Rethinking Fathers’ Rights

Unmarried and raising a child is the hardest and scariest experience for either parent. I fought hard to stay out of the court system. As I have heard nothing but horror stories and a lot are true, which is scary. I just wanted to say I am a mother who fought hard to get my sons??? father interested in being a parent, but when ever I would ask him to help out with daycare cost he would disappear for months to a year. So I decided not to talk to him about money and just be thankful that he was coming around to see his son. He would come and stay on the weekends on my couch and I would provide food and anything he needed while he was visiting with his son. I believe that a child needs both parents as a mother cant give her son what a father could. About 4yrs later I decide that I was not going to let him use me anymore and told him I am taking him to court if he doesn???t start helping. Of course he disappeared again, but I did it anyways. So now he sees his son on a regular basis, which I think, is great and he pays CS. About 2yrs ago he got married to a woman he got pregnant, and we all became friends. I later found out that she was being mean to our son and letting him at the age of 4 plays outside right by HWY 16(major HWY with lots of accidents) unsupervised. Of course I tried to work it out and she just kept lying to me saying that my son was lying. After about little over a year I of our son living with his father (agreement between me and his father) I decided that he needs to come home. After about 4months of trying to get his father to call him and come see him, we got court papers saying I refused to let his father see him. Which was an obvious lie, I tried talking to him but he wanted to go to court. Presently, we are in a continuous court battle as his wife is verbally, physically and mentally abusive to our son. I wonder if I had made the right decision with keeping his father a part of his life. Of course I have been diagnosis as having anxiety (which I have never had in my whole life) by the mediator and they have not once questioned his father as to why our son comes home with bruises and haterd towards his fathers wife. Yes, I have tried talking to his father but as you can imagine I got no where. So yes I do believe that both parents needs to be a big part of a childs life but I dont believe the child has to be treated bad inorder for that to happen. We need to all pull together as caring parents and fight the court system as one. My son talks about how he cant wait until he does not have to see his fathers wife anymore. Yesh his father was not the best fathers but he is still his father and he did not abuse our son. Tell me how do you get the courts to look at the step parent?? Cause I cant get them to realize she is the problem. Children are the future help them strive for a better life!!!!

There is something wrong with family law today.

Home-schooling Mothers who have depended on their husband???s income are unable to retain lawyers to defend themselves because they don???t have access to the money -that they owe taxes on- when the husband sneaks around and files for divorce without informing her. There is no one at the court level to order the guy to give her a fair share.

Mothers end up in court without lawyers at surprise emergency custody hearings. (She shows up for a settlement conference and - surprise!)

Mothers who are traumatized are treated as if they are crazy. (No doctor need verify the allegation of the Mothers state of mind). The rumor begins with the hearsay of the husband and the husband???s lawyer, (who is well known around the courthouse) and so is afforded ???a quiet word??? with the judge and others, to let them know that the Mother is unstable.

Little girls have abrasions on their vaginas and their Mothers are told a doctor did an examination and the red sore and the chafing are the result of laundry detergent. The little girl tells a friend of the family that she gets boils(?) on her vagina and ???Papa pops them???. CPS tells the Mother ???Didn???t the judge tell you to stop bringing this up????

Courts are turning 40lb 6 year old girls over to 58 year old men. (Fourth time divorced loners who didn???t raise the other children they had). And this, even though one of things the little girl told the Mother was: she feels like she???s going to die when he lies on top of her because he???s so heavy.

There is something wrong with family law today. Mothers and children should have rights too.

Gwen McAllister
Baltimore, Maryland

Irresponsible reporting, where do you getting your statistics from? Alec Baldwin? Wrong poster boys? They seem pretty good representatives to me. for all these fathers that don't want to pay child support. They are EXACTLY what is wrong with the court system and abusive, violent, INSANE men want custody. There may be some men out there that are great caregivers, but they're are even MORE of them that continue the circle of abuse.

Irresponsible reporting, where do you getting your statistics from? Alec Baldwin? Wrong poster boys? They seem pretty good representatives to me. for all these fathers that don't want to pay child support. They are EXACTLY what is wrong with the court system and abusive, violent, INSANE men want custody. There may be some men out there that are great caregivers, but they're are even MORE of them that continue the circle of abouse

I don't know what statistics you are looking at...I can tell you the corruption in the family court system definately is protecting abusers in many cases fathers...in some mothers...it is not mere gender that is the issue, it is the safety of our children!..that should be the ONLY cause that is the focus! I personally know a child who was taken from the custody of a protective parent who had full custody until abuse was disclosed and sent to live with the abuser, all because the abuser admitted to "knowing people"...would you feel the same way if it were your child and your husband was ripping your child away from you? Or later in life, your grandchild? It's easy to speak out if it is not a personal situation! (IGNORANCE IS BLISS!)

