Archive for the ‘Vocabulary Lessons’ Category
Same, old Wine on New Whitehouse.gov Website…
-but apparently what changed was the Dream.
I went looking for Former President Clinton’s 1995 Memo to all federal agencies, telling them to within 90 days revamp their programs to incorporate father-friendly-(funding, procedures, etc.), and found a memo, same president, same summer, addressing the 20th anniversary of the Child Support Enforcement Agency. These are related, folks.
While looking this, I also found a very fine summary of the relationship (and the history of the Father-land Talk) dating back to 2001, which is at the end of this post. I will add it to the blogroll also.
I’d already looked at the white house agenda and FY2010 proposed budget (see link, top right), seen its token reference to domestic violence, but detailed determination to take children from hospital through age 18 (at least) from the arms of their mothers (while, if necessary medicating their mothers, who are presumed incompetent til proven otherwise, which at this rate, they won’t be given much of a chance….). I had already in previous weeks/months been (in some shock) looking at the millions and millions of funding for unbelievably gratuitous studies on this theme of Dads Are People Too.
No one paid me for these studies. But I’m publishing (here) anyhow.
The problem with a White House drunk on its own collective dreams is that tipsy with power, it has swerved:
The content of the dream changed from 1963.
“I have a dream” to “we have a dream.”
Well, I have not been dreaming about forcing my version of utopia on the rest of the United States. I never drank from that trough. I was focused on the immediate (my family, work, etc.) with a long-view to their future.
I’m getting tired of the Government as Nanny and Behavioral Interventionist Expert on things its Experts haven’t experienced. What they are experienced at is obtaining federal funding to promote pet policies, as far a I can tell.
Kind of reminds me how April is “Sexual Assault Awareness Month,” “Child Abuse Awareness Month,” but also in several states across the U.S., I hear, “Parental Alienation Awareness Day” which might be properly re-named “S A N D”, i.e., “Sexual Assault Never Discussed” day, as its origins tie DIRECTLY to the reframing of many, hard-won women’s rights issues, such as not being slapped around in the home, especially not with kids watching. And there is an overlap between kinds of bad behaviors.
We don’t have “Fatherhood Federally Funded” days, but that seems to be a permanent fixture in the Federal Budget, far more permanent that VAWA funding, or arts in the schools. Hey, the family that plays (musical instruments), reads, learns, dances or does sports together stays together? How about that for a federal policy?
At the bottom of this post (you have to scroll past my quotes, comments, and complaints first) is a coherent summary (dating to 2001) of what the ‘fatherhood initiative” is about, really.
But before then, crook your neck at this:
THE END OF MANHOOD:
A Book for Men of Conscience
Now that I have your attention, and before you load any weapons, the Title above is a link to the Harvard Educational Review of it. I have read this book, and it addresses the mythic thinking that is also behind some of these Fatherhood Fallacies. In fact, as it’s 1995, the years seems appropriate, too:
“Stoltenberg presents a radical critique of the very concept “manhood,” arguing that it serves no socially desirable function — only hurtful functions that can and should be eliminated from men’s personal identities and social interactions. He presents a provocative alternative to most thinking about men and the problematic aspects of our behavior and identity. He bases his critiques on the claim that “manhood,” in all of its various masculine incarnations, is at odds with, and in fact mutually exclusive of, an authentic sense of “selfhood” — a selfhood necessary for relating to others in just, moral, and non-violating ways. He argues:
This book therefore rejects the widespread notion that “manhood” can be somehow revised and redeemed — the contemporary project variously described as “reconstructing,” “reinventing,” “remythologizing,” “revisioning,” and re-whatevering gendered personal identity so as to bring its hapless adherents back into the human fold. That project is utterly futile, and we all have to give it up, as this book will carefully explain. (p. xiv)
Stoltenberg’s book provides a detailed and complex analysis of gender relations and identity formation around his underlying argument that gender is nothing more than a means of social control that is harmful to individuals, families, and society because the culturally defined ways of “being a man” are generally at odds with intimacy and real interpersonal connection.”
As a heterosexual, male-friendly, but criminal-behavior-antagonistic woman and mother who has been searching for ways to address the language stupidities in many sectors, I really appreciate books like this. They are a find, a real gem. Thank you John Stoltenberg.
It’s not uncommon to find women who have been able to put words to this, but while I’m hear one uncommonly good source is Dr. Phyllis Chesler, and her book “Mothers on Trial” seems to address the issues within the courts as well. Perhaps these two books, along with “The Batterer As Parent” should be required reading (and in the possession of) the “family justice centers” across the country.
UNFORTUNATELY, THEY ARE NOT FUNDED BY PARTNERSHIPS BETWEEN GOVERNMENT, UNIVERSITY CENTERS, AND PRIVATE FOUNDATIONS, THEREFORE THEY DO NOT SELF-PROPAGATE. I’LL ADD THE SITE TO THE BLOGROLL.
Anyhow, is the Fatherhood = REAL Family, single-mother households, kindly exit stage left talk, going to change? Are they going to stop penalizing mothers who try to report or leave abuse and do NOT consider themselves ipso facto inferior persons? Is it going to allow them to set a limit their personal exposure to violence without sacrificing their CHILDREN (and to similar futures)?
Not likely on this watch: see whitehouse.gov, Agenda, Family:
“FAMILY”
“…[A]t the dawn of the 21st century we also have a collective responsibility to recommit ourselves to the dream; to strengthen that safety net, put the rungs back on that ladder to the middle-class, and give every family the chance that so many of our parents and grandparents had. This responsibility is one that’s been missing from Washington for far too long — a responsibility I intend to take very seriously as President.”
— Barack Obama, Spartanburg, SC, June 15, 2007
President Obama (and I voted for you), with all due respect, “the dream” above sounds quite different than the one with which I’m more familiar, although I am of different color and gender both. My DREAM includes, along with seeing my daughters again, and that they understand that they are NOT on this earth to be someone else’s dream, except by their informed consent.
My dream didn’t include being given direction and handouts for me, my daughters, my relationships, and more. My dream is a day where the words “dream” are not a collective trance, but that individual families can, without retaliation, choose different lifestyles for themselves and their children, and make creative use of existing resources to house, feed, and educate them. To make a choice to leave a violent situation without having to become permanent welfare, permanently injured, or permanently lose contact with one’s offspring because of one’s gender.
My dream this particular week was to see these young ladies on their school break. But because someone had coached someone in what venue to continue control and abuse of our family (and them), and break down a safety zone I’d set, they are in a situation where court orders are no longer safely enforceable — safe for them, me, or now an elderly relative also. And in tracking down where this dream originated, and what it was about (it was NOT about the children, it was about balancing the federal budget. Talking about children, families, fathers, dreams, and change are simply how funding is released and programs are re-focused. I do not have a job, a car, a bank account, credit, or contact with my immediate family members.
This is an artificial situation started that took government interference and squelching of initiative I showed post-marriage, and it was done now I am finding under programs that believe fathers — ANY fathers — are better than no fathers, no matter what the circumstances. And the belief that single mothers — ANY single mothers (not just ones on welfare) were worse for their children than mothers in two-parent homes, no matter what happens in those homes.
How is this different than judging based on skin-color, please?
Should I quote the other “I have a Dream” speech? OK…
This dream was about JUSTICE, not about DOLE-OUTS. As characterized on “USConstitution.net”
In 1950’s America, the equality of man envisioned by the Declaration of Independence was far from a reality. People of color — blacks, Hispanics, Asians — were discriminated against in many ways, both overt and covert. The 1950’s were a turbulent time in America, when racial barriers began to come down due to Supreme Court decisions, like Brown v. Board of Education; and due to an increase in the activism of blacks, fighting for equal rights.
Martin Luther King, Jr., a Baptist minister, was a driving force in the push for racial equality in the 1950’s and the 1960’s. In 1963, King and his staff focused on Birmingham, Alabama. They marched and protested non-violently, raising the ire of local officials who sicced water cannon and police dogs on the marchers, whose ranks included teenagers and children. The bad publicity and break-down of business forced the white leaders of Birmingham to concede to some anti-segregation demands.
Thrust into the national spotlight in Birmingham, where he was arrested and jailed, King helped organize a massive march on Washington, DC, on August 28, 1963. His partners in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom included other religious leaders, labor leaders, and black organizers. The assembled masses marched down the Washington Mall from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, heard songs from Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, and heard speeches by actor Charlton Heston, NAACP president Roy Wilkins, and future U.S. Representative from Georgia John Lewis.
King’s appearance was the last of the event; the closing speech was carried live on major television networks. On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, King evoked the name of Lincoln in his “I Have a Dream” speech, which is credited with mobilizing supporters of desegregation and prompted the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The next year, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The following is the exact text of the spoken speech, transcribed from recordings.
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
So, President Obama, regarding “Agenda,” I never lost sight of that dream. I am old enough to remember both it, MLK, JFK, RFK, and was raised on the musicians mentioned above. I have also spent much of my life working in “multi-cultural” situations before the word was invented. I attended the first college in the United States to admit blacks OR women (Oberlin College, Ohio) and from it, took a year to work in your stomping ground (meaning Chicago, South Side) in music, and continued working along these lines for many years.
Although I worked with choirs, my dream was not to force everyone to. Although we also homeschooled, my dream at this point is not to force everyone to. Although I am a Christian (although challenged in this with the treatment of battered women in that faith, as well as in others), I am not trying to convert everyone else, but simply walk the talk. And although I had children, I am not trying to raise everyone else’s. Although I didn’t have seven, or even four children, I have known terrific families with seven or nine kids that do very well. Mom and Dad work it out one way or another. We had one family that lost a father to cancer; the whole group pulled together and cooked meals for them, helped with rides, they supported that woman and children through her grief in a wonderful way.
Moreover, when my ex-husband escalated his aggressions towards me and continued to knock out jobs, and systematically withhold child support, some of these individuals stepped in to help our household as well.
Even in the field of music, the trend nowadays is towards dynamic, small ensembles in a variety of styles, that can really pull out the best, as community choirs still continue (though fiscally challenged). So why are we doing the one size fits all family, please? As I formerly made a living for organizations putting back into schools what government took out, and I thereafter made a very decent living (when permitted to) for a combination of these groups and parents that had opted out of the system, why cannot you envision that something NOT regulated by the federal government and under the age of 18, just MIGHT be OK if left alone?
We are individuals, and have individual dreams. I see that the tax burden on us to execute YOUR administration’s dreams is not going to permit this, apparently, any longer. The dream has changed. Again, let’s compare:
1963:
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Will Smith, the PURSUIT of HAPPYNESS, remember? This movie was about his pursuing and reaching, his goal, overcoming obstacles, and showing incredible tenacity and diligence to reach it, with his son. He went from sleeping in the subway to successful stock broker, right? The movie was about the PURSUIT of happiness.
The “I have a Dream” speech, here, talks about the “bank of justice,” not the “bank!” It’s a metphor…
Where is the Federal Funding to stop the erosion of due procees in the family courts? Laws are already on the books to protect women and children from abuse, and men, but these are being systematically ignored, to the destruction of their personal economies, mental health, stability, and at time, lives.
Now, the people for whom THAT dream (of opportunity equallity, and justice) is most important to me in 2009 are my immediate family and others I have become acquainted with since seeking to safely disengage from violence in the home, and failing to find this supported in the Family Court venue, at all. Or in related arenas.
I do not share the “dream” of enforcing my lifestyle nationwide, or endorsing funding for federal funds to study compare two-parent families with violence (etc.) vs. single-mother households without it; or of women working 9 to 5 with their children in child care and day care, ( if things continue as stated on your new Agenda, this would be ages 0 to 18) [Compartmentalized thinking, some of which i believe is a holdover from the manufacturing age, assembly-line production of a populace) over holding, cuddling, and nursing children longer, and engaging in competent homeschooling and, what often goes along with this, increased local community involvement. I do not share a dream of putting violent and abusive (and unrepentant about it) fathers back with the people individuals they have abused in order to balance a corporate budget.
Prior to marriage, I was also acting my dream, in service to nonprofits in urban areas, and I worked with children, youth and adults. During marriage, this put on hold (many years) as an attempt was made to reprogram me about WHO I WAS and WHAT CHOICES I COULD MAKE. WHAT THINGS I COULD PROVIDE FOR OUR DAUGHTERS.
After marriage, I resumed the original plan, only with children, who were not a burden to be farmed out, dumped off, or federally cared for in order that I could pursue work I wasn’t on this planet to do. Rather, being an individual, and using what talents and education I already and had obtained, and with diligence and consistent effort, I resumed contributing to the communities around me, in the same field I’d attended a top U.S. college and been trained for since little, but adjusted which type of work I assumed to my children’s lives. There was a return of joy to my life, and I imagine it was noticeable. “Do what you love and the money will follow” happens to have some merit to it, sometimes, because PASSION is involved, and commitment.
The sole cause of my need to return for enforcement of child support orders was interferences, repeated and escalating, in this pattern of re-engaging and making decisions independently of the father. ALL of this took place primarily when our legal case went into family court. I was legally forced back into a lifestyle already proven to lead to insolvency. Repeated often enough and severely enough and for long enough, insolvency gets there. Now I’m occasionally hungry, but that beats being beat, still.
Here’s the “Family” agenda:
Obama will make college affordable, reform our bankruptcy and credit card laws, protect the balance between work and family, and put a secure and dignified retirement within the reach of all Americans. President Obama has been a strong advocate for working people throughout his public life, and he will stand up to special interests and bring America together to reclaim the American dream.
Support Working Families
(Pause to acknowledge that mothers raising their children — without referring too much to bodily function, including “Labor,” I would like to point out that this IS work, which seems to have been forgotten somewhere in the list of topics here). Under this topic, you have 10 bullets of agenda, and detailed plans.
Strengthen Families at Home
(pause to acknowledge that under this topic you have only 2 bullets)
Of these two bullets the first one is the same old same old (only probably MORE of it) “Fatherhood and Families”
and the second one which addresses your belief that teen mothers need more in-home visitation).
