would have shut them up.
NOW Great Britian has alienated most men by this ruling and while it has made most women happy, I see it as just a question of time before the law gets subverted by men from its original intent. Which is to provide women with the security that would allow them to bear children (and be a stay-at-home mother to them if they wished) without having to worry about economic penalties at some later date.
I guarantee you that looking back a year or two from now, women will have gained little or no real benefit from this law.
Just my opinion.
But anyway...
There is nothing so unusual about this ‘new’ law in Great Britain which allows women, who gave up their career to bear children and then become stay-at-home mothers, to be compensated adequately in the event of a later divorce. Frankly I think it makes a lot of sense as Great Britain, which is trying to get their population numbers up like every other industrialized country, has finally seen which sex is directly at fault for their declining birth rates and it’s clearly selfish men.
Women will have few children if they have to charge back to work again immediately after birth, not to mention the constant delays that inevitably ensue if she is forced to jockey for positions in her career choice. Frequently the time involved in this translates into no kids. We only need to look at the successful career women such as Maureen Dowd or Condi Rice in our own society to see the impact this has. As how many men at that ‘uber’ level would be alone with no children???
Anyway, their American cousins and many other countries have been following this formula for awarding alimony for years. Actually it doesn’t impact a lot of people as few couples today can afford to NOT have both parents working. Yet for the high-income men whose wives do stay home to bear and raise their children, then yes, it’s a good thing for those women and children and should be encouraged. Only a stingy cheapskate would be against his kids having their mother around when they are young and then him compensating her for that sacrifice later. Most of these men, who will be impacted by this, are worth millions, so too bad about them if they don’t like it.
In the US only 15% of all divorces include any award of alimony and only half collect (and this includes men who collect alimony as well after contributing nothing unique to the marriage, just because they can collect it), so this won’t be a big issue in most people’s lives. I’m sure Great Britain will follow the trajectory of the US pretty closely in this as it does much else since our societies are similar.
As always, men will now try to latch onto this ruling to benefit themselves and attempt to get alimony from so-called ‘high flying’ women, who frequently are just ordinary women who managed to buy a house before marriage or inherited a small sum from a deceased family member, but the bottom line is this sort of ‘sacrifice compensation’ needs to be limited to women ONLY. The ones who actually bring something unique to the marital relationship, womens childbearing capacity, This should not include some man who just up and quits his job one day and decides to lay around on the couch watching TV 24/7. Tossing a stale potato chip to the kids every once in a while during a commercial should not entitle you to anything.
So that aspect of it needs to be carefully monitored, but otherwise this ruling was ‘spot on’.
The other ruling from the House of Lords, which wasn’t mentioned in this article, pertained to fault being taken into account when settling marital property issues. This law is far more likely to affect ordinary people. Yet again, the Lords were spot on in their decision. The US also takes fault into account vis-à-vis property issues (at least many states do); although fault cannot be used to decide custody. Although frankly I think it should be used in the event of a tie-breaker custody situation, everything else being equal, the one at fault should forfeit custody.
Anyway to use fault to decide property issues is completely just. You’re a bad boy or girl during the life of the marriage and it causes a divorce, you should be ‘punished’ and a hit in the pocketbook seems to be appropriate for a capitalist society to use as punishment. I mean what else can we do, flog them??? Not that some of them don’t deserve it, as I could easily see that Charlie Sheen meriting a good whipping for all the stuff he does; yet we are in a civilized society, so must adhere to the norms of where we live.
Unfortunately in some cases...
Last, but not least the most interesting part I find is what they haven’t done yet, but are just looking into, which is the abililty to treat live-in relationships as if they were defacto married ones. I’m not completely sure this is right, especially if children are involved. Yet if it makes parents stop and think before they carelessly expose their children to a casual relationship by moving in with someone they hardly know, then it could morph into a good thing.
Clearly parents should know better but many don’t. So again what else can we do but hit them in the pocketbook when they exhibit unsavory behavior. Again, this is appropriate for a capitalist society to do. Parents who persist in exposing their kids to one live in relationship after another raise the sorts of screwy, unstable adults that impact all the rest of us negatively, so, the House of Lords could be spot on for three in a row.
These are ALL good rulings.
Men don’t like it, don’t marry, don’t have kids, actually go live on a desert island somewhere so you can just die off and not impact anyone else with your behavior. But don’t think that the societies that allow you to become as wealthy as you are will continue allowing you to use them for all your benefits, while giving nothing back but aggravation.
Of course, as I said above, these rulings were the lesser of two evils that the British lords chose to go with, since anything else would have caused too much unheaval in their society over the short-term.
Long-term these laws will just delay the inevitable change that has followed the advent of reproductive technology which has swung the balance of power in favor of women for the first time in history. It's application plays to womens' ONE essential strength, which is that we are the ONLY ones who are the bearers of life and can chose to quite simply not bear any. Thus, we can as passive/aggressive as we wish and still hold all the aces up our sleeves. It's called Anne Boleyn's Revenge for those history buffs out there: ie., "You're never going to have a son Henry or any other kids because me and my girlfriends just decided to form a bowling league and I can't bowl and be pregnant at the same time. Or a shopping league or need to be at work early everyday for the next decade. Truly sorry old bean. Why not get a little dog to play with instead?"
Women don't need to start any wars or invent some new destructive technology to wield this power either, that's the beauty of it.
Men, unable or unwilling to accept womens new status are the source of much of the current unroar, yet they will just have to get over it...
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Concerns of Mothers
Parenting Kidnapping: A New Form of Child Abuse
By Dorothy S. Huntington, Ph.D.
“The number of children stolen each year has until this time been estimated at 100,000 per year, but there is new and very tragic evidence that this number is under-reported by at least three to four hundred percent."
"A new national study of the parental kidnapping of children shows that there are many more such abductions then previously believed. The study estimates that here are at least 313,000 incidents a year, possibly as many as 626,000. The research was conducted by Richard Gelles, a professor of sociology at the University of Rhode Island and a lecturer in pediatrics at Harvard University Medical School."
"Agopian (1981) found that the perpetrators in his sample of 91 cases from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office between July 1977 and June 1978 were 70% male…Elliot (1980) found in his content analysis of news stories that the perpetrators were 60% male."
"Particularly for fathers, the desire for revenge and vengeance is overwhelming…The abduction is used as a club to force the estranged spouse to return to the marriage, or as a ‘getting even’ with the custodial parent."
http://www.hiltonhouse.com/articles/Child_abuse_huntington.txt
I thought it would be interesting to post some excerpts from this woman's research here. Now I know this is old news to some of us, but I couldn't find more recent numbers available. But it's interesting anyway the old numbers especially since over 20 years ago MOST of the abductors were men YET most of the parents featured over the past five years on the FBI parental abduction website are women.
