Conrad Black’s problems no more significant compared to those facing fathers in Canada’s divorce courts

THE CANADIAN FAMILY FORUM

Open forum by Canadians about legal and social issues affecting Canadian families
Published by Canada Court Watch: http://www.canadacourtwatch.com

By Grant Brown, DPhil (Oxon) LLB
January 20, 2007.

While there has been a lot of recent press surrounding the problems facing
Conrad Black in court, nobody should think that the legal travails of this business mogul are anything out of the ordinary.

As a former professor of business and professional ethics, an author of peerreviewed research in the field, and a current practitioner of family law, I can say without fear of contradiction that the common man frequently receives treatment much worse than Lord Black's from our dysfunctional
family-dispute system.

There is no "presumption of innocence" for men. They are routinely evicted from their own homes by ex parte restraining orders, on the basis of false or completely uncorroborated allegations of abuse or even merely the "fear" of abuse.

They are consequently denied access to their assets, especially the equity in their homes, while paying the mortgage and credit cards for the benefit of the estranged partners and their alienated children.They may have to spend thousands of
dollars to defend themselves against criminal charges of assault, over ridiculously minor incidents in which the woman was equally a participant, if not a
deliberate provocateur.

They may have to spend thousands more to have a home study done to prove their innocence and their competence as a parent.

Rarely is a woman legally sanctioned in any way for false or exaggerated allegations of abuse, or self-serving slander of fathers.

Private lawyers in family disputes often behave no better than the public prosecutor in Lord Black's case.

They encourage clients to take uncompromising positions, to swear questionable affidavits, and to rebuff
reasonable settlement offers.

They speak out of turn and tell judges
irrelevant and misleading half-truths in Court, to slant the proceedings in their
client's favour and put the other side off their message.

They delay, play procedural games,obstruct the other side from getting at the information they are entitled to, and run up the cost of litigation until it becomes unaffordable to continue. They do all this with the blessing of the Courts and the Law Societies.

Lord Black can fend for himself, with the able assistance of Eddie Greenspan.

The common man is the more to be pitied.

Grant A. Brown, DPhil (Oxon), LL.B is a lawyer who practices law in Edmonton, Aberta, He may be reached by phone at (780) 433-1505

Source: http://www.canadacourtwatch.com/CanFamForumFiles/CFF-2007Jan20-ConradBlacksProblemsNoWorseComparedToDivorcedDads.pdf

Canada's child support guidelines - first decade of fiction

Did you know that: (1) our child support guidelines rely on a formula to calculate all the levels of child support? (2) that the child support formula assumes that the paying parent has NO access, when the access parent's actual access can be up to 40%? (3) that the assumption of no access result in more than doubling all the levels of child support for the average access parent? (4) that the assumption was labelled as "legislative fiction” by a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada on November 10, 2005? (5) that even a paying parent with an access of 40% or more is treated unfairly by our child support guidelines?

If you want to know more about these and other problems with our child support guidelines, read "Child Support Guidelines, 1997 to 2007, First decade of fiction"

Link to free copy of on line book

Courts From Hell: Family InJustice In Canada

Courts From Hell: Family InJustice In Canada
by Frank Simons

Mr. Simmons is yet another Canadian Author to join the ranks of hard working Canadians who want to expose the corruption and incompetence in the family court system which is making a mockery of justice in Canada and destroying family after family.

From Back Cover

IF ROSA PARKS WAS A DIVORCED FATHER IN CANADA, SHE'D STILL BE RIDING AT THE BACK OF THE BUS.

• 
  What gives a judge the right to discriminate against families and without cause to take away God's given right to be equal parents.
• 
  Canadian Courts and the Family Justice System....For an institution that represents a country committed to a "Charter of Rights and Freedoms" whose leaders preach human rights to other nations, what I've seen and learned in 12 years of HELL is reprehensible and the destruction to families unimaginable.
• 
  I expected help so my family could have a new beginning....Instead I found a dysfunctional Justice System with fractured and indequate laws, corrupt lawyers, biased judges and an overall costly, adversarial, ineffective and inefficient, self serving Family Court.
• 
  To this environment we entrust 50% of our families who unfortunately fall victim to divorce and separation.
• 
  It's time to do everything possible to get families out of court.

The Canadian Family

"It's About Time"

Frank Simons

Free Download here of the book

Ontario doctor speaks up about court corruption and cover-up in Ontario's justice system

(Dec 21, 2008) Recently, one well respected Ontario doctor offered to be interviewed on videotape about his horrible experience with Ontario's justice system. Based on his experience, he believes that too many bad people within the "legal fraternity" have corrupted the system to the point where the citizens of Ontario can no longer consider themselves to be safe in Ontario if they happen to get tangled in the web of Ontario's justice system. So tragic but so true. Canada claims to the rest of the world how it is one of the safest countries in the world in which to live, yet behind the scenes, Canadians themselves are being destroyed by a justice system which has grown into an out of control monster, fuelled by money, greed and profit for the "legal fraternity" which at one time was a reputable profession.

This doctor is one of the growing number of citizens in Ontario coming forth to get the truth out about Ontario's morally corrupt justice system.

Just as we are now seeing some of the most powerful economies of the world come crashing down because of greed and corruption, it will be only a matter of time until the greed and corruption within Canada's system of justice, brings the entire system crashing down upon itself. The good people of Canada have had enough.

Ontario doctor describes corruption within Ontario's justice system from Canada Court Watch on Vimeo.

Dr. Jayne Major Ph.D. speaks about the morally corrupt family court system

(April 22, 2009) During her visit to Toronto as a guest speaker at the Canadian International Symposium on Parental Alienation Syndrome in March of 2009, internationally recognized, Dr. Jayne Major, spoke to Court Watch about the issue of the family court system.

Dr. Major has been helping children and families involved in the family court system for over 25 years. Her experience supports claims that the family court system is a very dysfunctional system and is doing more harm to children and families than good. Dr. Major is one of the growing number of professionals coming forward to boldly speak the truth.

This video is dedicated to M.S., who at the age of 10 years, was ripped from her loving father and older siblings and forced her into the sole custody of her sociopath mother by Justice Craig Perkins of the Superior Court of Justice in Newmarket, Ontario. Justice Perkins never even asked what the girl's wishes were before handing down his terribly flawed decision. The citizens of Court Watch have not forgotten about the terrible work that Justice Perkins did in this case and then how he attempted to impose silence by issuing a publication ban on the case, including the names of the professionals involved. Court Watch has videotaped complaints from other children complaining about the same professionals used in this case. One day when M.S. is older, she will speak out about what Justice Perkins did to her and her family and and one day the truth will get out. Hopefully in the meantime, Justice Perkins will have some time to think about the terrible harm he has done to this child and her family

Dr. Jayne Major Ph.D. speaks about the family court system from Canada Court Watch on Vimeo.

Don’t exclude the grandparents

From The TimesJune 9, 2009

Don’t exclude the grandparents
Almost half of grandparents lose contact with their grandchildren after family break-up — but when Susannah Hickling lost her French partner, she found that she needed her in-laws’ help more than ever.
(SUZANNA HICKLING)

by Susannah Hickling

I had known about Richard’s death for all of one minute when his mother started to scream repeatedly: “She’ll go back to England and we’ll never see the baby again!” Submerged in an ocean of grief with an icy numbness already creeping over me, I can honestly say that the thought of taking our 15-day-old son from our home in France back to London had not even entered my head.

In the weeks and months that followed, my mother and sister urged me to do just that. I did eventually go back — but not for another four years and not before I was satisfied that my son had built a meaningful relationship with his father’s family.

Even amid the most terrible sorrow, something told me that it was important for Joshua to get to know his paternal grandparents, his aunt and uncle and his half-brother and half-sister — people I barely knew myself, as a relative newcomer to their small village in Provence. They were a close family in an area where blood ties are so strong that they often exclude friendships. Joshua would also need to speak French, as Richard’s relatives spoke no English. And, anyway, having lost my soulmate, who was shot accidentally by a game hunter on a hillside near our home, when our child was barely two weeks old, I reasoned that I would be unhappy wherever I was.

The Grandparents’ Association estimates that more than a million children in Britain are not allowed to see their grandparents because of divorce or family tragedy. And a recent report published by pressure groups including the Family Matters Institute and Families Need Fathers pointed out that, while the law grants an automatic right to step-parents who have lived as part of a family for three years to apply to the family courts for contact, the same right is not given to grandparents.

In contrast to the UK — where 42 per cent of grandparents lose contact with their grandchildren after a family break-up — grandparents’ rights are enshrined in French law. I never wanted it to come to that, not because I thought that Richard’s family would take me to court but because it seemed clear to me that a mother has to act in the best interests of her child.

But I’d be lying if I pretended that it was easy. There were big differences in our views on child-rearing and in our cultural attitudes. I was in a village that even locals from nearby towns derided as “backward”. The advice from friends, family and parenting books was in stark contrast to the accepted practices there. It is common for the wider family to help to bring up the children in Provence, and mine interfered as only a Mediterranean family could. I was often a lone dissenting voice against their collective belief system.

When they urged me to put sugar on Joshua’s dummy to stop him crying, I told them that it was bad for his teeth. “But he doesn’t have any,” said his grandmother. “They’re there in his gums,” I insisted politely. Later, I saw the tell-tale sugary sheen around his mouth and felt the stickiness on his dummy. “Who did this?” I asked. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law looked sheepish. “You don’t want him to have sugar on his dummy — you deal with it,” warned my sister-in-law when we took a bawling Joshua out in his buggy later. I will, I thought. He is, after all, my baby.

It infuriated me that I could be entrusted to manage a team of people and a six-figure budget in the job I gave up to move to Provence, yet apparently I was an incompetent mother. But I kept my usually big mouth shut. I was trying to build a relationship, not engage in active warfare. And I was well aware that my partner’s family, like me, were mad with grief.

They were adamant that the good old ways were the best. These dictated that, for example, you should never let a baby take a nap under a fig or walnut tree (I had both) for fear of toxins in the leaves, but that you should feed him lambs’ brains.

I realised that being undermined was par for the course, but some of their ideas were terrifying. Richard’s mother and sister told me that if Joshua misbehaved he would be punished with the martinet, a whip with leather lashes. This was kept for disciplining their dogs but Joshua’s halfsister had once been hit with it as a little girl. Only once, mind you, they said. “I think that’s barbaric,” I said.