This is one of the most biased articles I have ever read. Ms. Lithwick is obviously a second (or third, or fourth) wife, whose husband most likely has to pay child support. As such, she is angry about it and has only heard one side of the story.

She is completely mistaken about women getting custody most of the time, and she is also mistaken about how much child support "dads" have to pay. Ms. LIthwick, many times moms have to pay abusive dads child support! Also, the move-away laws don't always favor moms.

It is telling that Ms. Lithwick's only examples of "wronged" fathers included murderers and suspected murderers. Anyone who would have sympathy for these people is truly out to lunch. She does state that lionizing these people is wrong, yet doesn't really cite any other examples.

I will be the first to admit there are some "good" fathers and some "bad" mothers. But there are also many many mothers who have done nothing wrong, yet because of our legal system and the money trail with dads usually affording the better lawyers and sometimes buying off the judges, many of these mothers have had their children taken from them, FOR NO REASON. There are also many abused women who lose custody, and the abuser gains custody, as Jennifer from Minnesota writes here in her very compelling life story.

Ms. Lithwick should not be allowed to write such unbiased articles without any response or rebuttal. Also, if someone is biased because of personal issues, they shouldn't be the person selected to write on the subject.

Another Battered Woman Receives Refugee Status!

Chere Tomayko fled the United States to Costa Rica in 1996 with her daughters, one of whom she had with her former boyfriend, Roger Cyprian. She did so in order to escape an abusive relationship with the father of the child.

Chere was arrested last year by Interpol and has spent the last 10 months in the El Buen Pastor prison for women. The U.S. has fought for extradition, but the Costa Rican government has decided to grant Chere refugee status and has released her.

Oscar Arias, Costa Rica's president, has praised the action of the Costa Rican justice system in granting Chere asylum and releasing her. He says that he is proud that his country took this action in order to protect human rights in spite of U.S. pressure to extradite Chere.

My mother is a battered woman who is the first American to receive asylum in Holland.

We are from Minneapolis Minnesota. My mother was a battered woman and too terrified to leave her abuser. Child Protection threatened my mother that we would be removed from her care and she could face charges of ???failure to protect??? if she didn???t leave my father. Yet once she left, the case was remanded to the Family Court and our young mother (22) was thrown into an outrageous legal battle of ???he said / she said.???

The family court case dragged on for years and during this time, my father continued to beat my mother (in front of us) when he picked us up for court ordered visitation. During the visitation??? he beat, punched, kicked, tortured and tormented me (7) and my brother (9.) We would cry and beg our mother not to send us.

My father would call the police to enforce visitation and we would be physically dragged out from underneath our beds and given to this man who was hurting us. Rather than accept that our mother was advocating on behalf of her abused children, she was accused of ???Parental Alienation Syndrome.???

The judge found that domestic violence occurred, but personally decided that our mother was too traumatized from the abuse to care for her own children. He decided that it was easier to monitor my father???s physical abuse than the potential physiological harm from having a ???broken??? mother and on 12/22/94 he awarded the known abuser custody of two young children!

The court officers literally ripped me out of my mother???s arms as I was kicking and screaming ???MOMMY HELP ME! HE HURTS ME AND HE HURTS MY BROTHER! MOMMY???. I WANT MY MOMMY!??? I will be haunted by that moment for the rest of my life!

After trying every legal possibility to secure our safety, on June 30th 1994 this brave woman ???kidnapped??? us children right out from underneath her abuser. It was the happiest day of our lives! We went ???underground??? and eventually fled the United States in 1994.

After spending 3 years in refugee camps our shy, petite, young mom won her case under the European Convention for Human Rights and was the first American Citizen granted Asylum in the Netherlands! (My brothers and I also received our own asylum.)

After 13 years of living in secrecy, we were found by the FBI. Now American authorities are trying to prosecute my mother as a kidnapper. The Netherlands refuses to Deport us.

It is embarrassing that our country fails to protect the most vulnerable citizens! We want to expose the injustice, help rectify the inadequacies of family court and find a way to insure the protection of bruised and beaten and children. We would appreciate any help you can give.