So have the number switched?
Or is there some sort of selective screeniing going on here? Since if more men then women are abducting children, we need to see that reflected in the FBI website.
People need to have a clear sense of what is going on regarding this issue.
Additionally, another puzzlement is that I have never heard any womens' group addressing this issue. Womens' groups appear to be more focused on issues such as gay marriage, even through many women in America don’t know one gay guy never mind two who wish to get married. Yet faithfully every month I get an e-newsletter from womens' groups with the gay marriage issue prominently displayed.
I guess the question is who and what is funding these womens groups and whether or not these groups are required to be focusing on issues that impact women lives? Instead of spending all their time focusing on other unrelated, but trendy causes that get them noticed by the media, maybe these groups should return to their roots and worry about the issues that women worry about such as their children being abducted, which happens on a fairly regular basis today to a rather large group of mothers.
AND since most women eventually become mothers, perhaps there needs to be a reallocation of priorities here...
By Dorothy S. Huntington, Ph.D.
“The number of children stolen each year has until this time been estimated at 100,000 per year, but there is new and very tragic evidence that this number is under-reported by at least three to four hundred percent."
"A new national study of the parental kidnapping of children shows that there are many more such abductions then previously believed. The study estimates that here are at least 313,000 incidents a year, possibly as many as 626,000. The research was conducted by Richard Gelles, a professor of sociology at the University of Rhode Island and a lecturer in pediatrics at Harvard University Medical School."
"Agopian (1981) found that the perpetrators in his sample of 91 cases from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office between July 1977 and June 1978 were 70% male…Elliot (1980) found in his content analysis of news stories that the perpetrators were 60% male."
"Particularly for fathers, the desire for revenge and vengeance is overwhelming…The abduction is used as a club to force the estranged spouse to return to the marriage, or as a ‘getting even’ with the custodial parent."
http://www.hiltonhouse.com/articles/Child_abuse_huntington.txt
I thought it would be interesting to post some excerpts from this woman's research here. Now I know this is old news to some of us, but I couldn't find more recent numbers available. But it's interesting anyway the old numbers especially since over 20 years ago MOST of the abductors were men YET most of the parents featured over the past five years on the FBI parental abduction website are women.
So have the number switched?
Or is there some sort of selective screeniing going on here? Since if more men then women are abducting children, we need to see that reflected in the FBI website.
People need to have a clear sense of what is going on regarding this issue.
Additionally, another puzzlement is that I have never heard any womens' group addressing this issue. Womens' groups appear to be more focused on issues such as gay marriage, even through many women in America don’t know one gay guy never mind two who wish to get married. Yet faithfully every month I get an e-newsletter from womens' groups with the gay marriage issue prominently displayed.
I guess the question is who and what is funding these womens groups and whether or not these groups are required to be focusing on issues that impact women lives? Instead of spending all their time focusing on other unrelated, but trendy causes that get them noticed by the media, maybe these groups should return to their roots and worry about the issues that women worry about such as their children being abducted, which happens on a fairly regular basis today to a rather large group of mothers.
AND since most women eventually become mothers, perhaps there needs to be a reallocation of priorities here...
Grow up already
I was recently treated to viewing a video of a complaint fest from a popular mens rights advocate. It appears one of the big problems of modern day living (and this from a man who looked to be at least late 30s/40ish) was how often he dates women who won’t treat him to dinner. I had to laugh looking around at his audience when I observed how many men, his age and older, were sitting there solemnly nodding their heads in agreement.
Again, I have to agree with Robert Bly, author of The Sibling Society, people in western civilization need to grow the hell up already.
Okay…especially men.
The only thing of sense that came out of that video was the acknowledgement that women generally file for divorce first in order to be assured custody of their children. As generally the temporary custody morphs into permanent; unless there is abuse or neglect of some kind going on which is rare as most people do not abuse or neglect their children. So this is the basis of women filing for divorce FIRST. It’s part and parcel of the sacred obligation every women takes on once she becomes a mother to ensure her children remain under her care, custody and control and not have her kids jerked around in all kinds of weird custody and living arrangements, just so their fathers can pay less child support.
That’s men’s problem.
Don’t have any kids if you all are too stingy and cheap to pay for them afterwards. Save us all a lot of aggravation, so your line can die off and not become a burden on the rest of us.
Of course, he had the usual male audacity to claim women file first to STEAL THE CHILDREN.
Well guess what, you can’t steal what is already yours.
Okay.
In fact, it is men who steal children from their mothers, as they would have no rights in nature or under natural law to children whatsoever. Men have taken these cases into courts of their own making and made up all this phony history, statistical lies, and laws to match, all in an attempt to bypass natural law and common sense in order to steal children from their mothers. So it is men who wear the badge of thieves…and let's face it many of these thefts (like theft everywhere) are for financial gain, nothing to do with the best interest of children whatsoever.
So in spite of the many lies and exaggerations that have been going on about why women file for divorce so much, as in: women are unstable, women are after men’s money, etc., the obvious fact is that women file first due to the natural maternal instincts to keep her young under her care, custody and control. Which is right where the young of every species on the planet, as well as our own, should be with their mothers.
AND go pay for your own damn dinners, you stingy cheapskates.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6473306077934533867
Again, I have to agree with Robert Bly, author of The Sibling Society, people in western civilization need to grow the hell up already.
Okay…especially men.
The only thing of sense that came out of that video was the acknowledgement that women generally file for divorce first in order to be assured custody of their children. As generally the temporary custody morphs into permanent; unless there is abuse or neglect of some kind going on which is rare as most people do not abuse or neglect their children. So this is the basis of women filing for divorce FIRST. It’s part and parcel of the sacred obligation every women takes on once she becomes a mother to ensure her children remain under her care, custody and control and not have her kids jerked around in all kinds of weird custody and living arrangements, just so their fathers can pay less child support.
That’s men’s problem.
Don’t have any kids if you all are too stingy and cheap to pay for them afterwards. Save us all a lot of aggravation, so your line can die off and not become a burden on the rest of us.
Of course, he had the usual male audacity to claim women file first to STEAL THE CHILDREN.
Well guess what, you can’t steal what is already yours.
Okay.
In fact, it is men who steal children from their mothers, as they would have no rights in nature or under natural law to children whatsoever. Men have taken these cases into courts of their own making and made up all this phony history, statistical lies, and laws to match, all in an attempt to bypass natural law and common sense in order to steal children from their mothers. So it is men who wear the badge of thieves…and let's face it many of these thefts (like theft everywhere) are for financial gain, nothing to do with the best interest of children whatsoever.