Therefore I presume that intelligent, lifelong-working, law-abiding, educated mothers (like me) whose work per se allows flexibility, and who chose not to buy into the one-size-fits all education OR the one-size-fits all definition of marriage, OR the one-size-fits all definition of employment, do not exist. Nor do the women, such as Shirley Riggs, who at last count, was sitting in a jail because she, understanding (as do I, now) that no law enforcement or court agency was going to protect her four children from being sexually abused by their father and grandfather, which apparently had been established, and she FLED. Or, women such as Holly Collins, who had to flee the United States with her kids for safety, or women such as are now in other more permament underground boxes, because they stood up for their civil rights, too, and for their kids. They were mothers too, and they went to court for help.
They didn’t need behavioral modification, they needed protection. They had dreams, too, that they wouldn’t be denied due process because of their gendcr, or because they didn’t choose a wise partner.
ANYHOW, Trish Wilson, in this link, addresses, why not just stick with the welfare and allow women to BE single?
Now, I find that not only is CHANGE.GOV not changing the mixture of messages about this situation, but it is pretty darn similar to what was going on under Clinton and Bush as well. We want “healthy families” and “involved fathers.” Well so, sirs, did I. Unfortunately, this was not available with both of us living at the same address.
At this point, I do not appreciate expert professionals with VERY cushy government funding — in some cases whole institutes have been founded on this matter — who have not EXPERIENCED the direct economic, and physical/emotional impact of getting free from violence to be dragged back in through family court, until ones’ kids have just about aged out of the system and onesself has aged out of, just about, employability — I do not appreciate having my first-hand assessment of these matters challenged by people I cannot look in the eye and tell them where different parts of their anatomy are currently residing (metaphorically), or advising them how to put them there.
I do not personally appreciate being the subject matter funding someone else’s research without my informed consent. The only reason I am now informed is that a generous neighbor helped me get a laptop. No charity or organization did that although I sought them there. The laptop enables internet access. The internet access enables job searches, communications, and networking, something women are good at as well as men. It also enables a degree of research.
Until you’ve taken the time to study (or been personally thwacked by this policy), certain phrases will have a pleasant, noble ring to them. On the other side off familycourtmatters as promoted by a desire to reduce welfare, and justified also by the child support agency carapaces getting harder and harder towards the people they are supposed to serve (I spent about 2 years trying to penetrate my local one, during which 2 years my kids were stolen. To date they have not served him with a seek work order to my knowledge, and as usual are not collecting arrears either before or after that event, despite a substantial arrearage, still. We recently went statewide as to distribution, and I have given up on translating the new, improved, computer system.)
Consequence: Stalemate. If I am served with a child support order, I cannot pay — the process just put me out on the street almost, besides which I would simply point to what I am presently owed (in the thousands, naturally) and say, “take it off that.” Who is hurt with this? Primarily our children, but not only them..) Worse: If I serve a contempt order, I do not know the risk level, but I would assess it as high on the lethality scale. Thank you, “Fatherhood and Family” corporate trancemakers.
Strengthen Fatherhood and Families:
Barack Obama has re-introduced the Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act to remove some of the government penalties on married families, crack down on men avoiding child support payments, ensure that support payments go to families instead of state bureaucracies, fund support services for fathers and their families, and support domestic violence prevention efforts. President Obama will sign this bill into law and continue to implement innovative measures to strengthen families.
The parts I just italicized, above, in this context pretty much qualify as lies. In practice what happens, I would qualify as lies.
What happens is that federally funded outreach (through child support payment offices many times, or family courts) endorsed by federally funded studies, make plea-bargains to reduce child support arrears in exchange for more visitation time wiht the kids, and COACH them how to do this. On the way, (3rd italicized phrases), lots of people get referral work around the psychological evaluation of why Suzy doesn’t want to visit Daddy this weekend, or why Mommy is looking so distraught in court, or right after a visitation. This is inherent in the design of the program, and in its conception too. The reason I now have time to research this is that, through no crime except ignorance of how these things operate, I have been now unemployed for the longest time in my entire adult life, and I can document (in this particular case) that “the economy” had nothing to do with it. At all.
read about it below. The title of the link is a clue to the contents. This was in 2001, and not much has changed since.
RE: Responsible Fatherhood, Child Support Enforcement, Preventing Violence Against Women, Healthy Marriages
http://www.stopfamilyviolence.org/get-informed/custody-abuse/fathers-rights-movement/u-s-fatherhood-initiatives
I am now promoting a self-initiative (not federally funded) to speak about this and I advise women leaving abuse to AVOID the child support system if at all possible. There is a better way to get free, if only the well-intentioned government would leave us alone (as they did during the violence, many times) to let us figure it out. This is not the manner of government, however, and never has been.
+++++++++
When it comes to Women:
Preventing Violence Against Women
- Reducing Domestic Violence: One in four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. Family violence accounted for 11 percent of all violence between 1998 and 2002. As a member of the Senate, President Obama introduced legislation to combat domestic violence by providing $25 million a year for partnerships between domestic violence prevention organizations and Fatherhood or Marriage programs to train staff in domestic violence services, provide services to families affected by domestic violence, and to develop best practices in domestic violence prevention.
These same partnerships have been diluting the protections we so needed. I have seen it happen over the almost two decades I have been personally dealing with these issues. I oppose such partnerships as fundamentally dishonest.
Let me see where a non-teen mother might be able to participate in mothering her child:
Early Childhood Education
- Zero to Five Plan: The Obama-Biden comprehensive “Zero to Five” plan will provide critical support to young children and their parents. Unlike other early childhood education plans, the Obama-Biden plan places key emphasis at early care and education for infants, which is essential for children to be ready to enter kindergarten. Obama and Biden will create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state Zero to Five efforts and help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school.
It is a short step from voluntary to compulsory, and the end of breastfeeding and other age-old healthy practices (like bonding with one’s parents) as we understand them. And I personally never had such a LOW goal for my kids as to be “ready to enter kindergarten.” Both were reading easily before then, and when they got there, were coloring in large letters and doing other obviously busywork designed to handle large groups of children at once. Most homeschooling Moms I dealt with reported similar experiences. I have taught many kindergartners and younger over decades. They are fun. However, I conclude that most of them belong with their Mommies a little longer. This is good for Mom and children both.
- Expand Early Head Start and Head Start: Obama and Biden will quadruple Early Head Start, increase Head Start funding, and improve quality for both.
- Provide affordable, High-Quality Child Care: Obama and Biden will also increase access to affordable and high-quality child care to ease the burden on working families.
It seems clear to me that as mothers “pro-choice” does not include opting out of some of these expensive systems any more than out of a very violent marriage without forking over the kids to either a government program, or the Dad.
Please count me out of this corporate dream. I want my own back, and this type of group-think off my back, and out of my “neck of the woods.” It frightens me to wonder where the sound-thinking individuals are going to be found, in coming dccades.
SHARE THIS POST on...
More Acronyms: HHS – OWH (Office of Women’s Health)
(See link:)
http://womenshealth.gov/owh/about/
There is a lot of talk about Responsible Fatherhood, Healthy Marriage, and the Administration for Children and Families.
These are all valid nouns. But where is the missing gender?
Fathers, Marriages, Children, and Families. Great causes – but did you notice who ain’t there? Where is the word “mother”?
I know where the word “woman” is (see this department), but what about mothers?
Think about it — children come in boys, or girls. Occasionally there is a switch in that. Marriages — except in (where is it, Vermont, Iowa?) can be two men or two women, but generally speaking, women are in there somewhere.
I’ve been poking around the operational divisions of the HHS also, Now, I realize that “TANF” (welfare) represents mothers where and when, as of divorce (or separation in a relationship), the children are with the mothers. But, the word has lost its presence. It’s as though we don’t exist, as such. We are compartmentalized into heads of households, or noncustodial/custodial, or parental alienators, or — good grief, it IS possible to be both a woman and a mother, or a professional something and a mother. Or a wife and a mother. One would think.
Pause to Squawk About This a Bit . . . .
Apart from cloning, or any other version of fabricating a Cyperperson, when it comes to PEOPLE, at last count, does this not still requires (1) an egg and (2) at least one sperm?
Whether that egg comes from an egg donor, or is removed, fertilized and replaced, or fertilized and then put in a surrogate mother (put ingredients in pot, add heat, simmer til done) coming up with a family entails making children, requires a woman. Therefore becoming a responsible or irresponsible father STILL requires a woman’s participation (willing or unwilling) somewhere along the way. Part of her, even if only and egg, has to contribute, and in order for part of her to contribute, SOMETHING has to go into, and then come out of her body. Willingly or unwillingly, as we know (willingly being the best, of course). And as to those little squigglers, it’s simpler and less invasive to get them out than it is to get an egg out. Even when the destination is cold storage, generally speaking, I don’t think words like “extraction” or tools designed to do this are required. Also, timewise, it takes less to start a baby than gestate one. Women Count. Women who provide eggs, or incubate them, are at least minimally “mothers” whether or not the procedures preceding this were. So how come we can’t spend a few seconds, or have some HHS hyperlinks — which we know relates to public funding, policies and grants — pronouncing this word:
~ ~Mother ~ ~
If we are going to allocate millions, hundreds of millions or in the case of Head Start (for children, right), Billions, to study and improve all these things, let’s get real at least about the cast, script, characters involved. They aren’t Moms, they are “teen pregnancies.” In the courts, also, it’s a “parenting” plan. Trace the etymology of that word. Similarloy, we (Moms, custodial or noncustodial) are so often not “mothers” but either “females” or “parents.” We are “women” (and it’s true), but many of us — and every one of the children in the families, marriages, and households, etc., came out of someone’s womb. That is the biological, at least anatomical, definition of “mother.”
So, as a woman whose pregnancies were full-term, intended, and births that produced very healthy children, although the family, which had violence in it, was by that definition, NOT, I still was there and present. For the majority of the “rigid gender role” marriage, I was often called by my functional name in front of others, not my given name (not including the other, less flattering ones). Then I divorced, and became a “single parent” (not mother) at which the advice-givers and policy-makers moved in, as though as by filing something in court, and then beginning the clean-up, rebuild, repair process, I somehow became a child again and directionless. In my 40s..
This vocabulary shift was something I didn’t envision in my 20s, in college, or in my 30s, in a variety of work and cities (and college again), or 40s (in marriage). Why didn’t I know? that if my marriage didn’t pan out, my children would become public property and my life would become a free-for-all for family members with time on their hands or government policies with funded professionals and endowments. Whoa, baby! And the experience is common, I eventually found out.
So, where is the word “MOTHER” when it comes to grants, fundings, centers for research, and government intentions about healthy families? You don’t GET to family without mother. We should at least make a passing mention, other than in documentation about how the major health crisis of our time is “fatherlessness” (in effect, Moms are again taking the rap, but don’t get a mention).
Seriously, one hallmark of the times is the absence of the word MOTHERS when it comes to these major grants. WOMEN occurs frequently. Sometimes I feel the pools of discussion around this are muddied by lumping mothers in with the mix.
Now that I have that off my chest, I do get email on Women’s Healthy Policies. Today, I decided to poke around and see what was up regarding the issue of Violence, and if there was anything that addressed this problem in the family courts, custody switching, and putting kids in the hands of abusers, or child-stealing by either such abusers, or such parents to avoid abuse (male or female).
This only fair, because I am about to make a serious fuss about the “Fatherhood” funding and publicize (from publically available websites) just WHAT is being funded.
Why: Policymakers engage Funding engages Research (helping to perpetuate the funding) which promotes Policies.
This may affect whether a child in a “fatherless” family gets a support check this month. Pursuing the support check, on the behalf of the custodial MOTHERs has been proven dangerous to her, and/or her children’s life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. It may result ina custody switch. It may result in a weekend snatch, or may result in a family wipe out. Or it may NOT result in any of the above, but the fear of them may color the waking week, and curtail options, when there has been a pattern of either violence or retaliation. Challenging authority is dangerous.
Asking the government to fund studies of this is similar to asking scientists to do studies on their peers, and to do it consistently, thoroughly, and honestly. I’m NOT sure it’s going to happen.
BUT, today, I felt that we should look at this office too, and its funding (if possible), and whether it addresses these issues. My hypothesis is that failure to talk about mothers is a failure to realize the aspects of being one when it comes to research priorities, at least these days.
OWH was founded in 1991. Congratulations, United States of America, you recognized that women are anatomically different then men, which may affect our health issues.
http://womenshealth.gov/owh/about/
(DIRECT PASTE FROM THIS SITE, MORE AVAILABLE ON THAT PAGE…, EMPHASES MINE, ANY COMMENTS BETWEEN “{{ }}}” )
OWH Mission
The Office on Women’s Health (OWH) was established in 1991 within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Its Vision is to ensure that “All Women and Girls are Healthier and Have a Better Sense of Well Being.” Its mission is to “provide leadership to promote health equity for women and girls through sex/gender-specific approaches.” The strategy OWH uses to achieve its mission and vision is through the (A) development of innovative programs, (B) by educating health professionals, and (C) motivating behavior change in consumers through the dissemination of health information.
{{There’s that pesky “behavioral change-ism.” As I have been saying, “government” is basically, behavioral modification, at this point. That’s why I posted about the Age of Spiritual Machines. We have a bit of role confusion here, I think.}}
{{Establishment in 1991. That event will have an interesting history, I am sure. No, placing this department within the US DHHS is interesting, because some of these other DHHS programs are most definitely contrary to the “women’s health,” in practice.}}
{{ensuring that ALL women & girls are healthier and have a better sense of well being” sounds very noble; it is grand in scope. I am touched to find out that an organization I did not know existed for many many years (my DV within marriage began n 1992, and no real consistent internet access til about 1996, and that at work). In this context, not getting assaulted, battered, isolated, degraded, and such things would’ve done quite well for my “sense of well being,” and what’s more, to know and ensure that the children I brought into this world (yes, with participatory help of a man) wouldn’t be either.
