In response to Polish Knight's comment about St. Valentine I have re-published the following post. St. Valentine was from what was called the Eastern empire (Constantinople). He lived in a period long after what we know of as Rome had already collapsed (about 300 or so years later). Yet, even in ancient Rome soldiers, on active duty, were not permitted to marry BUT after serving were expected to do so. That's probably why one of the punishments Augustus Caesar proposed was that former soldiers would be sent to the far provinces in Germany to serve if they refused marriage.
Additionally, I also wanted to head off the usual 'marriage strike' posts which I predict someone will begin shortly.
I have said this many times but it bears repeating: there is no marriage strike being organized by men, as men have never wanted to marry in any time, in any place. Thus men not wishing to marry is historically very normal behavior for them. Rather it is women whose behavior is changing if the marriage rates are actually falling in our society.
As hard as it is for men to believe, women are actually the ones making these changes if we are to believe this statistic.
*************************************************************************************
There has been certain accusations bandied about lately concerning exactly who and what is responsible for the demise of marriage. We have heard blame being affixed to Marxists, feminists, Marxist-feminist, single mothers, mothers, alimony, paternity fraud, welfare, Maggie Gallagher and numerous other culprits all attempting to fix the finger of blame on some persons, other then the ones actually responsible.
This is an important point, as many would like to blame single mothers, in particular, as another excuse to continue their campaign against mothers and their children.
Thus, let us rewind the videotape and view the historic evidence BEFORE we continue.
News Release. Date 58 BC
Information courtesy of: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/suet-augustus-rolfe.html
For those who don’t know this is 58 years before the birth of Christ.
Repeat 58 years BEFORE the birth of Christ.
He [Augustus Caesar] revised existing laws and enacted some new ones, for example, on extravagance, on adultery and chastity, on bribery, and on the encouragement of marriage among the various classes of citizens. Having made somewhat more stringent changes in the last of these than in the others, he was unable to carry it out because of an open revolt against its provisions, (Translation: Men were in open revolt attempting to have Emperor repeal the new laws which were passed to force them to begat their children within lawful marriages. Previously men spent all their time on slave girls begetting illegitimate children, which, of course, said children promptly became a burden on Rome. This was 58 years before Christ was born.) until he had abolished or mitigated a part of the penalties, besides increasing the rewards and allowing a three years' exemption from the obligation to marry after the death of a husband or wife. When the knights even then persistently called for its repeal at a public show, (Translation: Men started a riot actually in an attempt to force Augustus to repeal the taxes, fines and other threats he used against them to force them into procreating within lawful marriages) he sent for the children of Germanicus and exhibited them, some in his own lap and some in their father's, intimating by his gestures and expression that they should not refuse to follow that young man's example. (Translation: Augustus attempted to use Roman war hero and his children to encourage other young men to enter into lawful marriages and begat children within them; as opposed to their practice of having children all over the place and dumping them off on the Roman state to care for. We have no evidence that it worked.) And on finding that the spirit of the law was being evaded by betrothal with immature girls and by frequent changes of wives, he shortened the duration of betrothals and set a limit on divorce. (Translation: Men began doing everything possible to subvert the intent of the law, thus Augustus finally had to set even stricter limits on their behavior in his continuing attempts to force them into building their families within lawful marriages. Again we have no evidence that it worked)
Fast Forward to today: February 12, 2005
2063 years LATER…
We now see that ONE MAN has finally appeared who claims to be able to decisively fix the blame for the ongoing “Marriage Strike” that men have been on for the last 2063 years.
It’s Maggie Gallagher’s fault.
See below for details.
Maggie Gallagher is in hot water over her $21,500 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services, money received while her editorials were singing the praises of the Bush Administration’s marriage initiative. Sounding slightly clueless, Gallagher explained, “Did I violate journalistic ethics by not disclosing it? I don’t know. You tell me.”
But Gallagher’s problems go beyond this ethical faux pas. While I support traditional marriage, there’s a fundamental problem with Maggie Gallagher’s approach.
Here’s Maggie’s rendition of “How Do I Love Thee?”: “Let me count the ways. I love thee while scrubbing your dishes and washing your floors… and while you claim your freedom, your leisure, your paycheck, and my paycheck as your own.”
Do I detect something other than dewy-eyed glances in that Valentine’s Day rant?
Gallagher has now toned down her rhetoric, but her fundamental worldview remains the same: Blame the man first -- and let the woman off easy.
There is no more important challenge in modern America than the strengthening of marriage, and I wish Mrs. Gallagher’s group well. But as long as their concerns are ignored and belittled, Gallagher’s approach is bound to further alienate the millions of disaffected men who feel they have no other choice than to remain on a Marriage Strike.
Information Courtesy of: http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/excerpts from article: Misandrist Marriage Movement, Author C. Roberts.
I hate to tell you this, but MEN are the ones responsible for the current plight western society finds itself in. Men, nobody else. Women have always wanted to be married, they still do. Actually getting pregnant out of wedlock has been the traditional negotiating tool that many women used in the past to force men into marriage.
Of course that is a useless tool now because never-married men (or recreational sperm donors which would be a more apt description of them) are now given, in practically every western country, the exact same rights to children as married men, whether or not they get married.
So what’s the incentive for marriage then?
Thus MEN in western society got exactly what they have always wanted, 2063 years after the fact, but then tell me, what else is new?
SCOTLAND will become the first part of the UK to allow men to marry their mothers-in-law, the Scottish Executive announced yesterday.
The amendment was included in the Executive’s Family Law Bill which will reduce the time needed to conclude a divorce, give unmarried fathers new rights over their children and give unmarried couples some of the same rights as married couples.
Other major changes will enshrine legal parental rights for unmarried fathers and introduce safeguards for cohabiting couples.
Also, the number of children born to unmarried couples is on course to overtake the number of children born to married parents in about three years.
Mr. Henry stressed: "Reform of family law to safeguard cohabiting couples is not intended to devalue the importance of marriage. But the changing shape of society is a reality and unfortunately relationships break down.
"Family law must be updated to ensure that it reflects the needs of all our people."
The legislation, which could be in force within a year if passed by the Scottish Parliament, aimed to improve the "safety net" of family law, he said.
And he added: "We believe these are sensitive safeguards to prevent children being used as pawns when family relationships break down."
Some of the Executive’s plans - like the formal change to divorce law - need legislation in the form of the Family Law Bill, but other proposals - like the preparation of a draft charter for grandparents to have a more formal role in bringing up children - do not. These will be introduced alongside the bill which is expected to pass through parliament by the end of the year.
Alan Finlayson, a former children’s reporter and sheriff, will draw up a "parenting agreement for Scotland" to help estranged couples resolve issues such as contact arrangements.
The Executive’s proposals received a mixed response from opposition politicians.
Kenny MacAskill, for the SNP, welcomed the bill. "Scottish society has changed and evolved and Scots law must reflect that. Parental rights for fathers need to be addressed, as does the role of grandparents," he said.
Information Courtesy of: http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/excerpts from article: Marriage to In-Laws Will no Longer be Outlawed, Author H. MacDonell.
Although championed as safeguarding cohabiting couples, in fact, this law gives more rights to irresponsible men and their enablers, paternal grandparents. It gives no rights to women that they don’t already have and, in fact, will take away rights from women in their role as mothers, since it will ensure that a man who invests NOTHING, absolutely nothing, in bringing a child into the world (unless he feels like it, as there is no law requiring him to do ANYTHING until after the birth of the child) will now be designated as a father with the exact same rights to custody as the child’s mother.
So this is a threat to mothers, NOT a safeguard for mothers, but an attack on them just as it has turned out to be in every other country where these sorts of laws have been passed. It has lead to child abductions by men, even of infants, in attempts to get custody, many to avoid child support and in the U.S. 30% of the pool of custodial fathers is composed of these recreational sperm donors, so it is no small threat either.
This half-a@@ed father can now, 1 second after the birth of said child, roll out of bed, throw on his pants and show up at hospital door with ALL the rights of a married father. All of them, no difference even though he has not done a single thing to get that child to that point leaving that burden to mother, her family and friends or everyone else in society. They are even talking about extending the maternity leave of women to include men, which will now mean that every time a woman has a baby, there will be a fight over who gets to use the leave to stay home and recover from the whole pregnancy and child-birth ordeal, while also bonding with your baby.
AND guess who will be winning that fight…
Men have been trying to wiggle out of marriage since marriage was first invented. Our records only go back as far as Rome to demonstrate this but if we had better records from older civilizations, I’m sure we would see the same thing. Giving men incentive to NOT marry such as allowing them the same legal rights to children as married men undercuts women and society in our attempts to get them to marry.
If society doesn’t feel up to forcing these irresponsible male chowder heads to be good citizens, fine, but that’s no excuse to keep putting the rights of mothers and children in second place to appease these irresponsible men as they continue their 2063 year Marriage Strike.
Thus I have to say: Scotland just say no.
13 Comments:
Pseudo-Adrienne said...
Women have always wanted to be married, they still do.Not me. But yeah, a very significant portion of women still want to marry. Then again, why bother with the selection of guys that a lot women have?
The "marriage strike" declaration made by the MRAs is beyond stupid, because *they* act like *they* just recently invented such a thing.
And as someone who took two years of Latin and has a "fetish" for Greco-Roman History, yes, I know all about how Roman men turned six shades of pissed off when Augustus passed all of his "morality laws", especially in regards to fidelity. Men have historically avoided marriage (even though most men could get away with infidelity), so this "marriage strike" is nothing new.
So the MRAs need to get over themselves and STOP acting like they invented the "marriage strike".
And that's why MRAs should praise feminists because feminism eliminated the "societal requirement" to get married among both sexes, thus helped anti-marriage men even more. Feminism practically gave anti-marriage men a candy store. And do they thank feminism for that?...NO!...whatever.
Once again the MRAs owe another one of the fundamentals of their "sacraments" to feminism. What a bunch of infants. But a lot of those "sacraments" that men have cherished, have been around even long before Augustus.
And as for Augustus; nothing screams moral values like burying your daughter alive for breaking her chastity vows as a Vestal Virgin. What a tight-a$$
10:47 PM
NYMOM said...
"Women have always wanted to be married, they still do. Not me. But yeah, a very significant portion of women still want to marry."
Exactly...We have to accept that MOST women DO wish to be married.
"And that's why MRAs should praise feminists because feminism eliminated the "societal requirement" to get married among both sexes, thus helped anti-marriage men even more. Feminism practically gave anti-marriage men a candy store. And do they thank feminism for that?...NO!...whatever.
Exactly...Men all wanted to be like Hugh Hefner or those crazy Roman Knights, no responsibility, sex on demand with whatever willing women was available...and NOW they got it and they're STILL b*tching...
They keep acting like feminism killed marriage...no MEN killed marriage, feminism just helped women survive the transition period between depending upon marriage for their way of life and having to depend upon ourselves...
I mean I know most women STILL want to be married, but in the same token, we can NOW live successfully alone...that's probably what they're really mad at feminist for because so many women just up and went and made lives for themselves ANYWAY...since one of the things the article points out about Scotland (which is probably true in all western societies today but at a differing pace for all of them) is that at the rate single mothers are having children they will overtake married couples having children in about 3 years...
That's WHY they are changing the law in Scotland, I think, to allow never-marrried men MORE rights. Not because they are concerned about the children or the rights of cohabitating "couples" as they claim, but because they saw the writing on the wall for men...and they were rapidly heading into becoming a non-entity in Scottish society, at the rate they were going...like they are becoming in every western society if they don't change their ways...
I mean my feeling is that Scotland should have changed the law to make it clear to men that they obtain legal rights to children within a lawful marriage if they wished to protect male involvement with children... which is what many women want anyway...a legal marriage; not some jerkoff who does nothing to show commitment, good will, interest, or anything now, having the same rights as a child's mother under this new law...
Plus married men got shafted AGAIN with this change of law...I mean why the heck should men, who many don't want to be married ANYWAY, turn around and marry, IF never-married fathers can get the exact same legal rights as a married father FOR DOING NOTHIING...
I mean changing the law to give MEN more rights for LESS effort is certainly not going to do women and children any good...the only people that law helps is MEN...and enabler paternal grandparents...
It helps another generation of male chowder heads get the idea in their heads again that they can STILL have it all for little or no effort. AGAIN...
So this continued encouragement of men to NEVER grow up, to either be hanging out in the pub, the sports bar, the corner or yes, even in internet chat groups proclaiming their rights are being violated will continue...and get worse...at least in Scotland.
4:20 AM
Anonymous said...
"...I mean why the heck should men, who many don't want to be married ANYWAY, turn around and marry, IF never-married fathers can get the exact same legal rights as a married father FOR DOING NOTHIING..."
But NYMOM, for men who actually WANT to have children and parent them, there is still a great deal of incentive to marry. The visitation/child support/court wrangling rigamarole is hardly an attractive alternative. I don't know of anyone who would actually prefer to do it this way, assuming they want kids in the first place. I remember an unmarried friend of mine who found himself in an unexpected pregnancy situation once. Another lawyer friend of his, upon hearing the news, asked him: "Any chance that you can work it out with her? Believe me, it would be a lot cheaper and a lot less trouble to just marry her." And I think he was right.
But anyway, I think restoring the special legal status and protections of marriage (including those with regard to children) might indeed do more to revitalize marriage in the long run than any programs the government can come up with today, and help to ensure that every child is a wanted child. However, it would be an extremely hard sell to the voters, considering that in the short-term it would affect fully one-third of children being born and almost totally excuse their fathers from responsibility for them.
12:39 PM
Anonymous said...
Sorry, I tend to post in a hurry and continually forget to sign my name.
Anne
2:36 PM
Pseudo-Adrienne said...
But NYMOM, for men who actually WANT to have children and parent them, there is still a great deal of incentive to marryAnd what if the people don't even like each other? What if it was a one-night-stand or an on-again-off-again relationship that had more to do with sex, than any kind of emotional bonds, least of all "love"?
I've noticed that in a lot of these pregnancy situations outside of wedlock, the man and the woman were barely even together as a "couple", and the pairing had more to do about sex, then "love", or emotional bonds.
In many cases, these people are horrible for each other. The only thing that keeps them together is the sex. And if it is just about sex and the people don't even like each other why should they marry, and bring the children into what could be a chaotic, negative, and very dysfunctional environment?
There's nothing wrong with visitation because at least the two people don't have to be around each other all the time or even more than once a week. But a full blown marriage with people who probably only knew each other for three months, not really "into each other emotionally" (certainly not in love or even an official couple), and were really "friends with benefits"(in another words f**k-buddies)? And the guy is really only marrying to avoid child support, and really, didn't even want the kids to begin with?!
(Of course, women should know better than to hop into bed with moronic guys they've known for only a few minutes, days, or even weeks, and women should always use condoms with these guys, because who knows where these guys have been.)
I seriously doubt those people could successfully feign loving and respecting each other in front of the children.
Marriage, in all of its sappy, lovey-dovey image, should be about a mutual emotional, domestic, sexual committment (and of course "love") between two people. Not a selfish attempt by some guy to avoid child support payments, to pitifully make up for the fact that he can't put on a damn condom, and sticks it wherever.
And what if the guy has other children by other women?
3:59 PM
Anonymous said...
I understand what you're saying, Psuedo-Adrienne, but I was speaking generally--I wasn't really talking about cases where babies are already in the works. It seemed to me that what NYMOM was getting at was that current laws giving unmarried dads rights are going to lead men to decide to forgo marriage altogether, figuring that they can still be dads without it, and I was just pointing out that men who really WANT to be responsible parents don't tend to see it that way--they don't want the split family scenario or a visitation schedule or anything like that because even under the best of circumstances it's a pain in the a@@. What they want is to live with their children and parent them along with a loving and supportive partner. And that's exactly why I support restoring parental rights to the context of marriage and fully protecting them within that context. That way it is clear where everyone stands. A single man who wants children would know from the outset that he will have to choose a partner and assume all the responsibilities of marriage and make a home for those children, and a single woman who wants children will know from the outset whether she will be parenting with the help of a partner or going it alone, and weigh her options accordingly. I think it's been a great mistake to take long-established laws that were originally meant to govern and protect the family and bend them to accommodate people who have not created a family and do not intend to do so.
Anne
4:40 PM
NYMOM said...
"However, it would be an extremely hard sell to the voters, considering that in the short-term it would affect fully one-third of children being born and almost totally excuse their fathers from responsibility for them."