So in spite of the many lies and exaggerations that have been going on about why women file for divorce so much, as in: women are unstable, women are after men’s money, etc., the obvious fact is that women file first due to the natural maternal instincts to keep her young under her care, custody and control. Which is right where the young of every species on the planet, as well as our own, should be with their mothers.
AND go pay for your own damn dinners, you stingy cheapskates.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6473306077934533867
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
The Real Issue of Defacto Parenting - Not Just About Step Persons
Web Exclusive Nation
Are Stepparents Real Parents?
A Supreme Court decision involving lesbian parents could affect millions more American families
Posted Wednesday, May. 17, 2006
This week the Supreme Court let stand a ruling that ultimately could affect as many as one-third of all Americans — anyone in a stepfamily. But you'll probably never realize it from any news reports on the ruling.
The case comes out of
For several years they were a model of lesbian co-parenting. But Page grew upset that Sue didn't earn much money, and Sue was hurt that Page didn't recognize the value of her sacrifice. They split up when L. was seven years old. Ever since, they've been fighting for custody in the courts. Or sort of. Because the courts couldn't agree on whether Sue Carvin even had the right to fight for custody. She nurtured the child, but she wasn't the biological mother. So what was she, in the eyes of the law?
In the last few years, state family courts have tried to accommodate the stepparents and stepchildren who appear before them, without granting so much that it subtracts rights from a biological parent. In
So a stepmother can take a month off work to care for her sick stepson, thanks to the federal law on Family Leave. But if she has to take her stepson to the emergency room, state law might prevent her from authorizing medical treatment. And if her son ends up dying due to hospital negligence, she can't sue.
The legal field is sitting on a huge time bomb. One-third of Americans are just one unfortunate circumstance away from ending up in court demanding their rights — where they will be told that those relationships aren't real, and don't count.
The U.S. Supreme Court has never been pressed to rule whether a stepparent is a real parent, and if so, under what conditions. But when it declined to review
Over the next 10 years, there will be an explosion of cases testing just how "real" stepparents are. This will never get the attention surrounding same-sex cases, because stepfamilies are just as populous in red states as blue, and no politician can use it to their advantage. Nor are stepfamilies subjected to the same degree of prejudice. Stepparents might be vilified, but they are vilified one at a time — not as a class. However, the systematic bias against them is very real.
Just as the law prefers parents to be one male and one female, the law prefers to limit the number of parents to two. Maybe this is because two is the number of people it takes to make a child in the first place. Maybe it's because all the government forms are already printed with two signature lines. Maybe it's because two worked so well for us for so long. But that hasn't been the reality for several decades, and it's time for the law to catch up.
While we closely monitor how gay rights are granted and taken away, we pay almost no attention to the fact that stepparents are in the same legal limbo. Despite being ubiquitous, step-relationships are rarely recognized by the law. In most states, stepparents are considered "legal strangers" even if they have cared for and supported a stepchild for years. They have almost no official responsibility and barely any rights.
What kind of rights are they deprived of? Some are remarkably banal. For instance a stepparent can't sign a child's school report card or field-trip permission form. Others are significant. A stepfather can't include his stepdaughter on his family health insurance plan, for example. And she can't inherit from him when he dies.
In the last few years, state family courts have tried to accommodate the stepparents and stepchildren who appear before them, without granting so much that it subtracts rights from a biological parent. In
So a stepmother can take a month off work to care for her sick stepson, thanks to the federal law on Family Leave. But if she has to take her stepson to the emergency room, state law might prevent her from authorizing medical treatment. And if her son ends up dying due to hospital negligence, she can't sue.
The legal field is sitting on a huge time bomb. One-third of Americans are just one unfortunate circumstance away from ending up in court demanding their rights — where they will be told that those relationships aren't real, and don't count.
The U.S. Supreme Court has never been pressed to rule whether a stepparent is a real parent, and if so, under what conditions. But when it declined to review
Over the next 10 years, there will be an explosion of cases testing just how "real" stepparents are. This will never get the attention surrounding same-sex cases, because stepfamilies are just as populous in red states as blue, and no politician can use it to their advantage. Nor are stepfamilies subjected to the same degree of prejudice. Stepparents might be vilified, but they are vilified one at a time — not as a class. However, the systematic bias against them is very real.
Just as the law prefers parents to be one male and one female, the law prefers to limit the number of parents to two. Maybe this is because two is the number of people it takes to make a child in the first place. Maybe it's because all the government forms are already printed with two signature lines. Maybe it's because two worked so well for us for so long. But that hasn't been the reality for several decades, and it's time for the law to catch up.
*********************************************************************
I have to disagree with this author completely about the real ramifications of this ruling, although I myself mentioned step persons in my initial post, the real issue for me was all the OTHER people who could be potently included in future defacto parental rulings: from boyfriends to babysitters the potential is endless. Visitation or even eventual custody of children is worth money to people today, not just as regards child support but many taxes and other public benefits (including some citizenship benefits) accrue to the custodian/guardian of a child. Thus, children need to be protected from the unscrupluous attempting to use custody of them for advantage.
Step persons are already considered to have rights including legal and financial responsibilities for step children in many states in the union. I know in
In some sense this is fair as a person knows what they are getting into when they marry someone who already has children. But this defacto parent business can now expand this limited rights/responsibilities of step persons to many others now and that’s the real serious issue here. It’s everyone ELSE who can now fall under the defacto parental umbrella, all depending upon the whim of a Family Court Judge.
Additionally as the attorneys for the child’s mother pointed out it could mean an ever changing number of people being defined as a defacto parent in a child’s life. Especially considering how many divorces, live in arrangements, etc., that parents appear to be entering into today.
The inconsistencies of court rulings which range from family to criminal court issues is another big problem I think. As we can’t count on any ruling being consistently applied, no matter what level it has been handed down from. It seems to always be open to potential re-interpretation by another lower court judge. We can’t even count on the US Supreme Court being consistent as we saw with this ruling. As they just refused to hear the case; even through it appears to directly contradict the Supremes own past ruling in the Troxel case.
Supposedly Troxel was now settled law and had changed the landscape (as many kept saying) re-establishing the supremacy of the parental rights of all fit parents to make the decisions about who they would allow in a child’s life, not the courts.
That assumption has now been tossed out the window.