In that regard, the aspects of the HHS programs which, in an equally well-intentioned (for theory we can presume this) intent to make responsible fathers and healthy children (ACTUALLY, the intent was to enforce child support, and reduce embarrassing deficits in that regard) in helping increase access for fathers in HOPES that this would persuade them to pay up, OR, in EXCHANGE for reduced child support obligations and arrears — that does NOT increase the sense of well being of children when it comes to their understanding they are not cash cows.
In general, I don’t think that this department or any other should be assuming godlike functions, but place an inhibitory restraint on the, if I may be flippant, the more devilish ones, such as hitting, stealing, stalking, killing, threatening, or general irresonsible behavior.
I have been thinking these thoughts in the “down time” I had (under-employment, case stalled, children absent) and in desire to utilize the next decade of life a little more wisely than the last. I have noticed the proliferation of human behavioral studies across the land, and it frightens me. I have also come to understand, locally, better, WHY some of these institutions were inappropriate for battered mothers with children to approach at all. I wish to find out if there is an alternative for the next generations.
Humanity is dynamic, interactive, sensitive and responsive to its environments. Some of the thrills and delights of human achievement include mastering danger, averting crises or surviving them, and creating. Contributing. And among these are raising healthy children.
NOT among these is delegating the raising of these children to corporations, institutions, or governmental policy and then, in one’s “spare” time (between jobs) attempting to be heard by those institutions, corporations, or governments.
Many of us (mothers) it seems have passions and callings that relate to our professions, but many, many professions are NOT incompatible with child-rearing. Mine wasn’t — I taught, self-employed, and at a higher wage than secretarial. But if I was going to engage in ANYthing governmental, that was going to be the mindset. that was the mindset even of my own family, who ought to have known better, given their college training. In fact, the family members that gave me the most difficult had come through this same governmental process, absent, I suppose other softening or sensitizing exposures. Who knows?
I had a joy in my work and in relationships with the children, and not a smother-type one either.
That is less measurable, and will create fewer research centers at universities, therefore, it was going to be an either/or. If I was to get governmental help, I WAS going to have a standardized lifestyle, or be punished for it.
The word “interdisciplinary” has to apply to all of us, not just to experts studying how to do something they wish done.
It is not any office’s sense to give me a Sense of well-being. It is their responsibility to stay out of my way in the process of my obtaining it, by legal means, creatively, and non-violently. Once the violence, intereference, and illegal behavior has occurred, then there are institutions supposed to do something about THAT. ALL of these institutions are to be monitored by citizens, populations. If we are too busy in traffic jams, or waiting in line at a fast food restaurant, OR longer lines at the General Assistance, Child Support Enforcement, or other bureaurcracies, we cannot do this.
Boxing up people’s schedules also affects their thinking. We must learn to think OUTSIDE the boxes, and take a look at the ways our own lives got so boxed out. I write this in a GORGEOUS spring day, just under 10 years after I filed a domestic violence restraining order with kickout, a procdure, though frightening, I recall had also a sense of peace to it. As the marriage ceremony publicized a (supposed) mutual commitment to pursue a private love, and relationship, and probably family, so this legal action to me publically acknowledged the truth of what this had become over time: that violence was present, and that restraint and kickout was needed because SAFETY was an issue.
There is always a certain peace to truth, even uncomfortable ones. It is the lies and presumptions, acted on, that hurt the most. When it comes to things entailing millions of dollars and the rights to decide how these are spent, it is important that the concepts be realistic, and relevant, and that we get to look into the verbal boxes. Boxes are not bad, per se, but as anyone who has moved before knows, there are times to rearrange the furniture, look into storage, and sometimes to repack the stuff. In the repacking and reshuffling (demographically, etc.) of the last few decades of the 20th century, and the first of this one, the word “mother” has become something of a dirty word, when acted on in a different way than our government determines to be in “everyone’s” best interests . Such is the nature of largeness.
I am glad to hear of this department of the HHS — in dealing with DV, I had mostly looked to the justice arm of things, and sought nonprofit help. So this should be interesting, to see how it operates. Thank God someone figured out that HRT increased cancer risks, and that progesterone exists. Hysterectomies (in generally, women get medicated and cut too often, I mean within the institutions, not in their homes here), that perhaps relates to the general “hysteria,” and I don’t mean by the women. But perhaps progress is being made.}}
History of OWH
The Office on Women’s Health (OWH) in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was established in 1991 to improve the health of American women by advancing and coordinating a comprehensive women’s health agenda throughout the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to address health care prevention and service delivery, research, public and health care professional education, and career advancement for women in the health professions and in scientific careers. The Office also works with numerous government agencies, non-profit organizations, consumer groups, and associations of health care professionals. During the early part of this decade, the OWH focused on developing women’s health as a specialized issue for government action and attention. With women’s health now firmly rooted in the national health landscape, the OWH is focusing on women’s health priorities to meet the sweeping demographic trends of the next century and to focus on the millions of underserved women in America.
Functions of OWH
The Office on Women’s Health (OWH) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is the government’s champion and focal point for women’s health issues. OWH works to redress inequities in research, health care services, and education that have historically placed the health of women at risk. The Office on Women’s Health (OWH) promotes women’s health through its four basic functions.
- Coordinating and Promoting Collaborations among DHHS Agencies and Offices: OWH serves as the coordinating office for women’s health initiatives across the agencies of HHS, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and other agencies and offices.
- Providing Information on Research, Prevention and Services to Assist Decision-Makers: OWH convenes and consults with federal departments, the scientific community, professional organizations, and consumer groups to support and advance women’s health.
- Identifying, Developing and Supporting Model Programs and Innovations in Women’s Health: OWH promotes the development and implementation of model initiatives in academic centers and communities all over the United States to address the health needs of women across different ages, cultures, races, and ethnic groups, including delivery of care to women and education of health care practitioners about women’s health.
- Educating Health and Wellness Professionals and Consumers: OWH promotes comprehensive health services for women across their lifespan. OWH also supports the development and use of culturally appropriate practices in medical education and research, so all individuals and communities benefit. Through its efforts, OWH brings reliable information on hundreds of health topics to women in every region of America. It also helps consumers, associations, and organizations voice their ideas about the federal government’s policies on women’s health.
The next steps are to look at this TAGGS system and find out what’s going on, to investigate whether this department is aware of the crises in the family courts, and whether any institutions are continuing to acknowledge, health-wise, what at least one major CDC/Kaiser study did a LONG time ago, in the “Adverse Childhood Events” study:
http://acestudy.org/files/ARV1N1.pdf
My friends, the study was done in 1985. This newsletter dates to 2003. It is substantial, and groundbreaking.
Please read.
Stemming from closer inquiry into an obesity study, it was found that OBESITY (now acknowledged to be a national problem) in many people is an unconscious defense against unwanted sexual activity or physical attack. This also relates to substance abuse. WHAT do you think people are, often, trying to dull themselves against, eh?
I should make it an entire post. Its conclusions are not hard to understand, just hard to accept.
“… That is to say, although obesity had conventionally been perceived as the problem, it was often found to be the unconscious solution to other, far more concealed problems. The prevalence and severity of these problems was totally unexpected. Many [of these other, far more concealed problems…], like childhood sexual abuse or suicidality, were shielded by social taboos against discussing these freely, even in medical settings.
Are these comfortable topics to discuss? No, of course not. They fry the brain. However, fact is, these things happen, and they DO fry the brains.
If I were then concerned about national obesity, and mental health, and setting policy, I would focus FIRST on the sources and causes of these repetitive traumas. “fatherlessness” as a trauma does not equate with father-abuse of mother, or of sons or daughters, Or in institutional settings either.
Unfortunately, this would force many professions to find a new one. They can do it. Where there’s a will, there’s generally a way. And if funding dries up in one stream, one has to move on. I have had to, and more than once….
Rather than pronouncing, proclaiming and more and more (privately made, publically funded and universally enforced) procedures to address the supposed causes of these troublesome things (criminal behavior, sickness, drain on the workforce, etc.), why not try to develop more of a culture and national standard of mutual listening, rather than conduit-style pronouncing?
In that matter, we need more, not less, arts and creativity, and less “measure, evaluate, grade, separate” of packs of people.
But public education would be a separate, though overlapping in symptomology, blog, eh?
Please read.
SHARE THIS POST on...
Old Tactics in New Clothing?… 36 strategies, B.C./A.D.
I found these, readily, under “psychological warfare.”
They seem applicable in the Wars taking place across the country (and world) over the fates of women, men, and children when the women, and men, split up, recombine. One of the most transparent is transforming the conversation about domestic violence or child abuse (which focuses on patterns of actions by an agent) to a conversation about the symptoms or results of such actions (focusing on situations). Like debt, it appears that whoever’s lap it lands in, pays the bill.
Family court matters do not happen in a vacuum, but the terminology (cast, script, players) in SOME factors act as though it does. For example, if a woman appears traumatized, then she is analyzed. If a child appears traumatized, it is the mother’s fault, apparently, for alienating (these are examples). If a parent becomes HOMELESS, is the cause of the homelessness dealt with in court? Obfuscation supreme.
I have not taken up the “parental alienation” discussion because I believe it is a ruse. The word is of recent origin. I thought it appropriate to review some concepts that have been around a LONG time. . . .
http://www.easy-strategy.com/thirty-six-strategies.html
The 36 Strategies
1. Deceive the sky to cross the ocean.
Moving about in the darkness and shadows, occupying isolated places, or hiding behind screens will only attract suspicious attention.Six Confrontation Strategies
7. Create something from nothing.
You use the same feint twice. Having reacted to the first and often the second feint as well, the enemy will be hesitant to react to a third feint. Therefore the third feint is the actual attack catching your enemy with his guard down.Six Attack Strategies
13. Startle the snake by hitting the grass around it.
When preparing for battle, do not alert your enemy to your intentions or give away your strategy prematurely.Six Chaos Strategies
19. Remove the firewood under the cooking pot.
When faced with an enemy too powerful to engage directly you must first weaken him by undermining his foundation and attacking his source of power.
25. Replace the beams with rotten timbers.
Disrupt the enemy’s formations, interfere with their methods of operations, change the rules in which they are used to following, go contrary to their standard training.
Six Desperate Situations Strategies
31. The honey trap.
Send your enemy beautiful women to cause discord within his camp. This strategy can work on three levels. First, the ruler becomes so enamoured with the beauty that he neglects his duties and allows his vigilance to wane.
History of the 36 Strategies
The origins of the Thirty Six Strategies are unknown.
No author or compiler has ever been mentioned, and no date as to when it may have been written has been ascertained.
The first historical mention of the Thirty-Six Strategies dates back to the Southern Chi dynasty (AD 489-537) where it is mentioned in the Nan Chi Shi (History of the Southern Chi Dynasty).
It briefly records, “Of the 36 stratagems of Master Tan, “running away is the best.” Master Tan may be the famous general Tan Daoji (d. AD 436) but there is no evidence to either prove or disprove his authorship.
While this is the first recorded mention of Thirty Six Strategies, some of the proverbs themselves are based on events that occurred up to seven hundred years earlier. For example, the strategy ‘Openly Repair the Walkway, Secretly March to Chencang’ is based on a tactic allegedly used by the founder of the Han dynasty, Gaozu, to escape from Szechwan in 223 BC.
The strategy `Besiege Wei to Rescue Zhao’ is named after an incident that took place even earlier in 352 BC and is attributed to the famous strategist Sun Bin.
All modern versions of the Thirty Six Strategies are derived from a tattered book discovered at a roadside vendor’s stall in Szechwan in 1941. It turned out to be a reprint of an earlier book dating back to the late Ming or early Ching dynasty entitled, The Secret Art of War, The Thirty-Six Strategies.
There was no mention of who the authors or compilers were or when it was originally published. A reprint was first published for the general public in Beijing in 1979.
Since then several Chinese and English language versions have been published in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
Without any other information, current speculations about the origins of the Thirty-Six Strategies suggest that there was no single author.
More likely they were simply a collection of idiomatic expressions taken from popular Chinese folklore, history, and myths.
They may have first been recorded by general Tan and handed down verbally or in manuscript form for centuries.
It is believed that sometime in the early Ching dynasty some enterprising editor collected them together and published them in the form that comes down to us today.
SHARE THIS POST on...
Spiritual Machines and Cyberspeak People?
Life, Liberty and the Pursuyt of Purpose?
Conjugate, Propagate and Delegate it to a Governmental Policy?
There are times, really, when I have wondered whether the domestic violence, school violence, etc., was merely a matter of saying “I am!” loudly enough to be heard. Sometimes. To me, meaning centered around purpose, conscious choice in the face of difficult circumstances, enabling creativity in children (often through singing). As a mother, my purpose was never surrogate mother for the “state” (or anyone else), nor did parenting mean, choosing which daycare. It meant the whole ball of wax.
Today and this week were significant for two major religions. I am uninvolved, this time round. I have no significant sentiments, The major drive of my life has not changed from yesterday to today: (a) fiscal physical and emotional survival (b) finding and speaking some truth, (c) what can I do about the crises in the courts? Can something I do or say avert the next family annihilation, or expose why these are happening to the point they do, less?
Last night I watched Dr. Who (yes, I have devolved, although in my defense, a typical day is long. Also watching TV does help me forget that my children no longer live here, courtesy failure-to-enforce (across a spectra of institutions one would think WOULD) custody orders, such as sole physical custody to a nonbattering mother, etc., I watch TV at night, after reading, researching, writing, and connecting with people all day. It is my non-think time. This is also the first period in my adult life I watched TV regularly. Given the last several years, I just don’t do chit-chat and entertainment well, and I have retreated from the former open home policies, integrating colleagues, my kids, their kids, and at-home clients (teaching). I’m too often in shock, pissed off, or simply puzzling out how to solve the latest intractable legal issue (without funding).
This could be mildly justified as social commentary on what is current diet and what age level the average evening program seems aimed at (what “market niche”). Anyhow, so after konking out, I woke up to “Dr. Who.”