At one stage I was too frightened to leave Joshua alone at his grandparents’ home for more than a few minutes in case he was naughty — yet soon I saw that, far from being strict disciplinarians, the family doted on my son and spoilt him rotten. It helped that he was the spitting image of Richard, right down to the fair hair and the little triangles under his eyes when he was tired. Richard’s mother and sister even enjoyed changing his messy nappies.

Although they wanted to look after him all the time, it always had to be at their house, the hub of the family. A few months after Richard’s death I decided to return to the local drama group — but it started at 9pm, and getting both of us fed and out of the house with all the baby paraphernalia took two hours. By the time I had dropped Joshua at his grandparents’ home, I was too exhausted to be theatrical in French. And after I had collected him at 11pm and driven him, tired and cranky, back home, I was a shell. After two sessions I gave up drama and the hope of a life outside my home and my partner’s family. This is my life now, I told myself grimly. But it won’t always be like this.

Gradually things got better. As time passed, Richard’s family and I came to understand each other. They realised that I could care for a baby despite all that had happened, and our total misery at Richard’s death mellowed into the dull pain of missing him. We all became a bit more sane and Joshua, now 5, grew into a sociable and well-balanced bilingual child.

By the time I moved back to London 18 months ago, I knew that I had done the right thing by staying so long. I had proved that it is possible to maintain a relationship with your partner’s family even when that partner is no longer there. That proof is in the birthday card that his sister sent me a few months before I left: “To a wonderful sister-in-law who came into our family like a gift.” I felt guilty for all the mean things I’d thought over the years and was glad that I’d left them unsaid.

“Grandparents act as a link with the past,” says the sociologist Clifford Hill, research director of the Family Matters Institute. “They are very important to a child’s identity and stability. The absence of grandparents is a major reason why so many children are unstable.”

The Family Matters Institute, Families Need Fathers and the Grandparents’ Association are campaigning for a simplification of the tortuous and costly legal process that grandparents in the UK have to endure to see estranged grandchildren. A letter-writing campaign is urging MPs to include the issue in their party manifestos.

My son adores his father’s family and particularly his grandmother, who has always had the time to play with him that I, as a lone working parent, have not. He goes to a Saturday school to keep up his French, we Skype the in-laws every Sunday and go to see them in Provence twice a year. They, in turn, make an annual pilgrimage to London. Thanks to their love for Joshua and my ability, for once, to see the bigger picture, we have created an unbreakable link to the father my son never knew.

Source:rom The TimesJune 9, 2009

Don’t exclude the grandparents
Almost half of grandparents lose contact with their grandchildren after family break-up — but when Susannah Hickling lost her French partner, she found that she needed her in-laws’ help more than ever
(SUZANNA HICKLING)

Susannah Hickling
I had known about Richard’s death for all of one minute when his mother started to scream repeatedly: “She’ll go back to England and we’ll never see the baby again!” Submerged in an ocean of grief with an icy numbness already creeping over me, I can honestly say that the thought of taking our 15-day-old son from our home in France back to London had not even entered my head.

In the weeks and months that followed, my mother and sister urged me to do just that. I did eventually go back — but not for another four years and not before I was satisfied that my son had built a meaningful relationship with his father’s family.

Even amid the most terrible sorrow, something told me that it was important for Joshua to get to know his paternal grandparents, his aunt and uncle and his half-brother and half-sister — people I barely knew myself, as a relative newcomer to their small village in Provence. They were a close family in an area where blood ties are so strong that they often exclude friendships. Joshua would also need to speak French, as Richard’s relatives spoke no English. And, anyway, having lost my soulmate, who was shot accidentally by a game hunter on a hillside near our home, when our child was barely two weeks old, I reasoned that I would be unhappy wherever I was.

The Grandparents’ Association estimates that more than a million children in Britain are not allowed to see their grandparents because of divorce or family tragedy. And a recent report published by pressure groups including the Family Matters Institute and Families Need Fathers pointed out that, while the law grants an automatic right to step-parents who have lived as part of a family for three years to apply to the family courts for contact, the same right is not given to grandparents.

In contrast to the UK — where 42 per cent of grandparents lose contact with their grandchildren after a family break-up — grandparents’ rights are enshrined in French law. I never wanted it to come to that, not because I thought that Richard’s family would take me to court but because it seemed clear to me that a mother has to act in the best interests of her child.

But I’d be lying if I pretended that it was easy. There were big differences in our views on child-rearing and in our cultural attitudes. I was in a village that even locals from nearby towns derided as “backward”. The advice from friends, family and parenting books was in stark contrast to the accepted practices there. It is common for the wider family to help to bring up the children in Provence, and mine interfered as only a Mediterranean family could. I was often a lone dissenting voice against their collective belief system.

When they urged me to put sugar on Joshua’s dummy to stop him crying, I told them that it was bad for his teeth. “But he doesn’t have any,” said his grandmother. “They’re there in his gums,” I insisted politely. Later, I saw the tell-tale sugary sheen around his mouth and felt the stickiness on his dummy. “Who did this?” I asked. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law looked sheepish. “You don’t want him to have sugar on his dummy — you deal with it,” warned my sister-in-law when we took a bawling Joshua out in his buggy later. I will, I thought. He is, after all, my baby.

It infuriated me that I could be entrusted to manage a team of people and a six-figure budget in the job I gave up to move to Provence, yet apparently I was an incompetent mother. But I kept my usually big mouth shut. I was trying to build a relationship, not engage in active warfare. And I was well aware that my partner’s family, like me, were mad with grief.

They were adamant that the good old ways were the best. These dictated that, for example, you should never let a baby take a nap under a fig or walnut tree (I had both) for fear of toxins in the leaves, but that you should feed him lambs’ brains.

I realised that being undermined was par for the course, but some of their ideas were terrifying. Richard’s mother and sister told me that if Joshua misbehaved he would be punished with the martinet, a whip with leather lashes. This was kept for disciplining their dogs but Joshua’s halfsister had once been hit with it as a little girl. Only once, mind you, they said. “I think that’s barbaric,” I said.

At one stage I was too frightened to leave Joshua alone at his grandparents’ home for more than a few minutes in case he was naughty — yet soon I saw that, far from being strict disciplinarians, the family doted on my son and spoilt him rotten. It helped that he was the spitting image of Richard, right down to the fair hair and the little triangles under his eyes when he was tired. Richard’s mother and sister even enjoyed changing his messy nappies.

Although they wanted to look after him all the time, it always had to be at their house, the hub of the family. A few months after Richard’s death I decided to return to the local drama group — but it started at 9pm, and getting both of us fed and out of the house with all the baby paraphernalia took two hours. By the time I had dropped Joshua at his grandparents’ home, I was too exhausted to be theatrical in French. And after I had collected him at 11pm and driven him, tired and cranky, back home, I was a shell. After two sessions I gave up drama and the hope of a life outside my home and my partner’s family. This is my life now, I told myself grimly. But it won’t always be like this.

Gradually things got better. As time passed, Richard’s family and I came to understand each other. They realised that I could care for a baby despite all that had happened, and our total misery at Richard’s death mellowed into the dull pain of missing him. We all became a bit more sane and Joshua, now 5, grew into a sociable and well-balanced bilingual child.

By the time I moved back to London 18 months ago, I knew that I had done the right thing by staying so long. I had proved that it is possible to maintain a relationship with your partner’s family even when that partner is no longer there. That proof is in the birthday card that his sister sent me a few months before I left: “To a wonderful sister-in-law who came into our family like a gift.” I felt guilty for all the mean things I’d thought over the years and was glad that I’d left them unsaid.

“Grandparents act as a link with the past,” says the sociologist Clifford Hill, research director of the Family Matters Institute. “They are very important to a child’s identity and stability. The absence of grandparents is a major reason why so many children are unstable.”

The Family Matters Institute, Families Need Fathers and the Grandparents’ Association are campaigning for a simplification of the tortuous and costly legal process that grandparents in the UK have to endure to see estranged grandchildren. A letter-writing campaign is urging MPs to include the issue in their party manifestos.

My son adores his father’s family and particularly his grandmother, who has always had the time to play with him that I, as a lone working parent, have not. He goes to a Saturday school to keep up his French, we Skype the in-laws every Sunday and go to see them in Provence twice a year. They, in turn, make an annual pilgrimage to London. Thanks to their love for Joshua and my ability, for once, to see the bigger picture, we have created an unbreakable link to the father my son never knew.

Source: http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article6457471.ece

Lives torn asunder

Caroline Overington June 09, 2009

Article from: The Australian

MOST of what used to be called child custody cases are settled between divorcing parents well before the case gets to the Family Court. Those that aren't typically involve couples who loathe each other with such intensity that they cannot agree on even the smallest matters regarding their children.

They need a judge to decide where the kids will live after divorce, how often they should see the other parent, what surname the children should have and where they should go to school.

Then, too, there are the so-called relocation cases where one parent, usually the mother, wants to move and take the children with her. Sometimes it's because she escaping an abusive, violent marriage and wants a fresh start. Other times it's because she wants to move to be with her new partner. Sometimes she wants to be nearer to her own mother or to other family members who may be able to help her with the children; or to an area where there is cheaper housing; or where she's likelier to find work.

In almost every case, if she gets permission to go, it will mean her children will be able to spend much less time - sometimes hardly any time - with their father, who naturally enough will fight to stop the relocation.

Not for nothing, then, did former Family Court judge Richard Chisholm describe relocation cases as the "San Andreas fault" of family law. They are cases that lead to rupture and ruin in families.

There was some hope in 2006 that this might change. In July that year the Howard government introduced what is known as the shared parenting amendment to the Family Law Act. The idea behind the amendment was simple: it was in the best interests of children that they had a meaningful relationship with both parents after divorce and that usually meant spending significant time with both parents, during the week, on weekends and during the holidays. On the subject of relocation cases, the amendment was silent. It didn't say that mothers couldn't move with their children after divorce; it didn't say that they were still allowed to move after divorce.

There was a feeling, however, that the amendment would make it more difficult for mothers to relocate after divorce because it was difficult for a child to have a meaningful relationship with their father, if they lived in, say, Colorado, and he lived in Melbourne.

Three years on, it's clear that the law has made it more difficult for parents to relocate after divorce. Two academic studies have independently reached that conclusion, and both agree that an international relocation is harder still. As far as the Shared Parenting Council of Australia is concerned, that's a good thing.