I mean people have CHOICES to legalize their status with a child BEFORE the end of the relationship with the child’s other parent. Adoption is, and has been for a while now, available for a second parent as an option and this includes gay parents. I’m curious as to why people who wish to be parents to children wait until the relationship with the child’s other parent is on the rocks before exploring this option? They appear to want to retroactively ‘do-over’ their choice after the relationship ends and this should not be allowed. Not to mention the fact that this leaves open the potential for Judges to force you to be a defacto parent after having a relationship with a child’s parent. What about that happening? Should people be forced to pay child support for children that aren’t theirs (which can range anywhere from 30% to 50% of your income if you factor in all the add ons not included in guideline support, such as uncovered medical and your prorated share of child care) just because you were in a relationship with the child’s parent for some length of time?
We had a similar situation a year ago to the day practically on the east coast, where a New Jersey Judge ruled that a lesbian could be placed on a birth certificate because …“ In New Jersey, a lesbian or gay man applying for adoption must go through a lengthy process that, according to one attorney who argued on behalf of the lesbian mothers, takes between six months and two years…rather then apply for a second parent adoption, LoCicero petitioned to be considered as a full legal parent.”
http://womenasmothers.blogspot.com/2005_06_01_womenasmothers_archive.html
So rather then wait the six months to two years that an adoption would have taken, instead let’s just start engaging in all sorts of experimental social engineering based upon court rulings that could have all sorts of insidious results down the road for us as a society.
That makes sense.
NOT.
Let’s stick with the definition we already have of a parent and those who wish to legalize the relationship between themselves and a child for any reason can chose to adopt. If the other parent objects, then you can take it as an early warning sign that will alert you to potential problems with the relationship BEFORE you become overly invested in a relationship with a child, which is ultimately not yours. I mean where would we be if every babysitter, teacher, neighbor or school busdriver decided to invest themselves emotionally in every child they encountered during their ordinary workweek and thus were entitled to file for custody based upon this irresponsible and childlike behavior?
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
False Analogy
Men As Beasts of Burden
Marty Nemko
There are five widows for every widower.
Kevin, 37, is a computer programmer, making $80,000 a year, $48,000 after taxes. His wife, Lisa, stays home to take care of their two-year old. She is pregnant with another child, and eager for them to buy a home. Kevin doesn’t like being a programmer, but fears that a career change will mean a salary cut.
I asked Kevin, “Is owning a home important to you?” He replied, “It’s very important to Lisa.” I asked him how he felt about having the second child. He sighed, “Okay, but Lisa really wants it.”
I asked, “When you first called me, you said you feel the stress is killing you. Should you be shouldering all the family’s financial responsibilities?” He pursed his lips: “Lisa reminds me that before we got married, I agreed to have two kids. She says, and I guess I agree, that to bring our kids up right and maintain a home is a full-time job. And she doesn’t have my earning capacity.” Kevin rubbed his head.
Over the past 17 years, I have been career coach to 1,500 middle and upper class women and to 500 middle-to-upper class men. Because of our relationships’ confidentiality, I have learned much about what women really think on a number of issues.
Most surprising to me, is that at least half of the women, including many graduates of elite colleges, either don’t want an income-earning job or will only work part-time in an unusually pleasant job.
A recent New York Times article suggests that my clients are not an anomaly. It reported that the number of stay-at-home moms has increased 13 percent in less than a decade, and among working women, 2/3 work part-time. This is true even of graduates of prestigious colleges, women who were bestowed a fiercely competed-for slot at an elite college on the assumption they would use that coveted degree to make a big difference in the world.
Few of those women’s application essays indicated they planned to be housewives. Yet among Stanford’s class of ’81, in just their first decade after graduation, 57 percent of mothers spent at least a year at home full-time. One in four stayed home full-time for three or more years. A survey of the women from the Harvard Business School classes of 1981, 1985, and 1991 found that only 38 percent of all women—even if childless--were working full time. And beyond the elite colleges, among white men, 95% of all MBAs in the
And “full-time” doesn’t mean the same for men and women. Among my 1,500 female clients and many friends, very few are willing to sacrifice work/life balance to work the 60+ hours a week it normally takes to rise to the top of a profession.
Yet women’s groups complain that women are “underrepresented” in the power professions: senior executives, professors, etc., because of a glass ceiling they claim is erected by men.
Of course, there are many ambitious, achieving women who are men’s equals or superiors. But many of my female clients and friends prefer the life of a housewife, perhaps augmented by a pleasant little part-time job, even if it means their husband, whom they claim to love, must work long, hard hours on jobs few women would consider. For example, the vast majority of people who work in iron foundries, coalmines, and other clanging, polluted environments are men. According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, 92 percent of workplace deaths occur to men.
Dan, a client of mine (name changed) avoided breathing carcinogenic air, but his life is still at risk. He has two masters degrees in counseling, but in the big city, where it seems there’s a therapist under every rock, hasn’t been able to land a job as a counselor. He has a few private clients, which in total earn him $6,000 a year. He adds $8,000 as a mock patient in a medical school, and at night, Dan, 54, moonlights as a waiter at a large restaurant. He says, “It’s almost ¼ mile from the kitchen to the farthest table, so when I get home at one in the morning, I’m exhausted. But I’m still so wired, I need a couple of glasses of wine to get to sleep. If I’m lucky, I get five hours of sleep before I have to get up again.”
Dan’s wife Denise, a Cornell graduate, is 47 and says she’s a musician. But in their years together, her net income has averaged just $800 a year. When Dan encourages Denise to get a job that pays, she objects:“ But I love being a musician. I’m trying to make a living at it.” He keeps urging her to get a paying job, but after a while, he gives up. He can’t make her get a job.
Meanwhile, Dan continues to drag himself through life like an ox yoked to a plow, a beast of burden. “I don’t know how long I can keep this up.” Statistically, he’s right. Medical science is unequivocal that stress and overwork kills. No doubt, that contributes to their being five widows for every widower.
To be fair, many men prefer their wives to stay home, but often, the impetus comes from the woman. Many women use dubious arguments to convince their husbands that they should have, at most, a part-time job:
It’s better for the children. Yes, on average, kids with a stay-at-home-mom do somewhat better, but that is largely because couples that can afford to have mom staying at home are, on average, from a higher socioeconomic class, which confers many other benefits on the child.