No because men if they wished to be involved with their children as you keep claiming they do, then they'll do the right thing and get married.
For those who don't, their involvement is NOT worth the judicial and law enforcement costs, not to mention the societal chaos created by trying to force them into a role they don't want. I mean we have practically created a form of 'bastardized' marriage for these men with women don't like and children they never wanted...and it's not good for women or children to do this...
I see it as an educational campaign to enlighten voters who care, mostly women probably, because much of what is going on is hidden from view by media outlets and people like you who keep painting fathers involvement as a positive good, when it's fact this is frequently not the case...
12:08 AM
NYMOM said...
"I've noticed that in a lot of these pregnancy situations outside of wedlock, the man and the woman were barely even together as a "couple", and the pairing had more to do about sex, then "love", or emotional bonds."
Exactly...so why would we think that these two people are going to be able to get along well enough to be able to raise a child together for 18+ years. We've almost created a sort of bastardized form of marriage for them and it's been a recipe for disaster, mostly for women and children...
"In many cases, these people are horrible for each other. The only thing that keeps them together is the sex. And if it is just about sex and the people don't even like each other why should they marry, and bring the children into what could be a chaotic, negative, and very dysfunctional environment?"
Exactly...but when you look at the average parenting plan put out there in many states now, you are going to be spending as much time interacting with that guy as IF YOU WERE MARRIED w/o any of the support systems to give you any control of the situation like having a good relationship with your in-laws (you don't have any) or being able to rely upon the police in your community to enforce your custodial status if a problem should arise (mothers can NOT automatically assume that they can count on that anymore, it's on a case-by-case or county-by-county basis)...
Plus you cannot not just automatically decide to leave the state to go to law school or for another job, that's out. You have to negotiate over which school district, doctor, church, daycare, et al your child will attend. If your child can spend Christmas with you (do you know how many women I know who haven't spent a Christmas with their own kids in YEARS)...
So basically you're making my case for me...you're right people this casually connected can NOT be forced into an 18-21 year commitment, they just can't...
"There's nothing wrong with visitation because at least the two people don't have to be around each other all the time or even more than once a week."
You are right there is nothing wrong with visitation AND if that is ALL that was involved I would never mind it...
I wouldn't have this blog today actually, I wouldn't have bothered...as who goes on a 'mission' over just visitation. I'd just be relaxing watching tv and happy that I raised my children well and can now just sit back contentedly and plan for my own retirement, but guess what, it's NOT just about a once a week visit...
It is about giving another person who did NOTHING to bring forth this child, NOTHING, the EXACT SAME LEGAL RIGHTS AS A MOTHER TO HER CHILD...and by doing this allowing that other person to use that legal status as a 'club' issued by the state to hold over every women's head who decides to have a child...
It has the potential to roll back every one of the rights you and most other women today take for granted, every single one...IF we allow it to continue...
That's what it's about.
It's not JUST visiting...it's much bigger then that...and as much as you've read on this blog, you should know that already...
All these posts I'm putting up here are news stories, I don't just make them up...about court rulings or public policies against women making it MORE likely that MORE mothers will lose their children, abductions where children are taken on a visit and never returned, about murders of children involved in these custody to evade child support schemes and even about the propaganda being used to make women THINK it's all just about men wanting to be good fathers and help us raise our children...
Visitation, actually, is the least of what I talk about here, the least...
12:52 AM
NYMOM said...
I'm actually a little miffed at the governor in my state Governor Pataki for recently talking about a proposal to forgive the child support debt of men who marry the mothers of their children...
I have no problem with a father and mother chosing on their own to marry but we shouldn't be rewarding a choice that appears to be more geared to making money off the backs of children then with a sincere committment to them...
This is a dangerous and short-sighted proposal that is probably the flip side of giving never-married fathers legal rights and almost JUST AS BAD...We should never make children "worth money" to people, never and Pataki knows this as our state does NOT even allow you to buy more then $5,000 in life insurance for children after a few well-publicized murders of children for life insurance proceeds...
This has the potential to make 'children' worth a heck of a lot more then $5,000...
Frankly children being worth money was the 'root cause' of the horrible Jerica Rhodes situation, as well as thousands of others that we don't even know about yet, where fathers took custody to avoid paying child support...
The profit in 'children' MUST be removed...
11:02 PM
Anonymous said...
"...and people like you who keep painting fathers involvement as a positive good, when it's fact this is frequently not the case..."
Hmmm...now where did I "paint" unwed fathers' involvement as a positive good? While it certainly CAN be, it's true that it's frequently not and I think it would be a greater good for children in the long run to restore the special status of marriage. That is what all of my comments in defense of fathers have been about--married fathers. Their rights and responsibilities, which they signed on for, must be scrupulously protected.
I'm sorry if your father was a disappointment, it's a tragedy when kids don't get to benefit from all a good dad can offer, but I would have suffered a great deal without my dad and so would he have without his, and many, many people feel the same. And, honestly, if you are going to try to "reeducate" the public on this issue (and you will have to convince just about the entire western world since unwed parenthood and changes in the law to accommodate it are increasing all over Europe and the UK, not just here), then it will really do no good to lie and try to "paint" fathers in general as irrelevant in their kids' lives. Too many people know this is not true, and such an attitude will hurt, not help, your cause, no matter how desirable your ultimate goal might be.
Anne
12:22 PM
NYMOM said...
"I'm sorry if your father was a disappointment, it's a tragedy when kids don't get to benefit from all a good dad can offer, but I would have suffered a great deal without my dad and so would he have without his, and many, many people feel the same. And, honestly, if you are going to try to "reeducate" the public on this issue (and you will have to convince just about the entire western world since unwed parenthood and changes in the law to accommodate it are increasing all over Europe and the UK, not just here), then it will really do no good to lie and try to "paint" fathers in general as irrelevant in their kids' lives. Too many people know this is not true, and such an attitude will hurt, not help, your cause, no matter how desirable your ultimate goal might be."
Well I'm sorry but sometimes social change cannot be stopped just because a LOT OF PEOPLE used to benefit from something that no longer exists in that form...
When the divorce rate was low and a 'family' was one legal entity where roles were clearly defined, then yes, fathers were great, they helped mothers raise children in a partnership and the whole thing worked...
Today that is simply not the case.
It won't be us deciding these things anyway, at least not me, as I already raised my children...it will be the next generation deciding these issues and from the looks of things they are picking unmarried single parenthood over and above married parenthood as the vehicle to raise their children within...and I don't think people are doing that because they had these wonderful loving fathers in their past that you keep talking about...as I think if so many people DID have that, wouldn't they be trying to recreate the same wonderful family structure they had as children...
You can close your eyes to that reality but there are a WHOLE lot of people like me out there whose fathers were nothing but a figment of Focus on the Family's imagination and YOURS...
11:35 PM
Anonymous said...
"I'm actually a little miffed at the governor in my state Governor Pataki for recently talking about a proposal to forgive the child support debt of men who marry the mothers of their children..."
Might I ask what the wisdom would be to continue to collect child support arrears from a man married to the children's mother?
The scenario: every month, the man's paycheck is garnished by CSE and a new check is cut and sent back to his house. Hmmm....
Basically, that debt would also be the mother's debt at that point.
Also, it would be unconstitutional under the 14th amendment I believe since married parents don't have to pay child support.
4:48 PM
NYMOM said...
"Might I ask what the wisdom would be to continue to collect child support arrears from a man married to the children's mother?
The scenario: every month, the man's paycheck is garnished by CSE and a new check is cut and sent back to his house. Hmmm...."
Well quite obviously it would be ridiculous...but I don't think that our governor should be encouraging men to marry women and take on the burden of fatherhood when they MIGHT not be all that interested in either the woman or the child...but more interested in wiping out a debt...
I mean New York doesn't allow you to buy a life insurance policy on a child worth over $5,000 because we had a murder a few years back (or an attempted one) of a child by its parent to get life insurance...so WHY would our governor encourage marriage to wipe out a child support debt that could be worth a LOT more then $5,000...
The bottom line is that our society has to figure out a way to make our children NOT WORTH ANY MONEY...since too many people appear to be making money on the backs of children and no good can ever come from it...
That was my point...not the logics of how to do it...but the vision to know that it needs to be done...
As this is a site to encourage discussion amongst 'like-minded' people to come up with strategies to amend the current situation...or did you miss the first page of my blog...
7:07 PM
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Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Times Could be a Changing
Well if this statistic demonstrating a slow decline of marriage in this country turns out to be true (and who knows if it is as statistics are often 'played with' by various individuals and groups to make a point) I would say it demonstrates that WOMEN, who are the persons historically more invested in marriage, are finally fed up and moving onto new patterns of living...and frankly, I think this is a good thing.
Women used to have to get married in order to get any resources from men (who controlled every single resource on the planet and in many places still do). Their choices were either marriage or to live with their father and mother or some other married relative forever and this was not always desirable or practical. Not to mention they could never have any children of their own w/o marriage (and I believe most women do want children as politically incorrect as it might be to say it). Thus the evolution of the character known as the 'maiden aunt' of history who was always doting on other women's children, not being allowed to have any of her own or risk stoning, or burning at the stake, or having her baby murdered or some other horrible punishment (devised by men) for unmarried pregnancy...Anyway men used this desperate need of women to be married as a club against us (much as they now use custody of her children against mothers) to enforce their social control of women.
So any decrease in marriage I see as a sign that women have finally realized this and are seeking ways to end it w/o starting a war as men would do (ie., as in the custody wars men have incited) or some other such activity. Just quiet changes in our behavior having the desired impact like the wind or water slowly wearing down the mountain.
Last point: this probably also could explain the rising statistic of older women leading the way in choosing to become single mothers. All to the good! The fact that younger women, teenagers, used to be the main group of single women having children gave an opening to the usual suspects to frame their opposition to single motherhood as justified since they could claim single motherhood was a burden on society. I guarantee you that their panties are still in a bunch now, even if the women having children out of wedlock could afford to raise them w/o government assistance.
Why?
Because it's not about money, it's about men losing their last chance to control women, that's what it is...by holding our children hostage through the manipulation of the legal system.
The final thing that puzzles me is why a fairly well-educated man like Marc Rudov continues harping upon alimony as a 'benefit' women receive from marriage and subsequent divorce. The census shows that ONLY 15% of divorcees (either women or men, as yes Virginia men do get alimony) ever get awarded any alimony and of that 15% only one-half manage to actually collect it. So this continued fixation is a puzzlement. Most men probably have a better chance of getting struck by lightning then they do of paying alimony to a former wife.
Anyway that's by take on the whole situation.
http://thenononsenseman.mensnewsdaily.com/2006/10/31/riding-the-estrogen-express/
Riding the Estrogen Express
by Marc H. RudovOctober 31st, 2006
Contrary to its intent, the United States is methodically recasting itself as a singles-oriented nation. Notwithstanding the impassioned soapbox orations from politicians about marriage as the bedrock of society, their anti-male policies and laws are, in fact, killing the family and marriage.
In my article “Will Women Halt the Death of Marriage?” I wrote that, for men, marriage is a sucker’s deal. Before you fume at me, ladies, count the number of times you’ve seen a divorced mother writing child-support and alimony checks to her mansion-dwelling ex-husband from the card-table desk of her one-bedroom apartment. Enough said.
The American Community Survey, released in October 2006 by the US Census Bureau, found that, for the first time in US history, only 49.7 percent, or 55.2 million, of the nation’s 111.1 million households in 2005 were made up of married couples — with and without children — just shy of a majority and down from more than 52 percent in 2000.
Yes, folks, instead of solidifying marriage and simplifying our lives, the vote whores on Capitol Hill and in state assemblies across our great country have been catalyzing a pandemic of out-of-wedlock births and spawning costly, socialistic infrastructures to deal with them. As usual, they’ve created another fine mess where one didn’t exist. In this case, the root cause is fear of women (translation: fear of not getting the female vote).
When installing new software, the subscriber must click “I agree” on the 10-page, eye-glazing user agreement, if he expects it to function. How many times does one actually read these documents? I almost never do, because, if so, I’d still be installing Windows 95. Interestingly, when installing new women into their lives, men have a history of exhibiting similar, reflexive behavior — blindly, deferentially, and sycophantically agreeing to known and unknown caveats, provisos, clauses, and conditions. Why? Habit, conditioning, resignation, socialization, and belief that no other options exist.
The typical man, traditionally, has been so deferential to — and fearful of — women that he automatically will allow one to commandeer the dating, engagement, wedding, marriage, and divorce phases of his life. Then, he will kick himself afterwards and cry into the beer of anyone sympathetic enough to listen. Surrendering these phases to her is akin to riding a runaway train — The Estrogen Express — to Disasterville. The only question is, Will he disembark in time to avert the inevitable?
When you think about it, the traditional way of dealing with a woman is to permit her to control your life. Men mistakenly believe they will have more peace that way. This moronic behavior, based on the false assumption that men must crawl through broken glass to get laid, leads to devastating consequences. It’s quite scary to realize how much control over their lives men have conceded to women, with lots of help from misandrist feminists and politicians.
But, it seems that the tide is now turning. Men are increasingly saying no to marriage and relationships, and the Census Bureau statistics prove it. Alas, the out-of-wedlock birthrate (see my article “Playing Abortion Chess”) also proves it. Men are finally realizing that they don’t have to get married and don’t want to get married. They are tired of playing a losing game against the house. To modern men, matrimony equals alimony — not safety, comfort, and love.
When I see a million women marching on the Mall in Washington, DC, demanding that our elected officials restore dignity to men and fathers and the family unit, I will become convinced that they truly believe in matrimony — not just alimony and child support. Until then, I’m not holding my breath.
About the Author
Marc H. Rudov is an internationally recognized author of 30+ articles and the book, The Man’s No-Nonsense Guide to Women: How to Succeed in Romance on Planet EarthTM (ISBN 0974501719).
Rudov’s book, articles, blog, and podcasts are available at TheNoNonsenseMan.com.
Copyright © 2006 by Marc H. Rudov. All rights reserved.
Women used to have to get married in order to get any resources from men (who controlled every single resource on the planet and in many places still do). Their choices were either marriage or to live with their father and mother or some other married relative forever and this was not always desirable or practical. Not to mention they could never have any children of their own w/o marriage (and I believe most women do want children as politically incorrect as it might be to say it). Thus the evolution of the character known as the 'maiden aunt' of history who was always doting on other women's children, not being allowed to have any of her own or risk stoning, or burning at the stake, or having her baby murdered or some other horrible punishment (devised by men) for unmarried pregnancy...Anyway men used this desperate need of women to be married as a club against us (much as they now use custody of her children against mothers) to enforce their social control of women.
So any decrease in marriage I see as a sign that women have finally realized this and are seeking ways to end it w/o starting a war as men would do (ie., as in the custody wars men have incited) or some other such activity. Just quiet changes in our behavior having the desired impact like the wind or water slowly wearing down the mountain.
Last point: this probably also could explain the rising statistic of older women leading the way in choosing to become single mothers. All to the good! The fact that younger women, teenagers, used to be the main group of single women having children gave an opening to the usual suspects to frame their opposition to single motherhood as justified since they could claim single motherhood was a burden on society. I guarantee you that their panties are still in a bunch now, even if the women having children out of wedlock could afford to raise them w/o government assistance.
Why?
Because it's not about money, it's about men losing their last chance to control women, that's what it is...by holding our children hostage through the manipulation of the legal system.
The final thing that puzzles me is why a fairly well-educated man like Marc Rudov continues harping upon alimony as a 'benefit' women receive from marriage and subsequent divorce. The census shows that ONLY 15% of divorcees (either women or men, as yes Virginia men do get alimony) ever get awarded any alimony and of that 15% only one-half manage to actually collect it. So this continued fixation is a puzzlement. Most men probably have a better chance of getting struck by lightning then they do of paying alimony to a former wife.
Anyway that's by take on the whole situation.
http://thenononsenseman.mensnewsdaily.com/2006/10/31/riding-the-estrogen-express/
Riding the Estrogen Express
by Marc H. RudovOctober 31st, 2006
Contrary to its intent, the United States is methodically recasting itself as a singles-oriented nation. Notwithstanding the impassioned soapbox orations from politicians about marriage as the bedrock of society, their anti-male policies and laws are, in fact, killing the family and marriage.