In this episode, homeless and hungry people were being experimented upon by some mastermind trying to produce eternal life for his debilitated self. Eventually upgraded (with screaming and frightening looking tools) to the metal-skinned Cybermen (clunking slowly, but ominious, destructive, and unstoppable through windows and other obstacles. Briefly, I thought of the Book of Revelation in the Bible, where did the image come from?). However, the populace were definitely “plugged in” and paused for their daily downloads. Brain takeover was a few steps away.
Most fiction draws off real life, and comments on it.
So, the big fear is of robots taking over, and them physically destroying too many of us, of an outrageous conformity and willingness to take orders, no matter how horrible.
Let’s see, can this be identified by a metal skin and slow movements?
I think sometimes we are fearing the wrong things.
From my perspective (a decade of “head of the household” DV plus about a decade of double-talk and psychospeak in what I thought was a justice system), the degradation and fragmentation of languages into technospeak means human kind is perhaps getting so specialized that when their anointed (pardon, me, “apPOINTed”) experts do not speak, the rest of us are speechless, on issues which haven’t been proclaimed upon. If it hadn’t been proclaimed or pronounced upon, then it must not exist, probably.
Language is a two-edged sword. We teach kids to define words properly in school, or get the multiple choice question wrong, and grade them on correctly guessing what the test-maker-meant. The best use of language is with double-meanings and context sensitive. I think school desensitizes the observing factors, at least when it comes to coursework.
Particularly in the middle class, I think, who are not independently wealthy (do not have wealth-producing assets such that they could take time out to process things, or step away from their routine of JOB – WEEKEND – VACATION – LEISURE – KIDS EDUCATION lifestyle long enough to actually understand “what happened”? If you want a very coherent opinion, dogmatic and determined, perhaps the two places to find it are among homeless people (who I’ve found to be VERY well-read, many of them) and — if you can find them — people who started a foundation or five. You may not be rubbing shoulders with these people, but you can read the “History” section of their foundations.
And/Or, you can go to major universities around the country, and find out what centers, fellowships, and institutes have been named after them. I have been. It’s INTERESTING.
Well, enough commentary. I just thought the following passage was interesting enough to post. Decide for yourself if it’s relevant!
Species that overspecialized didn’t survive the crises as well as the generalists. The ability to use TOOLS is key, as well as to adapt to different environments.
I am concerned that a tool the majority of us don’t have time to guard — carefully — is LANGUAGE. (I say this despite the abominable prose above, let alone copyediting). What I mean is that we have not experienced enough to connect terms in common use with commonly lived through experiences. This does not reduce the affirmation and certainty with which they are used. Hence, we still think that in the U.S. there are possibly three separate branches of government whose powers balance each other. Or that Public Eduction is either. Or that HomeSchooling (a new verb) is that, either. My favorite oxymoron is when we get to the point that the ‘experts” on many topics who are listened to by virtue of Ph.D’s and publishings, have not actually experienced what they proclaim on.
One of my very favorite books in the world on these matters of perception/interpretation versus actually noticing and observing, was written by a woman who is (was?) an autistic behavioral scientist. “ANIMALS IN TRANSLATION.” I learned much about PTSD and WHY my thinking process changed after, oh, say, about 12 years of up-close dealing with people who lie, and one or more who stalk. I became more alert to nonverbal cues (AND verbal ones). This actually helped in a certain line of work (in the arts). It did not help with relationships, overall, because the level of sensitivity was too high, and level of trust too low. I hope to get it in balance one of these (years). There was, however, a need to counter being too trusting.
If this post was interesting, please comment. Thank you. It’s an FYI, and not one of my most passionate ones.
Sincerely,
“LetsGetHonest” 04-11-09
I believe this is a review of the book on “Spiritual Machines.”
If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we can’t make any conjectures as to the results, because it is impossible to guess how such machines might behave. We only point out that the fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines. It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all the power to the machines. But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines’ decisions. As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better results than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won’t be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.
On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained. In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car or his personal computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite – just as it is today, but with two differences. Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system. If the elite is ruthless they may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite. Or, if the elite consists of soft-hearted liberals, they may decide to play the role of good shepherds to the rest of the human race. They will see to it that everyone’s physical needs are satisfied, that all children are raised under psychologically hygienic conditions, that everyone has a wholesome hobby to keep him busy, and that anyone who may become dissatisfied undergoes “treatment” to cure his “problem.” Of course, life will be so purposeless that people will have to be biologically or psychologically engineered either to remove their need for the power process or make them “sublimate” their drive for power into some harmless hobby. These engineered human beings may be happy in such a society, but they will most certainly not be free. They will have been reduced to the status of domestic animals.1
1 The passage Kurzweil quotes is from Kaczynski’s Unabomber Manifesto, which was published jointly, under duress, byThe New York Times and The Washington Post to attempt to bring his campaign of terror to an end. I agree with David Gelernter, who said about their decision:
“It was a tough call for the newspapers. To say yes would be giving in to terrorism, and for all they knew he was lying anyway. On the other hand, to say yes might stop the killing. There was also a chance that someone would read the tract and get a hunch about the author; and that is exactly what happened. The suspect’s brother read it, and it rang a bell.
“I would have told them not to publish. I’m glad they didn’t ask me. I guess.”
(Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber. Free Press, 1997: 120.)
In an earlier post I looked at an article on “Intimate Partner Violence,” by a woman in Australia who helps women in crisis because of this. After grilling her article (I hope, not unkindly) on its premises — (which is how I converse, and think — interactively) I felt it only fair to search for the upcoming book “The Future By Us.” What I attempted to confront was the articles innocent, I felt, groupthink — vision of a violence-free word to be created by productive dialogue with others.
The google search led to a book I have (The Age of Spiritual Machines), reminding me uncomfortably of how little most of us understand what goverment-funded and privately-funded policies, established without input, alerts, discussion, or permission can do. They are simply so large, well-funded, and in perpetual motion, that a person with whom an individual actually interfaces may or may not be able (or prone) to act AS a person, but rather as an extension of a policy only.
As a mother (or father, I guess), you may be talking to a live person that looks to be living, breathing, and sentient — but that person is working in a system that has policies, priorities — and owes their funding to those policies and priorities — that may have nothing to do with you, your interests, your children, or anything you call moral, upright, or such.
At some point, one realizes that most of the myths we were raised with (the justice system is about justice, law enforcement is about law enforcement, and courts are where both sides of a case are heard and fairly adjudicated, in the pure form. Those laws you finally looked up that are to protect your children are on the books to be enforced, and “if only” the judge knew that these laws applied, he/she/it would rule correctly.
Wrong again. I learned a lot of this through NAFCJ.net AND checking out the links, I spent weeks on Google and now habitually (it is my HABIT) when reading almost anything in this field, published by an organization, I look at: 1. Board of Directors 2. Funding, and then I go back and see who they are. SOME insight develops over time.
I’m almost afraid to review what I wrote above. This blog is not about essays, it’s about the act of speaking, and I hope that Gentle Readers will forgive shortcomings in this one in particular. I just thought it interesting. Unlike other topics here, it lacks the intensity that makes for focused writing.
Ah well….
SHARE THIS POST on...
Who is the “loco” in “In Loco Parentis” courts, again, this time?
I saw the article. I want to say… loudly …
WHO CARES ANYMORE??
Father, two boys found dead (video)
Who is the “loco” in “In Loco Parentis” courts, again, this time?
March 30, 2009 (WLS) — McLean County authorities say Michael Connolly and his two young sons have been found dead in rural Putnam County.
“Nine-year-old Duncan and 7-year-old Jack were the focus of an Amber Alert issued earlier this month.”
My commentary. 9 yr old and 7 yr old Jack did NOTHING in this case but submit to court-ordered visitation with their already violent father (see restraining order), after which someone killed them and stuffed them in their father’s car. They are (er, WERE), minors. Putting them as the subject of a sentence in this reporting just sounds dishonest. The Subject is grammatically responsible for the action of the verb. In this case, the dramatic “verb” is “were found.” See “The Grammar of Male Violence” (and reporting on it).
Yes, they “were.” They were #1 born. #2 into violent family #3 became the subject of a restraining order, I bet, along with their mother, who they probably witnessed being assaulted by their Dad, or the effects of it. Bad boys. They WERE, obviously, the sons of a woman who complied with court orders, because their Dad got them for that weekend. Bad boys. Next, they WERE kidnapped (in most states this is a felony crime). Then they WERE found, dead.
I’ve taught lots of children of this age range, and by and large, I would not call most of the little boys passive. Typically, they are quite active. Sometimes, I hear, enough so to require Ritalin, etc.
OK, Suppose we don’t know WHO killed them yet. Let’s Get Honest about REPORTING, folks. Maybe after that, something might happen to address the dishonesty of “family court” or “restraining orders” in combination with Visitation, PERIOD.
I am so sick of hearing stories like this. Should I just never read the news again, and hope it’s not my kids?
My kids were stolen on an overnight visitation too. I warned the police too, and not just once. I warned everyone that was involved. That includes police, friends, family members (4 of whom I later learned were endorsing and approving this; there WERE no legal grounds to switch custody suddenly, so the hired thug (my ex) just did it (with help from woman#2) and not in a vacuum. My written documentation of concern about this goes back two years before it happened. My daughter diaried, one year in advance, and left it out plainly, in my own journal, that she’d feel more comfortable if she knew a code language. Stupid me, I focused more on the preventing the event than the developing of such a code language). I placed her in front of counselor experienced in DV, for a safe confidante (as the entire family was already split along the fault line of “but he’s a nice guy?” analogy, primarily). (Nice guys don’t assault pregnant wives, folks. Not repeatedly. The action means you lost the appellation “nice” or should).
FOLKS, IN LOCO PARENTIS IS NUTS! The key to knowing is CARING. More about the life of the children, physical lives, physical safety, than the “rights” of the perpetrator. That is what someone committing violence against an intimate should be called, until the behavior, attitude is changed and reparations made. This almost never happens, so let the name STICK, and stop trying to ice over the cracks in the family cake; it shows through.
I would like to remind the general public of something. We have a serious problem in the Family Courts of the United States. KNOWING is driven by CARING. Pronouncing one cares is not an indicator. LISTENING is.
I have so experienced this I do not know myself anymore, some days. I know that my (absent, FYI), daughters do not know me any more, and the very little I’ve seen them, they are changed, absent the buffering I provided to the shut-down of their lives. There are so many verbal/mental/land mines they (and I, now als0) must avoid that, someone, one is really tempted to adjust personality to accommodate.
I will yell, jump, do circus tricks, if it will make a difference. Speaking in a reasonable tone, complying with all court orders, and telling the truth as a mother’s instinct reported, did not save: Connolly, Castillo, Freeman (Australia), or many many others.
The courts are punishing Moms for caring. THIS is partly now. Damn! !!!
The three-week-old search ended in tragedy about 100 miles south of Chicago.
[As I point out elsewhere on my blog, generic non-person, irrelevant detail nouns take on a life of their own, distracting from the central matter. A judge, somewhere, probably listened to a mediator or custody evaluator, SOMEwhere, follow their prescriptions, per policies set in place in the late 1980s / early 1990s and funded to this day, to enforce the theology that a child without a father is a fish without water.
It is up to the larger public NOT in these courts –either as litigants or married to one, or employed by them, or having a profession sustained by them (now WHAT % of the populace does this leave unaffected?) to make itself actually not only larger (which it is), but VOCAL, and INVOLVED, and LEARNED in the vocabulary principals and players. AND then do something appropriate. At some point, the “at least that’s not My neighborhood, family, kids, wife, police officer, lawsuit, judicial district, etc. ” the “it’s not my business” theology needs to be confronted. Please help, I say. Stop picking up the broken souls floating downstream in “social programs” and stop the breaking which is starting FAR, far closer to the top than imaginable.
Michael Connolly, 40, failed to return the boys to their mother – his ex-wife – on Sunday, March 8.
Initially, investigators thought Connolly might be in the Chicago area where his relatives live in southwest suburban Oak Lawn. But now, authorities say they found bodies matching the descriptions of the two missing Leroy, Illinois, brothers and cancelled the Amber Alert.
Authorities say the children’s bodies were found Sunday inside a car registered to Michael Connolly. Police happened upon the 1991 Dodge Dynasty after receiving a call about a suspicious vehicle in a secluded area. At around 6 p.m. Sunday, investigators examined the vehicle and found two deceased boys in the back seat area. The body of a man matching Michael Connolly’s description was found about 60 feet west of the car. Autopsies have been scheduled.
The sheriff has not said if there were any obvious signs of trauma or if a weapon was recovered.
On the day that the boys disappeared, there was a restraining order in place against Michael Connolly because authorities say he continued to harass his ex-wife. The two had divorced in 2007 after 13 years of marriage.
Let’s talk about this. The restraining order folk is ONE foot of a large, virtual, giant marching across the land. The “but kids need their Dads” (symbolized primarily by family courts) is the other large, stomping foot. Clunk, Clunk Clunk across the land, and in circles, gradually clearing the territory of live, untraumatized people. Stomp, Stomp, Stomp down the decades. These feet are connected at the Head. The Head believes itself to know what’s best for the people below (who are relatively speaking, ants). The legs above the feet are unequal, moreover one foot faces forward, and the other backward. This is why it is so HARD to get free from abuse. The restraining order purports to confront, protect, and separate. The family court purports to, and presumes this is advisable and possible, reunite, supervise, reform, and modify a relationship that JUST SPLIT.
It’s mowing down families. As we speak, this appears to be another one (details unclear yet)(2 adult males & 2 handguns inside, I DNK if this was DV related or not. DK it was not the kids’ fault…..):
6 Killed In California Home Shooting
At Least 3 Of Victims Children In Murder-Suicide In Silicon Valley
SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 30, 2009
Santa Clara police officer stand watch outside the crime scene where six people, including at least three children, were killed and one was critically injured late Sunday night in an apparent murder-suicide at a townhome development in Santa Clara, Calif., on Monday, March 30, 2009. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)
Passive tense. The spin, obviously is on the guns, and the body count, not the criminal behavior:
“Investigators are looking into whether Stewart may have targeted the facility because his estranged wife worked there, police said Monday. [Why doesn’t this surprise me?]