A number of studies indicate that being a working mom doesn't hurt and may even help the child. For example, the most recent study (July 2003) Caring and Counting: The impact of mothers' employment on family relationships by Tracey Reynolds, Claire Callender and Rosalind Edwards, reports, "...the mother's work had a positive impact on their family relationships. The mother's employment provided skills and resources that meant they could meet their children's emotional, developmental and material needs better. Their relationship with their partner was enhanced because they shared the financial burden of providing for their family and had more common interests." The book, Ask The Children, is based on in-depth interviews with 600 parents and more than 1,000 children in the third through twelfth grades from diverse backgrounds. It found that "having a working mother is not predictive of how children assess their mothers' parenting skills, based on a number of attributes strongly linked to children's healthy development and school success. These include 'being someone I can go to when I am upset' and 'knowing what is really going on in my life.'" This study's results were reported to the public in a cover story in Working Mother magazine called "Hey Moms, Drop the Guilt!" Millions of children with working moms do just fine. What counts most is quality time: reasonably consistent, loving, limit-setting but not punitive parenting, even if it begins after the workday.
Lest you think I haven’t practiced what I preach, my wife went back to work full-time, nine weeks after our daughter was born, and she turned out just fine: well-adjusted, voted UCLA’s outstanding undergraduate student, whereafter she got a White House internship, after which she went to Yale Law School, is now a successful attorney and about to marry a wonderful guy.
And even if a child accrues some advantage from having a stay-at-home mom, that advantage is usually more than outweighed by the pressure added to the husband’s life and the lifestyle decrement that comes from the lack of a second income. One such decrement is that men who must earn all the family income are precluded from considering rewarding but not lucrative careers such as teaching, and most jobs in non-profits, the arts, journalism, etc.
Adding to the unfairness, women, on average, are more motivated than their husbands to have children to begin with. The man is often pressured, subtly or not subtly, into parenthood, with all its added financial and time demands.
Taking care of the kids and home is a full-time job. These women stretch homemaking into a full-time job with activities far less beneficial than a second income to the family and certainly to her husband’s health and quality of life: preparing home-cooked dinners most nights, sitting with other moms watching a playgroup when a babysitter could do that, etc.
Being a homemaker is at least as stressful as being in the work world. These women point to their having to deal with a frequently crying baby or claim that being at home is a three-ring circus. But fact is, a significant percentage of many stay-at-home moms' days are spent on low-stress tasks such as supermarket shopping, playing with the baby, making dinner, and chatting with friends while baby is napping.
That life is much less stressful than most out-of-home jobs, which are filled with unpredictable commutes, ever increasing workloads because of the relentless downsizing, bosses with unrealistic expectations, co-workers who don’t pull their weight, and tough tasks, which if not completed satisfactorily can result in criticism or even firing.
I don’t have your earning power. Dr. Warren Farrell’s research debunks the flawed research that claims women earn 79 cents on the dollar. When controlled for hours on the job, performance evaluations, and years of experience, women earn $1.01 for every dollar men earn.
And the reason women have fewer years of experience is that they disproportionately elect to stay home with their children, or even if they work “full-time,” they work far fewer hours than their male counterparts so they can spend more time with their kids or on their avocations. Many more women than men —full-time workers and not-- ensure they have time for yoga, get-togethers with friends, art class, gardening, and visits to the day spa. Since 2000, despite the economic downturn, the number of spa visits nationwide, the vast majority of which are made by women, has doubled!
Women don’t just spend on day spas. They’re, overall, the bigger spenders. Yes, men buy more tools and technotoys but women, even when they contribute little or nothing to the family income, are the predominant spenders: clothing, jewelry, therapy, home redecorating of no interest to the man, etc. Most shopaholics are women. Every expenditure loads additional pressure onto the primary breadwinner, which is usually the husband.
Most of my male clients have accepted their plight of having to work, work, work at unrewarding, even dangerous jobs. Biology, parents, and society have programmed men to be the hunter, the provider, to keep their nose to the grindstone, no matter what. Too many wives only encourage it. Just today, a client of mine who earns more than $200,000 a year as a not-partner attorney at a major law firm, exclaimed, “If I don’t push NOW to make partner, my wife will kill me!”
Usually, the wife won’t kill the husband, but often will divorce him, at least in part because “he wasn't a good provider.” And most courts reward her with custody of the child and a requirement that the father pay child support and/or alimony.
When I ask a male client to step back and think about it, many of them realize that their wives have tried—usually successfully--to subtly or not so subtly coerce them into being the primary or sole breadwinner, the beast of burden. Those women make the above arguments, plus use manipulative techniques such as crying, guilt-tripping, screaming, avoiding the topic of getting a job, and forever promising to look for work but making feeble efforts.
Meanwhile, many men live bleak lives: work 10+ hours, commute home, and drop into the couch exhausted. And their reward: an early grave. Despite obesity being more prevalent among women, there are five widows for every widower. Yet all we hear about is another fundraiser for breast cancer.
If a husband hasn't done so already, he should consider having an open discussion with his wife about work and money. For example:
- “Will buying a house or having another child put too much financial pressure on us?”
- “If we decide to make those high-cost expenditures, do we want to put all the financial burden on one partner so the other can stay home to raise the child? Or should it be divided more evenly?”
- “Should I refuse to work at an unrewarding high-stress or dangerous job?”
The elite colleges should issue the following exhortation to their students, male and female: "As you well know, the diploma you will receive from this institution will open the doors of influence: from medical research to non-profit directorship, from corporate leadership to stewardship of the arts. In accepting one of the precious few student seats at this institution, you tacitly accept the responsibility to society to make the most of that coveted degree. We encourage you to aim high, to use that degree to make the biggest difference you can for humankind. As important as being a good parent is, you don't need an elite degree to do that."
(I changed a few irrelevant details about my clients to protect their anonymity.)
Dr. Nemko is available to speak on gender, race, career, and parenting issues. Contact him at mnemko@earthlink.net or 510-655-2777. 400+ of his published writings are free on www.martynemko.com.
http://www.martynemko.com/articles.shtm
At my first reading of this article I was extremely annoyed at the author. First, because clearly this was a vicious attack against stay-at-home mothers (who in my opinion even one of them is worth dozens of Nemko’s version of a mother). I mean dumping your kid off with a babysitter when they aren’t even 3 months old yet is not something to brag about and to paint this as being a viable and good choice for most families (even if they have other options such as working p/t, becoming a SAHM, working out of their home, etc.,) is laughable. Families do this if they have too, it should not be their first and only choice.
Not to mention that the biggest problem facing industrialized civiliations is not figuring out how to keep every women gainfully employed within her field after graduating them from college (that probably ranks as problem #10,082, coming in right after addressing the problem of meteorites hitting city pedestrians as they’re out walking their dogs) . In other words not a very significant issue in the general scheme of things. The more important issue remains how to convince most women in western civilization to say yes to having children when they have 1001 reasons to say no. Otherwise at the rate most of western societies are going, there won’t be any of us around to care about either issue.