In my article “Will Women Halt the Death of Marriage?” I wrote that, for men, marriage is a sucker’s deal. Before you fume at me, ladies, count the number of times you’ve seen a divorced mother writing child-support and alimony checks to her mansion-dwelling ex-husband from the card-table desk of her one-bedroom apartment. Enough said.
The American Community Survey, released in October 2006 by the US Census Bureau, found that, for the first time in US history, only 49.7 percent, or 55.2 million, of the nation’s 111.1 million households in 2005 were made up of married couples — with and without children — just shy of a majority and down from more than 52 percent in 2000.
Yes, folks, instead of solidifying marriage and simplifying our lives, the vote whores on Capitol Hill and in state assemblies across our great country have been catalyzing a pandemic of out-of-wedlock births and spawning costly, socialistic infrastructures to deal with them. As usual, they’ve created another fine mess where one didn’t exist. In this case, the root cause is fear of women (translation: fear of not getting the female vote).
When installing new software, the subscriber must click “I agree” on the 10-page, eye-glazing user agreement, if he expects it to function. How many times does one actually read these documents? I almost never do, because, if so, I’d still be installing Windows 95. Interestingly, when installing new women into their lives, men have a history of exhibiting similar, reflexive behavior — blindly, deferentially, and sycophantically agreeing to known and unknown caveats, provisos, clauses, and conditions. Why? Habit, conditioning, resignation, socialization, and belief that no other options exist.
The typical man, traditionally, has been so deferential to — and fearful of — women that he automatically will allow one to commandeer the dating, engagement, wedding, marriage, and divorce phases of his life. Then, he will kick himself afterwards and cry into the beer of anyone sympathetic enough to listen. Surrendering these phases to her is akin to riding a runaway train — The Estrogen Express — to Disasterville. The only question is, Will he disembark in time to avert the inevitable?
When you think about it, the traditional way of dealing with a woman is to permit her to control your life. Men mistakenly believe they will have more peace that way. This moronic behavior, based on the false assumption that men must crawl through broken glass to get laid, leads to devastating consequences. It’s quite scary to realize how much control over their lives men have conceded to women, with lots of help from misandrist feminists and politicians.
But, it seems that the tide is now turning. Men are increasingly saying no to marriage and relationships, and the Census Bureau statistics prove it. Alas, the out-of-wedlock birthrate (see my article “Playing Abortion Chess”) also proves it. Men are finally realizing that they don’t have to get married and don’t want to get married. They are tired of playing a losing game against the house. To modern men, matrimony equals alimony — not safety, comfort, and love.
When I see a million women marching on the Mall in Washington, DC, demanding that our elected officials restore dignity to men and fathers and the family unit, I will become convinced that they truly believe in matrimony — not just alimony and child support. Until then, I’m not holding my breath.
About the Author
Marc H. Rudov is an internationally recognized author of 30+ articles and the book, The Man’s No-Nonsense Guide to Women: How to Succeed in Romance on Planet EarthTM (ISBN 0974501719).
Rudov’s book, articles, blog, and podcasts are available at TheNoNonsenseMan.com.
Copyright © 2006 by Marc H. Rudov. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Another interesting abduction case...
I found this story interesting especially since it highlights how child abduction is such a fast growing crime.
Also little warning to mothers of infants: if a mother doesn’t have legal custody of her children, one of these so-called parental abductions can result in a custody switch as the police do not always follow up if the abductor is a father, even a recreational sperm donor w/o his name on the child’s birth certificate. If he manages to get his name on the certificate in this interim period, he can race down to the courthouse with it and get himself named as the custodial parent.
One of the stats the FBI had released was that mothers keep their kids longer when they are abducted and I think the reason this happens is that men manipulate the system better and wind up becoming the custodial parent...so it's wiped off the record as an abduction...
Also once again we find some woman helping this jerk, his mother. Thank god she got jail time. Often these idiots get away with it…Imagine what kind of a life these girls would have had as they entered puberty living in a trailor in a place like Nicaragua. It remains me of these terrible people who are always abducting young girls to countries in the middle east. PS a horror!!!
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/30/delaware.family.abductions/index.html
The untold tale of family abductions: 3 girls missing, an international hunt
By Stephanie Chen, CNN
December 9, 2009
Christine Belford was reunited with her three daughters, who were kidnapped by their father for 19 months.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
• More than 200,000 incidents of family abductions occur in the U.S. each year
• Christine Belford's three daughters were kidnapped by their father in 2007
• Authorities launched a search that spanned at least four countries and several states
• The children were found in Nicaragua, living in a trailer with their father and grandmother
RELATED TOPICS
• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Missing Children
• National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
• Delaware
(CNN) -- Christine Belford agreed to let her ex-husband take their three daughters to Disney World for a two-week vacation. In August 2007, the Delaware mother kissed her little blond girls goodbye.
Those two weeks were unsettling for Belford, then 34. The couple went through a bitter divorce in 2006 which resulted in joint custody of the children. Belford said when the girls were with their dad, they were always difficult to reach.
Two days into the trip, Belford connected by cell phone with her oldest daughter, Laura, then 5. Already homesick, chubby-faced Laura cried as her father checked them into a hotel room.
"I want to come home," Laura pleaded with her mother.
But Laura and her sisters wouldn't return to their Delaware home for 19 months.
Their father, David Matusiewicz, pleaded guilty to international parental kidnapping and bank fraud charges in September. He faces up to 30 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday. CNN attempted to reach Matusiewichz in jail through his attorney, Heriberto "Eddie" Medrano, in Houston, Texas, but Medrano did not return the calls.
Kidnapping victims like Laura and her sisters -- Leigh, then 4, and Karen, then 2 -- often don't make national headlines the way victims of alleged abductions by strangers do, such as Jaycee Dugard and Elizabeth Smart. But each year, most child abductions are perpetrated by someone the victim knows.
The U.S. Department of Justice reports more than 200,000 children are victims of family abductions in the United States each year. Of that figure, about 56,500 cases are reported to local law enforcement authorities and require investigation, studies show. In comparison, the U.S. Department of Justice reports an average of 115 stranger abductions a year.
Family abductions commonly involve children under 6, too young to comprehend that a crime is occurring, studies show.
Over the last few decades, high divorce rates have led to custody disputes and to kidnappings, experts say. Yet the public still perceives family abductions as a less serious crime because the victims are with a family member who is less likely to hurt them.
"The view is that this is not really a criminal problem," said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. "[The view is] this is a civil problem and lawyers need to work it out."
There are 1,600 unsolved family abduction cases involving children who have been missing for more than six months, he said.
A puzzling escape
In 15 years on the police force, Cpl. Jeff Shriner of the New Castle, Delaware, Police Department said he found Matusiewicz's abduction of his children to be the most bizarre missing person case he'd encountered.
Normally, the perpetrator in a family abduction is located within hours or days. Sometimes, abductions occur because the parent is angry, Shriner said, but they usually change their minds within a few days.
But Matusiewicz "was a needle in a haystack and that needle was buried very deep," said Shriner, who was assigned as the lead detective on the case.
Shriner quickly determined the Disney World vacation never happened.
Sales records showed Matusiewicz's mother, Lenore, had purchased a 33-foot Winnebago mobile home weeks before the disappearance, according to court records. She also was missing.
That month, Matusiewicz had sold his optometry business to a partner, police said. He had also committed mortgage fraud by forging his wife's signature on a $249,000 loan from a bank in Delaware, police said.
The couple had met in 1993 when Belford worked as a receptionist at an eye doctor's office in Delaware. Matusiewicz worked as an optometrist there. They were married in October 2001.
The couple's union became problematic in 2003 when his parents moved in, Belford said. Matusiewicz was a loving father to his girls, but during the breakup, she said, the couple had problems.
Some parents say they take their children away to protect them from an abusive or unfit parent, said Liss Hart-Haviv, founding executive director of Take Root, a national organization that works with victims of family abduction. In other instances, Hart-Haviv said, parents may take children out of spite.
"The critical thing to remember," she said, "is there's not one face to family abduction. It's a multifaceted issue."
Abduction goes abroad
In most family abduction cases, studies show victims often remain within the country. But circumstances are changing. Easier access to foreign countries and a growing number of intercontinental marriages have made international hideouts more common, missing children experts said.
In October, Japanese authorities released an American man, Christopher Savoie, who was jailed for allegedly trying to take back his children from his estranged wife. His wife, Noriko Savoie, had fled with the children to Japan in August, authorities say. Japanese officials said the couple's U.S.-recognized divorce did not apply in Japan. Christopher Savoie, who was not charged, returned to the U.S. The children remained with their mother in Japan.
A multilateral treaty known as the Hague Convention was ratified in 1980. It provides member countries with rules on returning abducted children under the age of 16. Today, more than 80 countries have signed the treaty. But with countries that haven't, like Japan, determining what happens to the children is murky.
In Belford's case, local and federal agencies initially launched a search for the girls. They began in New Jersey, where Matusiewicz was raised. Then they combed through dozens of leads in Virginia and West Virginia. A tip led them to become suspicious the girls might be in Texas or Mexico.
By November 2007, authorities shifted their attention to Central America. They hunted for Matusiewicz in Panama and Costa Rica over the next year. Locating him was tricky, authorities say, because he relied on cash transactions and limited phone calls with his family in the United States.
"He was very smart and did a lot of things before leaving and during the time he was gone to cover his tracks," said Rick Long, chief deputy U.S. Marshal in Delaware, who helped with the search efforts.
It wasn't until March 2009 that a lead, on which authorities declined to elaborate, brought law enforcement officers to a town about 40 miles outside of the Managua, Nicaragua.
There, at the end of a 19-month search, authorities discovered the girls inside a messy Winnebago trailer, overfilled with items from their Delaware home, said a U.S. Marshal who arrived on the scene. Matusiewicz had less than $100.
Reunited at last
Christine Belford took the first flight she could to Nicaragua. Her girls were healthy, though disheveled. The eldest, Laura, now 7, told her mother about sleeping on the beach in Costa Rica. The once-plump girl had become thin. Her autistic daughter, Leigh, now 6, hadn't received treatment. When Leigh smiled, Belford noticed her teeth had rotted.
The most changed child was Karen, who left at age 2. She had transformed from a baby into a 4-year-old who could speak and run alongside her sisters.
Family abductions are less likely to result in death or sexual abuse than stranger abductions, but psychologists warn that the experience can still greatly impact a child's development. In three decades counseling family abduction victims, clinical psychologist Linda Gunsberg has seen children with trust, identity and attachment issues. The deceit and the abrupt changes in living conditions can cause a child to be confused, anxious and depressed.
"The younger girls say they miss Daddy," said Belford, now 37. "I tell them he's in time out right now." Laura, the oldest, is doing well in the second grade, but she continues to experience nightmares. During the time she was abducted, she was told her mother was dead, Belford said.
"She's in her angry phase," Belford said. "I tell her it's OK to love them and miss them because they are still your dad and grandma."
In September, the grandmother, Lenore Matusiewicz, 64, was sentenced to 1½ years in prison for her role in the abduction. She is being held in Baylor Women's Correctional Institution in Delaware.
"She is very sorry for her choice," said her attorney, Demetrio Duarte Jr., based at a Texas firm. "In life, it's not all black and all white. To be severed from mom wasn't the right thing to do. To be severed from grandma isn't the right thing to do. It's just tragic.
Also little warning to mothers of infants: if a mother doesn’t have legal custody of her children, one of these so-called parental abductions can result in a custody switch as the police do not always follow up if the abductor is a father, even a recreational sperm donor w/o his name on the child’s birth certificate. If he manages to get his name on the certificate in this interim period, he can race down to the courthouse with it and get himself named as the custodial parent.
One of the stats the FBI had released was that mothers keep their kids longer when they are abducted and I think the reason this happens is that men manipulate the system better and wind up becoming the custodial parent...so it's wiped off the record as an abduction...
Also once again we find some woman helping this jerk, his mother. Thank god she got jail time. Often these idiots get away with it…Imagine what kind of a life these girls would have had as they entered puberty living in a trailor in a place like Nicaragua. It remains me of these terrible people who are always abducting young girls to countries in the middle east. PS a horror!!!
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/30/delaware.family.abductions/index.html
The untold tale of family abductions: 3 girls missing, an international hunt
By Stephanie Chen, CNN
December 9, 2009
Christine Belford was reunited with her three daughters, who were kidnapped by their father for 19 months.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
• More than 200,000 incidents of family abductions occur in the U.S. each year
• Christine Belford's three daughters were kidnapped by their father in 2007
• Authorities launched a search that spanned at least four countries and several states
• The children were found in Nicaragua, living in a trailer with their father and grandmother
RELATED TOPICS
• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Missing Children
• National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
• Delaware
(CNN) -- Christine Belford agreed to let her ex-husband take their three daughters to Disney World for a two-week vacation. In August 2007, the Delaware mother kissed her little blond girls goodbye.
Those two weeks were unsettling for Belford, then 34. The couple went through a bitter divorce in 2006 which resulted in joint custody of the children. Belford said when the girls were with their dad, they were always difficult to reach.
Two days into the trip, Belford connected by cell phone with her oldest daughter, Laura, then 5. Already homesick, chubby-faced Laura cried as her father checked them into a hotel room.
"I want to come home," Laura pleaded with her mother.
But Laura and her sisters wouldn't return to their Delaware home for 19 months.
Their father, David Matusiewicz, pleaded guilty to international parental kidnapping and bank fraud charges in September. He faces up to 30 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday. CNN attempted to reach Matusiewichz in jail through his attorney, Heriberto "Eddie" Medrano, in Houston, Texas, but Medrano did not return the calls.
Kidnapping victims like Laura and her sisters -- Leigh, then 4, and Karen, then 2 -- often don't make national headlines the way victims of alleged abductions by strangers do, such as Jaycee Dugard and Elizabeth Smart. But each year, most child abductions are perpetrated by someone the victim knows.
The U.S. Department of Justice reports more than 200,000 children are victims of family abductions in the United States each year. Of that figure, about 56,500 cases are reported to local law enforcement authorities and require investigation, studies show. In comparison, the U.S. Department of Justice reports an average of 115 stranger abductions a year.
Family abductions commonly involve children under 6, too young to comprehend that a crime is occurring, studies show.
Over the last few decades, high divorce rates have led to custody disputes and to kidnappings, experts say. Yet the public still perceives family abductions as a less serious crime because the victims are with a family member who is less likely to hurt them.
"The view is that this is not really a criminal problem," said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. "[The view is] this is a civil problem and lawyers need to work it out."
There are 1,600 unsolved family abduction cases involving children who have been missing for more than six months, he said.
A puzzling escape
In 15 years on the police force, Cpl. Jeff Shriner of the New Castle, Delaware, Police Department said he found Matusiewicz's abduction of his children to be the most bizarre missing person case he'd encountered.
Normally, the perpetrator in a family abduction is located within hours or days. Sometimes, abductions occur because the parent is angry, Shriner said, but they usually change their minds within a few days.
But Matusiewicz "was a needle in a haystack and that needle was buried very deep," said Shriner, who was assigned as the lead detective on the case.
Shriner quickly determined the Disney World vacation never happened.
Sales records showed Matusiewicz's mother, Lenore, had purchased a 33-foot Winnebago mobile home weeks before the disappearance, according to court records. She also was missing.
That month, Matusiewicz had sold his optometry business to a partner, police said. He had also committed mortgage fraud by forging his wife's signature on a $249,000 loan from a bank in Delaware, police said.
The couple had met in 1993 when Belford worked as a receptionist at an eye doctor's office in Delaware. Matusiewicz worked as an optometrist there. They were married in October 2001.
The couple's union became problematic in 2003 when his parents moved in, Belford said. Matusiewicz was a loving father to his girls, but during the breakup, she said, the couple had problems.
Some parents say they take their children away to protect them from an abusive or unfit parent, said Liss Hart-Haviv, founding executive director of Take Root, a national organization that works with victims of family abduction. In other instances, Hart-Haviv said, parents may take children out of spite.
"The critical thing to remember," she said, "is there's not one face to family abduction. It's a multifaceted issue."
Abduction goes abroad
In most family abduction cases, studies show victims often remain within the country. But circumstances are changing. Easier access to foreign countries and a growing number of intercontinental marriages have made international hideouts more common, missing children experts said.