After all, before the law came in, mothers were generally allowed to go wherever they wanted after divorce. They could meet someone on the internet who lived in the US, for example, and as long as they were the primary carer of the children there was a good chance the Family Court would let her leave the country to pursue that relationship, in the process rupturing whatever relationship they had with their real dad, who most likely loved them very much and was a critically important person in their lives.

That kind of thing is now less likely to happen but it's still not impossible for mothers to leave the country with their children, as fathers are finding out.

In one recent case, known as Bletch and Douglas, a mother was allowed to move with her nine-year-old son to the US after developing a "unique communications skill" that landed her a media profile, a $450,000 book advance and interest from talk shows. The father, who has fought for years for greater access to his son, was told that he could have access during the school holidays, and make use of emails and webcam. The father could not believe the shared parenting laws would support such an arrangement. He flew to the US and tried to see the boy there, landing himself in trouble with local police.

In another case, known as Bradley and Bradley, a mother was permitted to return to her native Sweden with her two children after her marriage ended. She alleged child abuse. It was never proven and the judge did not accept that it had occurred. He acknowledged the distress the relocation would cause the children's father, saying "communication with the children will be difficult" since they would be living on opposite sides of the world. But he thought the father could stay in touch by email. The judge said the mother would have access to superior child care and affordable acommodation in Sweden. She also would be close to her family. The children would fly out to visit or else the father could visit them in Europe.

Groups such as the Shared Parenting Council were stunned that such decisions were possible under the law.

As lawyer David Alexander told a seminar in March, the laws didn't introduce a specific presumption against relocation. Instead, Alexander explained, the starting point for the court was that a child's best interests were served by having parents who had equal shared parental responsibility after divorce.

But that didn't mean a 50-50 time split was the automatic outcome. It would sometimes mean that the mother was restrained from moving the children too far from the father, but not always. To illustrate, Alexander used several recent cases in which the mother wanted to move the children, but was restrained by the Family Court. In one such case, the mother had in mind a move from Sydney to the NSW Hunter Valley. She thought it would be better for the children to live a rural lifestyle and she'd be able to afford a larger home. The judge restrained her, saying such a move would make it "impractical for the father to spend substantial and significant time with the children".

In another case, two children aged six and three were living with their mother on the south coast of NSW. She moved to a town 144km from the children's father. The court ordered her to return the children, saying they were entitled to significant time with their father and that was best achieved by having them live nearby.

Alexander concluded that there was a "fresh approach to the involvement of both parents in the lives of their children" and it "seems likely that the court will find it easier to deny an application to relocate".

"It's now a relatively simple matter for the non-residential parent to claim that even a short-distance relocation will preclude substantial and significant time (with the child)."

It's not always the case that a mother won't be able to move overseas or interstate.

In Godfrey and Sanders, for example, the Family Court allowed a mother to move from Melbourne to Brisbane, over the objections of the father. The court said the shared parenting law promoted a child's right to a meaningful relationship with both parents, but meaningful didn't mean optimal and while it obviously wasn't ideal for the children to be living in one state while their father lived in another, there was still opportunity for them to have a meaningful relationship on school holidays and by email.

That different judges in different states are making difficult decisions under the law is vexing for lawyers, who are finding it difficult to advise their clients. But the case that really has brought confusion about the law is that known as Rosa and Rosa, which came before the Family Court last month.

Mr and Mrs Rosa (pseudonyms) were married in Sydney in 2000 and had a daughter in 2002. In early 2007, when the child was five, the couple moved to a remote town in Queensland so the father could take up a job as a mining engineer. Six months later, the marriage ended. (Under law it's irrelevant for the purposes of child custody who ended the marriage, but for the record, the father told the mother it was over, packed up her things and put them out on the deck.)

The mother took their daughter back to Sydney, but the Family Court ordered her to return the child to the remote town where her former husband lived, while the parents fought over where their daughter should be reared. The mother wanted to move her back to Sydney, for good reason. In the remote town, where rents were high and men outnumbered women by a considerable degree, she could afford only to live in a caravan park. She had no family in the area and few friends.

The mother told the court she was isolated and broke, and wanted to go home to Sydney, where she would be able to find a job and would have the support of her own mother.

Federal magistrate John Coker, presiding over the initial hearing, asked the mother whether she would go to Sydney without her daughter. She said she would not, and in fact said she would never leave her daughter.

Coker asked the father if he would go to Sydney, if that was where his daughter was living. He said he would not because he wanted to keep working at his job. Asked whether he could find work elsewhere, the father said that yes, but he enjoyed this job in Queensland and wanted to keep it.

Given that the father would not leave Queensland and the mother would not leave her daughter, Coker decided that the only way the child could have a meaningful relationship with both parents was to have her live with her mother in far north Queensland in a week-about arrangement with her father.

The decision effectively ties the mother to the father's job, which itself presents an interesting condundrum for the future. What, for example, should happen if the father decides to take a new job in another mining town? Will he be allowed to take his daughter with him and, if so, must the mother follow? It seems likely that parliament did not intend to hobble women in this way.

Zoe Rathus is a senior lecturer in law at Griffith University. She is cautious about reading too much into the Rosa decision, saying it may not be precedent-setting.

"Playing the devil's advocate here, there are some cases that have gone the other way," she says.

"Whatever has been decided in this particular case, it doesn't mean that every parent in Australia who needs to relocate after a divorce should assume that they won't be able to do it. There is nothing in the (new) law that says that. And another judge might have made a completely different decision in this case." But, she says, the laws "create a complex set of ideas, and it's a set of ideas that crash into each other and there is a great deal of confusion at the coalface of family law about what the new law says and what it actually means, and how it is working, in practice, and it's usually not a good idea for confusion to reign".

The federal Attorney-General's Department is believed to have an appetite for change to the shared parenting law but is proceeding with caution. Before it does anything, it wants to see the results of a review of the law by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, a review that was built into the original law. That report is due in December. Attorney-General Robert McClelland has commissioned his own report, which is due by the end of the year.

The Australian has put questions about the shared parenting law, and the confusion it seems to be creating, to Family Court Chief Justice Diana Bryant.

Her office says there are three points for separating parents to keep in mind.

First, each case will be determined on its unique facts, and judges must consider the best interests of the individual children in each case.

Second, there is no particular pattern that can be relied on to predict a decision and, therefore, it makes no sense to go to court, believing that a particular outcome is certain.

Third, an appeal court may be comprised of judges who will have decided a matter differently at the first hearing and who may indeed believe that the lower court's decision is an awful one, but they can't overturn a decision unless there has been an error of law.

Source: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25606681-17044,00.html

Message To Family Court Victims - Read This Book!

From Dr. Stephen Baskerville, political science professor & author of Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage & The Family. (unpaid advertisement) http://www.stephenbaskervil...

Family Court Australia Journalists Call for Change

Four journalists call for more freedom in scrutinizing the Family Court.

Exposing The Morally Corrupt Family Courts

A short clip complete with live interview with one father who immigrated to Canada and now says he would never have set foot in this country had he known about the Family System of Injustice here in Canada

NB Report of the Access to Family Justice Task Force

NB Report of the Access to Family Justice Task Force

Presented to the Minister of Justice and Consumer Affairs
The Honourable Thomas

In February of 2008, Justice and Consumer Affairs Minister T.J. Burke announced the appointment of a Task Force to examine the issues and challenges faced by the Family Division of the Court of Queen’s Bench.

Led by Justice Raymond Guerette of Campbellton, the seven-member task force included Michelle Boudreau-Dumas of Campbellton; Sheila Cameron of Moncton; Jennifer Donovan of Fredericton; Mary-Eileen Flanagan of Saint John; David Lutz, Q.C. of Hampton; and Brenda Noble, Q.C. of Saint John.


The Task Force was mandated to make recommendations to government that would lead to:

More timely access to justice in resolving family law disputes;

Expanded use of alternatives to the family court to resolve family law issues; and,

Increased access to legal information and legal assistance in family law matters.

The Report of the Access to Family Justice Task Force was tabled on June 2, 2009.

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Note: Below are the recommendations. The report appears to be an exercise on “dusting off” and rearranging the court furniture and changing the “emperor’s new clothes”. In other words, it lacks true substance and brings in more bureaucracies and government agencies to the nation’s bedrooms. Note that the task force lacked equal gender representation, made no emphasis on equal parenting as a presumption, dodged fairness in child support payments, (especially, when the custodial parent makes more than the non-custodial or non-residential parent), and the mention of parental alienation was like a ”flash in the pan”.

The report may be a start in the right direction but not as impressive as the photo op of the task force members.

I would like to hear your comments on this report.

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APPENDIX A: SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Endorse the Department of Social Development’s new model for resolution of child protection matters.
2. Create a separate court docket for child protection matters.
3. Create a separate Rule of Court for child protection matters.
4. Create benchmarks for process timelines.
5. Reduce the number of non-parent parties represented in child protection matters.
6. Implement legislative changes to:
a. define “all interested persons”
b. add a section on evidentiary requirements to the Family Services Act.
7. Implement settlement conferences as a precursor to trial.
8. In the very rare case where a child requires legal representation, it shall be provided by the Child and Youth Advocate.
9. The Family Services Act requires amendment to clearly define when it is appropriate to appoint legal representation for a child.
10. Provide public information and mandatory education regarding child and spousal
support.
11. Revise Rules 72 and 73 and the Family Court forms.
12. Create standard forms of orders to provide greater consistency.
13. Implement the new paradigm to provide a lean and fair system.
14. Implement a child/spousal support recalculation service.
15. Provide consensual dispute resolution options as alternatives to litigation in support matters.
16. Implement “Status of the Child” reports for child support files.
17. Provide public information and mandatory education regarding custody and access.
18. Implement a triage system of case management.
19. Expand and enhance the role of court social workers.
20. Provide consensual dispute resolution options for custody matters as alternatives to litigation.
21. Empower deputy sheriffs to enforce court orders.
22. Replace affidavits with a claim for relief in custody matters.
23. Revise Rule 72, Rule 73 and the Family Court forms.
24. Adopt higher threshold financial criteria for determining eligibility for Domestic Legal Aid, as recommended by the Review Panel.
25. Intake of clients should be done by Domestic Legal Aid lawyers who assist in the choice of process for dispute resolution.
26. Allow access to Domestic Legal Aid services for all components of a family law file.
27. Transfer support enforcement legal work to the Attorney General’s office.
28. Provide more Domestic Legal Aid staff and/or contractual lawyers.
29. A staff psychologist should be attached to the Court to prepare custody and access assessments.
30. Create a standard request form for psychological assessments.
31. Educate legal professionals at every stage of their careers in interest-based negotiation.
32. Introduce collaborative family law into the new model for child protection matters.
Report of the Access to Family Justice Task Force 61
33. Implement changes to Domestic Legal Aid to permit mediators more time to mediate.
34. Invest in administrative support, professional development and continuing education for mediators.
35. Establish mandatory courses at law schools and bar admission courses in interestbased negotiation.
36. Offer continuing education for judges and lawyers in a full range of dispute resolution processes.
37. Create new forms for Family Court in conjunction with the new paradigm.
38. Affidavits should be shorter and non-inflammatory and filed only after other forms of dispute resolution have been attempted.
39. Develop Rules to govern other dispute-resolution processes.
40. Adopt or create standard forms of court orders.
41. Make and enforce meaningful awards of costs.
42. Create a standing rules committee chaired by the Associate Chief Justice for Family Division.
43. Immediately appoint an Associate Chief Justice for Family Court.
44. Appoint three new Family Court judges.
45. Appoint masters to each judicial district.
46. Create and implement a province-wide computerized case management system.
47. Appoint a chief financial officer to be responsible for the budget and financial
management of the Court system.
48. Ensure a sufficient number of skilled administrative support staff.
49. Implement a workload assessment