Sincerely,
Jennifer Collins

My mother is a battered woman who is the first American to receive asylum in Holland.

We are from Minneapolis Minnesota. My mother was a battered woman and too terrified to leave her abuser. Child Protection threatened my mother that we would be removed from her care and she could face charges of ???failure to protect??? if she didn???t leave my father. Yet once she left, the case was remanded to the Family Court and our young mother (22) was thrown into an outrageous legal battle of ???he said / she said.???

The family court case dragged on for years and during this time, my father continued to beat my mother (in front of us) when he picked us up for court ordered visitation. During the visitation??? he beat, punched, kicked, tortured and tormented me (7) and my brother (9.) We would cry and beg our mother not to send us.

My father would call the police to enforce visitation and we would be physically dragged out from underneath our beds and given to this man who was hurting us. Rather than accept that our mother was advocating on behalf of her abused children, she was accused of ???Parental Alienation Syndrome.???

The judge found that domestic violence occurred, but personally decided that our mother was too traumatized from the abuse to care for her own children. He decided that it was easier to monitor my father???s physical abuse than the potential physiological harm from having a ???broken??? mother and on 12/22/94 he awarded the known abuser custody of two young children!

The court officers literally ripped me out of my mother???s arms as I was kicking and screaming ???MOMMY HELP ME! HE HURTS ME AND HE HURTS MY BROTHER! MOMMY???. I WANT MY MOMMY!??? I will be haunted by that moment for the rest of my life!

After trying every legal possibility to secure our safety, on June 30th 1994 this brave woman ???kidnapped??? us children right out from underneath her abuser. It was the happiest day of our lives! We went ???underground??? and eventually fled the United States in 1994.

After spending 3 years in refugee camps our shy, petite, young mom won her case under the European Convention for Human Rights and was the first American Citizen granted Asylum in the Netherlands! (My brothers and I also received our own asylum.)

After 13 years of living in secrecy, we were found by the FBI. Now American authorities are trying to prosecute my mother as a kidnapper. The Netherlands refuses to Deport us.

It is embarrassing that our country fails to protect the most vulnerable citizens! We want to expose the injustice, help rectify the inadequacies of family court and find a way to insure the protection of bruised and beaten and children. We would appreciate any help you can give.

Sincerely,
Jennifer Collins

When McCain ran against Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and a large number of the Republican Party was vicious in their character assassination of McCain, calling him, ???damaged goods.??? They successfully scared enough people in their party into thinking maybe five years as a POW is too much for any human being to endure and that the office of the President required complete mental stability. Therefore, Bush would be a much better choice for the job.
After eight grueling years with their choice of a president, these same talking heads are expecting the majority of the American populous to be afraid one more time. This time they are asking us to be afraid of man who is brilliant and inspiring. Furthermore, they are asking us to trust them again and choose the man they used as a piñata eight years ago. This time their dishonesty is glaring. This time their tap-dancing is way out of step. They???re unable to use any compelling arguments so their only strategy is to nit-pick and continually bend the truth. The Republicans care so much about a fetus and so little about a soldier being sacrificed in an unjust war. After serving 2-3 tours of duty the current administration is asking our soldiers to go to Afghanistan: where they should have been in the first place. That is not supporting our troops. That is using them like pawns in a chess game, making them completely expendable. We would have had Osama Bin Laden a long time ago, if, we had kept our priorities where they should have been. Go ahead hammer away at the same tired Roe V Wade type issues. Have you ever noticed that the people who hate abortion tend to love the Death Penalty? They care so much about the unborn fetus and so little about the child once it???s born. Only those who have adopted children have earned the right to get passionate about the issue. So go ahead force the fetus to live so you can use it as cannon fodder later on.
-James Bray

I know there are a lot of complaints about dead beat dads and I know many are legitimate. I've also witnessed the flip side where I???ve seen the mother run off with another man and abandon her children. And I???ve also seen women make a living on child support. They collect from multiple men and use it as a career. But what has me stumped is the poor judgment that brought 'some' of these children into the world in the first place. If your significant other can't hold a job, abuses any substance, is abusive to you or themselves in any way, exhibits signs of any kind of mental instability or illness then maybe a good place to start would be NOT to marry them and certainly not to have children. I have personally witnessed couples where one had obvious issues which the other party chose to ignore and they continued to have children. Babies don't fix personal issues or marriages. I know this does not apply to every case but at least to some. Why not prevent a bad childhood before it happens? And how can you cry fowl if your mate had major issues and you chose to look the other way? I know there are some true victims out there but it???s been my experience that most people are volunteers.