In October, Japanese authorities released an American man, Christopher Savoie, who was jailed for allegedly trying to take back his children from his estranged wife. His wife, Noriko Savoie, had fled with the children to Japan in August, authorities say. Japanese officials said the couple's U.S.-recognized divorce did not apply in Japan. Christopher Savoie, who was not charged, returned to the U.S. The children remained with their mother in Japan.
A multilateral treaty known as the Hague Convention was ratified in 1980. It provides member countries with rules on returning abducted children under the age of 16. Today, more than 80 countries have signed the treaty. But with countries that haven't, like Japan, determining what happens to the children is murky.
In Belford's case, local and federal agencies initially launched a search for the girls. They began in New Jersey, where Matusiewicz was raised. Then they combed through dozens of leads in Virginia and West Virginia. A tip led them to become suspicious the girls might be in Texas or Mexico.
By November 2007, authorities shifted their attention to Central America. They hunted for Matusiewicz in Panama and Costa Rica over the next year. Locating him was tricky, authorities say, because he relied on cash transactions and limited phone calls with his family in the United States.
"He was very smart and did a lot of things before leaving and during the time he was gone to cover his tracks," said Rick Long, chief deputy U.S. Marshal in Delaware, who helped with the search efforts.
It wasn't until March 2009 that a lead, on which authorities declined to elaborate, brought law enforcement officers to a town about 40 miles outside of the Managua, Nicaragua.
There, at the end of a 19-month search, authorities discovered the girls inside a messy Winnebago trailer, overfilled with items from their Delaware home, said a U.S. Marshal who arrived on the scene. Matusiewicz had less than $100.
Reunited at last
Christine Belford took the first flight she could to Nicaragua. Her girls were healthy, though disheveled. The eldest, Laura, now 7, told her mother about sleeping on the beach in Costa Rica. The once-plump girl had become thin. Her autistic daughter, Leigh, now 6, hadn't received treatment. When Leigh smiled, Belford noticed her teeth had rotted.
The most changed child was Karen, who left at age 2. She had transformed from a baby into a 4-year-old who could speak and run alongside her sisters.
Family abductions are less likely to result in death or sexual abuse than stranger abductions, but psychologists warn that the experience can still greatly impact a child's development. In three decades counseling family abduction victims, clinical psychologist Linda Gunsberg has seen children with trust, identity and attachment issues. The deceit and the abrupt changes in living conditions can cause a child to be confused, anxious and depressed.
"The younger girls say they miss Daddy," said Belford, now 37. "I tell them he's in time out right now." Laura, the oldest, is doing well in the second grade, but she continues to experience nightmares. During the time she was abducted, she was told her mother was dead, Belford said.
"She's in her angry phase," Belford said. "I tell her it's OK to love them and miss them because they are still your dad and grandma."
In September, the grandmother, Lenore Matusiewicz, 64, was sentenced to 1½ years in prison for her role in the abduction. She is being held in Baylor Women's Correctional Institution in Delaware.
"She is very sorry for her choice," said her attorney, Demetrio Duarte Jr., based at a Texas firm. "In life, it's not all black and all white. To be severed from mom wasn't the right thing to do. To be severed from grandma isn't the right thing to do. It's just tragic.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Well, this is no surprise...
I love the way these idiots always try to compare themselves to the civil rights movement in this country...by using the names of Martin Luther King or Malcolm X. Those men were fighting for a group of people who had NO POWER historically or at the time of the movement...as opposed to these MRA idiots who've hoarded power since civilization began and are just mad now because they see it slipping away from them.
Gag me with a spoon already...
http://www.doublex.com/print/9316
Published on Double X (http://www.doublex.com)
"Men's Rights" Groups Have Become Frighteningly Effective
They’re changing custody rights and domestic violence laws.
By: Kathryn Joyce
Posted: November 5, 2009 at 7:45 AM
At the end of October, National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, members of the men’s movement group RADAR (Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting [2]) gathered on the steps of Congress to lobby against what they say are the suppressed truths about domestic violence: that false allegations are rampant, that a feminist-run court system fraudulently separates innocent fathers from children, that battered women’s shelters are running a racket that funnels federal dollars to feminists, that domestic-violence laws give cover to cagey mail-order brides seeking Green Cards, and finally, that men are victims of an unrecognized epidemic of violence at the hands of abusive wives.
“It’s now reached the point,” reads a statement from RADAR, “that domestic violence laws represent the largest roll-back in Americans’ civil rights since the Jim Crow era!”
RADAR’s rhetoric may seem overblown, but lately the group and its many partners have been racking up very real accomplishments. In 2008, the organization claimed to have blocked passage of four federal domestic-violence bills, among them an expansion of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to international scope and a grant to support lawyers in pro bono domestic-violence work. Members of this coalition have gotten themselves onto drafting committees for VAWA’s 2011 reauthorization. Local groups in West Virginia and California have also had important successes, criminalizing false claims of domestic violence in custody cases, and winning rulings that women-only shelters are discriminatory.
Groups like RADAR fall under the broader umbrella of the men’s rights movement, a loose coalition of anti-feminist groups. These men’s rights activists, or MRAs, have long been written off by domestic-violence advocates as a bombastic and fringe group of angry white men, and for good reason. Bernard Chapin, a popular men’s rights blogger, told me over e-mail that he will refer to me as “Feminist E,” since he never uses real names for feminists, who are wicked and who men “must verbally oppose … until our flesh oxidizes into dust.” In the United Kingdom, a father’s rights group scaled Buckingham Palace in superhero costumes. In Australia, they wore paramilitary uniforms and demonstrated outside the houses of female divorcees.
But lately they’ve become far more polished and savvy about advancing their views. In their early days of lobbying, “these guys would show up and have this looming body language that was very off-putting,” says Ben Atherton-Zeman, author of Voices of Men, a one-man play about domestic violence and sexual assault. “But that’s all changed. A lot of the leaders are still convicted batterers, but they’re well-organized, they speak in complete sentences, they sound much more reasonable: All we want is equal custody, for fathers not to be ignored.”
One of the respectable new faces of the movement is Glenn Sacks, a fathers' rights columnist and radio host with 50,000 e-mail followers, and a pragmatist in a world of angry dreamers. Sacks is a former feminist and abortion-clinic defender who disavows what he calls “the not-insubstantial lunatic fringe of the fathers’ rights movement.” He recently merged his successful media group with the shared-parenting organization Fathers and Families in a bid to build a mainstream fathers' rights organ on par with the National Organization for Women. Many of Sacks’ arguments—for a court assumption of shared parenting in the case of divorce, or against child-support rigidity in the midst of recession—can sound reasonable.
But do any of their arguments hold up? Many of the men for whom Sacks advocates are involved in extreme cases, says Joanie Dawson, a writer and domestic-violence advocate who has covered the fathers’ rights movement. The great majority of custody cases, in which shared parenting is a legitimate option, are settled or resolved privately. But of the 15 percent that go to family court—the cases that fathers’ rights groups target—at least half include alleged domestic abuse.
Unsurprisingly, this argument is missing from MRA discussions of custody inequality and recruitment ads, which cast all men as potentially innocent victims “just one 911 call away” from losing everything they have earned and loved. These rallying calls, and the divorce attorneys hawking men’s rights expertise on MRA sites, promising to “teach her a lesson,” serve as what Dawson sees as a powerful draw for men in the midst of painful divorces.
While MRA groups continue to expand their base of embittered fathers and ex-husbands, they’ve cleaned up their image to court more powerful allies. RADAR board member Ron Grignal, the former president of Fathers for Virginia and a former state delegate candidate, organizes the group’s Washington lobbying activities. In 2008, RADAR partnered with Eagle Forum for a conference at the Heritage Foundation about the threat that VAWA poses to the family. Grignal argues that state interpretations of VAWA are so broad they could cast couples’ money disputes as domestic violence, enabling unwarranted restraining orders that then win women’s divorce cases for them. Politicians, Grignal says, are increasingly on board with men’s rights movement concerns.
“On domestic violence, I’ve had both state and federal legislators tell me they know that this process is out of control,” says Grignal. “They’re afraid if they support [reforms] they’ll be tagged as ‘for domestic violence.’ But I’ve had Democrats on Capitol Hill tell me they agree with everything I say. A member of the Congressional Black Caucus told me that his brother can’t see his kids, and his wife threatened to throw herself down the stairs to ruin his political career.”
Some domestic-violence protections do seem to have unintended effects, such as mandatory-arrest policies that compel police to take someone into custody in response to any domestic-violence call—a policy that has been criticized by RADAR as well as by some domestic-violence advocates, who say it imposes an absurd equivalence between largely nonviolent family spats or insubstantial female violence and serious abuse. But groups like RADAR are criticizing the law for the wrong reasons. In fact, the effect of mandatory arrest in conflating women’s low-level violence with battery, seems very close to RADAR’s campaign for viewing women as equal domestic abusers.
One potent idea advanced by MRAs is the claim that men are equal victims of domestic violence. Mark Rosenthal, president and co-founder of RADAR, makes a very personal argument for the phenomenon. Rosenthal, who doesn’t call himself an MRA, grew up with a mother who he says terrorized the entire family and hit her husband frequently. The true impact of the violence, he says, was more than physical and eclipsed his petite mother’s ability to inflict serious injuries. Rosenthal wants to see an appreciation for women’s nonphysical abuse incorporated into domestic-violence policy. “It’s not about size,” he told an audience at a law enforcement domestic-violence training. “It’s not exclusively about physical attacks. However, it is about a pathological need to control others, and women are as prone to this as men.”
RADAR and other MRA groups base their battered men arguments largely on the research of a small group of social scientists who claim that domestic violence between couples is equally divided, just unequally reported. Most notable are the studies conducted by sociologist Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire, who has written extensively on female violence (and who Dawson saw distributing RADAR flyers at an APA conference). Straus’ research is starting to move public opinion. A Los Angeles conference this July dedicated to discussing male victims of domestic violence, “From Ideology to Inclusion 2009: New Directions in Domestic Violence Research and Intervention,” received positive mainstream press for its “inclusive” efforts.
While some men certainly are victims of female domestic violence, advocates say the number is closer to 3 percent to 4 percent, rather than the 45 percent to 50 percent RADAR claims. Jack Straton, a Portland State University professor and member of Oregon’s Attorney General's Sexual Assault Task Force, argues that Straus critically fails to distinguish between the intent and effect of violence, equating “a woman pushing a man in self-defense to a man pushing a woman down the stairs,” or a single act of female violence with years of male abuse; that Straus only interviewed one partner, when couples’ accounts of violence commonly diverge; and that he excludes from his study post-separation violence, which accounts for more than 75 percent of spouse-on-spouse violence, 93 percent of which is committed by men.
All in all, advocates say that cherry-picked studies from researchers like Straus, touted by the MRAs, amount to what Edward Gondolf, director of research for the Mid-Atlantic Addiction Research and Training Institute, calls“bad science.” Statistics suggesting gender parity in abuse are taken out of necessary context, they say, ignoring distinctions between the equally divided “common couple violence” and the sort of escalated, continuing violence known as battery—which is 85 percent male-perpetrated—as well as the disparate injuries inflicted by men and women.
“The biggest concern, though, is not the wasted effort on a false issue,” writes Straton, but the encouragement given to batterers to consider themselves the victimized party. “Arming these men with warped statistics to fuel their already warped worldview is unethical, irresponsible, and quite simply lethal.”
In this, critics like Australian sociologist Michael Flood say that men’s rights movements reflect the tactics of domestic abusers themselves, minimizing existing violence, calling it mutual, and discrediting victims. MRA groups downplay national abuse rates, just as abusers downplay their personal battery; they wage campaigns dismissing most allegations as false, as abusers claim partners are lying about being hit; and they depict the violence as mutual—part of an epidemic of wife-on-husband abuse—as individual batterers rationalize their behavior by saying that the violence was reciprocal. Additionally, MRA groups’ predictions of future violence by fed-up men wronged by the family-law system seem an obvious additional correlation, with the threat of violence seemingly intended to intimidate a community, like a fearful spouse, into compliance.
MRA critics say the organizational recapitulation of abusive tactics should be no surprise, considering the wealth of movement leaders with records or accusations of violence, abuse, harassment, or failure to pay child support. Some advocates call MRA groups “the abuser’s lobby,” because of members like Jason Hutch, the Buckingham Palace fathers’ rights “Batman,” who has been estranged from three mothers of his children and was taken to court for threatening one of his ex-wives.
Contrary to RADAR’s claims, domestic-violence advocates say that not only do abuse accusations not automatically win custody cases for women; there are a rising number of custody decisions awarded to abusive fathers, as judges see wives eager to protect their children as less cooperative regarding custody. More than half the time, studies have found, wives’ accusations of domestic violence are met with counter-accusations from husbands of “Parental Alienation Syndrome”—a medically unrecognized diagnosis that suggests mothers have poisoned their children into making false accusations against their fathers.
In one recent case, Genia Shockome, a Russian immigrant, was fighting for custody of her two children with her ex-husband, whom she charged had beaten her so severely that she suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and who had told her she “had no right to leave” since he’d brought her to the United States. The judge in the case sided with her husband’s counter-claims of Parental Alienation Syndrome and awarded him full custody (and later sentenced Shockome to 30 days in jail while she was seven months pregnant). When her attorney, Barry Goldstein, co-author of the forthcoming book Domestic Violence, Abuse and Custody, criticized the judge in an online article, the judge retaliated with a complaint, and Goldstein was given a five-year suspension. Goldstein says the sanction represents a chilling pressure on attorneys, who may now fear penalties for criticizing a court’s gender bias that will interfere with their duties to their clients and that could result in women deciding not to leave abusers out of fear they won’t get a fair trial.
If cases such as Genia Shockome’s are the fodder of mainstream fathers’ rights advocates like Glenn Sacks—who ridiculed her claims and loss of custody as an uncredible “cause célèbre” for feminist family-law reformers—what Sacks calls the movement’s “lunatic fringe” is more vitriolic yet.
Within the ranks of the men’s rights movement, vigilante “resisters” are regularly nominated and lionized for acts of violence perceived to be in opposition to a feminist status quo [3]. In a few quarters of the movement, this even included George Sodini, the Pittsburgh man who opened fire on a gym full of exercising women this August, killing three and leaving behind an online diatribe journaling his sense of rejection by millions of desirable women.
Sodini’s diary was republished widely, including on the website of a popular men’s rights blogger, “Angry Harry,” who added his assessment of the case [4]. “MRAs should also take note of the fact that there are probably many millions of men across the western world who feel similar in many ways, and one can expect to see much more destruction emanating from them in the future,” he wrote. “One of the main reasons that I decided to post this diary on this website was because the western world must wake up to the fact that it cannot continue to treat men so appallingly and get away with it.” In a phone interview, Angry Harry said, “Of course there will be more Sodinis—there will be many more,” likening him to Marc Lépine, a Canadian man who killed or wounded 28, claiming feminists had ruined his life, or Nevada father Darren Mack, who murdered his estranged wife and attempted to kill the judge in their custody battle. (Also among this number is John Muhammad, the “D.C. Beltway Sniper,” whose involvement in a Washington father’s rights group and history of abuse is described in his ex-wife Mildred’s newly-released memoir, Scared Silent [5].) Perhaps, Angry Harry mused, that as the ranks of online MRAs grow, “the threat” of their violence “may be enough” to bring about the changes they desire.
Glenn Sacks dismissed Angry Harry as an "idiot" without real power in the movement, and yet he cautiously agrees that what Sacks calls "family court injustices" could lead to future violence.* “I want to be careful in wording this,” he says, “but the cataclysmic things I’m seeing done to men, it’s always my fear that one of these guys is going to do something terrible. I don’t want to say that like I condone it or that it’s OK, but it’s just the reality.” The movement seems eager to supply more martyrs. After Sacks wrote about a San Diego father who shot himself on the city’s courthouse steps over late child-support payments, numerous men wrote Sacks, telling him, “They’re taking everything from me, and I want to go out in a big way, and if I do, will you write about me?”
I asked RADAR’s Mark Rosenthal about the ties between groups like RADAR—claiming, however cynically, to have egalitarian motives—and the blunt anti-feminist positions of men’s movement allies like Chapin or Angry Harry. “I’d like to suggest that what you’ve just done is interview Martin Luther King and Malcolm X,” he told me. “In any movement, there is going to be a reasonable voice and people who are so hurt, who are so injured by the injustices, that they can’t afford to step back and try to take their emotions under control. But no movement is going to get anywhere without extremists.”