Read full report PDF

N.B. family court procedural snarls cause lengthy delays: report

Last Updated: Tuesday, June 2, 2009 4:46 PM AT Comments3Recommend8CBC News

A task force report on New Brunswick's family courts says the system is in disarray, as workers are bogged down with paperwork and the interests of children have become secondary to procedural requirements.

Justice Raymond Guerette, the chairman of the Access to Family Justice Task Force, released the report on Tuesday, which states the family court system has been suffering for years.

"For some time, now, perhaps going back 15 years, the court has steadily deteriorated in giving appropriate and expeditious service to the public."

The report says the court system has worsened because of a variety of factors, including an almost 50 per cent jump in people without lawyers, an escalation in the number and complexity of hearings in child protection cases, and "perceived procedural requirements."

"In the last few years, especially, the lack of money, resources and attention has resulted in reduced service to the public," the report says.

"This situation has arisen from inordinate delays in obtaining a hearing date, far too numerous adjournments, the inability to provide expeditious and proportionate resolution to relatively minor problems and the failure to keep up with progressive changes in other jurisdictions."

Justice Minister T.J. Burke said overhauling the system will be his most important task as minister, but it won't be quick or easy.

He has appointed a committee to look at how to implement the report's recommendations and to launch a pilot program this fall.

Ordinary motions can take months
Even a routine motion for interim relief can take four to six months to be heard, according to the report.

Last year, the provincial government spent $900,000 to hire 20 assistants to help social workers clear a backlog of paperwork.

The report says that the interests of children are now secondary to "excessive procedural demands."

It also recommends replacing the "adversarial system" with one that lets families break up with dignity and respect.

It suggests adopting a triage system that would quickly assess new cases and route them toward appropriate services such as mediation.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2009/06/02/nb-family-court-task-force-404.html

Sole custody harms kids: Canadian Report

The effects of divorce on kids are now so well documented, significantly more couples separating today are opting for “equal shared parenting” – voluntary custody arrangements in which the children live with each parent roughly half the time, says Kruk. While a landmark federal study, For the Sake of the Children, recommended that approach back in 1998 and it has since been adopted by other countries, including Australia, it’s still rarely used by Canadian judges and needs to be made law, except where there are extenuating circumstances, such as domestic violence or mental health issues that make one parent unfit, says Kruk.

Sole custody harms kids: Report

Children “robbed of love” in divorce cases

by Susan Pigg

Family court judges are misguidedly harming children by granting sole custody to one parent – usually the mother – in bitter divorce battles, says a comprehensive new report.Too many children are being “robbed of the love of one parent” by a legal system that is out of touch with the needs of children and treats them like property to be won or lost, says Edward Kruk, an expert on child custody issues.

“The system is set up to polarize parents, to make them enemies, to set up fights over custody and exacerbate conflict rather than reduce it,” says Kruk, an associate professor of social work at the University of British Columbia, whose three-year study is now in the hands of Canada’s justice minister.

He calls what’s happening in Canada’s divorce courts “a national shame” that leaves families bankrupt from legal fees and pushing parents, especially fathers, to suicide.

Especially devastating are the long-term effects of court orders that essentially cut one parent out of children’s lives – usually the dad – in a misguided effort to foster peace between warring parents, the report says.

Citing a host of North American studies, Kruk’s report points to the long-term dangers: Some 85 per cent of youth in prison are fatherless; 71 per cent of high school dropouts grew up without fathers, as did 90 per cent of runaway children. Fatherless youth are also more prone to depression, suicide, delinquency, promiscuity, drug abuse, behavioural problems and teen pregnancy, warns the 84-page report, a compilation of dozens of studies around divorce and custody, including some of his own research over the past 20 years.

“Parent-child bonds are formed through daily routines – preparing breakfast, taking the child to school, having dinner, getting ready for bed. Without that, it’s very difficult for parents to have any real connection with their kids,” Kruk said in a telephone interview from B.C. “It’s so destructive for children to have a loving parent removed from their lives.”

The effects of divorce on kids are now so well documented, significantly more couples separating today are opting for “equal shared parenting” – voluntary custody arrangements in which the children live with each parent roughly half the time, says Kruk. While a landmark federal study, For the Sake of the Children, recommended that approach back in 1998 and it has since been adopted by other countries, including Australia, it’s still rarely used by Canadian judges and needs to be made law, except where there are extenuating circumstances, such as domestic violence or mental health issues that make one parent unfit, says Kruk.

Instead, most judges still rely on a “winner takes all” approach in custody battles. In some three-quarters of cases, judges grant sole custody to mothers, believing that it’s impossible for warring parents to make shared custody work, Kruk’s report finds. That’s despite a growing body of research that shows animosity and even physical violence can increase “significantly0″ when one parent has sole control, says the report, Child Custody, Access and Parental Responsibility: The Search for a Just and Equitable Standard.

Even court-ordered “joint custody” is really a misnomer, Kruk’s report shows. In fact, the non-custodial parent – usually the father – ends up with just a few days a month (typically every second weekend and every Wednesday) with the children. While research shows even that minimal sharing of time actually forces warring parents to lay down their arms and work together on “parenting plans” that work best for each of them and their kids, says Kruk, it makes it far more difficult for the non-custodial parent to develop a strong bond with their kids.

Research has shown that women and men work comparable amounts of time outside the home and now devote almost the exact amount of time – 11.1 hours a week and 10.5 hours a week respectively – to child care, with men playing a key role in their children’s upbringing, says Kruk. Yet divorce lawyers openly tell fathers not to waste their time and money seeking equal custody, unless they can prove the mother is unfit.

All of which gives one parent a huge psychological advantage over the other, and incentive to fight to the death – in some cases actually alienating the kids from the other spouse – to win what comes to be seen as their “property,” says Kruk.

But there are signs even mothers are at risk, Kruk warns. He’s now studying 14 Vancouver-area women who have lost custody of their kids to their ex-husbands, in some cases because fathers argued that demanding careers kept the women away from home too much. Surprisingly, those women are now teaming up with fathers’ right groups to push for legislation making equal, shared parenting the norm.

“No court order can make people get along,” says Justice Harvey Brownstone who wrote the book Tug of War on divorce in Canada. He has seen cases over the past 14 years in which courts imposed shared parenting, only to have one parent refuse to take the child to his hockey game or administer medication as a way to make their viewpoint known to the ex-spouse.

“Parents who are hell-bent on undermining each other’s relationship with the child will inevitably find a way to create conflict, which most often results in further litigation, which in turn prolongs the child’s exposure to a parental tug of war.”


Source: http://coparenting101.org/2009/04/15/sole-custody-harms-kids-canadian-report/

Benefits of post-divorce shared parenting and the situation in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany

It's regrettable that Canada and its provinces are way behind progressive thinking of other countries such as Denmark, Australia, Italy, when it comes to family law. Canada and other countries are still living in the "Middle Ages" and its existing laws do considerable harm to children and parents. We can learn a great deal from other countries that have adopted equal or shared parenting and reduce harm toward children and their parents.

Child and educational psychologist, Dr. Peter Tromp, presents brief summaries by country on the present state of Shared Parenting Legislation in the countries of the European Union.

1. Italy now has a mix of joint legal custody and elements of joint physical custody since a law change that came into effect on 16th March 2006.

2. France has a mix of joint legal custody and elements of joint physical custody (Residence Alternee) that came into effect in 2002. An estimated 15% of French children of divorce are now growing up in shared parenting and alternating residence arrangements.

3. Belgium on the initiative of its Socialist Party now has implemented presumptive 50/50 joint physical custody legislation (effective bi-location of the children) after parental separation in both its House of Commons and Senate which came into effect when it was formally published by the Belgian Federal Government on the 4th of September 2006. The new Belgian federal law on bi-location will be discussed at more length in my presentation below.

4. In the Netherlands joint legal custody was implemented in family law by the Dutch Parliament in 1996 making joint legal custody the standard for post-divorce parental authority. And with the new Dutch Law on Continued Parenting after Separation (no. 30145), that went into effect on 1 January 2009, this was followed by the introduction in Dutch family law of the basic principle of the equality of both parents and the presumption of equal parenting (both before and after divorce or separation, and regardless of whether the parents were previously married or not). The new Dutch family law also introduces a strong incentive for separating parents to come up with a mutually agreed parenting plan during the separation and divorce proceedings.

The new Dutch law reform will be discussed at more length in my presentation below. Considering however the poor Dutch tradition on effective family law reform, the mainly decorative value of Dutch family court orders for fathers and the Dutch family court’s tradition of legislating from the bench, it still remains to be seen what this new Dutch law will bring in day-to-day family court practises for divorcing and separating parents and their children.

5. Norway still has sole physical custody but its Minister of Justice has already announced (in 2007) a complete family law review based on the principles of presumptive joint physical custody. Up until now, however, this has not yet materialized.