McKenzie said investigators are looking at whether what he called domestic issues may have been the motive for Stewart to open fire on his defenseless victims. Investigators said multiple weapons were recovered at the scene. [HEY! I have and had “domestic issues.” I never yet took up a gun to solve them. It ain’t the “domestic issues”].McKenzie said the woman – whom he did not name – worked at the nursing home. He said he believed that the couple was recently separated but that he did not have any other details. He was not sure if the woman was at the nursing home at the time of the shootings. “
Incidentally, re: Heroic Nurse, yes, the nurse WAS heroic. Not mentioned in THIS title is that a gunman was going after his ex-wife, and she happened to work in a nursing home. It “bled” so it “led,” but a choice was made to discuss the hero rather than the “villain” in this one.
Maybe we should just outlaw divorce (which appears to be dangerous). Knowing this, many women would probably just not marry, or even attempt to fully intimately bond with a partner, or for that matter, their kids. We ARE headed that way, right?
- “Sue Griffin … said she was an ex-wife of Stewart’s who hadn’t spoken with him since their 2001 divorce, told reporters that in the past Stewart had exhibited “violent tendencies” from time to time.
- “He’d get mad because of things that didn’t go his way. He never really hurt me, but he would get mad and blow up,” she said.
- Griffin, who divorced Stewart after 15 years of marriage, said he had been trying to reach her during the past week through family members.
- She said Stewart claimed to have cancer and needed to go away. But he gave no hint of the violence he had planned for this quiet Carolina town. “
BACK to the FATHER ON WEEKEND VISITATION WITH TWO SONS….
Joint custody with a batterer is unsafe and impossible. It hurts the kids. They will sooner or later HAVE to pick a side. It also hurts the communities surrounding these two people. They’re SPLIT, dammit! Make a fair judgment based on whatever brought them into court to start with, based on any criminal behaviors. Apart from criminal behaviors, leave them alone.
Stop hiring more experts to create more names to reframe existing, graphically uncomfortable to describe behavior that, done by a stranger, would be cause for arrest. STOP the thought crime, the behavior crimes, the NOT being dependent on social services crime (among which is homeschooling, or being a successful single parent, I found out), and the other such like.
I think the 10 commandments are JUST fine, including not only the one the Catholics tend to omit (#2), the one the Protestants and the Catholics, generally speaking violate weekly (#4, as I recall, it’s the sabbath), and the one the state habitually violates (Honor your mother and father), along with the don’t commit adultery, perjury (“bear false witness”) and #s 1 & 10 which, if one does NOT violate, it’s hard to live a reasonable life in this republic. The first relates to not having other Gods before this one (which is generally looked on askance around these parts) and “thou shalt not covet,” which is related. Accordingly, we have to consume, be consumers, and raise our children to be good little materialistic consumers, because of the economy. This is more likelyo what (I feel) the womb to tomb concept of “public education” (etc.) is about. How complex is that, really?
The Chicago-area family of the two missing brothers had pleaded with the boys’ father to bring them home.
(Well — see below– the father had already made it clear his intent was to punish his ex-wife. FYI, pleading with some in on the position to extort you (i.e.,hostages taken) doesn’t generally work. Trust me.)
“We love the boys so much. We want them back. We want everybody back. We want our family back together,” said Joyce Connolly, Michael Connolly’s aunt.
The boys’ mother, Amy Leichtenberg, said she warned a judge her ex-husband might take off with the children.
“I told him he was a flight risk. My attorney told him he was a flight risk. Nobody believed me,” said Leichtenberg.
[That was the Amber alert, coming from someone who was paying attention.]
Police had said there was reason to be worried about the boys.
“We are concerned because we’ve had some incidents in the past with Mr. Connolly that indicate he is not a stable individual and that he makes verbal threats towards himself, the children and his ex-wife,” Chief Gordon Beck, LeRoy Police Department, said during the search.
ALL of this behavior is self-explanatory in a “Conduit System” frozen in its rigidity. Major players in the situation KNEW that this man was a risk for kid-snatching. The fact a domestic violence restraining order was actually necessary (presumed in that it was granted), is itself a danger sign. I feel that not to jump, shout, make a stink and in short react in a Non-Numb manner is necessary at times to counter then Numb-Dumb responses of the “that’s just waht you said” mentality, driven by “children need their fathers, we are a fatherless nation, Dads Count too, and so forth” grants system driving the mentality of the court system which is driving families into the ground, sometimes more than literally, as in this case. I happen to listen to and know women who have lost their children to batterers, and we repeat this experience so often — kids being abused, children being stolen by the father on an overnight, sometimes out of state, or in my case, in-state (meaning Amber Alert didn’t even squeak, police wouldn’t act, and judge, thereafter, refused to give a factual and legal basis for (her) decision.))
If I’m run-on, it’s intentional, maybe to counter the Shut-Up system that continues to function in it’s blunderbuss manner to smack at families, emotionally, after someone has filed a “restraining order,” and generally after plenty of previous smacking around, intimately-speaking (“IPV”). I am about to blow the calm and light-hearted demeanor of this blog with the severity of what’s up. I have spent decades (two, so far) with this issue, and attempted to live my life around it, leave with my heart in my mouth, raise our daughters and work around it. In the process, and I’m not at all the only one, I have been after abuse exposed to the worst of the worst of the system, it seems, in the highest reaches of its authority, and sometimes within my own family.
“He has always told me,
cause I took the kids from him,
that I would suffer just like he did,” said Leichtenberg (Mother).
Well, he was a man of his word.
SHARE THIS POST on...
Does IPV, DV talk stop it? 2 Australians Talk about this.
Actually, “speak” would be more accurate than”talk.” I have put together two links on this topic. The 2nd was a referral, the 1st inspired today’s blog to which I, a U.S. Citizen, respond.
“Shining a light into the murky depths of partner violence”
An update on IPV in Australia that came to my attention. The article is posted in full below.
My next blog is my viewpoint on the migration of ideas from afar, also pointing out that foggy vocabulary can be intentional, or careless, but either way, transmigration of bad ideas “happens.”
<><><><><><>
Katie Dunlop [credits below article] talks like me, which is why I posted her whole article here. With feedback interspersed. I do not share her optimism in the general public’s will to do something about it, if only they realized what IPV really was, if only the media would get it straight.
BUT She notices the discrepancy between what “IPV” represents, visually, in real-time injuries and deaths. She is THINKING about the topic with a view to addressing it.
When “IPV” (yes, that’s a euphemism) becomes “IV” (intravenously injected into your life, either directly or vicariously association) there are only two options: ACTING or NOT ACTING. The only way I can guess how people choose NOT ACT is that they have become adept at NOT THINKING, possibly as a survival skill.
Commentary:
When a known batterer not only has, but has been given, one’s children (case in point) (was I “gender-neutral enough” in that statement?) this not thinking about it is somewhat harder. I have also watched my family figure out (with apparent grace & ease) how to “not think about it.” They refuse to interact with me (probably because in most contacts, I focus on some version of “where are my daughters?” or “Why are you continuing to support someone who refuses to comply with any court order, give any account of seeking work, let alone who used to smack me around in front of them?“). These are not pleasant topics for any of us, naturally, and I feel that polite small talk is inappropriate for what are to me heinous (and insulting) crimes. In my family circle, any interaction using the words properly (legally) identifying the situation are tabu. This was how I determined my particular family of origin’s religion (if its secret, whatever belief sustains this practice of “we won’t talk about it.”), by tabulating the tabus, and taking note of who was sacrificed for what cause. Like many other religions, the sacrificees include women, elderly, and small children.
Another analogy that came to my mind in this matter, and in these societies, are simple packs of dogs. Once pecking order** is established, fighting and posturing are reduced. And face it, laws against domestic violence (IPV), or “hitting [primarily women] in the home” challenged the pecking order (**YES, I realize I have mixed-animal metaphors here; like any good bird dog, I cast about for words that smell right).
I have all along had irreconciliable differences with being hit in my home, and since then, irreconciliable differences with historical revisionism on the same. It’s also occurred to me that batterer fathers sometimes snatch the kids partly in order just to retain an stray female in the extended circle of influence, which certainly must be gratifying to the ego, I suppose. She’s not going to run TOO far if he has her kids.
Transcontinental Evolution of Ideas?
I feel for Ms. Dunlop, a certain innocence in thinking that the process of reporting and assuming that all parties, or the majority of the populace WANTS it to stop. Perhaps Australia has not yet gone through the shut-up or lose-your-kids process as thoroughly as here in the USA, where it is a war for proprietary use of the words Parent, Family, Child, and Abuse. I know the process happens, I have been reading.
This post on talking about IPV seems an appropriate time to reference “offourbacks.org,” and its classic “The Grammar of Male Violence.” Grammatic preference for indefinite concept nouns over actual actors shifts the focus from what happened to the theoretical air. For example:
“Domestic dispute costs 5 lives, again.”
Oh, really? No it didn’t. “Domestic dispute” is a word-label, and words do not directly shoot, stab, kill, behead its 3rd wife, or drop a 4 year old (female) child off a bridge to her death. A dispute doesn’t stalk. A dispute doesn’t cause one parent to adhere to court orders and another to break them. Or to issue orders that ignore safety issues. As hate-talk can incite violence, generic-noun descriptors for awful, graphically bloody or emotionally devastating, cash-flow-freezing, household switching, community-disrupting, taxpayer funds wasting events.
Generic nouns are the crime scene cleanup crew, on air. Now, a lot of us use words carelessly, but I DOUBT this is the case with either politicians, major news media [many of which are monopolies in the U.S.], or policymakers — i.e., anyone who has something that must sell.
So, Let’s Get Honest: Do not get caught with your pants down depersonalizing domestic violence or shielding an offence with the language of mutuality, at least when conversing with me, or within range of my blogs.
Thank you Ms. Dunlop, for speaking up, though.
[My comments inside brackets]
“Shining a light into the murky depths of partner violence”
Katie Dunlop
March 20, 2009
DOMESTIC violence, family violence, violence against women, intimate partner violence: we definitely have a range of phrases for the abuse men inflict on women and children within what ought to be relationships of trust and love. [Indeed, that is the real travesty, and very disturbing and disorienting once it begins] Pity we don’t use them to describe the murders we often see on our front pages — the kids driven into the dam or gassed in the car, the wife or girlfriend stabbed in her kitchen, thrown off a cliff or shot in scrubland.
[Well, I do! But yes, these terms are much more graphic, vivid and telling. And this is one reason I posted your article…It tells this.]
Aberrations? Love gone wrong? No. These instances of violence are just the tip of the iceberg. Intimate partner violence (IPV) is everywhere, even if you don’t know it. It seems the subject of IPV is taboo, so those who experience it assume the abuse is their problem [I’m glad you have qualified “it seems.” Speaking personally, I never assumed I caused “the abuse” (my ex to assault me), but because I lived with it, it became “my” problem.] and not the social and public health issue it really is. We need to start talking about IPV and we need to do it now. [Who, exactly is the “we”? These people already are. I just googled “Intimate Partner Violence in Australia” and 38,500 results arose, 3 of them scholarly articles.] I have long known that relationships could be abusive, but it had never occurred to me that IPV was a common experience for so many Australian women. […”until I – – – – – .” Thank you for the refreshing honesty. But I’m curious what pivotal factor got you involved? Was it a friend? Was it you? A relative? A poster somewhere? A news article. I would have liked to see the end of that sentence, giving more detail.]
Well, I didn’t know either, til it hit me, in the face. Not even until after I got out, years almost later, and read, and networked, did I realize the extent of it. This is because (#1) one facet of abuse is isolation. Like mold, it grows in the damp & dark privacy. It is NOT unnamed, it is simply called something else: “obedience,” “submission” “leadership” etc.. A true dilemma exists, because generally speaking homes SHOULD be private, but still this happens. Another reason (#2) may be that it’s simply not pleasant cocktail conversation.
Therefore, people who get involved are usually intensely personally involved. These typically fall into one of about three campaigns: (1) Like you, stopping IPV, and discussing how to, or (2) Stopping the Discussion of IPV. This cat is already out of the bag internationally; talk [more like clamor, debate, accusation and cross-accusation] IS happening, the general tactics of group#2, with whom I am unfortunately familiar, are to rename it, or divert the conversations on it into something less offensive and personal [to the abusers}, as in Richard Gardner, high-conflict (vs’ “violent’) and “alternate dispute resolution.” In MY book, me flat on the floor, or that family just slaughtered is NOT a “dispute,” nor was it before it happened, either. It was not a dispute, it was a battle. FYI, (1)s don’t talk with (2)s, they flood each other’s blogs, report about each other’s activities and try to stop each other’s forward progress, as in any good (?) political campaign.
And the (3)rd camp, alas, is simply opportunistic and recognizes a market niche when it sees one. The hallmarks of this general camp are pride on “not taking a side” (while doing exactly like that). Ships of state are indeed large, and although rudder sWILL steer a large ship, that rudder has to be properly placed. The rudders involve such things as words, money, and political connections / policy. Policy in the USA has to supposedly be based on something to help “the people” (that’s, for example, us poor suckers than need intervention of some sort from abuse, or homelessness in order to help fund these ships). As such, studies MUST be done to justify the policies. Here is where universities (Harvard et al), foundations, and nonprofits producing reports for the same come in. This is far more complex than saying “IPV is wrong and costs lives.”]. More than a third of Australian women who have had a boyfriend or husband experience abuse. Most shockingly, IPV is the leading contributor to death, disability and illness in women aged between 15 and 44.
[Where’s the citation? Mine is http://www.acestudy.org (to the right on this blog) and many, many other sources confirm.]
Since I began working with women who have experienced abuse, the reality of IPV has become even starker. Rather than numbers on a page, these are real women with faces and histories. Each of them has a unique but common story: of living with control, fear and abuse, and courageously doing all they can to look after themselves and their children who, as IPV witnesses and victims, also suffer devastating effects.