Gag me with a spoon already...
http://www.doublex.com/print/9316
Published on Double X (http://www.doublex.com)
"Men's Rights" Groups Have Become Frighteningly Effective
They’re changing custody rights and domestic violence laws.
By: Kathryn Joyce
Posted: November 5, 2009 at 7:45 AM
At the end of October, National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, members of the men’s movement group RADAR (Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting [2]) gathered on the steps of Congress to lobby against what they say are the suppressed truths about domestic violence: that false allegations are rampant, that a feminist-run court system fraudulently separates innocent fathers from children, that battered women’s shelters are running a racket that funnels federal dollars to feminists, that domestic-violence laws give cover to cagey mail-order brides seeking Green Cards, and finally, that men are victims of an unrecognized epidemic of violence at the hands of abusive wives.
“It’s now reached the point,” reads a statement from RADAR, “that domestic violence laws represent the largest roll-back in Americans’ civil rights since the Jim Crow era!”
RADAR’s rhetoric may seem overblown, but lately the group and its many partners have been racking up very real accomplishments. In 2008, the organization claimed to have blocked passage of four federal domestic-violence bills, among them an expansion of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to international scope and a grant to support lawyers in pro bono domestic-violence work. Members of this coalition have gotten themselves onto drafting committees for VAWA’s 2011 reauthorization. Local groups in West Virginia and California have also had important successes, criminalizing false claims of domestic violence in custody cases, and winning rulings that women-only shelters are discriminatory.
Groups like RADAR fall under the broader umbrella of the men’s rights movement, a loose coalition of anti-feminist groups. These men’s rights activists, or MRAs, have long been written off by domestic-violence advocates as a bombastic and fringe group of angry white men, and for good reason. Bernard Chapin, a popular men’s rights blogger, told me over e-mail that he will refer to me as “Feminist E,” since he never uses real names for feminists, who are wicked and who men “must verbally oppose … until our flesh oxidizes into dust.” In the United Kingdom, a father’s rights group scaled Buckingham Palace in superhero costumes. In Australia, they wore paramilitary uniforms and demonstrated outside the houses of female divorcees.
But lately they’ve become far more polished and savvy about advancing their views. In their early days of lobbying, “these guys would show up and have this looming body language that was very off-putting,” says Ben Atherton-Zeman, author of Voices of Men, a one-man play about domestic violence and sexual assault. “But that’s all changed. A lot of the leaders are still convicted batterers, but they’re well-organized, they speak in complete sentences, they sound much more reasonable: All we want is equal custody, for fathers not to be ignored.”
One of the respectable new faces of the movement is Glenn Sacks, a fathers' rights columnist and radio host with 50,000 e-mail followers, and a pragmatist in a world of angry dreamers. Sacks is a former feminist and abortion-clinic defender who disavows what he calls “the not-insubstantial lunatic fringe of the fathers’ rights movement.” He recently merged his successful media group with the shared-parenting organization Fathers and Families in a bid to build a mainstream fathers' rights organ on par with the National Organization for Women. Many of Sacks’ arguments—for a court assumption of shared parenting in the case of divorce, or against child-support rigidity in the midst of recession—can sound reasonable.
But do any of their arguments hold up? Many of the men for whom Sacks advocates are involved in extreme cases, says Joanie Dawson, a writer and domestic-violence advocate who has covered the fathers’ rights movement. The great majority of custody cases, in which shared parenting is a legitimate option, are settled or resolved privately. But of the 15 percent that go to family court—the cases that fathers’ rights groups target—at least half include alleged domestic abuse.
Unsurprisingly, this argument is missing from MRA discussions of custody inequality and recruitment ads, which cast all men as potentially innocent victims “just one 911 call away” from losing everything they have earned and loved. These rallying calls, and the divorce attorneys hawking men’s rights expertise on MRA sites, promising to “teach her a lesson,” serve as what Dawson sees as a powerful draw for men in the midst of painful divorces.
While MRA groups continue to expand their base of embittered fathers and ex-husbands, they’ve cleaned up their image to court more powerful allies. RADAR board member Ron Grignal, the former president of Fathers for Virginia and a former state delegate candidate, organizes the group’s Washington lobbying activities. In 2008, RADAR partnered with Eagle Forum for a conference at the Heritage Foundation about the threat that VAWA poses to the family. Grignal argues that state interpretations of VAWA are so broad they could cast couples’ money disputes as domestic violence, enabling unwarranted restraining orders that then win women’s divorce cases for them. Politicians, Grignal says, are increasingly on board with men’s rights movement concerns.
“On domestic violence, I’ve had both state and federal legislators tell me they know that this process is out of control,” says Grignal. “They’re afraid if they support [reforms] they’ll be tagged as ‘for domestic violence.’ But I’ve had Democrats on Capitol Hill tell me they agree with everything I say. A member of the Congressional Black Caucus told me that his brother can’t see his kids, and his wife threatened to throw herself down the stairs to ruin his political career.”
Some domestic-violence protections do seem to have unintended effects, such as mandatory-arrest policies that compel police to take someone into custody in response to any domestic-violence call—a policy that has been criticized by RADAR as well as by some domestic-violence advocates, who say it imposes an absurd equivalence between largely nonviolent family spats or insubstantial female violence and serious abuse. But groups like RADAR are criticizing the law for the wrong reasons. In fact, the effect of mandatory arrest in conflating women’s low-level violence with battery, seems very close to RADAR’s campaign for viewing women as equal domestic abusers.
One potent idea advanced by MRAs is the claim that men are equal victims of domestic violence. Mark Rosenthal, president and co-founder of RADAR, makes a very personal argument for the phenomenon. Rosenthal, who doesn’t call himself an MRA, grew up with a mother who he says terrorized the entire family and hit her husband frequently. The true impact of the violence, he says, was more than physical and eclipsed his petite mother’s ability to inflict serious injuries. Rosenthal wants to see an appreciation for women’s nonphysical abuse incorporated into domestic-violence policy. “It’s not about size,” he told an audience at a law enforcement domestic-violence training. “It’s not exclusively about physical attacks. However, it is about a pathological need to control others, and women are as prone to this as men.”
RADAR and other MRA groups base their battered men arguments largely on the research of a small group of social scientists who claim that domestic violence between couples is equally divided, just unequally reported. Most notable are the studies conducted by sociologist Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire, who has written extensively on female violence (and who Dawson saw distributing RADAR flyers at an APA conference). Straus’ research is starting to move public opinion. A Los Angeles conference this July dedicated to discussing male victims of domestic violence, “From Ideology to Inclusion 2009: New Directions in Domestic Violence Research and Intervention,” received positive mainstream press for its “inclusive” efforts.
While some men certainly are victims of female domestic violence, advocates say the number is closer to 3 percent to 4 percent, rather than the 45 percent to 50 percent RADAR claims. Jack Straton, a Portland State University professor and member of Oregon’s Attorney General's Sexual Assault Task Force, argues that Straus critically fails to distinguish between the intent and effect of violence, equating “a woman pushing a man in self-defense to a man pushing a woman down the stairs,” or a single act of female violence with years of male abuse; that Straus only interviewed one partner, when couples’ accounts of violence commonly diverge; and that he excludes from his study post-separation violence, which accounts for more than 75 percent of spouse-on-spouse violence, 93 percent of which is committed by men.
All in all, advocates say that cherry-picked studies from researchers like Straus, touted by the MRAs, amount to what Edward Gondolf, director of research for the Mid-Atlantic Addiction Research and Training Institute, calls“bad science.” Statistics suggesting gender parity in abuse are taken out of necessary context, they say, ignoring distinctions between the equally divided “common couple violence” and the sort of escalated, continuing violence known as battery—which is 85 percent male-perpetrated—as well as the disparate injuries inflicted by men and women.
“The biggest concern, though, is not the wasted effort on a false issue,” writes Straton, but the encouragement given to batterers to consider themselves the victimized party. “Arming these men with warped statistics to fuel their already warped worldview is unethical, irresponsible, and quite simply lethal.”
In this, critics like Australian sociologist Michael Flood say that men’s rights movements reflect the tactics of domestic abusers themselves, minimizing existing violence, calling it mutual, and discrediting victims. MRA groups downplay national abuse rates, just as abusers downplay their personal battery; they wage campaigns dismissing most allegations as false, as abusers claim partners are lying about being hit; and they depict the violence as mutual—part of an epidemic of wife-on-husband abuse—as individual batterers rationalize their behavior by saying that the violence was reciprocal. Additionally, MRA groups’ predictions of future violence by fed-up men wronged by the family-law system seem an obvious additional correlation, with the threat of violence seemingly intended to intimidate a community, like a fearful spouse, into compliance.
MRA critics say the organizational recapitulation of abusive tactics should be no surprise, considering the wealth of movement leaders with records or accusations of violence, abuse, harassment, or failure to pay child support. Some advocates call MRA groups “the abuser’s lobby,” because of members like Jason Hutch, the Buckingham Palace fathers’ rights “Batman,” who has been estranged from three mothers of his children and was taken to court for threatening one of his ex-wives.
Contrary to RADAR’s claims, domestic-violence advocates say that not only do abuse accusations not automatically win custody cases for women; there are a rising number of custody decisions awarded to abusive fathers, as judges see wives eager to protect their children as less cooperative regarding custody. More than half the time, studies have found, wives’ accusations of domestic violence are met with counter-accusations from husbands of “Parental Alienation Syndrome”—a medically unrecognized diagnosis that suggests mothers have poisoned their children into making false accusations against their fathers.
In one recent case, Genia Shockome, a Russian immigrant, was fighting for custody of her two children with her ex-husband, whom she charged had beaten her so severely that she suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and who had told her she “had no right to leave” since he’d brought her to the United States. The judge in the case sided with her husband’s counter-claims of Parental Alienation Syndrome and awarded him full custody (and later sentenced Shockome to 30 days in jail while she was seven months pregnant). When her attorney, Barry Goldstein, co-author of the forthcoming book Domestic Violence, Abuse and Custody, criticized the judge in an online article, the judge retaliated with a complaint, and Goldstein was given a five-year suspension. Goldstein says the sanction represents a chilling pressure on attorneys, who may now fear penalties for criticizing a court’s gender bias that will interfere with their duties to their clients and that could result in women deciding not to leave abusers out of fear they won’t get a fair trial.
If cases such as Genia Shockome’s are the fodder of mainstream fathers’ rights advocates like Glenn Sacks—who ridiculed her claims and loss of custody as an uncredible “cause célèbre” for feminist family-law reformers—what Sacks calls the movement’s “lunatic fringe” is more vitriolic yet.
Within the ranks of the men’s rights movement, vigilante “resisters” are regularly nominated and lionized for acts of violence perceived to be in opposition to a feminist status quo [3]. In a few quarters of the movement, this even included George Sodini, the Pittsburgh man who opened fire on a gym full of exercising women this August, killing three and leaving behind an online diatribe journaling his sense of rejection by millions of desirable women.
Sodini’s diary was republished widely, including on the website of a popular men’s rights blogger, “Angry Harry,” who added his assessment of the case [4]. “MRAs should also take note of the fact that there are probably many millions of men across the western world who feel similar in many ways, and one can expect to see much more destruction emanating from them in the future,” he wrote. “One of the main reasons that I decided to post this diary on this website was because the western world must wake up to the fact that it cannot continue to treat men so appallingly and get away with it.” In a phone interview, Angry Harry said, “Of course there will be more Sodinis—there will be many more,” likening him to Marc Lépine, a Canadian man who killed or wounded 28, claiming feminists had ruined his life, or Nevada father Darren Mack, who murdered his estranged wife and attempted to kill the judge in their custody battle. (Also among this number is John Muhammad, the “D.C. Beltway Sniper,” whose involvement in a Washington father’s rights group and history of abuse is described in his ex-wife Mildred’s newly-released memoir, Scared Silent [5].) Perhaps, Angry Harry mused, that as the ranks of online MRAs grow, “the threat” of their violence “may be enough” to bring about the changes they desire.
Glenn Sacks dismissed Angry Harry as an "idiot" without real power in the movement, and yet he cautiously agrees that what Sacks calls "family court injustices" could lead to future violence.* “I want to be careful in wording this,” he says, “but the cataclysmic things I’m seeing done to men, it’s always my fear that one of these guys is going to do something terrible. I don’t want to say that like I condone it or that it’s OK, but it’s just the reality.” The movement seems eager to supply more martyrs. After Sacks wrote about a San Diego father who shot himself on the city’s courthouse steps over late child-support payments, numerous men wrote Sacks, telling him, “They’re taking everything from me, and I want to go out in a big way, and if I do, will you write about me?”
I asked RADAR’s Mark Rosenthal about the ties between groups like RADAR—claiming, however cynically, to have egalitarian motives—and the blunt anti-feminist positions of men’s movement allies like Chapin or Angry Harry. “I’d like to suggest that what you’ve just done is interview Martin Luther King and Malcolm X,” he told me. “In any movement, there is going to be a reasonable voice and people who are so hurt, who are so injured by the injustices, that they can’t afford to step back and try to take their emotions under control. But no movement is going to get anywhere without extremists.”
It Still Puzzles me Why Deployed Parents Refuse to See the Logic of my Argument????
Well as usual I went back to find the old post about the study I mentioned earlier and found another interesting post and discussion with some of the principals involved, so here it is...
I realize after finding this post that my blog is FIVE YEARS OLD this month...
I think of it as quite an accomplishment, all things considered.
I'll continue looking for that other study but keep in mind I have five years worth of posts to dig through...
But never fear I will find it...
BTW, hope everyone (including everyone I disagree with) has a lovely Thanksgiving.
Enjoy!!!
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2004
AND They Wonder Why Women Do NOT want to Have Children Anymore...
This sort of ruling (which by the way goes on continuously) is clearly discriminatory against women...
I've been reading a lot lately about how women are having so few children that western societies are facing many serious problems in the future due to our current low reproductive ratio...WELL here's another good example of why women DO NOT wish to take the 'leap of faith' involved in having children...
First of all this father should NEVER have been given physical custody to begin with as it's clear that an active duty member of the military can be deployed AT ANY TIME...ANYTIME...and countless women in the military, countless, LOSE custody for this very reason CONSTANTLY... with Judges claiming that the military lifestyle is too unstable to support single parenting.
Actually threats of losing custody appears to NOW be commonly used as a weapon against women in the military as a way to drive single mothers out of the services...
Perhaps single mothers SHOULD NOT be in the service, but that's a different issue and should be openly discussed and addressed w/o dragging these bias issues into it...
However this nonsense of a DOUBLE standard for men who deploy should be addressed and STOPPED immediately as when men deploy, children should be sent immediately to go live with their non-custodial mothers and NOT be dumped off on grandparents and certainly NOT a female step-person EVER...JUST THE SAME AS COURT RULE WHEN CUSTODIAL MOTHERS IN THE MILITARY ARE DEPLOYED...THE SAME WAY...
Clearly this is NOTHING but an attempt by men in the military to avoid paying child support while they are deployed and certainly NOT in childrens' best interest...
It's simply outrageous that these Judges should be helping them get away with this, simply outrageous...
I couldn't fit the entire decision here but just enough to show the sheer outrageousness of the ruling; and another reason WHY women must begin to get involved in politics, particularly the election and/or appointments of Judges to Federal courts...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 4-468 / 03-2100
Filed November 15, 2004
IN RE THE MARRIAGE OF MICHAEL GRANTHAM and TAMMARA SUE GRANTHAM
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for ButlerCounty, Paul W. Riffel, Judge.
Michael Grantham appeals the judgment of the district court modifying the decree dissolving his marriage to Tammara Sue Grantham.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Heard by Sackett, C.J., and Vogel, Zimmer, Hecht, and Eisenhauer,
JJ.VOGEL, J.In this appeal, we consider the implication of the Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act (SSCRA), 50 U.S.C. app. §§ 501-591, when a parent, enjoying physical care of his minor children under a decree of dissolution, is called to active military duty. We conclude the district court erred in not granting a stay of the modification proceedings pursuant to this Act and further erred in entering a temporary change of physical care on a petition to modify.
Additionally, upon our de novo review, we find no permanent and substantial change of circumstances warranting a change of physical care.