6. Ireland has, since the advent of Parental Equality (the Irish lobby group associated with Liam O’Gogain) circa. 1993, been considering the possibility of a change to laws of joint physical custody – which gives some gauge of the lack of seriousness with which such laws are being considered.

7. In Germany, a professional court intervention model called the Cochem model, based on principles of shared parenting, is gathering strength. This German Cochem court practice model will be discussed at more length in my presentation below. In this model parents are only allowed access to the family court for parental separation and divorce after they have themselves also filed a shared post-divorce parenting plan agreed by and between both of them. The German federal minister of Justice has previously (February 2006) announced future family law reform in which “elements of the Cochem model of multi-disciplinary court orchestrated intervention” are to be integrated into the German family law. Which elements, however, are as of yet unknown. This family law reform at the federal level has, therefore, not yet materialized.

8. Malta also has some form of shared parenting presumption according to Maltese family rights organizations. As of yet, however, it is unclear what is the exact nature of their shared parenting presumption.

9. Spain introduced a new shared parenting law in mid-2005 which is regarded as wholly inadequate by Spanish family rights lobbyists. Government officials and professionals on their own initiative are attempting to introduce policies reintegrating alienated children with their alienated parents and there is a vigorous movement for change.

10. The UK under the present Labour government has, as of yet, no effective shared parenting laws in existence. In his simultaneous presentation at the Drama Conference based on a study of the British Law Commission’s research papers Robert Whiston found that court-ordered shared parenting was commonly practiced in the south part of England in the second half of the last century until it was eliminated by the Children Act 1989 (Whiston, 2009a). At present, the oppositional Conservative Party – which is expected to win the next 2009 elections – has adopted Equal Parenting Family Law Reform as part of its election program. Also some judicially-motivated efforts to introduce norms of shared parenting do exist, in spite of the family-hostile parameters of the present law and fiscal framework.

11. Luxembourg is also said to have introduced post-divorce joint physical custody legislation.

Other jurisdictions

- Australia passed a Shared Parenting Bill in the Senate in 2006 of the window dressing sort. Australia in fact is a good example of the sort of jurisdiction that repeatedly passing pretend laws that are having no real effects on keeping both parents involved in children’s lives after parental separation. And each time it is claimed that the present law proposal will be better than the last, while children of separation continue to grow up in a family-hostile environment. The same pattern can be observed in EU-countries like the UK, the Netherlands and Spain.

- In the USA several states have implemented shared parenting legislation.

6. Recent developments in family law and family courts in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.

Family law reform in Belgium

Belgium already had a presumption of joint legal custody in its family law since the nineties of the last century.

Since September 2006 the Belgian federal law on “bi-location” or “alternating residence” also came into effect after having passed both houses in the Belgian federal parliament. This new law additionally introduced a presumption of joint physical custody, care and residency as the norm or preferred post-divorce parenting arrangement to be ordered by the Belgian family courts. Furthermore immediate unilateral court-access for either of the divorced or separated parents in requesting for additional reinforcement orders if needed was introduced.

Contrary to common belief the Belgian family law reform of September 2006 however did not introduce a 50/50 joint physical care and residency arrangement as the fixed end-result for all divorcing or separating Belgian parents. Instead it introduced a presumption of dual location or shared residency which by law should be taken into serious consideration and thorough investigation with priority in each individual case by the Belgian family courts and judges on the request of either one of the divorcing parents separately.

In the situation where both separating parents consensually forward shared residency, care and access proposals between the two of them in the divorce and separation proceedings, the law puts the Belgian family courts and judges under the obligation to accept those mutually consented proposals as leading in the court-orders to be subsequently imposed in the divorce and separation proceedings.
In effect the wishes with regard to the post-divorce residency, care and access arrangements of either parent parties involved were thus again acknowledged and reinstated at the core of Belgian family law and family court proceedings regarding physical custody, residency and care. By law Belgian family court judges were endowed with the obligation to explicitly specify in their court-orders their decisions and provisions with regard to the imposed post-divorce residence and care arrangements in writing if they were to deviate from the presumptive and preferred bi-location or shared parenting arrangement in their court-orders.

These new Belgian law provisions have put shared parenting at the forefront of the family courts decision-making regarding the care, access and residency of the children involved, while the need and obligation imposed by law on the Belgian family courts and judges to extensively specify in writing in their imposed court-orders as to why a shared parenting or bi-location order was not imposed, opens the possibility for appeal of the courts decisions and motivations.

A further additional but underestimated new element of the Belgian family law reform is the introduction of immediate or priority access to the courts and judges on the request of either one of the parties one-sidedly. This can be activated unilaterally and individually – without the need of being represented by a lawyer at the court-session requested for – for additional reinforcement orders of the court when the court-ordered parenting arrangements were not sufficiently complied with by the other parent and when there were complaints about the other parent with regard to abiding by the specific parenting arrangements laid down by the judge in the original case residency, care and access order(s) given.

Although the law, as a federal national framework, has been in effect for only 2,5 years – and so it is too early to evaluate its effects thoroughly – first impressions are that it has contributed strongly to the Kantian appeasement between divorcing and separating parents in Belgium. This contributes to both the leading civil and family law principle of appeasement between conflicting parties as well as to the best interest of the children involved who now flourish far better under the care of the appeased but separated parents.

Family law reform in the Netherlands

In 1996 joint legal custody (in Dutch: gezamenlijk gezag) was implemented by law by the Dutch Parliament making joint legal custody the standard for post-divorce parenting in the Netherlands to oblige with EVRM Article 8 on the Right to Family Life.

However, shortly after the introduction of the law, the family courts in conjunction with the Dutch High Court neutralised the Dutch Parliament’s specific intent for a law by to keep both parents involved in children’s lives.

Perversely, the judiciary undermined Parliament’s sovereignty by stating that joint legal custody could be awarded but that it did not automatically entitle fathers to contact and access arrangements.

Over the past few years the Dutch Parliament has taken several new initiatives to introduce joint physical custody and equal parenting as the legal presumption for post-divorce parenting arrangements.

The first attempt was the legal initiative on administrative divorce (divorce without the use of a court and representing lawyers) and continued parenting, No. 29676 by parliament in 2004 (Luchtenveld, 2004), better known as the Luchtenveld-proposal [5]. It passed the Dutch House of Commons in the winter of 2005 only to be left stranded in the Dutch Senate in the summer of 2006. This however was mainly caused by the “Administrative Divorce” part of the law being contradictory to lawyers’ interests, which hit on heavy resistance with the Dutch judiciary[6].
Another new attempt for family law reform, better known as the “Donner-proposal”, was then made on the initiative of the Ministry of Justice with the Law on Continued Parenting after Separation (No. 30145). This law while it passed in the Dutch House of Commons in June 2006, on the initiative of the Dutch Socialist Party was unexpectedly altered by a constitutional majority amendment introducing equal parenting as the presumption for post-divorce parenting. On November 25th 2008 this law passed the Dutch Senate. It went into effect two days ago on January 1st 2009.

This new law has the following main positive features with regard to shared parenting arrangements and the reinforcement of parenting orders by the Dutch family courts:

• It introduces and aims to guarantee in Dutch family law the basic principle of equality for both parents and the presumption of equal parenting both before and after divorce or separation, and regardless of whether the parents were previously married or not.

• It introduces a strong incentive for parents to come up with a mutually agreed parenting plan during the separation and divorce proceedings.

• Adding new but complicated reinforcement possibilities to the toolbox of options available to judges to ensure compliance with court-ordered parenting arrangements.

However, the law also has some distinctly negative features for shared parenting as it once again re-opens the possibilities for the family courts to deviate from the Parliamentary default presumption of joint legal custody. This could give rise to new ways and new reasons for a court to exclude a father from parenting his children. For a more detailed account of the features in the new Dutch family law on parenting after divorce however I further refer to the Appendix A with this presentation.

Reforms in Germany – The Cochem court-practice model

Several years ago a family court judge Jurgen Rudolph – based in the German regional family court of Cochem was confronted time and again with two equally capable parents. Both were forced to fight each other – almost to the death – in adversarial court proceedings. His radical solution will be detailed later in this paper.

Also in Germany a post-divorce presumption of joint legal custody was already in effect in family law since 1998, when several years ago the family court judge Jurgen Rudolph (Rudolph, 2007) – residing at the German regional family court of the city and district of Cochem – in his courtroom bench was confronted with capable parents fighting each other with the help of their lawyers (and to the detriment of their children) over post-divorce arrangements concerning the residency, care and access over their children and demanding from him as the judge to decide in favour of either of them. Parents and lawyers from both sides seemed to be only involved in painting their adversarial ‘opponents’ as black and incapable as possible during the divorce proceedings in the family court.

The position family court Judge Jurgen Rudolph took in this was that he considered post-divorce physical custody arrangements between principally fit and capable parents not to be a standard-decision for the family court and himself as the family judge to make and decide on by default over the heads of either one of the parents. On the basis of the lawfully existing care-obligation in Germany for both parents to care for their children the making of physical custody arrangements over their children had by default to be considered primarily as a matter of responsibility for both the divorcing parents themselves to decide on in the first place.

Resulting from the in-fights between parents and their lawyers taking place in adversarial divorce proceedings, the regional family court of Cochem then experimented by changing its family court practises. In the new family court practice divorcing parents were strongly encouraged by the court to first come up themselves with a mutually and consensually agreed “parenting plan” for the residency, care and access to and over their children, as a mandatory precondition before being able to enter and finalise their divorce settlements in the Cochem family court.

As the parents now needed to come up with a mutually agreed parenting plan or parenting arrangement proposal, this mandatory demand of the court both not only resulted in a reinstatement of the equal level playing field and cooperation between the parents looking for divorce (instead of the previous court practises magnifying the differences and conflicts between the parents). But equally important, it also lead to a complete practise overhaul within the professions involved in the divorce proceedings in the family court.

Instead of aggravating the parents in their conflict, all professions, i.e. lawyers, social workers, youth welfare workers, etc., began cooperating with each other in order to offer mediatory and other support services and help to the divorcing parents who were in demand of support in making the parenting plan needed in order to finalise their divorce proceedings. In time, the cooperation between professionals evolved from cooperation on the individual case levels to a more structured network cooperation of the involved professions around the Cochem family court.