[The operative word here is “them.” Please produce their stories — and perhaps pay them something for it as well, once facts are checked. Now that would indeed help directly, as well as crisis intervention.]
If you are surprised at the extent of IPV, you are not alone. Our awareness of IPV in Australia is very poor. According to a recent Victorian study, many [many who? many women, many men?] think that women abuse their partners as much as men (false: men are the perpetrators 98 per cent of the time) or that IPV is excusable if it represents a “temporary loss of control”, or if the abuser subsequently apologises (false: many IPV incidents, especially murders, are premeditated).
How can we work together to solve a national crisis if a significant portion of the nation is unaware of the crisis in the first place? [According to your report, assuming women are perhaps half the population (DNK about Down Under), approximately 1/6th of them, not including children, already are, by virtue of experiencing it. However, to name it is one step, to leave it quite another.] In an atmosphere where IPV is shrouded in silence and myth, asking for help involves the risk of being judged or misunderstood.
We must aim for a society in which women can ask for help, secure in the knowledge they will be supported and respected. [I would like to change this paradigm and address the absent noun — the men who hit (not all men do). Why “women”? ????? [hint — the question marks are a link, also see blogroll…”The Grammar of Male Violence” has been on this “offourbacks.org” site since 2004. It still applies. Let’s help keep each other honest. Get off MY back and, in the discussions, grammatically, REFUSE to use generic nouns, passive verbs and an abundance of references to women followed by the verbs such as “need, are, become,” and other things which are reminiscent of panhandling which is what we get reduced for when we must go too many rounds asking for ‘intervention,” without the full data on who is doing this and with what agenda.]
Why not aim instead for a society in which such men fear and hate to beat a woman, because there are SOCIAL consequences, and/or possibly PHYSICAL, including that he might suddenly find himself on the receiving end of a return defensive volley? or FINANCIAL — institute and enforce IMMEDIATE financial penalties. upon conviction.**] [I know a lot of women (I’m 50+) and barely a one of them qualifies as helpless and waiting for it. The term “women can ask for help” is not specific enough.] [**This may not be wise, as we have seen that some abusers will die rather than stick around to take the consequences of an escalation in abuse, especially when it goes lethal.]
Re: this phrase:
We must aim for a society in which women can ask for help, secure in the knowledge they will be supported and respected. [This one phrase stood out as the most inappropriate, though it sounds great. Who is “we”? Do you not realize that what may appear to be a “we” actually includes a great many individuals in high authority who don’t necessarily agree that violence against women IS unacceptable (in private). ?? These exist in the exact same quarters that didn’t talk about it (when knowing it happened) to start with. Is there a way in Australia to hold THOSE authorities accountable also? How about the religious institutions, the courts, the schools, the law enforcement — there are many areas where men who batter women live. Are they all going to undergo a housecleaning process?
When I filed my restraining order (it took time and wasn’t easy), yes, temporarily, I was a women receiving respect and help. There was a lot of repair and rebuilding, principally (but not only) profession! BUT, when I then proceeded to go about my life peaceably, and at a safe distance– setting boundaries and refusing to take orders (after a point) that weren’t in backed up by a court order, the father of my daughters (who was seeing them weekly, when he chose to, a very generous arrangement granted to him via mediation) other entities came in, advised my husband to bounce the case to family court, and as I speak, I have been unemployed for over a year, and not seen my daughters, basically, for almost three ( glimpse here and there) Seeing them is held in abeyance by two factors: 1. STILL, a concern for physical safety, and 2. STILL, economic duress. This is now close to 20 years of my adult, prime-time life when people are attempting to establish a livelihood that may support them now AND later, if not for children. I had to stop and duke it out in a court system. In retrospect, it MIGHT’ve been better to stay and duke it out with him in a different matter .]
Being equipped with the information and ability to talk about IPV also allows us to recognise and respond to the signs of abuse in our own relationships and in those of our friends and family. By transforming our silence — which implicitly accepts and condones IPV — into a loud and clear conversation, [Beautiful phrase, thank you. One of the most telling books I read was called “Transforming Abuse” and it addressed this silence.] we create a society where IPV has few places to hide. We create a society that expresses zero tolerance for violence against women.
[I am so sorry. This sounds great, but you LOST me at “create a society.” No thank you. I am not in that “we” and I wouldn’t be in the US either. If you are going to “Create a society,” first you have to define who is the “creator”[and as I’m a Christian you just lost me] and who is the substance being created. This kind of elitist thinking that started the compulsory school system in the US to counteract, it appears, influxes of Catholics from Europe. President Obama declares this can be turned around if “we” just try harder and spend more, especially on pre-school education. I have been looking for a way to tell him (and my local representative) that in my opinion, we need LESS school not MORE . That any institution that is over 100 years old and has basically drained the populace of time and money, resulting in trailing the industrial nations in results does NOT need to expand. That children’ don’t learn as well in herds as they do in smaller units, and those smaller units are FAMILIES that have time to network with each other, and so become integrated into their communities. That, plus internet, plus taking them OUT of more school and INTO more arts, dance, science projects, and so forth, will get the job done IF the job you are actually intent on doing is “Education” (in its true sense), not behavioral modification. I am an educator, and feel I have a right to say this.
I believe as to THAT organization, the flaw is inherent in the design, and that intent to recreate a society instead of take care of your own folks, locally, is part of the problem.
This would be off-topic were there not so many similarities in attitude, execution, and processes between our educational systems and our court systems, primary of which are who runs them and who funds them, as opposed to who they “serve.”
SO, [no offence taken, the terminology is in the air, so if you inhaled some, or envisioned a great society, I understand.]
FYI, I have been tracking these things, and yes, people are in some world views (and circles) viewed as substances to be manipulated, means-tested, and randomly sampled. In others, they have God-given inalienable rights they will FIGHT for, one of them is NOT to be someone else’s creation, but their own. If you want to “create” become and artist, architect, or maybe a mother, and please obtain prior permission from the subjects manipulated.]
[Question: Is this possibly the paradigm such abusive men are also fighting against? The concept of being formed and fashioned into something not of their choosing? Or, was this just how they learned it growing up?]
The reality is that the creation of this type of society is within our capacity. [In other words, you’re a progressive who does not believe there are flaws inherent in human nature, for which laws exist and — I say — a Redeemer was needed…I realize this is thin ice publically, but even so, I find that the “our” almost never includes the primary stakeholders — the women leaving abue, the women going through the court system, and beyond that, children who MOST need protection and help and are being sexually abused by their fathers after divorce, AFTER reporting it, too. Do you want to address the overlap between domestic violence and child molestation in the major media? Good luck!] Often the media contribute to the silence on IPV by failing to discuss it constructively or not discussing it at all. Rather than leaving us at an impasse, this points us to a valuable opportunity. Imagine the possibilities for socially responsible reporting that would arise out of a collaborative relationship between IPV experts, survivors and volunteers and journalists.
[The IPV experts ARE the survivors and volunteers. Some of the survivors and volunteers also journal. The experts making a nice living off this subscribe to journals I myself cannot afford. i do get abstracts of many of them from
The IPV service community should provide journalists with training on IPV issues and support the media’s coverage of IPV incidents. It should offer information about IPV, advice on sensitive and educational reporting, and the opportunity for journalists to personalise each story by drawing on the perspectives of IPV survivors [DO they lack that opportunity? They’re journalists. They can ask questions, right? They have access to Internet, and have likely heard of the term IPV before. EVERY story has a spin. The question is, which one?] . Media collectives of this type would help smash the silence on intimate partner violence by ensuring that, where it is present in the fabric of society, IPV is also present on the pages of our newspapers. This is one small idea, one small step, but one that might make us a bit more aware of IPV and with that, a bit more eager to act on a phenomenon that is destroying the hearts and bodies of so many Australian women and children. No idea is a silver bullet: solutions happen when small ideas act in concert. If we take this idea of IPV media collectives, add some national, ongoing, school-based healthy relationships education and opportunities for adults to engage with the issue of IPV in a constructive and personal way, I have great faith that we will be taking our first steps in a society where IPV is taken out of the hiding place that to date has afforded it protection.
[Again, Ms. Dunlop, thank you for your outreach work in the Eastern DV Crisis Center. Please LISTEN to the women not only in that crisis center, but also women like the one who designed “Anonymums” and many more. Think about the family law issues. I have been been, and my studies repeatedly show that damaging standards and paradigms in the US also exist and are thriving in Canada and also Australia. Please learn from our mistakes and struggles, and maybe save some bloodshed down under, or simply reduce the trauma.
I will say it again, and I hope loudly enough. I am NOT part of someone’s great society, or a willing participant in this dream. I long for the day when I have the wherewithal to tell quite a few re-creators (of my lives and relationships) to take a hike, get a life, get real, and let me get back (with what’s left of my years, strength, stamina and nerve) to my own. Perhaps after the crisis centers, you can speak with women a decade or two out of domestic violence and incorporate their wisdom into your ideas. We are SICK, I believe, of being someone else’s market niche, professional career, and while I’m at it, publishing credentials.]
[Thank you for noting IPV, doing something about it, and envisioning a zero tolerance for Domestic violence. I was just wondering where were the people who thought about self-defense for women as part of basic marriage counseling, or perhaps catching them further upstream — financial independence as a part and parcel of marriage. Those TWO factors — can’t protect herself, and can’t support herself while fleeing the guy — are crucial. I told people who didn’t want me to live separate from this man to Go Take a Hike, and I went back to my business. They ignored me, went behind my back, and through (as it happens) the child support system in this country, helped him cut back on his support before I was in one place. It was a multi-faceted attack on independence. Right now, my mother (elderly & frail) is also involved, unwillingly, but she has no choice. I still don’t have (yet) a safe choice for her when i do not myself have this. Many, many times, I have looked back on my marriage and wondered if I’d been stronger earlier, or taught as a woman that’ it’s OK and feminine to fight back; If I had NOT sought help from outside the home (at all), but made damn sure that there would not be a second assault.
Instead, female-like, Christian-like, I went to someone in authority — consistently, for years — and asked for intervention. This did not come, and about 7-8 years later, my teeth were knocked loose in an assault, by which time I’d stopped reporting and was focusing on exiting. What DID help me out and survive was simply reading stories of other women who did and HOW they did.]
Katie Dunlop is an outreach worker with the Eastern Domestic Violence Crisis Service and is a contributing author of The Future by Us, published this week by Hardie Grant. If you are experiencing abuse, the Women’s Domestic Violence Crisis Service is a 24 hour/7 days a week telephone service providing support, information and accommodation. Call 9373 0123, or Country toll free 1800 015 188
NEXT TOPIC: When there are kids:
Anonymums
The issue of IPV naturally entails the obvious fact that “intimacy” (a.k.a. sex) sometimes leads to pregnancy sometimes leads to children. The links below, also from Australia, addresses the “mums” aspect of trying to LEAVE domestic violence, or worse (worse?), protect one’s children from it, or from (worse, although it overlaps), child sexual abuse. Darn, another “tabu.” Well, folks . . . . .
On Anonymums links page, See “Leave them alone: she is protecting her children.”
In the U.S. this can be cause for imprisonment. Committing the acts which occasioned her to seek protection may or may NOT be cause for imprisonment. Again, enforcement is a gendered issue when it comes to child-stealing. If you don’t believe me, post a comment, and I’ll respond. Here’s the “background” to the article. The link (above) has a link to more background
Background (Preamble):Swedish mother Ann-Louise Valette and her two sons Frank Oliver Valette, 11, and Andre Nicholas Valette, 9 have been plastered all over the newspapers as being “abducted”. A revealing article states that she was concerned about child sexual abuse that had not been substantiated.Anyone who has gone through the courts and worked in this area knows that most cases of child sexual abuse are underreported and the chances of getting help to substantiate it in the middle of a family court battle are minimal – The police won’t even go near it and child protection passes the buck saying that its family courts area.
Lawyers filter these things because they know legal aid finds protecting children “expensive”. The facts are:
False Allegations of child abuse in the family court are as low as 5%
For years the Family Court has been systematically ignoring substantiated child abuse and domestic violence.
Family Violence and Child Sexual abuse are underreported.
Australia is one of the highest rate male dominated police force in the world. Since the “No Fault divorce”, it is mainly mothers who are running with their children, Since the shared parenting bill, homicides increased by 14% in 2006.
There is no domestic violence homicide review team in Australia. Most mothers run with their children because of family violence and child abuse.
Summary/Opinion:
USA’s bad policies go worldwide FAST. Those who can fly abroad to run conferences on how to run families (back to the abusers they left, which can be into the ground, either literally or financially). Women attempting to keep a low profile (not antagonize abuser), or flee violence, are not present en masse in these conferences: Either we are not asked, we can’t afford to attend, or they are membership-only, closed-corporation processes (see “AFCC” for one) and intended NOT to have our input.
SHARE THIS POST on...
WHY Family Court (let’s get honest) “matters” to us all…
…Even if you’re not inside the doors. . .
…Even if you have your “act” together —
…Even if you’re not IN any marital or intimate partner act. Or relationship.
You are probably living with, next to, or in association with someone who has been. At least one of the people who go behind those doors into this family law / let’s mediate / co-parent / share custody / just get along (adversarial) system is going to be traumatized.
Another will be probably robbed. A third will be shocked. A fourth will be rewarded. A fifth will be back for more easy victories by hearsay accusations the next time he (or she) has a grudge. A sixth will be forced back to negotiate with the abusive partner she (OK, now you can argue: \”or he\”) was attempting to separate from — and will be lectured, after having worked up courage to do this — not to upset the children by showing anger, or conflict, because in this YOU-topia supposedly conflict never happens — or at LEAST never between parents.
This belief, along with Santa Claus, according to the same logic, is going to set your children on a good path for life.
A seventh will have been raised by one or more of the above. An eighth will be teaching (or in class next to) one of the above.
For a take on the intergenerational, societal transmission of trauma, see “www.sanctuaryweb.com“
Get real – – – and
Let’s Get Honest. Without hate.