Therefore, we reverse and remand.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings
Michael Grantham’s and Tammara Sue Grantham’s marriage was dissolved on July 11, 2000. The stipulated decree provided for joint custody of their two minor children, then ages ten and six,
...with physical care to Michael...
In mid-August 2002, Tammara was informed by one of the children that Michael,
a National Guard member for over eighteen years,
had been called to active duty and that the children would be residing
with Michael’s mother, Irmgard Grantham. Michael was officially called to active duty on August 21, 2002, and reported to his unit’s armory on August 24. He returned home on a short leave on August 27. While home on leave, Michael reviewed his existing “Family Care Plan” with his lawyer and mother and executed the documents necessary to allow Irmgard, who had been a frequent care giver of the children, to care for the children in his absence[1].
A Family Care Plan is prepared as a part of a soldier’s regular duties and is meant to provide for the care of a soldier’s family.[2] A Family Care Plan is required by military regulation and reviewed when a soldier is called up for active duty.[3] An existing Family Care Plan may be changed; it is not set in stone.[4] A soldier is not deployable until a Family Care Plan is validated and approved, and only the soldier’s commander may approve a Family Care Plan.[5]
Also on August 27, 2002, Michael and his attorney met with Tammara and her attorney at her attorney’s office in Waverly, Iowa. Discussed at this meeting was the possibility of Tammara caring for the children in Michael’s absence instead of Irmgard. Tammara’s lawyer subsequently drafted a proposed stipulated agreement providing for this arrangement, which was provided to Michael later that day.
The following day, Michael returned to National Guard duty at Camp Dodge in Des Moines. After reviewing the proposed agreement with his JAG (Judge Advocate General’s Corps) officer, Michael decided not to enter into the agreement. On August 29, Michael was counseled by his commander on his responsibilities to the military and to his family and Michael filled out a new DA Form 5305-R (Family Care Plan) which provided that Irmgard would care for the children in his absence. Later that same day, Michael’s commander reviewed and approved the Plan.
On September 4, Tammara filed a petition seeking physical care of the children, temporary and permanent support, and suspension of her child support obligations. On the same day, Tammara obtained an ex parte order from the district court setting a hearing on her requests for temporary relief for September 20. Michael was served with the Petition on September 5 while at his unit’s armory in Estherville, Iowa. On September 7, Michael left with his unit for Fort Knox, Kentucky. On September 10, Michael filed a motion requesting a stay of the proceedings pursuant to the SSCRA. No hearing was set on Michael’s motion. On September 20, in his absence, a hearing on temporary placement and child support was held. Although not scheduled, the Court also took up the issue of Michael’s request for a stay at this hearing. Michael’s counsel made a professional statement indicating that Michael was not able to attend the hearing due to his military duties and offered to call his commander to verify this statement.
In a ruling filed October 3, the district court denied Michael’s request for a stay and set a scheduling conference for October 10. The district court based its decision on its finding that [t]he record herein fails to reflect that [Michael] made any showing for a stay other than to state in his unverified filing on September 10, 2002 that he had been placed on active duty and could not appear in court. The record does not reflect by affidavit or otherwise that the Petitioner made any effort to obtain a leave of absence to enable him to be present at the hearing or made any effort to participate telephonically in the scheduled hearing.
Additionally, the record reflects that the Petitioner
acted in bad faith in attempting to exercise his rights under the act by deceiving the Respondent into believing that he was making a good faith effort to reach an agreement when in fact he had no intention of doing so and was merely delaying matter until he had to report for active duty.
The October 10 scheduling conference was held without Michael present and reset the hearing on temporary matters for October 29. Michael, although he was represented by counsel, was unable to participate in the October 29 hearing because of his continuing military duties. At that hearing, Michael’s attorney again sought a stay under the SSCRA and in support thereof filed an affidavit and a letter from Michael’s commander stating that Michael could not attend the proceedings. Michael also moved to continue to a time when he could participate in the hearing. He further moved to dismiss on the grounds that there is no temporary custody remedy available in Iowa Code chapter 598 (2001) for modification proceedings.
On October 30, the district court entered an order denying these motions, temporarily placing the children with Tammara, terminating her support obligation, and requiring Michael to pay child support.
In so doing, the district court did not rule on the merits of Michael’s reapplication for a stay, instead stating that it would not “take issue with [the October 3] ruling” on this matter.Michael sought discretionary review from the Iowa Supreme Court and requested a temporary stay. A stay was granted on November 1. However, on November 8, the court denied discretionary review and vacated the stay. Although Michael was technically on active duty until September 2, 2003, he had returned home early in August 2003 and trial on the merits of the petition for modification was held shortly thereafter, on August 27.
In its subsequent ruling, filed on November 19, the district court granted the relief requested in Tammara’s petition changing physical care of the children to her and entering related orders of visitation and child support.
Michael appeals this ruling and each and every other order therein, contending: First, the district court erred in not staying the proceedings leading up to the November 19, 2003, judgment as required by the SSCRA. Second, the district court erred in entering a temporary change of physical care order on Tammara’s petition for modification. Third, no permanent change in circumstances existed justifying the district court’s change of physical care of the children to Tammara.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
posted by NYMOM | Friday, November 19, 2004
28 Comments:
Anonymous said...
I think there had to be a reason to have the children placed with the father in the first place and also I think that the mother used the activation of the father to her advantage to gain the children. While having the father at a disadvantage it was the best time for her to get what she wanted. If she would have done this any other time she would not have has any grounds to get the children in her placement.
She has stated in the court records that the father was a good father to the children and never denied her any of her visitations. Maybe this is all about her and not the children.
11:15 PM
NYMOM said...
"the mother used the activation of the father to gain the children..."
AND...
What's wrong with that?
I mean are you a mother? Would you want your children with you???
I mean you are saying this she wanted to 'gain' her children like there is something wrong with her wanting her children to be with her...whereas it's perfectly NORMAL for mothers to want their children with them...and the day they STOP wanting that, is when we need to worry because then we just go extinct...
Okay...
So quit talking such nonsense.
9:43 AM
Anonymous said...
Your are right and that is what the problem is.
She never wanted both of the childred in the first place and now she does. The courts thru out the letter that stated that The Children are better off with Mike and not with her. She wanted to be single again and play around and the children would be in her way. So the father had to take care of the children at there younger stage of their lives and now that they are old enough to take care of themselves in when she wants them. To me that is not a good mother and she still don't take them to places they need to go. She has others take the kids every where or hands them off to people because they will be in the way of what she wants to do
10:36 AM
NYMOM said...
Well if you know the people personally then I'll defer to your opinion in this case...HOWEVER, it doesn't change my mind about the basic premise here which is that when a custodial parent is deployed, unless there is a darn good reason, the children should THEN be sent to live with the non-custodial parent...
This decision ruled that being deployed, even for years, did NOT constitute a change in circumstancs which is ridiculous as it means that children could be dumped all over the place as the custodial parent deploys, but refuses to send the children back to live with the non-custodial parents...
Probably trying to avoid paying child support during deployment... and THIS is wrong and should NOT be encouraged by the courts...
This was a BAD ruling...
10:44 AM
JB Opheim said...
Apparently you know nothing about the Military or the soldiers and sailors releif act. I have been deployed with many soldiers who have their wages garnished so that that the child support is paid. I am one of those soldiers. getting deployed is not going to stop your child support and the ssra has nothing to do with protecting the soldier from paying his child support. The Military frowns on deadbeat parents and totally supports the rights of the children.Its not the point that there is something wrong with her wanting her children , but using his deployment as a crutch to get them back after they were obviously given to him for good reason is wrong. I pay my child support every month in good faith and spend plenty of time with them. It sounds to me that you feel Mothers are far more important in a childs life than the Father it that kind of thinking that is destoying our youth
5:01 PM
NYMOM said...
Well yes, I do happen to think that mothers are more significant vis-a-vis children and should be as they invest more in just giving them life...
Why should a father who invests NOTHING in bringing children forth be given the exact same standing as mother...it's just male jealousy and selfishness that is leading to this...
If it continues women won't be wanting to have children anymore and then what...Western civilization is already heading into extinction due to male selfishness...and you're a perfect example of it...
5:08 PM
NYMOM said...
BTW, this selfish man was dumping his children off on his mother anyway which the court papers stated he did very frequently...So why should a mother be w/o her children so he could dump them off with his mother again...
Why, to avoid paying child support obviously...it's simply disgraceful that you men in uniform are allowed to play these games with childrens' lives anyway...simply disgraceful...
5:10 PM
Anonymous said...
I think that you are getting this all twisted. It is the mother that dumps the kids off to who ever will watch them not the father. When the father has the kids he does not dump them off to anyone. If the father has things to do he does it with the kids.
and also the fathers in todays world are just as important in the kids life as the mother.
5:59 PM
NYMOM said...
No...you are getting it all twisted...
1. This is a site for mothers ONLY...get it...not for fathers deployed or otherwise...
Okay...
2. The court papers clearly stated that the father left the children with his mother ALL THE TIME...that was the basis for them saying deployment did NOT constitute a change in circumstances...a twisted interpretation if I ever heard one...
3. Did you even read the actual decision? Since I posted JUST a part of it here...so you need to go back and read the whole thing so you know what you are talking about...
4. NO...I do NOT agree that fathers are as important as mothers thus the creation of this blog...if you don't like it, start your own...
Okay...
Thanks.
6:09 PM
Anonymous said...
I do know what I am talking about and that is right you only have a small portion of the story and I have about 8,000 sheets of paper to that I have read. So I have the whole story.
and If this is for woman only then I would suggest taking this story off your web site
because this story is all about me and I want it off here is you are going to use that tone.
6:16 PM
NYMOM said...
No...
I'm not taking it off this website...
That ruling was public record and I'm leaving it right here so mothers can see exactly what goes on with fathers like this pulling all kinds of stunts to get out of paying child support probably...even the Judge who originally awarded the mother custody said the father acted in bad faith, pretending he was going to review her request for the children to be with her while he was deployed and then disappearing until he actually was deployed so he could then say no change in custody was allowed under that Soldiers and Sailors act you just quoted...
It was an extremely devious act of trickery which lucky the first Judge saw right through...
Unfortunately for this poor mother and her children however the higher court reversed the decision and allowed the deceitfulness of a father to be rewarded...
Again, simply disgracefull....
NOW GET OFF MY BLOG...
7:19 PM
Anonymous said...
so you are telling me that I did not pay? I suppose that is why she owes me money yet from the time I had the kids with me. Now that is not paying Child support.
and by the way if my name is public then your sight is too and I can be on here all I want
12:36 AM
NYMOM said...
Sorry, yes you can stay to discuss this further if you wish...
You just caught me on a bad day and this post was so old I wasn't ever expecting any responses to it after all this time, so you caught me by surprise.
Anyway, I'm sorry that I was so harsh...
Look, I really know neither one of you obviously but my central POINT was that the ruling by the Judge was NOT a good one for other parents in your situation... that was my point...whether or not she paid or you paid was not really an issue, so I shouldn't have brought it up...
You won your appeal so I assume the children are with your mother and your ex has visitation or did the first Judge find another reason during the remand to award the mother custody anyway????
Are you still deployed btw?
You see my basic problem with the ruling (over and above the fact that I consider myself to be an advocate for mothers and considered the ruling very anti-mother) is that it would make it virtually impossible for any non-custodial parent to have custody of their own kids if the custodial parent is deployed...even if the deployment lasted for years.
I mean the appeals court claimed that because you left the children frequently with your mother that no substantial change of circumstances would occur if you decided to let them live with your mother while you were being deployed...thus, what's to stop ANY court from using that logic for any deployment situation...and I can see where kids could be left with girlfriends, boyfriends, friendly neighbors, steppersons, etc., for very long periods of time under that ruling...and it would clearly be an erosion of parental rights by the states to allow that to happen...
The non-custodial parent in ANY deployment situation should AUTOMATICALLY be the default custodial parent unless extraordinary circumstances exist and that should be a burden that the deployed custodial parent should be forced to prove...not the other way around...
People need to think about these things when they take these cases to court and how a ruling like yours could impact future situations involving children and deployed parents. Why didn't you just offer your ex Joint Custody with your mother? That might have satisfed her and saved everyone a lot of trouble which this new ruling, if not overturned by a higher court and I assumed it wasn't, could cause people...
2:50 AM
Mike said...
Thanks for being more understanding,
I have had Joint Custody with her and before my deployment I had placement. After being Deployed the courts gave her placement and I have not had anything since and now I will not have placement again. Unless my kids elect to live with me. That is what my boy is talking about now.
The only reason I was willing to have my mother take the kids during my deployment was to make it easy on them and everyone. I had a gut feeling what she would do if I left the kids with the ex. After the court gave her the kid it all came true. I had a very hard time talking with the kids and seeing them on my time off. The kids had a calling card and when It ran out she wanted me to buy them new ones and everything else was at my expence and she was getting about $800 a month support for the kids and did not spend it on them. and I still have problems with her.
The thing that bugs me is that people like her can ly in court and get away with it and don't feel bad about it. I could not live with my self if I did that.
Now that the supreme court ruled like this, it just opened it up to other to do the same whether it is male or female.
I hope that it don't happen to others.
6:18 PM
NYMOM said...
"Now that the supreme court ruled like this, it just opened it up to other to do the same whether it is male or female.
I hope that it don't happen to others."
I don't understand however the ruling I posted overturned the first Judge's change of custody to her and placed the kids back with you...it claimed that you putting the kids with your mother while you deployed was NOT a significant change of circumstances that warranted a change in custody...
So did she appeal it and to what court...as wasn't your appeal the final state appeal allowed????
12:23 AM
Anonymous said...
She had the Iowa Supreme Court Review the Iowa Court of Appeals outcome and the Iowa Supreme Court reversed it and gave her the kids
4:55 PM
NYMOM said...
Okay now I understand...
I do feel that this was the correct decision and I think if you stop for a moment and think about it, you'd agree...however, I don't understand why you pay such high child support to her; $800 monthly on a soldier's wages is a LOT...
Can't you get that modified downward until you are back?
Also isn't this temporary custody ONLY...since as I understood the intial ruling was temporary custody with her until you got home and then it was open for review at that time...
Which is fair...
I mean even if you don't get primary placement back, doesn't your state have the designation of Joint Legal and Physical Custody where BOTH parents have the children for equal parenting time...
Frankly I don't know why you didn't go for this sort of compromise to begin with, where her and your mother SHARED Joint Physical...At that time she probably would have accepted that and then you could have just sent your mother money for the parenting times the children were with her and your ex would have paid the childrens' expenses during her parenting times...
So neither one of you would have been paying child support to the other...just supporting your kids via the parenting agreement when they were in the different households...
I think this could still be a possibility when you get back as few courts would punish a veteran for being deployed; by making him totally uncustodial once he was back home...
Think about it anyway...sometimes people are more reasonable then you think and everything does NOT have to go through the courts...sometimes you can negotiate...
Just because your ex was irresponsible when the children were young, doesn't mean that NO redemption is possible for her NOW...People change as they age and she might be a loving mother, and more responsible person NOW then she was at the time of your divorce...thus there remains the possibility that BOTH of you can work together when you get home to raise your children...
After all you want your children to see an example of adults working things out, not having to enter court to settle things ALL the time...remember 50% of first marriages end in divorce today so when your children get married (and hopefully they will) you'll want to have set an example for them that no matter what happens, adults can always discuss these issues and come to logical decisions...everything does NOT have to be court ordered for people to do the right thing does it?
Anyway, last point...although I disagreed with the President's decision to go to war in Iraq I support all military persons involved in this 100% and just want to personally thank you for taking on the burdens imposed by this war upon you...
I will continue to hope that you return safely home and that you are able to convince your ex that custody should be shared between you and her...as it would be unfair for you to be relegated to being a visitor in your child's life just because you were called to serve your country.
Anyway, good luck...stay safe...
9:33 PM
mike said...
I have been home since sept 2003 and that is when the courts gave her full physical custody and Nov.15 2004 the Iowa Appeals Court reverted and remended which was good for me and other soldiers like me, but the Iowa Supreme court sided with the District Courts which was not good for me.
My mother only was going to take care of the kids when I was gone for that year. I gave my mother full legal rights to all my income, so she could support the kids when I was gone and nothing change for the ex. I was like my mother was me for a year. The ex had all her rights for the kids just like I was home. She had every Wed. and every other weekend and 4 weeks when ever it worked out for her. Nothing would change but the house and who was in the house. It was supposed to be a disruptive as posible. Well as you can tell that did not work for her and that is when it all started. She went to court for this.