These changes in Cochem court practises and the resulting changes in practises by the surrounding professionals in the meantime have earned wide recognition in Germany and are nationally referred to in Germany as the Cochem court practises (in German: Cochemer Praxis) or the Cochem model (in German: Cochemer Modell). They are now also taken into evaluation and consideration in a future planned reform of family law by the German federal ministry of justice in Berlin.

Comparing Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany

The separate developments in these three European countries are interesting because of their convergence. In Belgium and the Netherlands developments have started top-down so to speak from the national or federal political-legislational level with the introduction of a new family law creating a national framework and new guidelines for the functioning of the family courts. While in Germany these same developments started not top-down but bottom-up from the family courts themselves experimenting with less adversarial proceedings and court practises regarding post-divorce residency, care and access arrangements and orders.

Of the law reforms in these three European countries the Belgian law reform on bi-location is to be regarded as the most clear-cut in its choice for shared parenting. The family law developments in the three European countries discussed however all share in their emphasis a distinctive shift towards implementing the concept of shared parenting and restoring an equal level playing field between both divorcing parents in family law and/or family court practises as opposed to the previous mother-only single parenting presumption that has dominated family law and family court practises in the countries of the European Union for so long.

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DATA & STUDIES SUPPORTING THE NEED FOR EQUAL PARENTING

For Kids' Sake is a recently formed, rapidly growing, non-profit group, organized out of frustration with the existing family court system, and its lack of true concern for the children of divorce and paternity cases. We have been studying family court guidelines, rulings, and legislative proposals pertaining to the family court guidelines for a few years now, and see a desperate need for real changes.

We are here to proclaim that the judicial system, with its sweeping discretion, is grossly failing Wisconsin's children.

The family court system, operating under the "best interest of the child standard", has become a forum for tug-o-war, where the children are the financial and emotional trophy to be "won". Consequently, thousands of children are unnecessarily deprived the opportunity to maintain a full relationship with each parent.

Many legislators, and much of the public, are unaware of the magnitude of the problems arising from the discretionary decisions being made by the judiciary, operating under the "best interest of the child" standard of the current family court guidelines.

In today's troubled world, when children of divorce, or paternity cases, have two fit parents who want to remain significantly involved in their children's lives, we should be delighted! Such children should be considered, very fortunate; however, they are generally not, as a result of family court discretion.

In a deluded attempt to reduce conflict, the courts are overwhelmingly reducing one parent, usually the father, to the role of an occasional visitor/baby sitter; as if empowering one parent as the superior, supposedly will cease conflict. Yes, one parent will have the upper hand to finalize disputes, however, in reality, such arrangements actually increase conflict, as they merely cause the problems to fester.

Part of the tragedy is that, in reality, these courts have neither the time, nor the expertise to determine which parent is the truly "better parent". Yet the role of one parent is officially deemed to be of little significance, and their main parental role is only permitted to be financial. The frequent, and logical, result of this arrangement is that the "non-custodial parent" (typically the father) tends to have progressively decreasing involvement with the child, as time goes on, until that parent ends up being nothing but a paycheck and a periodic baby sitter.

The following data outlines the clear predominance of sole custody awards, and some of the many resulting harmful effects. As the data reveals, this inflicts significant, harmful, long term effects on these children which could, and should, be prevented in thousands of cases, through the enactment of a presumption of equal-parenting laws.

The courts, media, and legislature must start to understand that a child's best interest is a whole lot more than financial. We need our elected officials to take a stand to stop this tragedy that is affecting our society as a whole. There needs to be legal recognition of both parents equal rights, equal value placed on their respective roles, and equal opportunity to develop in those roles.

Mutual respect and cooperation between parents is best accomplished when both parties are acknowledged for their status as equals. The evidence reveals, the true "best interest of the child" in family court, is to take children out of their current position as financial and emotional trophies, and to presume that both parents, providing they are fit, should have maximum/equal opportunity to parent them. The courts need to stop declaring a "winner" and a "loser" with regard to child placement decisions. They need to take away the incentive, and the ability, for parents to battle over the children.

Furthermore, children need the opportunity to benefit from, and internalize both parents methods, input, and morals. And this all requires significant parenting time. Each parent needs the autonomy to develop a personal style and method of child rearing, with minimal interference from the other parent or the state.

We ask - who are judges, court commissioners, you, or I, to involuntarily deny a fit parent from an equal opportunity to care for, and nurture, their child?

And more importantly who are we to deny that child that opportunity of equal access to that parent?

When children have two fit, interested parents, they deserve the opportunity for a full/equal relationship with both parents. We are calling for the enactment a presumption of equal-parenting laws (eg. LRB1834, ready for introduction) to limit the discretion of the judiciary to cases that exhibit evidence of abuse or neglect. Opposing such a presumption, condones that children are of tokens to be fought over, and is truly child abuse at the hand of the legislature.

Note: Take into serious consideration that attorneys, court commissioners, and others employed by the system, who object to a presumption of equal parenting opportunities, have a vested interest in the status quo. (i.e. their criticism is often voice out of concern for personal job security).



PREVALENCE OF SOLE (AND MATERNAL) CUSTODY



1. The proportion of children living with just one parent rose from 9% in 1960 to 25% in 1990.
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, "Family Life Today...And How it has Changed" SB/92-13 (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office: November 1992)



2. In 1993, 27% of children under 18 years old lived with only one parent, up from 12% in 1970.
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, "Gap Narrows Between Children Living with a Divorced or Single Parent, Census Bureau Finds," by Arlene Saluter (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, July 20, 1994)



3. More than 90% of litigated divorces result in an award of sole custody to the mother.
Source: 1991 Census Bureau



4. The number of children living only with mother grew from 8% (5.1 million) in 1960 to 23.3% (15.6 million) in 1993. Source: U.S. Congress, Committee on Ways and Means, "The Green Book" (Washington D.C., 1993); see also U.S. department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, "Marital Status and Living Arrangements: March 1993", by Arlene Saluter, Current Population Reports: Population Characteristics P20-478 (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, May 1994).



5. The chances that a child born around 1980 will not be living with both biological parents at age 17 have increased to over 50%.
Source: Donald J. Hernandez, "America's Children: Resources from Family, Government, and the Economy (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1993).



6. About 40% of the children who live in fatherless households haven't seen their fathers in at least a year. Of the remaining 60%, only 20% sleep even one night per month in the father's home. Only one in six sees their father an average of once or more per week.
Source: Frank F. Furstenberg Jr. and Christing Winquist Nord, "Parenting Apart: Patterns of Child Rearing After Marital Disruption," Journal of Marriage and the Family (November 1985), p.896.



7. In disrupted families, only one child in six, on average, saw his or her father as often as once a week in the past year. Close to half did not see their father at all in the past year. As time goes on, contact becomes even more infrequent. Ten years after a marriage breaks up, more than two- thirds of children report not having seen their father for a year.
Source: National Commission on Children, "Speaking of Kids: A National Survey of Children and Parents" (Washington, D.C., 1991).



8. With increasing numbers of children living with only their mothers, many children have tenuous or nonexistent relationships with their fathers. In a 1990 survey, only one-third of children in female-headed families reported seeing their fathers at least once a week. Nearly one in five children in female-headed families had not seen their fathers for five years.
Source: National Commission on Children, "Speaking of Kids: A National Survey of Children and Parents (Washington, 1991).



9. The United States is now the world's leader in fatherless families. In 1986, the United States took over first place, when 24% of America's families were headed by a single parent, and today nearly 30% of families in the United States are headed by a single parent.
Source: Alisa Burns, "Mother Headed Families: An International Perspective and the Case of Australia," Social Policy Report 6 (Spring 1992).



10. America has the highest divorce rate in the world. At present rates, approximately half of all U.S. marriages can be expected to end in divorce.
Source: National Commission on Children, "Just the Facts: A Summary of Recent Information on America's Children and Their Families" (Washington D.C., 1993).



11. 55% of all white children, and 75% of all black children born in the last two decades are likely to live some portion of their childhood with an absent father.
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, "Divorce, Child Custody, and Child Support," Current Population Reports Ser p-23 No. 84 (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1979); and L.L Bumpass and J.A. Sweet, "Children's Experience in Single-Parent Families: Implications of Cohabitation and Marital Transitions," Family Planning Perspectives 21 (1989), pp.256-260.



12. During the last three decades, the percentage of children living with a step-parent has climbed from 6.7% to 11.3%. More than 9 out of 10 step-children live with their biological mother and a stepfather.
Source: David Popenoe, "The Evolution of Marriage and the Problem of Stepfamilies: A Biosocial Perspective," paper presented at the National Symposium on Stepfamilies at the Pennsylvania State University. University Park, PA, October 14, 1993.



EMOTIONAL/BEHAVIORAL PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH SOLE CUSTODY



1. The continued involvement of the non-custodial parent in the child's life appears crucial in preventing an intense sense of loss in the child... The importance of the relationship with the non-custodial parent may also have implications for the legal issues of custodial arrangements and visitation. The results of this study indicate that arrangements where both parents are equally involved with the child are optimal. When this type of arrangement is not possible, the child's continued relationship with the non-custodial parent remains essential.
Source: Young Adult Children of Divorced Parents: Depression and the Perception of Loss, Rebecca L. Drill, P.h.D., Harvard University. Journal of Divorce, V.10, #1/2, Fall/Winter 1986.



2. "Parental divorce and father loss has been associated with difficulties in school adjustment (e.g. Felner, Ginter, Boike, & CowenJ), social adjustment (e.g. Fry & Grover) and personal adjustment (e.g. Covell & Turnbull)..." "The results of the present study suggest that father loss through divorce is associated with diminished self-concepts in children...at least for this sample from the midwestern United States."
Source: Children's Self Concepts: Are They Affected by Parental Divorce and Remarriage; Thomas S. Parish, Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 1987, V.2, #4, 559-562.



3. "It is ironic, and of some interest, that we have subjected joint custody to a level and intensity of scrutiny that was never directed towards the traditional post-divorce arrangement (sole legal and physical custody to the mother and two weekends each month of visiting to the father). Developmental and relationship theory should have alerted the mental health field to the potential immediate and long range consequences for the child of only seeing a parent for four days each month. And yet until recently, there was no particular challenge to this traditional post-divorce parenting arrangement, despite growing evidence that such post-divorce relationships were not sufficiently nurturing or stabilizing for many children and parents."