Just for the information of the ignorant, the whole mother/child bonding process is not just for the sake of the child, but for the sake of the mother, as well as everyone else in society who benefits when mothers bond with children. Since men contribute little or nothing to the process of bearing life (that burden or honor has been chosen for women to carry alone) that means most women should have at least two kids (one to replace her and one to replace her husband since he can’t replace himself). This just to keep a nation’s population numbers stable. Additionally we have to factor in the lack of gender-neutralized feminists adding any human capital to the pool; which means some women might have to bear three children depending upon how many of these gender neutrals are ultimately spawn.
Now properly bonding with her first child probably convinces a mother to go on to have a few more other then just the first one. As opposed to having her charge back to work 9 weeks after delivery, which probably contributes to her view of a child as nothing more then an expensive burden to everyone, including herself. Something to do once just for the heck of it, (maybe, or not at all ever), with the ultimate goal being to move on afterwards to more important things such as getting back to work as quickly as possible
This article contributes to that attitude.
The second annoyance was that I picked up many analogies within the article which painted a false picture of the professional men the writer was referencing. As no educated man today works like a “beast of burden” in our society, none. This is a clear exaggeration of what our society requires from professional men today. As for the most part a professional’s ten-hour day can easily include a two-hour lunch, another hour or so of general goofing off on the phone, internet, coffer klatches, etc., and a vast number of meetings which extend into nothing more then general gab fests which serve no useful business purpose whatsoever.
Painting even 10 hours of this kind of activity as “Men as Beasts of Burden” is a joke.
Once again, I find men who inhabit the professional classes of western civilization reaching into the archives and coming up with old statistics or statistics of other classes/races of men and trying to claim them as their own. Yes, there was a time in our history that men did work as ‘beasts of burden’ but that was the same period where women died in childbirth, before the days of safe and reliable birth control, just plain worn out from one pregnancy/delivery after another.
These times have long past for both sexes.
Just because the mother’s life is somewhat easier then the father’s after she goes through the initial inconvenience and disfigurement of her body, the painful medical procedures that go on for months and the final god-awful 10 to 20 hours of being a bleeding and bloody mess in order to finally deliver a child (while, I might add, men sit there contributing absolutely NOTHING to the entire process) doesn’t mean she isn’t contributing something which is of equal value (if not more) as going to work everyday.
One can make the case (and I frequently do) that a mother is contributing something of more value then a working person. Since unless you are discovering the cure for cancer or saving the world from an alien invasion, you are quite replaceable in whatever job you have, whereas a woman in her role as a mother is not. The ancient Spartans considered pregnancy and childbearing to be the equivalent of what male soldiers contributed to their societies on the front lines in times of war. Thus they considered a woman to have fulfilled her patriotic duty to her society after having children and required no wartime service from her. Now considering that joining the military is voluntary in all of the west today and few men actually join the military anymore, one could say that women are still fulfilling our duty, while MOST men are not.
The little bit you are asked to do which is basically working an ordinary JOB seems to be too much. Now you are comparing yourselves to “beasts of burden”. Please that is such baloney. Men are actually responsible for most of this immigration mess we are in today, as your refusal to do any really hard-dirty jobs is what has led to men from other countries coming in here to do the jobs that are really ‘beasts of burden’ jobs.
Sorry if men don’t wish to hear that, it’s just tough.
Take it up with God, evolution or nature if you don’t like the way it worked out. Women bear the next generation and receive the honor for this, or curse as some would say.
Again, you don’t like it, tough.
Regarding the fact that men die today sooner then women, well that happens quite simply because you do more dangerous things. As even when men come out of the military, for instance, many of you then go on to getting killed in motorcycle accidents. Clearly motorcycling, wind surfing, mountain climbing, white water rafting, driving cars fast, these are all sports men primarily do and it leads to a higher death rate for them (not to mention that more of you are lawbreakers, drug and alcohol abusers) but I’m just talking about the ‘fun’ things you do that get you all killed sooner then women.
It used to be thought men died sooner due to wars, but even when you are NOT in wars, men continue doing the same sorts of dangerous things that keep your death statistics high.
Clearly it’s an issue of male dominance.
The same with working many of the most dangerous jobs in the work force by the way. The men who will join the armed forces generally are the same ones who will join the police force, fire department, state police, etc., in civilian life. Even though many men claim they are forced into dangerous jobs, a lot of these men profile themselves into dangerous jobs.
Additionally as I saw above, I find men still do many sorts of dangerous things for recreation, even if they are professionals and their jobs are not dangerous.
For instance, I watch many history shows that have men doing, as a hobby not a job: dregging up old mines and salvaging old rusted mining equipment for repair and showing to others, pulling up old WWI and II planes/ships from the bottom of lakes or seas to refurbish, again, just for fun. Recreating historic battle fields and fighting the fights over again. JUST FOR FUN…and who are most of the people who play paintball…MEN. Again, can be dangerous but men do this for recreation.
So don’t act like men die from being forced into dangerous jobs…as even when you don’t have to take dangerous jobs, you place yourselves in danger by pursuing dangerous hobbies.
Another additional point which I have heard many men commenting upon especially around Mothers’ Day when your jealousy of mothers becomes more obvious: it makes no difference whether or not every lower life form on the planet also gives birth in a similar manner as human mothers do, since lesser life forms operate on instinct and have no choice in the matter. Thus, it takes nothing away from human mothers who CHOSE to bear a new life and bring it into the world. As many women can (and frequently do today) opt out of the whole bearing children situation just by using birth control for their entire reproductive lives.
So never assume this is something women HAVE to do and will continue doing, if they continue receiving this disrespectful treatment. It’s not a given by any means that a good number of women will continue bearing the nation’s future generations, not by any means. As it’s not equivalent to a bowel movement which is necessary biological function. Giving birth is not in the same category, not since the advent of cheap, reliable and safe birth control. It is a choice women make not a bodily function we have no control of, not anymore anyway.
AND since we are being totally honest about usefulness in social roles, I must add that the ONLY socially constructed useful thing men ever provided is the ‘backup and support’ to the women of their societies which allowed a mother to be home, having her children and raising them. Thus if, for whatever reason, men have decided they no longer wish to do this, I can see you rapidly losing any value to the societies you reside within.
Between the higher crime rates, endless civil unrest and wars over nothing that men constantly generate amongst each other in every society, people can easily decide that a world with more woman and fewer men can exist very nicely on the planet. Remember women have already shown that they can live in a world run by a few alpha males in government, as our voting patterns clearly demonstrate: we are not adverse to men being in charge even when women are the majority of voters…
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Defacto Parentage Rulings Continue Stripping Away Mothers' Legal Rights
Justices Shy Away From Gay Parent’s Case
May 15 10:32 AM
By GINA HOLLAND
Associated Press Writer
The Supreme Court refused Monday to block a gay woman from seeking parental rights to a child she had helped raise with her partner.