7:11 AM
NYMOM said...
Well I hate to say it but yes, I can see it...
Women don't have children to see them EOW weekend and on Wednesday and once women realize this is what could happen, they'll stop having children...it's that simple...Just as women have abortions rather then carry a child to term to give up for adoption...
It's the same principle...
We CANNOT continue doing this to women as few will have kids and then what happens?
Then we're heading into extinction.
Sorry, it's just the way it is...
9:14 AM
Anonymous said...
"Women don't have children to see them EOW weekend and on Wednesday and once women realize this is what could happen, they'll stop having children...it's that simple..."
Yes, it's that simple. And it's the same reason by which men will stop having children.
"Just as women have abortions rather then carry a child to term to give up for adoption..."
"Mine or nobody else's". Great justification for a murder.
9:03 PM
NYMOM said...
"Yes, it's that simple. And it's the same reason by which men will stop having children."
Men don't have children...or must I conduct a simple biology class for you too now...
11:44 PM
Anonymous said...
"Men don't have children...or must I conduct a simple biology class for you too now..."
Ok, then leave men alone and go and have children all by yourself.
9:14 AM
Anonymous said...
I am in the military presently and after reading this ruling of Mike losing sole conservatorship over his children after being activated to service his country, I am making plans to get out. I am sole conservator of my two boys and there is no way in hell I will leave custody to their father. I have been divorsed for 5 years and he has not paid a single cent of child support for his children. he doesnot even offer any help. He is always unemployeed. I feel that Mike had all rights to give his mother TEMP CUSTODY. I personally now his ex and she would either leave the kids with who ever. These kids at a very young age were seen several time running around town unsupervised. This was when she had them for the weekend. Then she would go out whoring around. Plus she hardly ever paid her portion (little) support she was suppose to pay. Now that she is living with a man that is abusive to the boy she wants custody and Mike to pay support. I think this is all wrong. It is suppose to be in the well being of the children. She disrupted the kids living environment, pulling them out of school where they have gone to for a long time and moved them to a schoool where they do not like. t is all wrong.
7:48 PM
mike said...
This is interesting for another to say stuff like that. Now the boy wants to live with me but the ex will not allow him to and all she does it drags this out so he can't play sports or live with me.
I would really like for you to contact my lawyer and tell him what you see. Maybe things will work out
1:22 PM
NYMOM said...
Well this is a totally different story as neglect or abuse should ALWAYS be grounds for losing custody.
Unfortunately that wasn't the original issue that this post was about and the father in this case, 'Mike' as you call him NEVER mentioned abuse. This was strictly a case about deployment and whether or not it constituted a change in circumstance which warranted a switch in custody to the other parent. I still say it does and so does the court.
AND no, I do not agree with you that the custodial parent has the right to decide that they can just hand their kids off to someone other then the other parent when they deploy. Sorry but that should NOT be allowed.
So in your case, if you do NOT wish to be deployed and have to hand your kids over to what you paint as an uncaring father, then yes, you should leave the military. Actually I'm surprised this did NOT occur to you before now; as why would you risk your children winding up in a situation where they would have to live with an uncaring person??? You should have taken EXTRA care with your occupation knowing their father didn't care about them to ensure they would never face the situation Mike's children are currently in.
What were you thinking???
I have to be honest I consider it somewhat irresponsible for PARENTS to be in the military; as you can be deployed at ANY time and these are the sorts of situations that your children face when this deployment business happens.
Actually you might not even be able to get out of the military right away now because we are at war. So you have placed your children at risk. Same with Mike. According to you his son is running unsupervised all over the place now because he didn't properly plan his life and factor in what COULD happen to his children in the event of deployment.
When you are responsible for children there are MANY things you can no longer do. Dangerous professions, jobs that require a lot of travel or staying out late and probably the military because of the threat of deployment at ANYTIME...ANYTIME...
This is why traditionally the best parent was probably the most boring parent, who was at home with no life or interests of their own, just hanging around the house, cooking, cleaning and planning their lives around their kids' schedule.
Sorry, but I find that people who have fantastically interesting and busy lives generally don't make very good mothers and that's what children ultimately NEED. That boring person, with nothing very interesting going on in her own life so she fixiates on her childrens' lives and makes their life better at the cost of her own.
Our children suffer when we get away from this model.
All I can say to you two now is good luck with straightening out your situations. Hopefully your children won't suffer too much until that happens. Sorry.
12:02 PM
Anonymous said...
You seem to forget that we are divorced and do not have the option to stay home and be a boring parent. Do not tell me that i am not a good parent because I am out in the real world by myself with 2 kids to support. I make good decision in the best interest of my children. You are completely out of line. You must have been that boring parent that stays home and sits infront of the TV while your kids are out running the neighborhood unsupervised. My life revolves around my children. If you asked them they will tell you that I attend every school event, feed them, cloth them, bath them, entertain them. And for me to do all this I do have to sacrafice a lot of time with them to have 3 jobs to support them. Once again I am doing this all on my own w/o support and family help. Yes the military is my decision but I made that decision before kids. It is a job just like any other, but we are fighting for YOUR freedom.
8:08 AM
Anonymous said...
First off let me say that I am a single father and parent to a 15 year old boy.
I have been in and out of Court for the last 12 years for various custody arrangements. Mother and I disagree on parenting styles.
As I read both Mothers rights and Fathers rights oriented material frequently and I find it curious that throughout history the legalities of custody are always pitting Mothers and Fathers. There are periods in history where Mothers get custody 9 out of 10 times and there are times when the opposite is true.
We as parents need to ask ourselves why the Courts cannot or will not allow both parents to have equal rights to their children as the standard.
Perhaps if Mothers and Fathers could agree instead of fighting over custody we would need less Courtrooms.
12:39 PM
NYMOM said...
EVERY period of history has given all mothers defacto custody of any and all young. How could it be otherwise???? We would have died out long ago as a people if this were not the case as men would probably have eaten any young produced by women like bears do...
Recently men have given themselves legal custody of children to control their estates and property but that's relatively recent in human history.
Anyway, we are not making the same contribution, taking the same risk, making the same investment in children, so why in the world would men think they should have the same rights as mothers do?
This is what I don't understand????
You've given yourself these rights through these phony legal concepts men have created to benefit themselves, but they have no basis in natural law.
You've rigged the jury in other words and only get away with this because women don't have the power to stop you. But if you were doing this to each other, there would have been war over it already as men kill each other every day over far less infringement on their rights, far less. You kill each other over who can plant an olive tree on a piece of land yet think it's okay to lay claim to some mother's baby??? You're lucky women have no power, just lucky...
As the system you have rigged is by no means, natural or fair.
8:21 PM
Post a Comment
I realize after finding this post that my blog is FIVE YEARS OLD this month...
I think of it as quite an accomplishment, all things considered.
I'll continue looking for that other study but keep in mind I have five years worth of posts to dig through...
But never fear I will find it...
BTW, hope everyone (including everyone I disagree with) has a lovely Thanksgiving.
Enjoy!!!
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2004
AND They Wonder Why Women Do NOT want to Have Children Anymore...
This sort of ruling (which by the way goes on continuously) is clearly discriminatory against women...
I've been reading a lot lately about how women are having so few children that western societies are facing many serious problems in the future due to our current low reproductive ratio...WELL here's another good example of why women DO NOT wish to take the 'leap of faith' involved in having children...
First of all this father should NEVER have been given physical custody to begin with as it's clear that an active duty member of the military can be deployed AT ANY TIME...ANYTIME...and countless women in the military, countless, LOSE custody for this very reason CONSTANTLY... with Judges claiming that the military lifestyle is too unstable to support single parenting.
Actually threats of losing custody appears to NOW be commonly used as a weapon against women in the military as a way to drive single mothers out of the services...
Perhaps single mothers SHOULD NOT be in the service, but that's a different issue and should be openly discussed and addressed w/o dragging these bias issues into it...
However this nonsense of a DOUBLE standard for men who deploy should be addressed and STOPPED immediately as when men deploy, children should be sent immediately to go live with their non-custodial mothers and NOT be dumped off on grandparents and certainly NOT a female step-person EVER...JUST THE SAME AS COURT RULE WHEN CUSTODIAL MOTHERS IN THE MILITARY ARE DEPLOYED...THE SAME WAY...
Clearly this is NOTHING but an attempt by men in the military to avoid paying child support while they are deployed and certainly NOT in childrens' best interest...
It's simply outrageous that these Judges should be helping them get away with this, simply outrageous...
I couldn't fit the entire decision here but just enough to show the sheer outrageousness of the ruling; and another reason WHY women must begin to get involved in politics, particularly the election and/or appointments of Judges to Federal courts...
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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 4-468 / 03-2100
Filed November 15, 2004
IN RE THE MARRIAGE OF MICHAEL GRANTHAM and TAMMARA SUE GRANTHAM
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for ButlerCounty, Paul W. Riffel, Judge.
Michael Grantham appeals the judgment of the district court modifying the decree dissolving his marriage to Tammara Sue Grantham.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Heard by Sackett, C.J., and Vogel, Zimmer, Hecht, and Eisenhauer,
JJ.VOGEL, J.In this appeal, we consider the implication of the Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act (SSCRA), 50 U.S.C. app. §§ 501-591, when a parent, enjoying physical care of his minor children under a decree of dissolution, is called to active military duty. We conclude the district court erred in not granting a stay of the modification proceedings pursuant to this Act and further erred in entering a temporary change of physical care on a petition to modify.
Additionally, upon our de novo review, we find no permanent and substantial change of circumstances warranting a change of physical care.
Therefore, we reverse and remand.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings
Michael Grantham’s and Tammara Sue Grantham’s marriage was dissolved on July 11, 2000. The stipulated decree provided for joint custody of their two minor children, then ages ten and six,
...with physical care to Michael...
In mid-August 2002, Tammara was informed by one of the children that Michael,
a National Guard member for over eighteen years,
had been called to active duty and that the children would be residing
with Michael’s mother, Irmgard Grantham. Michael was officially called to active duty on August 21, 2002, and reported to his unit’s armory on August 24. He returned home on a short leave on August 27. While home on leave, Michael reviewed his existing “Family Care Plan” with his lawyer and mother and executed the documents necessary to allow Irmgard, who had been a frequent care giver of the children, to care for the children in his absence[1].
A Family Care Plan is prepared as a part of a soldier’s regular duties and is meant to provide for the care of a soldier’s family.[2] A Family Care Plan is required by military regulation and reviewed when a soldier is called up for active duty.[3] An existing Family Care Plan may be changed; it is not set in stone.[4] A soldier is not deployable until a Family Care Plan is validated and approved, and only the soldier’s commander may approve a Family Care Plan.[5]
Also on August 27, 2002, Michael and his attorney met with Tammara and her attorney at her attorney’s office in Waverly, Iowa. Discussed at this meeting was the possibility of Tammara caring for the children in Michael’s absence instead of Irmgard. Tammara’s lawyer subsequently drafted a proposed stipulated agreement providing for this arrangement, which was provided to Michael later that day.
The following day, Michael returned to National Guard duty at Camp Dodge in Des Moines. After reviewing the proposed agreement with his JAG (Judge Advocate General’s Corps) officer, Michael decided not to enter into the agreement. On August 29, Michael was counseled by his commander on his responsibilities to the military and to his family and Michael filled out a new DA Form 5305-R (Family Care Plan) which provided that Irmgard would care for the children in his absence. Later that same day, Michael’s commander reviewed and approved the Plan.
On September 4, Tammara filed a petition seeking physical care of the children, temporary and permanent support, and suspension of her child support obligations. On the same day, Tammara obtained an ex parte order from the district court setting a hearing on her requests for temporary relief for September 20. Michael was served with the Petition on September 5 while at his unit’s armory in Estherville, Iowa. On September 7, Michael left with his unit for Fort Knox, Kentucky. On September 10, Michael filed a motion requesting a stay of the proceedings pursuant to the SSCRA. No hearing was set on Michael’s motion. On September 20, in his absence, a hearing on temporary placement and child support was held. Although not scheduled, the Court also took up the issue of Michael’s request for a stay at this hearing. Michael’s counsel made a professional statement indicating that Michael was not able to attend the hearing due to his military duties and offered to call his commander to verify this statement.
In a ruling filed October 3, the district court denied Michael’s request for a stay and set a scheduling conference for October 10. The district court based its decision on its finding that [t]he record herein fails to reflect that [Michael] made any showing for a stay other than to state in his unverified filing on September 10, 2002 that he had been placed on active duty and could not appear in court. The record does not reflect by affidavit or otherwise that the Petitioner made any effort to obtain a leave of absence to enable him to be present at the hearing or made any effort to participate telephonically in the scheduled hearing.
Additionally, the record reflects that the Petitioner
acted in bad faith in attempting to exercise his rights under the act by deceiving the Respondent into believing that he was making a good faith effort to reach an agreement when in fact he had no intention of doing so and was merely delaying matter until he had to report for active duty.
The October 10 scheduling conference was held without Michael present and reset the hearing on temporary matters for October 29. Michael, although he was represented by counsel, was unable to participate in the October 29 hearing because of his continuing military duties. At that hearing, Michael’s attorney again sought a stay under the SSCRA and in support thereof filed an affidavit and a letter from Michael’s commander stating that Michael could not attend the proceedings. Michael also moved to continue to a time when he could participate in the hearing. He further moved to dismiss on the grounds that there is no temporary custody remedy available in Iowa Code chapter 598 (2001) for modification proceedings.
On October 30, the district court entered an order denying these motions, temporarily placing the children with Tammara, terminating her support obligation, and requiring Michael to pay child support.
In so doing, the district court did not rule on the merits of Michael’s reapplication for a stay, instead stating that it would not “take issue with [the October 3] ruling” on this matter.Michael sought discretionary review from the Iowa Supreme Court and requested a temporary stay. A stay was granted on November 1. However, on November 8, the court denied discretionary review and vacated the stay. Although Michael was technically on active duty until September 2, 2003, he had returned home early in August 2003 and trial on the merits of the petition for modification was held shortly thereafter, on August 27.
In its subsequent ruling, filed on November 19, the district court granted the relief requested in Tammara’s petition changing physical care of the children to her and entering related orders of visitation and child support.
Michael appeals this ruling and each and every other order therein, contending: First, the district court erred in not staying the proceedings leading up to the November 19, 2003, judgment as required by the SSCRA. Second, the district court erred in entering a temporary change of physical care order on Tammara’s petition for modification. Third, no permanent change in circumstances existed justifying the district court’s change of physical care of the children to Tammara.
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posted by NYMOM | Friday, November 19, 2004
28 Comments:
Anonymous said...
I think there had to be a reason to have the children placed with the father in the first place and also I think that the mother used the activation of the father to her advantage to gain the children. While having the father at a disadvantage it was the best time for her to get what she wanted. If she would have done this any other time she would not have has any grounds to get the children in her placement.
She has stated in the court records that the father was a good father to the children and never denied her any of her visitations. Maybe this is all about her and not the children.
11:15 PM
NYMOM said...
"the mother used the activation of the father to gain the children..."
AND...
What's wrong with that?
I mean are you a mother? Would you want your children with you???
I mean you are saying this she wanted to 'gain' her children like there is something wrong with her wanting her children to be with her...whereas it's perfectly NORMAL for mothers to want their children with them...and the day they STOP wanting that, is when we need to worry because then we just go extinct...
Okay...
So quit talking such nonsense.
9:43 AM
Anonymous said...
Your are right and that is what the problem is.
She never wanted both of the childred in the first place and now she does. The courts thru out the letter that stated that The Children are better off with Mike and not with her. She wanted to be single again and play around and the children would be in her way. So the father had to take care of the children at there younger stage of their lives and now that they are old enough to take care of themselves in when she wants them. To me that is not a good mother and she still don't take them to places they need to go. She has others take the kids every where or hands them off to people because they will be in the way of what she wants to do
10:36 AM
NYMOM said...
Well if you know the people personally then I'll defer to your opinion in this case...HOWEVER, it doesn't change my mind about the basic premise here which is that when a custodial parent is deployed, unless there is a darn good reason, the children should THEN be sent to live with the non-custodial parent...
This decision ruled that being deployed, even for years, did NOT constitute a change in circumstancs which is ridiculous as it means that children could be dumped all over the place as the custodial parent deploys, but refuses to send the children back to live with the non-custodial parents...