4. "There is some evidence that in our well-meaning efforts to save children in the immediate post-separation period from anxiety, confusion, and the normative divorce-engendered conflict, we have set the stage in the longer run for the more ominous symptoms of anger, depression, and a deep sense of loss by depriving the child of the opportunity to maintain a full relationship with each parent."
Source: Examining Resistance to Joint Custody, Monograph by Joan Kelly, P.h.D. (associate of Judith Wallerstein, P.h.D.) From the 1991 Book Joint Custody and Shared Parenting, second edition, Guilford Press, 1991.



5. Nunan compared 20 joint custody children (ages 7-11) with 20 age-matched children in sole maternal custody. All families were at least two years after separation or divorce. Joint custody children were found to have higher ego strengths, superego strengths and self-esteem than the single custody children. The joint custody children were also found to be less excitable and less impatient than their sole custody counterparts.
Source: S.A. Nunan, "Joint Custody vs. Single Custody Effects on Child Development", Doctoral thesis 1980. California School of Professional Psychology, Berkeley, UMI No. 81-10142



6. Welsh-Osga compared children intact families with joint custody and single custody families. Age range 4.5 to 10 years old. Children from joint custody were found to be more satisfied with the time spent with both parents. Parents in joint custody were found to be more involved with their children. (Joint custody parents found to be less overburdened by parenting responsibilities than sole custody parents).
Source: B. Welsh-Osga, "The Effects of Custody Arrangements on Children of Divorce." Doctoral thesis, 1981. University of South Dakota, UMI No.82-6914.



7. Cowan compared 20 joint custody and 20 sole (maternal) custody families. Children in joint custody were rated as better adjusted by their mothers compared with children of sole custody mothers. The children's perceptions in sole custody situations correlated with the amount of time spent with their father! The more time children from sole maternal custody spent with their fathers, the more accepting BOTH parents were perceived to be, and the more well-adjusted were the children.
Source: D.B. Cowan, "Mother Custody vs. Joint Custody: Children's Parental Relationship and Adjustment." Doctoral Thesis, 1982. University of Washington. UMI No. 82-18213



8. Pojman compared children in the age range 5 to 13 years old. Boys in joint custody were significantly better adjusted than boys in sole maternal custody. Comparing boys in all groups, boys in joint custody compared very similarly to boys from happy families.
Source: E.G. Pojman. "Emotional Adjustment of Boys in Sole and Joint Custody Compared with Adjustment of Boys in Happy and Unhappy Marriages." Doctoral thesis 1982. California Graduate Institute. UMI No. ? Source of similar finding: V. Shiller. "Joint and Maternal Custody: The Outcome for Boys aged 6-11 and Their Parents." Doctoral thesis 1984. University of Deleware. UMI No. 85-11219. Source of similar finding: J. Schaub, "Joint Custody After Divorce: Views and Attitudes of Mental Health Professionals and Writers." Rutgers University,Doctoral Thesis, 1986. No. 86-14559



9. 90 fathers were questioned regarding how unequal recognition of parental rights might encourage conflict. Joint legal custody was found to encourage parental cooperation and discourage self-interest. Sole custody in both custodial AND non-custodial status encouraged punishment-oriented persuasion strategies. Unequal custody power was perceived as inhibiting parental cooperation by BOTH parents.
Source: M.R. Patrician. "The Effects of Legal Child-Custody Status on Persuasion Strategy Choices and Communication Goals of Fathers." Doctoral thesis 1984. University of San Francisco. UMI No. 85-14995.



10. Self Esteem found higher in children of joint custody. Children in joint custody report significantly more positive experiences than children of sole maternal custody.
Source: S.A. Wolchik, S.L. Braver and I.N. Sandler. J. of Clinical Child Psychology. Vol. 14, p.5-10, 1985.



11. Age range of children 5 to 12 years, studying early period of separation or divorce. Boys and girls in sole custody situation had more negative involvement with their parents than in joint custody situations. There was an increase reported in sibling rivalry reported for sole custody children when visiting their father (non-custodial parent). Girls in joint custody reported to have significantly higher self-esteem than girls in sole custody.
Source: E.B. Karp. Children's Adjustment in Joint and Single Custody: An Empirical Study. Doctoral thesis 1982. California school of professional psychology, Berkeley. UMI No. 83-6977.



12. Comparative study of children in mother sole custody, father sole custody, joint custody with mother primary, joint custody with father primary. Children in joint custody situations were found to be better adjusted than children in sole custody situations.
Source: J.A. Livingston. "Children After Divorce: A Psychosocial Analysis of the Effects of Custody on Self-esteem." Doctoral thesis 1983. University of Vermont. UMI No. 83-26981.



13. Nationally, 19.1% of children from 3 to 17 years old, living only with their biological mother, and 23.6% of those living with their biological mother and stepfather, exhibit a significant emotional or behavioral problem. This compares to only 8.3% of children living with both biological parents.
Source: N. Zill and C. Schoenborn, "Developmental, Learning, and Emotional Problems: Health of our Nation's Children", National Center for Health Statistics, Advance Data, 190 (November 16, 1990).



14. Three out of four teenage suicides occur in households where a parent has been absent. Source: Jean Bethke Elshtain, "Family Matters: The Plight of America's Children", The Christian Century (July 1993), pp. 14-21.


15. Fatherless children are at dramatically greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, suicide, poor educational performance, teenage pregnancy and criminality.
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics, "Survey on Child Health" (Washington, D.C., 1993).



16. Children who live apart from their fathers are 4.3 times more likely to smoke cigarettes as teenagers than children growing up with their fathers in the home:
Source: Warren R. Stanton, Tian P.S. Oci, and Phil A. Silva, "Sociodemographic Characteristics of Adolescent Smokers," The International Journal of the Addictions (1994), pp.913-925.


SOLE CUSTODY AND CRIME


1. A 1988 study found that the proportion of single-parent households in a community predicts its rate of violent crime and burglary, but the community's poverty level does not.
Source: Douglas A. Smith and G. Roger Jarjoura, "Social Structure and Criminal Victimization," Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 25 (February 1988), pp.27-52.



2. "If you look at the one factor that most closely correlates with crime, it's not poverty, it's not unemployment, it's not education. It's the absence of the father in the family."
Source: Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, 1994 30. "Children are the fastest growing segment of the criminal population in the United States." Source: U.S. Department of Justice, 1992



3. 87% of Wisconsin juvenile delinquents are a product of father-absent homes.
Source: Wisconsin Department of Health and Social Services, 1994



4. 72% of adolescent murderers grew up without fathers.
Source: Dewey Cornell, et. al., "Characteristics of Adolescents Charged with Homicide," Behavioral Sciences and the Law 5 (1987), pp.11-23. Source: U.S. Department of Justice data, 1991



5. 60% of America's rapists grew up in homes without fathers.
Source: Nicholas Davidson, "Life Without Father," Policy Review (1990); see also Karl Zinsmeister, "Crime is Terrorizing Our Nation's Kids," Citizen (Pamona, CA: Focus on the Family, Aug. 20, 1990), p.12 Source: U.S. Department of Justice data, 1991



6. The relationship (between family structure and crime) is so strong that controlling for family configuration erases the relationship between race and crime and between low income and crime. This conclusion shows up time and again in the literature."
Source: Elaine Kamarack and William Galston, "Putting Children First: A Progressive Family Policy for the 1990's" (Washington D.C.: Progressive Policy Institute, September 1990).



7. 70% of the juveniles in state reform institutions grew up in single- or no-parent situations.
Source: Allen Beck, Susan Kline, and Lawrence Greenfield, "Survey of Youth in Custody, 1987", U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, September 1988.



8. 70% of long-term prisoners grew up in father-absent homes.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice data, 1991


GENERAL PROBLEMS RELATED TO SOLE CUSTODY

1. Almost half of all mothers see no value in the father's continued contact with his children following separation or divorce, and up to 40% of mothers interfere with the dad's relationship with his kids.
Source: Sanford Braver, a University of Arizona psychologist


2. Only half of divorced mothers value the absent father's continued contact with his children. One-fifth saw no value in continued contact whatsoever, and "...actively tried to sabotage the meetings by sending the children away just before the father's arrival, by insisting that the child was ill or had pressing homework to do, by making a scene, or by leaving the children with the husband and disappearing."
Source: Judith S. Wallerstein and Joan Berlin Kelly P.h.D., "Surviving the Breakup:How Children and Parents Cope with Divorce" (New York: Basic Books, 1990), p.125.



3. Williams studied high-conflict, high-risk situations. He found that children in sole custody (typically but not exclusively maternal) much more likely to be subject to parental kidnapping and/or physical harm. He found that high-conflict families do better and are more likely to learn cooperative behavior when given highly detailed orders from the judge.
Source: F.S. Williams. "Child Custody and Parental Cooperation." American Bar Association, Family Law, August 1987.



4. More than 50% of all children who don't live with their father have never been in their father's home.
Source: Frank Furstenberg and Andrew Cherlin, "Divided Families: What Happens to Children When Parents Part" (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).



5. Based on a national study following 13,000 14- to 21-year-olds beginning in 1975, it was found that, whereas 57% of unwed fathers with children no older than 2 years of age visited their children more than once a week, only 23% were in frequent contact with their children at age 2-1/2 years or older
Source: Robert Lerman and Theodora J. Ooms, "Young Unwed Fathers: Changing Roles and Emerging Policies" (Philadelphia: Temple, 1993), p.45.



6. When asked whether they felt their parents "really care" about them, 97% of children ages 10 to 17 living with both biological parents said "yes" for their fathers. Of children living in a stepfamily, only 71% said "yes" for their fathers. And of children living with only one parent, only 55% said "yes" for their fathers.
Source: The National Commission on Children, "Speaking of Kids: A National Survey of Children and Parents" (Washington, D.C.: 1991).



7. On average, single mothers spend roughly one-third less time each week than married mothers in primary child care activities such as dressing, feeding, chauffeuring,talking, playing or helping with homework.
Source: John P. Robinson, "How Americans Use Time: A Social Psychological Analysis of Everyday Behavior" (New York, Praeger, 1977), p.70; see also John P.Robinson, "Caring for Kids", American Demographics (July 1989).



8. Even for fathers who maintain regular contact, the pattern of father-child relationships changes. Fathers behave more like relatives than like parents. Instead of helping with homework or carrying out a project with their children, nonresidential fathers are likely to take the kids shopping, to the movies, or out to dinner. Insteadof providing steady advice and guidance, divorced fathers become "treat" dads.
Source: Frank Furstenberg, Jr. and Andrew Cherlin, "Divided Families: What Happens to Children When Parents Part" (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 10.