Let’s look at the script (and playwrights) in family law.
Let’s look at the off-stage directions and who takes cues from whom. And let’s begin to understand that this is not a game, it is real people, real lives, and in some cases, physically “lost” in the drama.
Let’s ALL consider the profit/loss ratio in this endeavor, family law, family court services, custodyh evaluations, mediations, court-appointed guardians, and attempting to, through this process and under cover of “law”, force divorcing parties with enough anmosity they couldn’t work it out separately to come seeking a higher authority to punish the ex somehow, or extract children, or money from her or him, and on what basis. Personally, I (sarcastically) feel that both these words:
“FAMILY COURT“”
are accurate. The trick, like in any new culture, is to understand the idioms — usage — nuances. The “nuance” in this case is, assume the exact opposite is meant. Supposedly this is about “family,” and to help them. Supposedly courts, in the USA (and elsewhere) exist for the purpose of determining truth and dispensing justice. The words “public servant” possibly come to mind.
COURT: Go back a few hundred years, and think “court” again. Try Henry VIII or Louis XIV. Think about what takes place in the halls of a palace, and who gets to be there? How did one get an appointment at a palace? How did one, having obtained it, REtain it? There, that’s a little better, you’re getting warm… . . . Also, did you know that any attorney is considered an “officer of the court.” (not of you…) (I THINK).
FAMILY: The “Family” in question is less likely your own (which will be devastated, most likely, one way or another), but the true “FAMILY” here in are the professionals, and so-called experts that know they will be dealing with each other on an ongoing basis, referring business, exchanging pleasantries, and in some cases referring cases (translation: Jobs). “Good” for them actually could mean keeping a family IN the system. “Good” for the family biological generally means getting themselves OUT of the system and back to life as almost paranormal — or at least work, and sleep. Perhaps the words “fealty” or “feudal” are closer to the truth. I do not denigrate ethical, honest, overworked, and noble judges attorneys, or (well, I haven’t met such a mediator). I’m sure they exist, and among the approximately seven judges I’ve stood before in this case, some more than once, only the 3rd one would I characterize as ethical and having a reputation of actually having read the paperwork before him prior to ruling on it. Unfortunately, he quit family law, but I have been to date unable to.
The “COURT” does indeed hail back to royalty, and I think that is the most idealized among us that are going to lose in court. We have believed (prior to baptism by fire) that this system, while we weren’t in it, somehow existed, in ether, and would protect the innocent and help the falsely accused, if only the truth were at.
I tried that for many years with a man that, in about the 8th year of this “just trying to get along” (survive, from my standpoint), was offended, again, by a minor perceived provocation. I turned the music down, which was earsplitting and had just been turned up to make a point that the conversation was over. We had small children at this time. I reached over and turned a radio dial. Next thing you know, I had been grabbed, hurled, and landed on my chin in literally another room. Teeth were knocked loose.
I didn’t learn til many, MANY years later, that this was felony level domestic violence (serious injury caused) or that even a difference existed between the civil and criminal system existed. Why would I? I had prior to then inhabited churches, schools, parks (raising kids) with playgroups, and concert halls. I did not think that a DETAILED awareness of how our criminal, civil, and other justice system works, let alone knowing the laws of my state (and federal) were important to my safety and wellbeing. NOW, I think that at least the ability to navigate them, including what is the flowchart of a basic lawsuit (which is not that complicated…), should be required for high school graduation. Unfortunately, it appears that in too many US schools, we are still working on the ability to read. Period.
In other places, this may be called “DOMESTIC RELATIONS” or something similar. The same interpretions apply. Get your head out of the clouds and understand who is cozy with whom, and that it’s relationships, not evidence (in practice) that counts, in most arenas. THAT is the problem, and like the beginning of our country, principles count and are worth fighting to preserve, or restore. However one may bash “Dead White Males who owned slaves, or that it took women even longer to get the vote, the fact remains that that Constitution exists, as do the Bill of Rights. Like laws, muscles, or any other talent, they mean nothing without application towards the goal, and where these count is, they are that ideal. Or, should I yet say “were”? – – Use it or lose it. . . ..
Let’s consider
what kind of emotion drives people even showing up, via an Order to Show Cause requesting a Motion to MAKE THAT WOMAN (or MAN) stop, pay, or give me (back) my children. Think about it, and about the logic of any authority (which these courts are, in fact that is primarily what they are, order-makers) then telling both parties — when only one initiated the motion — (this is now the script) that “conflict” is bad for kids, so pretend you don’t have any, or no more contact with your kids. And let’s compare that with things such as, the state laws, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and so forth.. . . . MANY of these families, with kids, ended up there precisely because of out of court conflicts that had almost gotten lethal, or had hurt someone. The basic premise of any legal motion is that some “wrong” happened ( “tort” = “wrong” — and believe me, I didn’t learn that term even 3 years into the system), and therefore the court should redress it. However, in entering the halls, when kids are involved, thinking goes haywire, and despite the system of “tort” “redress” (etc.) on which law is based, the judges, and associated employees of the court, or an affiliate of it, then all communicate clearly that BOTH parties are wrong, since they couldn’t settle their own differences without court help. They are presumed needing a sound lecture of some sort, and of course therapy, if possible. The general idea of the process is DUE process. However, the general idea of the family law system as it now exists is virtual behavioral modification, and through this, I say, social engineering — mass scale. JUST REMEMBER “COURTS” // “ROYALTY.” Where do the allegiances typically lie? It often gets down to simply the character of the individual judges.
The desired result of a hearing in court is called and “order.” Contempt of it can (doesn’t often, but CAN) end one in jail. In the mythic interpretation of the process, which those of us without prior connections probably held going in, the order comes from a judge who is more noble and neutral than either of you, will hear EVIDENCE impartially, and in a manner coherent with the rules of court for the jurisdictions, and judicial ethics, as listening to attorneys (if any) who also abide by their professional codes of ethics, etc.
Like I just said above, about Santa Claus — ––
It being a stressed, fragmented world, in general, I imagine that you figure it’s “not your business.”
How about if I said, it’s your money, though, as a taxpayer?
How about if I said, it MAY just relate to the statistical probability of someone you know being a bystander of an irate spouse that took the law into his (and yes, it primarily IS “his” so, or the major news media AND USDOJ are both run by radical feminists, and censor mothers wiping out fathers, kids, bystander and a cop or two, and themselves because they were publicly humiliated, or just bitter, and couldn’t help themselves — and knew how to use a gun, or a knife, or a club, or tie a knot, etc.).
I’m WAY newer to blogging than to Family Court.
On the other hand, unlike FC, my blog doesn\’t imply that it\’s saving families, or even serving them (as in \”Family Court Services.\” Nor do I hope that somehow this will orchestrate a brave, new world. In fact years ago, when I was hauled in (no, it wasn\’t voluntary), my venues were limited to, and my focus on: my immediate family, profession(s), colleagues (when I still had them), and the communities I lived and worked in. I got on-line to email some friends from time to time. I wasn\’t fighting to find out where my rights went, and (because I wasn\’t in the habit of breaking laws or court orders to get my way in life) I wasn\’t desperately trying to search what my state code called that last despicable act. Or how come it only took 20 minutes to change my kid\’s futures, that had been set since an early age towards college, with scholarships, ANY college they set their sites on, within reason.
I would like to talk about what some of these myths do, that allow decent upstanding law-abiding, non-wife-beating, hard-working parents (and individuals) to keep clear of these halls and not trouble their sleep about what happens inside them . Let’s Get Honest about what the myth that justice is happening in behind these closed doors is costing the country, and your communities, overall.
Recently (Spring 2009), the US closed lots of schools in a panic over swine flu. Clearly someone understands the concept of “quarantine” for the general public safety. Then they decided to open them again. How about opening some of the closed doors in courtrooms? The people’s changes and humiliations / /wins / losses //responses to these (trauma, or as it sometimes, I”m sorry to say, turns out, kidnappings // femicides/homicide/suicides // poverty afterwards is already in public view.
So, “general public,” gentle readers, the family court leper colony is not working — for the family, or for the general public. However, it IS working quite well, thank you, for the type of personnel who designed it to start with (primarily, in the USA, in Southern California). And YOU (if you are Joe common bloke, Ann single working woman, or Mrs. Joe & Ann Smith, gainfully employed. Or (I hear now Maine is the 5th state in the US), Mr. & Mr. Joe and Harry Blow and Ms. & Ms. Ann and Sydney BestFriends. It may not really be about gender, only, in the courts either. I was a Mr. & Mrs., and prior to separation, we paid too, unaware of others’ trauma.
Any effort to reform it, should this be the goal, will have to address for whom this venue IS working just fine. To track this, try some of my links, or do your own research. I wouldn’t suggest calling all men bad (OR good) or all women, and the culture in general, a bunch of femininazi, male-bashing, sex-deprived (or sex-crazed, as case may be) misfits. That’s generally speaking not helpful.
What may be more helpful is to realize that large sectors of populace do actually believe those things. Some of them say it with Ph.D. language (“fatherlessness” — a.k.a. single mothers, case in point — are to blame for society’s ills.). Can you recognize the same talk, said in “expert” language and footnoted with a bunch of experts who believe the same thing? Then you’re getting a handle on the picture.
NOTE on TONE: “Related Blogs,” to left, some of them have a different tone than I want here. But they ALSO still have facts (news reports, laws, cases, etc.) there too. And they have a right to respond as expressively as they want to. Many or all of the bloggers there typically, lost custody of children to a batterer or a child-moleester, and sometimes as a direct consequence for having reported it. Some of them, as I heard, have been in jail for failing to be able, after that, come up with enough child support (we’re talking women). Some of the women I’ve met recently have gone to international courts for safety, and they/we are also aware of other groups going to the same international courts for different purposes.
So they have a right to be pissed off and say “forget you” or “I’m pissed off” or THIS (see image) is what I think of that group of demagogues. The point of my blog is dialogue (hopefully) and taking a close look at the players who are laughing the way to the bank (metaphorically) while the cats and dogs are spitting, hissing, biting, and scratching in the dust. I hope to keep the intensity level just enough to keep you (meaning “us”) VERY uncomfortable with inaction, but not so lit up that only discharging emotion action takes place.
Speaking up IS action, and particularly if one has been subject to violence already for doing so.
Identifiable causes, and identifiable solutions exist to the problems of familycourtmatters. These solutions are emotionally painful and would require some businesses that profit from our pain to find another source of referral, or another line of work. I suggest they be required to work with tangible production, who have manipulated people as if they were putty to accept the dysfunction — but let’s hope do not require bloodshed. And bloodshed IS already happening as a direct consequence of the hostility, lack of personal restraint, and level of frustration (BUT, it’s still the lack of restraint, I say) that is stirred up in these venues. So, see some of the “related blogs” to left. These women have been at it longer than me, and they have done their homework and I believe lived it too. I’m talking being stripped down naked when they went in for help. The problem is international in scope.
I was a hardworking (female, single mother) bloke, too, until I attempted to renew a standing domestic violence restraining order, simply in order to participate better in the “hard-working parent” part. I held no personal animosity against my children’s father, I just was unreconciled to the battering, abuse thing. Other than that, he was allowed to see his children quite frequently, just not continue to assault me, in front of them. I’m no criminal, and wasn’t a bitter, etc., etc. Mom. However, I had recently and VERY belatedly gotten some legal help setting boundaries, obviously an issue where there has been violence, and there was a major amount of cleanup and rebuilding. I needed my personal space for sure. This is a little hard to establish when one’s partner is more focused on his “manhood” than your “person-hood.”
Now I have been in the courts, shortly here, ALMOST as many years as I was in in-home, upfront abuse. I think this perspective should be discussed. I also want to speak to some of the noble people who have kept their noses clean by leaving justice to the experts, and mythically believing that, even if it DOESN’T happen, it’s not going to affect them personally.
It already has.
BUT — can we talk, blog, comment, post links, favorite books, and simply converse, without the skip the hate talk, pompous vague assertions, and ex-spurt** opinions, but
just see if (or is it \”whether\”)? there are still a few good men, women,
– – and children (children can blog, right?) —
who can skillfully toss out some metaphors, paradigms, puns, and maybe whimsical analogies
for me (and y\’all) to juggle around, look at them from underneath,
see if they have some weight, or bounce, or whether they dissipate into thin air under
their own hot, gaseous contents. This might even be fun.
Venom is not welcome. Biting sarcasm is fine. Insults too (it’s hard to be sarcastic without insulting SOMEone), but no threats, no advocacy to violence OR any illegal activity (I LIKE my blog, thank you!). Name-calling should be fleeting, at least skillful, and only, if a tall, as a lead in to something worthwhile to say. Remember, I moderate the comments.
Get personal — and speak for yourself: I FEEL, I\’VE NOTICED, I BELIEVE, but not personally nasty. Don\’t behind behind the curtain of plurals, vague assertions that can\’t be disproved, pronounced with a finality. This is not the place for the Wizard of Oz, but a bunch of Totos. We will bark back and expose your backside. Take credit for having a genuine personal experience apart from the gang you happen to belong to. I\’ll do the same.
**Ex-spurts are known by that action — spurting forth publications, opinions, pronouncements (DVDs, Conferences, and more). Did a conference save a life? Maybe. I’m generally a little wary when the people pronouncing on families can afford the DVDs and conferences, and the subject families, after having been “fixed” by the same bunch, can’t. Where’s the due process in THAT?
Forming organizations, alliances, and nonprofits to stop what the other nonprofits are doing wrong, or compensate for whatever government isn\’t doing to their pleasing.
The real experts have had the experiences BEFORE they start publishing, promoting, and starting branches of study that didn\’t exist before a pet pre-occupation became a profession. I\’d rather SEE an expert (at his or her work) than HEAR one any day.
And I do music. . . . . or Did. My music survived only XX years parallel to lawsuits, accusations, family rifts, threats, stalking etc. I’m here still at XX + about 2 years post-music, and still sweeping up. Like any Mom who has better things to do with (what remains of) her time, and always did, I am interested in stopping the mess-making at its source.