Probably trying to avoid paying child support during deployment... and THIS is wrong and should NOT be encouraged by the courts...
This was a BAD ruling...
10:44 AM
JB Opheim said...
Apparently you know nothing about the Military or the soldiers and sailors releif act. I have been deployed with many soldiers who have their wages garnished so that that the child support is paid. I am one of those soldiers. getting deployed is not going to stop your child support and the ssra has nothing to do with protecting the soldier from paying his child support. The Military frowns on deadbeat parents and totally supports the rights of the children.Its not the point that there is something wrong with her wanting her children , but using his deployment as a crutch to get them back after they were obviously given to him for good reason is wrong. I pay my child support every month in good faith and spend plenty of time with them. It sounds to me that you feel Mothers are far more important in a childs life than the Father it that kind of thinking that is destoying our youth
5:01 PM
NYMOM said...
Well yes, I do happen to think that mothers are more significant vis-a-vis children and should be as they invest more in just giving them life...
Why should a father who invests NOTHING in bringing children forth be given the exact same standing as mother...it's just male jealousy and selfishness that is leading to this...
If it continues women won't be wanting to have children anymore and then what...Western civilization is already heading into extinction due to male selfishness...and you're a perfect example of it...
5:08 PM
NYMOM said...
BTW, this selfish man was dumping his children off on his mother anyway which the court papers stated he did very frequently...So why should a mother be w/o her children so he could dump them off with his mother again...
Why, to avoid paying child support obviously...it's simply disgraceful that you men in uniform are allowed to play these games with childrens' lives anyway...simply disgraceful...
5:10 PM
Anonymous said...
I think that you are getting this all twisted. It is the mother that dumps the kids off to who ever will watch them not the father. When the father has the kids he does not dump them off to anyone. If the father has things to do he does it with the kids.
and also the fathers in todays world are just as important in the kids life as the mother.
5:59 PM
NYMOM said...
No...you are getting it all twisted...
1. This is a site for mothers ONLY...get it...not for fathers deployed or otherwise...
Okay...
2. The court papers clearly stated that the father left the children with his mother ALL THE TIME...that was the basis for them saying deployment did NOT constitute a change in circumstances...a twisted interpretation if I ever heard one...
3. Did you even read the actual decision? Since I posted JUST a part of it here...so you need to go back and read the whole thing so you know what you are talking about...
4. NO...I do NOT agree that fathers are as important as mothers thus the creation of this blog...if you don't like it, start your own...
Okay...
Thanks.
6:09 PM
Anonymous said...
I do know what I am talking about and that is right you only have a small portion of the story and I have about 8,000 sheets of paper to that I have read. So I have the whole story.
and If this is for woman only then I would suggest taking this story off your web site
because this story is all about me and I want it off here is you are going to use that tone.
6:16 PM
NYMOM said...
No...
I'm not taking it off this website...
That ruling was public record and I'm leaving it right here so mothers can see exactly what goes on with fathers like this pulling all kinds of stunts to get out of paying child support probably...even the Judge who originally awarded the mother custody said the father acted in bad faith, pretending he was going to review her request for the children to be with her while he was deployed and then disappearing until he actually was deployed so he could then say no change in custody was allowed under that Soldiers and Sailors act you just quoted...
It was an extremely devious act of trickery which lucky the first Judge saw right through...
Unfortunately for this poor mother and her children however the higher court reversed the decision and allowed the deceitfulness of a father to be rewarded...
Again, simply disgracefull....
NOW GET OFF MY BLOG...
7:19 PM
Anonymous said...
so you are telling me that I did not pay? I suppose that is why she owes me money yet from the time I had the kids with me. Now that is not paying Child support.
and by the way if my name is public then your sight is too and I can be on here all I want
12:36 AM
NYMOM said...
Sorry, yes you can stay to discuss this further if you wish...
You just caught me on a bad day and this post was so old I wasn't ever expecting any responses to it after all this time, so you caught me by surprise.
Anyway, I'm sorry that I was so harsh...
Look, I really know neither one of you obviously but my central POINT was that the ruling by the Judge was NOT a good one for other parents in your situation... that was my point...whether or not she paid or you paid was not really an issue, so I shouldn't have brought it up...
You won your appeal so I assume the children are with your mother and your ex has visitation or did the first Judge find another reason during the remand to award the mother custody anyway????
Are you still deployed btw?
You see my basic problem with the ruling (over and above the fact that I consider myself to be an advocate for mothers and considered the ruling very anti-mother) is that it would make it virtually impossible for any non-custodial parent to have custody of their own kids if the custodial parent is deployed...even if the deployment lasted for years.
I mean the appeals court claimed that because you left the children frequently with your mother that no substantial change of circumstances would occur if you decided to let them live with your mother while you were being deployed...thus, what's to stop ANY court from using that logic for any deployment situation...and I can see where kids could be left with girlfriends, boyfriends, friendly neighbors, steppersons, etc., for very long periods of time under that ruling...and it would clearly be an erosion of parental rights by the states to allow that to happen...
The non-custodial parent in ANY deployment situation should AUTOMATICALLY be the default custodial parent unless extraordinary circumstances exist and that should be a burden that the deployed custodial parent should be forced to prove...not the other way around...
People need to think about these things when they take these cases to court and how a ruling like yours could impact future situations involving children and deployed parents. Why didn't you just offer your ex Joint Custody with your mother? That might have satisfed her and saved everyone a lot of trouble which this new ruling, if not overturned by a higher court and I assumed it wasn't, could cause people...
2:50 AM
Mike said...
Thanks for being more understanding,
I have had Joint Custody with her and before my deployment I had placement. After being Deployed the courts gave her placement and I have not had anything since and now I will not have placement again. Unless my kids elect to live with me. That is what my boy is talking about now.
The only reason I was willing to have my mother take the kids during my deployment was to make it easy on them and everyone. I had a gut feeling what she would do if I left the kids with the ex. After the court gave her the kid it all came true. I had a very hard time talking with the kids and seeing them on my time off. The kids had a calling card and when It ran out she wanted me to buy them new ones and everything else was at my expence and she was getting about $800 a month support for the kids and did not spend it on them. and I still have problems with her.
The thing that bugs me is that people like her can ly in court and get away with it and don't feel bad about it. I could not live with my self if I did that.
Now that the supreme court ruled like this, it just opened it up to other to do the same whether it is male or female.
I hope that it don't happen to others.
6:18 PM
NYMOM said...
"Now that the supreme court ruled like this, it just opened it up to other to do the same whether it is male or female.
I hope that it don't happen to others."
I don't understand however the ruling I posted overturned the first Judge's change of custody to her and placed the kids back with you...it claimed that you putting the kids with your mother while you deployed was NOT a significant change of circumstances that warranted a change in custody...
So did she appeal it and to what court...as wasn't your appeal the final state appeal allowed????
12:23 AM
Anonymous said...
She had the Iowa Supreme Court Review the Iowa Court of Appeals outcome and the Iowa Supreme Court reversed it and gave her the kids
4:55 PM
NYMOM said...
Okay now I understand...
I do feel that this was the correct decision and I think if you stop for a moment and think about it, you'd agree...however, I don't understand why you pay such high child support to her; $800 monthly on a soldier's wages is a LOT...
Can't you get that modified downward until you are back?
Also isn't this temporary custody ONLY...since as I understood the intial ruling was temporary custody with her until you got home and then it was open for review at that time...
Which is fair...
I mean even if you don't get primary placement back, doesn't your state have the designation of Joint Legal and Physical Custody where BOTH parents have the children for equal parenting time...
Frankly I don't know why you didn't go for this sort of compromise to begin with, where her and your mother SHARED Joint Physical...At that time she probably would have accepted that and then you could have just sent your mother money for the parenting times the children were with her and your ex would have paid the childrens' expenses during her parenting times...
So neither one of you would have been paying child support to the other...just supporting your kids via the parenting agreement when they were in the different households...
I think this could still be a possibility when you get back as few courts would punish a veteran for being deployed; by making him totally uncustodial once he was back home...
Think about it anyway...sometimes people are more reasonable then you think and everything does NOT have to go through the courts...sometimes you can negotiate...
Just because your ex was irresponsible when the children were young, doesn't mean that NO redemption is possible for her NOW...People change as they age and she might be a loving mother, and more responsible person NOW then she was at the time of your divorce...thus there remains the possibility that BOTH of you can work together when you get home to raise your children...
After all you want your children to see an example of adults working things out, not having to enter court to settle things ALL the time...remember 50% of first marriages end in divorce today so when your children get married (and hopefully they will) you'll want to have set an example for them that no matter what happens, adults can always discuss these issues and come to logical decisions...everything does NOT have to be court ordered for people to do the right thing does it?
Anyway, last point...although I disagreed with the President's decision to go to war in Iraq I support all military persons involved in this 100% and just want to personally thank you for taking on the burdens imposed by this war upon you...
I will continue to hope that you return safely home and that you are able to convince your ex that custody should be shared between you and her...as it would be unfair for you to be relegated to being a visitor in your child's life just because you were called to serve your country.
Anyway, good luck...stay safe...
9:33 PM
mike said...
I have been home since sept 2003 and that is when the courts gave her full physical custody and Nov.15 2004 the Iowa Appeals Court reverted and remended which was good for me and other soldiers like me, but the Iowa Supreme court sided with the District Courts which was not good for me.
My mother only was going to take care of the kids when I was gone for that year. I gave my mother full legal rights to all my income, so she could support the kids when I was gone and nothing change for the ex. I was like my mother was me for a year. The ex had all her rights for the kids just like I was home. She had every Wed. and every other weekend and 4 weeks when ever it worked out for her. Nothing would change but the house and who was in the house. It was supposed to be a disruptive as posible. Well as you can tell that did not work for her and that is when it all started. She went to court for this.
7:11 AM
NYMOM said...
Well I hate to say it but yes, I can see it...
Women don't have children to see them EOW weekend and on Wednesday and once women realize this is what could happen, they'll stop having children...it's that simple...Just as women have abortions rather then carry a child to term to give up for adoption...
It's the same principle...
We CANNOT continue doing this to women as few will have kids and then what happens?
Then we're heading into extinction.
Sorry, it's just the way it is...
9:14 AM
Anonymous said...
"Women don't have children to see them EOW weekend and on Wednesday and once women realize this is what could happen, they'll stop having children...it's that simple..."
Yes, it's that simple. And it's the same reason by which men will stop having children.
"Just as women have abortions rather then carry a child to term to give up for adoption..."
"Mine or nobody else's". Great justification for a murder.
9:03 PM
NYMOM said...
"Yes, it's that simple. And it's the same reason by which men will stop having children."
Men don't have children...or must I conduct a simple biology class for you too now...
11:44 PM
Anonymous said...
"Men don't have children...or must I conduct a simple biology class for you too now..."
Ok, then leave men alone and go and have children all by yourself.
9:14 AM
Anonymous said...
I am in the military presently and after reading this ruling of Mike losing sole conservatorship over his children after being activated to service his country, I am making plans to get out. I am sole conservator of my two boys and there is no way in hell I will leave custody to their father. I have been divorsed for 5 years and he has not paid a single cent of child support for his children. he doesnot even offer any help. He is always unemployeed. I feel that Mike had all rights to give his mother TEMP CUSTODY. I personally now his ex and she would either leave the kids with who ever. These kids at a very young age were seen several time running around town unsupervised. This was when she had them for the weekend. Then she would go out whoring around. Plus she hardly ever paid her portion (little) support she was suppose to pay. Now that she is living with a man that is abusive to the boy she wants custody and Mike to pay support. I think this is all wrong. It is suppose to be in the well being of the children. She disrupted the kids living environment, pulling them out of school where they have gone to for a long time and moved them to a schoool where they do not like. t is all wrong.
7:48 PM
mike said...
This is interesting for another to say stuff like that. Now the boy wants to live with me but the ex will not allow him to and all she does it drags this out so he can't play sports or live with me.
I would really like for you to contact my lawyer and tell him what you see. Maybe things will work out
1:22 PM
NYMOM said...
Well this is a totally different story as neglect or abuse should ALWAYS be grounds for losing custody.
Unfortunately that wasn't the original issue that this post was about and the father in this case, 'Mike' as you call him NEVER mentioned abuse. This was strictly a case about deployment and whether or not it constituted a change in circumstance which warranted a switch in custody to the other parent. I still say it does and so does the court.
AND no, I do not agree with you that the custodial parent has the right to decide that they can just hand their kids off to someone other then the other parent when they deploy. Sorry but that should NOT be allowed.
So in your case, if you do NOT wish to be deployed and have to hand your kids over to what you paint as an uncaring father, then yes, you should leave the military. Actually I'm surprised this did NOT occur to you before now; as why would you risk your children winding up in a situation where they would have to live with an uncaring person??? You should have taken EXTRA care with your occupation knowing their father didn't care about them to ensure they would never face the situation Mike's children are currently in.
What were you thinking???
I have to be honest I consider it somewhat irresponsible for PARENTS to be in the military; as you can be deployed at ANY time and these are the sorts of situations that your children face when this deployment business happens.
Actually you might not even be able to get out of the military right away now because we are at war. So you have placed your children at risk. Same with Mike. According to you his son is running unsupervised all over the place now because he didn't properly plan his life and factor in what COULD happen to his children in the event of deployment.
When you are responsible for children there are MANY things you can no longer do. Dangerous professions, jobs that require a lot of travel or staying out late and probably the military because of the threat of deployment at ANYTIME...ANYTIME...
This is why traditionally the best parent was probably the most boring parent, who was at home with no life or interests of their own, just hanging around the house, cooking, cleaning and planning their lives around their kids' schedule.
Sorry, but I find that people who have fantastically interesting and busy lives generally don't make very good mothers and that's what children ultimately NEED. That boring person, with nothing very interesting going on in her own life so she fixiates on her childrens' lives and makes their life better at the cost of her own.
Our children suffer when we get away from this model.
All I can say to you two now is good luck with straightening out your situations. Hopefully your children won't suffer too much until that happens. Sorry.
12:02 PM
Anonymous said...
You seem to forget that we are divorced and do not have the option to stay home and be a boring parent. Do not tell me that i am not a good parent because I am out in the real world by myself with 2 kids to support. I make good decision in the best interest of my children. You are completely out of line. You must have been that boring parent that stays home and sits infront of the TV while your kids are out running the neighborhood unsupervised. My life revolves around my children. If you asked them they will tell you that I attend every school event, feed them, cloth them, bath them, entertain them. And for me to do all this I do have to sacrafice a lot of time with them to have 3 jobs to support them. Once again I am doing this all on my own w/o support and family help. Yes the military is my decision but I made that decision before kids. It is a job just like any other, but we are fighting for YOUR freedom.
8:08 AM
Anonymous said...
First off let me say that I am a single father and parent to a 15 year old boy.
I have been in and out of Court for the last 12 years for various custody arrangements. Mother and I disagree on parenting styles.
As I read both Mothers rights and Fathers rights oriented material frequently and I find it curious that throughout history the legalities of custody are always pitting Mothers and Fathers. There are periods in history where Mothers get custody 9 out of 10 times and there are times when the opposite is true.
We as parents need to ask ourselves why the Courts cannot or will not allow both parents to have equal rights to their children as the standard.
Perhaps if Mothers and Fathers could agree instead of fighting over custody we would need less Courtrooms.
12:39 PM
NYMOM said...
EVERY period of history has given all mothers defacto custody of any and all young. How could it be otherwise???? We would have died out long ago as a people if this were not the case as men would probably have eaten any young produced by women like bears do...
Recently men have given themselves legal custody of children to control their estates and property but that's relatively recent in human history.
Anyway, we are not making the same contribution, taking the same risk, making the same investment in children, so why in the world would men think they should have the same rights as mothers do?
This is what I don't understand????
You've given yourself these rights through these phony legal concepts men have created to benefit themselves, but they have no basis in natural law.
You've rigged the jury in other words and only get away with this because women don't have the power to stop you. But if you were doing this to each other, there would have been war over it already as men kill each other every day over far less infringement on their rights, far less. You kill each other over who can plant an olive tree on a piece of land yet think it's okay to lay claim to some mother's baby??? You're lucky women have no power, just lucky...
As the system you have rigged is by no means, natural or fair.
8:21 PM
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