OK, I know there are a lot of complaints about dead beat dads and know many are legitamate. I've also witnessed the flip side where the mother runs off and abandons her children. But what has me stumped is the poor judgement that brought 'some' of these children into the world in the first place. If your significant other can't hold a job, abuses any substance, is abusive to you or themselves in any way, exhibits signs of I know there are a lot of complaints about dead beat dads and I know many are legitimate. I've also witnessed the flip side where I???ve seen the mother run off with another man and abandon her children. And I???ve also seen women make a living on child support. They collect from multiple men and use it as a career. But what has me stumped is the poor judgment that brought 'some' of these children into the world in the first place. If your significant other can't hold a job, abuses any substance, is abusive to you or themselves in any way, exhibits signs of any kind of mental instability or illness then maybe a good place to start would be NOT to marry them and certainly not to have children. I have personally witnessed couples where one had obvious issues which the other party chose to ignore and they continued to have children. Babies don't fix personal issues or marriages. I know this does not apply to every case but at least to some. Why not prevent a bad childhood before it happens? And how can you cry fowl if your mate had major issues and you chose to look the other way? I know there are some true victims out there but it???s been my experience that most people are volunteers.

My younger brother gained custody of his 2 children when his wife decided the grass was greener elsewhere. She has never paid a dime in child support, as she was court ordered to, and my brother never pushed the issue, as he feared going to court would result in her getting custody. My brother is my hero, working full time, raising his son and daughter solo, until both kids were in their early teens. He is remarried, with a step-daughter, and he doesn't regret one day the fact he told his ex "you go ahead and leave, but my kids stay with me."

I have never seen a single father that had custody of his kids. I have seen loads of women who are single parents. Lots of married women who are the primary care givers for their children. But I have not seen a father who has really stepped up for the right reasons. While I know they are out there, they are the minority.
I applaud the fathers who are genuine and care for their children actually take care of them. But its not all about the single fathers. Its about single parents in general. Making it gender specific is not moving forward. We cant have more sympathy for single dads because they did the right thing. They should. They shouldn't get recognition for it. Isn't that what a parent is supposed to do. I have not seen many things about how hard it is for single mothers. That doesn't often make the news. The fact that we take notice that a father has actually done the right thing is sad. They should do the right thing. This sounds so much like what I tell my own children. I am not going to give them a prize or anything special for doing what they are supposed to already be doing. Taking responsibility for your child(ren) is not going above and beyond. Its just what a parent does.

I raised my daughter for 14 years with hardly any financial support from her father and he choose not to see her. When I got married and moved across the country of course he would say that he was devastated but every year we would come home for a two or three week visit and he could not find time to come and see her for more than a day or two. Most years he didn't come at all. I stayed in contact with him so my child could call him when she wanted. I encouraged her to call but he hardly ever answered nor did he find time to call back or send Christmas or birthday cards or presents. Finally when he asked me to send her to him for the summer I thought he finally might be growing up, at least that was how he put it to me. Little did I know that he had no intention of sending her home. When I called him to tell him she was on the plane he laughed and said now I would know what it felt like not to see her. I even paid for the plane ticket to send her there. I hardly hear from her because he has had the pone disconnected. She doesn't want to come home. She is old enough to choose to live with her father. She has no rules living with her dad as long as she chooses to stay there. She has been in trouble with the police, she has done drugs and is on probation. They have tried to get me to pay her fines but I refused. He is now taking me to court for child support. Kind of strange how life works out. I cant afford to take him to court for custody. Yeah, I didn't know i had to file for custody because we were never married. I assumed that I had custody. Now that I am divorced and am a single parent to the 2 children I still have at home my money is spent on what we need to maintain a healthy lifestyle. The point is that while there may be good fathers there are many that are not. The system is flawed. Fathers are not the only ones who get the shaft. Its all about money.

I do feel for the fathers that are dealing with this. My husband has a daughter by another woman, and she uses the girl as a pawn, if he can offer her something, he can see his child. I have never met her, so I haven't a clue as to why she can justify treating him like that, but I also cannot be biased because i've never met her to hear what has made her so mad. I've tried to encourage him to take her to court, but he doesn't want to create stress on his daughter. She is in essence a single mother. I have no children, but I would imagine I would want their father in their life, and would be relieved if a man wants to take resposibility for his child. I guess I will never understand.