9. Between 1971 and 1981, Judith S. Wallerstein conducted a study of 60 families who experience divorce. Included in the study were 131 children and 60 adolescents. Interviews were conducted periodically between 1971 and 1981. Wallerstein reached the following conclusions:

10 years after the divorce, children of divorce felt "less protected, less cared for, less comforted... these children (had) vivid, gut-wrenching memories of their parents' separation."

Many five- to eight-year-old boys showed "an intense longing for theirfathers" after the divorce, that seemed physically painful.

Many fathers who moved out of the house found it difficult to sustain a close and loving relationship with their children, especially if one or both parents remarried. Yet, children tenaciously held onto an internal image, sometimes a fantasy image, of their absent or even visiting father.

Not only did the children's need for their father continue, it also tended to rise with new intensity at adolescence, especially when it was time for the children to leave home.

Source: Judith S. Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee, Second Chances: Men, Women, and Children a Decade After Divorce (New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1989)



10. The preponderance of research supports the presumption that joint custody is in the best interests of children.
Source: Children's Rights Council Report (CRC) R-103A. 1987 Synopses of Sole and Joint Custody Studies.



THE TRUTH ABOUT DOMESTIC ABUSE & CHILD ABUSE


1. 47. 55.5% of murder victims of domestic violence are male
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, "Murder in Families" July 1994



2. "One woman is battered every 15 seconds" is based on research by Strass and Gelles which indicate assaults by husbands or boyfriends on 1.8 million women every year. What is not generally mentioned is that the study further concluded "One man is battered every 14 seconds"
Source: Research by Murray Strauss and Richard Gelles as reported in "Women Are Responsible Too", Judith Shervin, Ph.D. and Jim Sniechowski, Ph.D., Los Angeles Times. June 21,1994.



3. "54% of all violence termed 'severe' was perpetrated by women."
Source: Research by Murray Strauss and Richard Gelles as reported in "Women Are Responsible Too", Judith Shervin, Ph.D. and Jim Sniechowski, Ph.D., Los Angeles Times. June 21, 1994.



4. "Since society does not define abuse of men by women as a problem, official police data reflects a much more frequent response to abuse of women by men than of men by women. Therefore it is not surprising to find over 90% of the calls to police or to hotlines coming from women, not men."
Source: "Spouse Abuse: A Two-Way Street", Warren Farrell, Ph.D., USAToday, June 29, 1994.



5. Data from the states' protective service agencies indicate that children have much more to fear from their mothers than from their fathers, with mothers abusing their children at a rate approaching or exceeding twice that of fathers. In New Jersey, for instance 70% of the confirmed parental child abuse is committed by mothers, not fathers, 66% in Alaska, 67% in Virginia, 68& in Texas, and 62% in Minnesota.
Source: A study of child abuse in Lansing, MI. Joan Ditson and Sharon Shay in Child Abuse and Neglect, Volume 8, 1984.



6. Preschoolers living without their biological father were 40 times more likely to be a victim of child abuse as compared to like-aged children living with their father.
Source: Wilson and Daley in Child Abuse and neglect: Biosocial Dimensions, 1987)



7. Premarital pregnancy, out-of-wedlock childbearing, and absent fathers are the most common predictors of child abuse.
Source: Smith, Hanson, and Noble, Child Abuse: Commission and Ommission, 1980.



8. 69% of victims of child sexual abuse came from homes where the biological father was absent.
Source: Gomes-Schwartz, Horowitz, and Cardarelli, Child Sexual Abuse Victims and Their Treatment, 1988.



9. Children are at particular risk. A 125 lb. woman is just as dangerous to a small child as is a 150 lb. man and the failure to admit that women can be violent has resulted in an increasingly tragic epidemic of child abuse.
Source: A study of child abuse in Lansing, MI. Joan Ditson and Sharon Shay in "Child Abuse and Neglect", Volume 8, 1984.



10. Society's failure to address abuse by women has some rather tragic results:

The cycle of family violence will not end until we are willing to treat not only men who initiate violent acts, but the women also. No adequate treatment programs for abusive women exist.

The man, generally being larger than the woman, is more likely to inflict physical injury when he responds to abuse from the woman, but the woman is more likely to overcome the size advantage by using a weapon.

Source: National Crime Survey, Census Bureau in "Spouse Abuse: A Two-Way Street", Warren Farrell, Ph.D., USA Today. June 29, 1994/



TEENAGE SEXUALITY AND SOLE CUSTODY/FATHER ABSENCE


1. Daughters of single parents are 53% more likely to marry as teenagers, 111% more likely to have children as teenagers, 164% more likely to have a premarital birth, and 92% more likely to dissolve their own marriages
Source: Irwin Garfinkel and Sara McLanahan, "Single Mothers and Their Children" (Washington D.C.: Urban Institute Press, 1986).

2. Teenage girls who grow up without their fathers tend to have sex earlier. A 15-year-old who has lived with her mother only, for example, is three times as likely to lose her virginity before her sixteenth birthday as one who lived with both parents.
Source: Lee Smith, "The New Wave of Illegitimacy", Fortune 18 (April 1994), pp. 81-94. Also see Susan Newcomer and J. Richard Udry, "Parental Marital Status Effects on Adolescent Sexual Behavior", Journal of Marriage and the Family (May 1987), pp.235-240.



3. Adolescent females between the ages of 15 and 19 years reared in homes without fathers are significantly more likely to engage in premarital sex than adolescent females reared in homes with both a mother and a father.
Source: John O. G. Billy, Karin L. Brewster, and William R. Grady,"Contextual Effects on the Sexual Behavior of Adolescent Women", Journal of Marriage and Family 56 (1994), pp. 381-404.



4. Girls from fatherless homes are 111% (over two times) more likely to have an unwed pregnancy.
Source: Warren Farrell presentation at NCMC conference, 1992; Hetherington, 1972



5. Girls from fatherless homes are 92% (nearly two times) more likely to divorce.
Source: Warren Farrell presentation at NCMC conference, 1992;Hetherington, 1972.

LOW ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE AND SOLE CUSTODY

1. "In Summary, 30% of the children in the present study experienced a marked decrease in their academic performance following parental separation, and this was evident three years later. Access to both parents seemed to be the most protective factor, in that it was associated with better academic adjustment... Moreover, data revealed that non-custodial parents (mostly fathers) were very influential in their children's development....These data also support the interpretation that the more time a child spends with the non-custodial parent, the better the overall adjustment of the child.
Source: Factors Associated with Academic Achievement in Children Following Separation, L. Bisnaire, P.h.D.; P. Firestone, P.h.D.; D. Rynard, MA Sc American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 60(1), January, 1990.



2. Children in single-parent families tend to score lower on standardized tests and receive lower grades in school. Children in single-parent families are nearly twice as likely to drop out of high school as children from two parent families.
Source: J.B. Stedman, L.H. Salganik, and C.A. Celebuski, "Dropping Out: The Educational Vulnerability of At-Risk Youth," Congressional Research Service Report No. 88-417 EPW Washington, D.C.: U.S. Congress, Library of Congress, 1988).



3. Students without fathers or with stepfathers were less likely to have peers who thought it important to behave well in school.
Source: Nicholas Zill and Christine Winquist Nord, "Running in Place: How American Families are Faring in a Changing Economy and An Individualistic Society" (Washington, D.C.: Child Trends, Inc., 1994).



4. Children who exhibited violent misbehavior in school were 11 times as likely not to live with their fathers.
Source: Jonathan L. Sheline, Betty J. Skipper, and W. Eugene Broadhead, "Risk Factors for Violent Behavior in Elementary School Boys: Have You Hugged Your Child Today?" American Journal of Public Health 84 (1994), pp. 661-663.



5. Nationally, 15.3% of children living with a never married mother and 10.7% of children living with a divorced mother have been expelled or suspended from school ,compared with only 4.4% of children living with both biological parents.
Source: Debra Dawson, "Family Structure and Children's Well-Being: Data from the 1988 National Health Interview Survey," Journal of Marriage and Family 53 (1991). 67. Children who were living with both biological parents were nearly two to four times less likely than other children to have been expelled or suspended from school (4%vs. 9-15%)
Source: L. Remez, "Children Who Don't Live with Both Parents Face Behavioral Problems," Family Planning Perspectives (January/February 1992).



CHILD SUPPORT

1. According to Census Bureau data, fathers with joint physical custody of their children, pay more of their child support - 90% - compared with 79% for fathers with visitation rights, and 44% for fathers with neither arrangement.
Source: Nicholas Zill, Analysis of Census Bureau Data, paper presented at the Children's Rights Council National Conference, Bethesda, MD, April 1993.


2. 90% of fathers with joint custody pay all of their child support on time and in full.
Source: Current Population Report, issued September 1991; Child Support & Alimony: 1989 Series P60, No 173, pages 6 & 7 of the 1989 Census.



3. Where there is visitation, almost 80% of fathers pay all their support on time, and in full.
Source: 1991 Census Bureau; see also Current Population Report, issued September 1991; Child Support & Alimony: 1989 Series P60, No 173, pages 6 & 7 of the 1989 Census.



4. 51% of fathers paying no child support had annual incomes of less than $12,310.
Source: 1995 report to the Wisconsin Governor's Commission on Families and Children.



5. 56% of fathers who owe support "cannot afford to pay the amount ordered".
Source: 1992: The General Accounting Office.



6. 14% of fathers who owe child support are dead.
Source: 1992: The General Accounting Office.



7. A significant portion of unpaid child support is owed by fathers who are imprisoned.
Source: Steward A. Miller, senior legislative analyst for American Fathers Coalition in Washington D.C.



8. Almost 80% of custodial mothers receive a child support award.
Source: 1991 Federal Office of Income Security Policy.



9. Less than 30% of custodial fathers receive a child support award
Source: 1991 Federal Office of Income Security Policy



10. About 47% of those mothers ordered to pay child support totally default on their obligation.
Source: Steward A. Miller, senior legislative analyst for American Fathers Coalition in Washington D.C.

compiled 8/1/96 by co-founders of For Kids' Sake





For Kids' Sake
Patrick & Lynn Kempen


compiled 8/1/96 by co-founders of For Kids' Sake