Justices could have used the case to clarify the rights of gays in child custody disputes stemming from nontraditional families.
They declined, without comment, to disturb a ruling of
The case had brought a contentious issue to a court that has shied away from gay rights disputes.
Lawyers for the girl's biological mother, Page
Carvin's attorneys had said the court has never agreed to hear a case involving parenting or visitation disputes arising from same-sex relationships, a recognition "that state courts can best provide the case by case attention these matters require."
Carvin and
The couple broke up in 2001 and the following year, when the girl was 7, Carvin was barred from seeing the girl. After Carvin went to court,
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/05/15/D8HK92F80.html
Interesting this was the same court that couldn’t allow a grandmother in Washington State to have overnight visitation (after her son, the childrens’ biological father, died and the mother married another man) as that was considered to be a real invasion of parental rights (the infamous Troxel case from Washington State) but they don’t think now that allowing a totally unrelated person to have visitation and probably also be eligible for custody, that’s not considered invasive of parental rights…
So this has lessened the negotiating ability of ALL women to negotiate a marriage...
So perhaps this risk of mother losing her kids to some defacto jackass, who invested nothing in the relationship intially, but sees a way to either be spiteful or get some financial advantage by having custody of your kids, well this might finally put a stop to women being so careless about who they allow in their homes.
So every cloud has a silver lining.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Well it seems the New York State Presumptive Joint Custody bill has been tabled for the time being. It appears that in spite of its many supporters, especially the thousands of New York State mothers who have lost custody of their children, NYNOW, which has laid claim to being women's representative on this matter, lobbied to have the bill withheld from the floor so it never came up for a vote.
It's odd really. How NOW as a national organization has self-selected themselves to represent women, even though few women even identify themselves as feminists anymore. Yet a group such as NOW, which supports many radical policies that few women support, routinely speaks out for women on so many issues. One good example is NOW's support of gender neutral custody placements, which treat mothers exactly just like everyone else in custody hearings, not just fathers, but grandparents, step persons, former boyfriends, etc., There is no recognition whatsoever of the mother/child bond, the greater risk/investment mothers make in bearing children, the emotional damage done to mothers when they have their kids taken from them for no other reason sometimes except men wanting to avoid paying child support.
Or how NOW's President, Kim Gandy, supported women being placed on the front lines in combat. Even though research done after the Gulf War, already established that even the best women with special forces training still cannot beat the average man in combat. So unless God or nature made some quick and dirty evolutionary changes in men and women over the last decade or so since that report, the issue should have been settled. But, of course, it isn't settled because NOW keeps bringing it up again.
Yet this organization continues pushing themselves into the forefront of every issue impacting women and claiming to represent women.
Interesting.
NOW's own research claims that when parents litigate in family court over 70% of fathers are awarded custody (this obviously includes abusive men since NOW also claims abusive men win custody at the same rate as ordinary men). Yet they are fighting tooth and nail over a law which would automatically award Joint Custody to both parents (unless abusives behavior was indicated previously) and to possibly avoid court altogether. Just like NOW supports keeping fault divorce in New York State because they claim women are badly treated in court. Thus they need this 'power' to deny a husband the divorce in order to give them some leverage in the process. So, if we are to believe NOW's own research and stance on similar family issues, their stand against this presumptive Joint Custody bill doesn't really make any sense. As they are advocating for a continuation of the same court system having power over women, which they claims discriminates against us?
Huh????
What's the point?
NYNOW's President claims she is for a system: presumptive custody for the primary caretaker, that was just ended a few years ago in the last state that it existed in: West Virginia. Interestingly enough I never heard any other feminist or feminist group come out in support of this presumption before. Actually many feminists were on the public policy boards of the states that put an end to this presumption because according to these 'progressives' (and feminists agreed) this primary caretaker presumption winded up continuing the status quo of too many mothers having custody of their children. It wasn't gender neutral enough or counter-cultural enough. Quite frankly it didn't push the vast social engineering experiment far enough that people INCLUDING FEMINISTS wanted to see take root in our society, which was more women working, in the armed forces, out doing other things while ignoring their children. That's why the presumption was killed off and feminists were complicit in that.
So I find it a little hard to believe that a feminist organization like NOW is really supportive of bringing it back now. I think throwing this suggestion out there is really nothing but an attempt to convince desperate mothers that NOW is really concerned about them, after ignoring us for over a decade or so. As millions of mothers lost custody of their children while NOW not only said nothing; but frequently its gender neutralized feminists supporters made the custody rulings that stole children from their mothers.
It's just more theatre, another side show diverting mothers from the reality of what's going on.
As the reality is that in the 70s about 400,000 men had custody of children. Today US Census numbers reflect 2.3 million men having custody, not to mention a couple of million custodial paternal grandparents. So all this happened to women on feminisn's watch, while feminisn was at it's zenith. So don't tell me feminists didn't support this going on. They are the strongest supporters of mothers losing custody of their children and as I have said many times on this blog, some of the most vicious custody rulings against mothers have come from gender neutralized female Judges.
The only other explanation that comes to mind and can explain NOW's inconsistent stance on these issues is that NOW basically doesn't know what it's doing. Since from state to state they have a different policy on various issues, sometimes even supporting some law or policy that directly contradicts their own research findings in the same state.
Perhaps NOW is spreading itself too thin and getting involved with issues that have nothing to do with their primary directive, thus losing focus. I know that I frequently (as a past member of NOW) get notices from them about gay marriage, anti-war protests, marches about various racial incidents, foreign policies, domestic initiatives, etc., Meanwhile in a country where over 300,000 incidents of parental abductions take place every year, many of them instigated by men in an attempt to get custody of infants in order to avoid paying child support and millions of mothers having lost custody of their children, I have NEVER once received anything from NOW addressing that issue.
I think NOW should either change its name or get some new blood in the organization so they can re-focus on their mission. Since if they think women are more concerned about any of the above issues which NOW has fixated on then about their own children, they are sadly mistaken. As the US Census has shown, many women are beginning to retreat into their homes as they become mothers, much of this is probably a reaction to witnessing so many of their female friends and relatives losing custody of their children. Gender neutralized feminists appear to have given an effective club now to all men to use against all mothers and since most of us will become mothers, that means a club that can be used against MOST women. Eventually this will mean fewer women overall in the public sphere, so the women who remain have much too lose.
Feminists better remember this, as they continue ignoring the concerns of ordinary mothers thinking the support of women is a given, no matter what. As I didn't see too much concern from ordinary women when these feminists lost what they assumed was a safe seat for one of their own on the Supreme Court. Just because these gender neutralized feminists have no children to worry about does not mean that they can safely ignore the concerns of mothers. AND I'm not talking about this bs of worrying about women half a world away while ignoring mothers issues right here. If feminists think those cushy jobs and other perks they have secured for themselves will remain unaffected, while millions of mothers lose their children due to their machinations, they are in for a big shock. Women can begin to forego the educational and career opportunities feminism won for them and just begin returning to the home again, with their husbands telling them how to vote. We can wind up with a world which once again discriminates in favor of MEN because they are the primary supporters of families, while feminists stand with their noses pressed up against the window pane of society, only allowed to look at the educational and career opportunities passing them by... and no one else will care.
It's odd really. How NOW as a national organization has self-selected themselves to represent women, even though few women even identify themselves as feminists anymore. Yet a group such as NOW, which supports many radical policies that few women support, routinely speaks out for women on so many issues. One good example is NOW's support of gender neutral custody placements, which treat mothers exactly just like everyone else in custody hearings, not just fathers, but grandparents, step persons, former boyfriends, etc., There is no recognition whatsoever of the mother/child bond, the greater risk/investment mothers make in bearing children, the emotional damage done to mothers when they have their kids taken from them for no other reason sometimes except men wanting to avoid paying child support.
Or how NOW's President, Kim Gandy, supported women being placed on the front lines in combat. Even though research done after the Gulf War, already established that even the best women with special forces training still cannot beat the average man in combat. So unless God or nature made some quick and dirty evolutionary changes in men and women over the last decade or so since that report, the issue should have been settled. But, of course, it isn't settled because NOW keeps bringing it up again.
Yet this organization continues pushing themselves into the forefront of every issue impacting women and claiming to represent women.
Interesting.
NOW's own research claims that when parents litigate in family court over 70% of fathers are awarded custody (this obviously includes abusive men since NOW also claims abusive men win custody at the same rate as ordinary men). Yet they are fighting tooth and nail over a law which would automatically award Joint Custody to both parents (unless abusives behavior was indicated previously) and to possibly avoid court altogether. Just like NOW supports keeping fault divorce in New York State because they claim women are badly treated in court. Thus they need this 'power' to deny a husband the divorce in order to give them some leverage in the process. So, if we are to believe NOW's own research and stance on similar family issues, their stand against this presumptive Joint Custody bill doesn't really make any sense. As they are advocating for a continuation of the same court system having power over women, which they claims discriminates against us?
Huh????
What's the point?
NYNOW's President claims she is for a system: presumptive custody for the primary caretaker, that was just ended a few years ago in the last state that it existed in: West Virginia. Interestingly enough I never heard any other feminist or feminist group come out in support of this presumption before. Actually many feminists were on the public policy boards of the states that put an end to this presumption because according to these 'progressives' (and feminists agreed) this primary caretaker presumption winded up continuing the status quo of too many mothers having custody of their children. It wasn't gender neutral enough or counter-cultural enough. Quite frankly it didn't push the vast social engineering experiment far enough that people INCLUDING FEMINISTS wanted to see take root in our society, which was more women working, in the armed forces, out doing other things while ignoring their children. That's why the presumption was killed off and feminists were complicit in that.
So I find it a little hard to believe that a feminist organization like NOW is really supportive of bringing it back now. I think throwing this suggestion out there is really nothing but an attempt to convince desperate mothers that NOW is really concerned about them, after ignoring us for over a decade or so. As millions of mothers lost custody of their children while NOW not only said nothing; but frequently its gender neutralized feminists supporters made the custody rulings that stole children from their mothers.
It's just more theatre, another side show diverting mothers from the reality of what's going on.
As the reality is that in the 70s about 400,000 men had custody of children. Today US Census numbers reflect 2.3 million men having custody, not to mention a couple of million custodial paternal grandparents. So all this happened to women on feminisn's watch, while feminisn was at it's zenith. So don't tell me feminists didn't support this going on. They are the strongest supporters of mothers losing custody of their children and as I have said many times on this blog, some of the most vicious custody rulings against mothers have come from gender neutralized female Judges.
The only other explanation that comes to mind and can explain NOW's inconsistent stance on these issues is that NOW basically doesn't know what it's doing. Since from state to state they have a different policy on various issues, sometimes even supporting some law or policy that directly contradicts their own research findings in the same state.
Perhaps NOW is spreading itself too thin and getting involved with issues that have nothing to do with their primary directive, thus losing focus. I know that I frequently (as a past member of NOW) get notices from them about gay marriage, anti-war protests, marches about various racial incidents, foreign policies, domestic initiatives, etc., Meanwhile in a country where over 300,000 incidents of parental abductions take place every year, many of them instigated by men in an attempt to get custody of infants in order to avoid paying child support and millions of mothers having lost custody of their children, I have NEVER once received anything from NOW addressing that issue.
I think NOW should either change its name or get some new blood in the organization so they can re-focus on their mission. Since if they think women are more concerned about any of the above issues which NOW has fixated on then about their own children, they are sadly mistaken. As the US Census has shown, many women are beginning to retreat into their homes as they become mothers, much of this is probably a reaction to witnessing so many of their female friends and relatives losing custody of their children. Gender neutralized feminists appear to have given an effective club now to all men to use against all mothers and since most of us will become mothers, that means a club that can be used against MOST women. Eventually this will mean fewer women overall in the public sphere, so the women who remain have much too lose.
Feminists better remember this, as they continue ignoring the concerns of ordinary mothers thinking the support of women is a given, no matter what. As I didn't see too much concern from ordinary women when these feminists lost what they assumed was a safe seat for one of their own on the Supreme Court. Just because these gender neutralized feminists have no children to worry about does not mean that they can safely ignore the concerns of mothers. AND I'm not talking about this bs of worrying about women half a world away while ignoring mothers issues right here. If feminists think those cushy jobs and other perks they have secured for themselves will remain unaffected, while millions of mothers lose their children due to their machinations, they are in for a big shock. Women can begin to forego the educational and career opportunities feminism won for them and just begin returning to the home again, with their husbands telling them how to vote. We can wind up with a world which once again discriminates in favor of MEN because they are the primary supporters of families, while feminists stand with their noses pressed up against the window pane of society, only allowed to look at the educational and career opportunities passing them by... and no one else will care.
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