I plan to do plenty of spurting forth of words here — but unlike those in family court (I mean, the denizens, not the nomads passing through),
I am not trying to use these words to separate you from your children — or your money. Just maybe some of your time. I have no style sheet. Remember the advice of Tim Ferriss — you can get ex-spurt status on any number of things in under 4 weeks — it\’s more a matter of credibility. On the other hand, you can say the same thing for a decade or two,
I have no outline. I simply intend to talk, promote my links and books, and see what\’s around the bend here. Don\’t be too rigid except where it counts — (no, fellas, not that part!) — on civil rights. On matters of law, and fair play. And on the facts. There are plenty of ways to skin a cat, but whose idea was that to start with?
There are also many ways to abuse – – very few, that I\’ve found, to stop it — but \”family court\” sure doesn\’t appear to be ONE of them.
Possibly removing the financial / emotional incentives for continued abuse.
What do you say?
Please make fun of some euphemisms. Speak in short words. Or long words. Just don\’t bore us with something we\’ve already been drenched in – – like \”alienation,\” or insult my intelligence by pronouncing a truth that is your personal truth only as if it were one of those universal ones, like (at least to date), water is essential to life. Having two parents in the home, I\’m sorry to say, is not, not always. I know plenty of very, very dysfunctional two-parent homes. I came from one, and so did my erst-while, ex-cohabitant spouse. I\’ll verify he\’s got some severe issues, and I\’ve read in my pleadings, this is also held to be true of me. So, one exception disproves a universal rule, let\’s get (real).
SHARE THIS POST on...
Irreconciliable differences?
Decades after mediation became the model in divorce, and was pushed worldwide (starting in Calif., especially in the 1980s), it still has a sour taste…
Hey — Can we talk about consequences of this doctrine, yet??? This is the U.K., only last fall (Sept. 2008). I was googling another incident, and:
Kate Hilpern, in “The Guardian” asks:
Ending it all
This week’s killing of two little girls by their father, who then killed himself, is the latest in a shocking tally of so-called ‘family wipe-outs’. What drives men, often described as devoted to their children, to carry out such crimes? And can we stop them? Kate Hilpern reports
Every six to eight weeks (and lately, more frequently) a man or a woman – usually a man – kills their partner or their children and then themselves. Most of these cases are never reported. David Wilson, professor of criminology at Birmingham City University, explains that, somewhere along the line, our perception of murder has become warped and “murder-suicides” don’t quite fit prevailing news values. “Most people have a view of murder – which is very much constructed by the media – as stranger-perpetrated and requiring police to try to catch those perpetrators. In fact, the clear-up [rate] for murder [is currently around] 88% and that’s because you don’t have to be a Cracker to work out who’s done it. When it comes to children, the most likely person to kill them is their parent, just as when it comes to adults, the most likely person is their partner.”
No, this wasn’t in my world view growing up, either. . . Yours??? Theirs??
This article intelligently addresses several of the primary issues, such as what these were NOT (temporary insanity). It WAS predictable, and probably avoidable. It WAS about power and revenge. Frequently, the woman was ignored. Precursors besides clear threats, and a history of battering the woman, include often depression, and recent or long-term unemployment or unemployment. And/or stalking. Clear refusal to obey orders. I personally KNOW these things (all of them), and it scares the bejeebers out of me.
What has frightened me, if possible, much, much more, is that with each return to a family court judge, there is no alarm, fright, concern, or apparent belief of the warning signs. Instead, there is this kind of “stupor,” as in, where’s the blood? When was the last time you were taken to the emergency room. Was there an actual threat to kill?
No, not this time. The point was made clear years ago, and has continued to be made clear through enforcement of minor requests as orders (or else), or taking my daughters when I attempted to set a line in the sand — or collect child support arrears.
To be taken with an ex-spouse in front of a court that refuses to believe (or review the file), and have a mutual knowing that this is not going to be taken seriously — and then to go and read the laws that say, it IS to be taken seriously — that is a very, very, frightening experience, my friends. It interferes with daily life often enough. How low can one lie? Is it possible to lie below the radar of such intense stubborn refusal to comply (with court orders), such flagrant challenging of them rubber stamped publically — but not for women.
“In other cases of murder suicide – which, despite the recent spate, have remained constant in terms of numbers for several decades – there is a very clear history of domestic violence. In other cases of murder suicide – which, despite the recent spate, have remained constant in terms of numbers for several decades – there is a very clear history of domestic violence. “
“Julia Pemberton’s ex-husband repeatedly warned her that he would kill her. It wasn’t that she didn’t take notice, as she told friends, family and police. Family court judges were aware of the terror. Her final 16-minute 999 call made headlines in 2004 when it was read out at the inquest into her and her 17-year-old son William’s murders, committed by her husband, who also killed himself.”
====
I note that the address URL for this article read “/children.mentalhealth”
Here’s a wonderful excerpt from the AFCC website talking about how the “old” terminology of criminal law was just so inappropriate, outmoded, as it were, for family law. After all, it’s a “family,” right?
(This is from the AFCC link to the right, the history page):
“The 1980s: The Mediation Explosion”
“The Children’s Bureau of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare awarded AFCC a research grant to study the effects of mediation on custody and visitation disputes in courts in Connecticut, Los Angeles and Minneapolis.
Interest in court-connected reconciliation counseling was diminishing, and joint custody, mediation, domestic violence and stepfamilies were becoming central issues. The legislation boom had begun, and it was moving in a strong wave from California across the United States. Mandatory mediation and joint custody were hot topics.AFCC’s Mediation Committee hosted three national symposia on mediation standards between 1982 and 1984. Representatives of more than thirty organizations participated in developing the first set of Model Standards of Practice for Family and Divorce Mediation. By the late 1980s, mediation of custody and visitation disputes was mandatory in jurisdictions in more than 33 states.”
I have experienced mediation 3 times. It was a farce each time. It also was a violation of due process, and immediately upended the family dynamics — and households. I am utterly opposed to its use in DV, and the family courts are utterly adamant about it up here. WHY, one wonders. Streamlines the process, no messy “reviewing” of the court record, or the history of DV that perhaps led to the breakup to start with.
Perhaps there should be an automatic safety rule, as Dads feel so disempowered, and need to act quickly to restore the balance — a cooling off period of at least 3 months, perhaps. Perhaps. I don’t know, but mediation will not work when the power balance includes physical violence and intimidation. Depending on how one defines “works.” A 32 year old man, here (above) was sure he’d win. When he didn’t, he found another way to “win.” We need another paradigm.
SHARE THIS POST on...
Opening Salvo
Why it matters…even if you’re not inside the doors. . . .
You are probably living with, next to, or in association with someone who has. You may be sleeping with one — or with someone raised by one. You may be blissfully unaware of WHAT that guy who cut your car off in traffic this morning was upset about, and why he’s wound so tight you might get hurt if you honk back. If you teach, your classrooms are going to be affected –either by getting some resources deleted from them, or from having a different quality of children in them.
One person going into this system is going to be traumatized. Another will be probably robbed. A third will be shocked. A fourth will be rewarded. A fifth will be back for more behavioral modification.
A sixth will be forced back to negotiate with the abusive partner she (OK, now you can argue: “or he”) was attempting to separate from — and will be lectured, after having worked up courage to do this — not to upset the children by showing anger, or conflict, because in this YOU-topia supposedly conflict never happens — or at LEAST never between parents.
- This belief, along with belief in Santa Claus, according to the same logic, is going to set your children on a good path for life.
A seventh will be hired to report on your demeanor after having just found out, you won’t be seeing your kids this weekend — or month – – or as it turned out in my case — next month either.
An eighth will be in an associated office saying, that wasn’t her department.
A ninth will be hired by taxpayers to enforce court orders dispensed from the bench — and possibly not do so if those orders were issued to protect a woman.
I am a woman, and I speak for myself, and add a qualifier, “possibly.” In my case, the statistical odds seemed a little stacked, as my prior concept of the word “law enforcement” was the common English usage. Not so any more. Which brings me to the ninth:
The ninth person going through those doors will have learned that the majority of the English language is entirely context-specific, kind of like a Mac. Until you “get” this — that the words are not spoken or written in these parts for their meaning, but for their EFFECT. As such, you will quickly learn the buzz words (whether by having them sting your situation, or I hope not, by using them yourself to sting someone else).
As such, the ninth person is going to be alienated from sense of self, reality, and that the world operates according to certain principles.
Of course the real cure for that is simply to know that you fell down a rabbit hole. And you will not emerge intact. It’s a virtual religious experience — transformative.
Which, of course, was the purpose. Every good oligarchy needs a Family Court, lest the rabbits stop breeding, hopping, getting snared, and nibbling the same low-cut grass jobs (or going underground) in the same geographic areas, generation after generation of market niches and material for the next set of pharmaceuticals or animal behavioralists. The bait is money, custody, and social respectability.
After all, if they all went “Watership Down,” who would serve? Without enough servants, landscapers, nannies, fast-food retail workers, and the multitude of unseen people that make the infrastructure “go,” how would all the certified specialists come up with the theories, and where would THEY self-propagate?
What would they do down on the non-ethereal grass, floors, garages, at the foodbanks, or for that matter shelters, prisons, and so forth — with the rest of us?
Label? Write a report? And then stand alongside “Street Sheet,” charge a $1.00 and see if that will buy dinner?
Wikipedia: “Street_Sheet”
What it Is
STREET SHEET is a monthly tabloid written primarily by homeless and formerly homeless people that provides its readers with a perspective on homelessness that mainstream media simply cannot match. It provides a unique opportunity to its vendors as well: a dignified alternative to panhandling. The STREET SHEET (cover price $1) is given free to qualified poor and homeless San Franciscans, who get to retain 100% of the proceeds from their sales. Last year, the paper celebrated its 15th anniversary, making it the oldest continuously published street newspaper in the world.
Contact information:
STREET SHEET Vendor orientations take place
Fridays 10 A.M. @ 468 Turk Street
Phone: (415) 346 3740 ext. 304
Or tell the truth like The Beat Within?
.
Other Literature from BCD (“Behind Closed Doors”):
[Co-Pieces, found today]
It made me realize that a person who makes threats of death, can’t be taken lightly. It also left me with a low tolerance and a lack of respect for individuals who choose to treat their significant others in such a violent fashion.
The abusive language and exaltation of violence in most gangsta rap music are the reality of our present day society. Most of us are intelligently mature enough to realize that by not talking about something won’t cause it to go away.
Back in the day when I was going to school, getting really good grades not getting in fights or getting in trouble of some kind. I used to be a honor roll student.
we make mistakes listening to our thoughts
we make mistakes from things we’re taught
we might change if we get caught
we fell in love with fake dreams we bought
He grabbed her arm, turned her around, slapped her so hard her long hair went flying as if she were a doll. I was pretending I didn’t know what was going on and the loud sound of the slap make me flinch and put the video game on pause
Like a blind man who’s walking in a state of darkness, the same for the poor man in the ghetto who’s taking his anger out on his fellow comrade.
Beware of these politicians who pander to the public by legislation which they purport is “tough on crime,” but which in reality erodes civil liberties.
[end quote]
This is true in all our boxes: Womb to Tomb, sometimes only the first one ain’t a box and interacts with a real, living, pulsing human being.
Boxes along the way; Play pens (sometime), apartments, schools, courts, police stations, prisons, office cubicles, nursing homes, mental institutions, and finally that last long literally underground box. For the lucky ones.
Then there are the air-conditioned, Danish & coffee-serving, large conference halls where the certified ex-spurts (experts) talk to each other about what to do about those not invited to the talks.
Hurt doesn’t dissipate — it goes somewhere. It changes things.
Let’s talk. Family Court matters, it’s agonna hurt someone. Otherwise they’d “settle out of court.” What does all that pain really gain? And for whom??
~ ~ ~
Sometimes, you don’t even have to be near a court, there are trawlers [1] [2] out for the vulnerable, the needy, the hapless, and those who forgot their South Bronx Common sense — and WHAM! No access to your son, your daughter — for not leaving an abusive situation, or even poverty, the “right” way, or staying, I suppose, within your socially allotted caste (by working hard/smart/ and occasionally receiving a service from the government . . .
[1] Merriam-Webster Definition:
-
: to catch fish with a large net (called a trawl)
-
: to search through (something) in order to find someone or something
[2] from On-line Etymology Dictionary, we can see the root meaning is from “to drag.” The net seeking a catch is dragged through an area where fish are expected, I supposed including the bottom:
- trawl (v.)
1560s, from Dutch tragelen, from Middle Dutch traghelen “to drag,” from traghel “dragnet,” probably from Latin tragula “dragnet.” Related: Trawled; trawling.
Some groups, I believe the phrase was being circulated, “trawling for trauma” — some groups are trawling for traumatized mothers, in particular, and net (‘ensnare’) them on-line and through personal communications into a coordinated framework which lays the cause of “custody of children going to batterers” on “judges just don’t understand,” i.e., lack of domestic violence experts on-hand in the family court system. Along with this belief system is the corollary that FIXING it would be to “enhance” the family court system through additional training of judges, lawyers, custody evaluators (and just about anyone else), that is to say, for certain professionals to have opportunity to become consultants to government officials.
This is from “Poor Magazine.” They’re experts on being poor, not from the School of What To Do WIth Poverty but from the experiential angle. Notice the Honesty, the details.
“One low-income mother’s story..
~ ~ ~This story speaks to me: I was going through, thinking there was justice inside the halls of justice, and that some mature adult would see through these clear lies about my children, myself, and so forth. . . . . . ~ ~ ~
Virginia Velez/Special to PNN
Tuesday, March 25, 2003;
Before welfare de-form, I did all the right things to get out of poverty as a single mom. Luckily, I only have one child, a very rebellious, independent child. Anyway, I went to college when he was eight. It was the 80’s and I worked part-time in the very university I was attending 22 hours a week so I could get health benefits for my child and I. It was a while before the financial aid folks noticed, then they forced me to give up my nice job on campus to take work-study for much less pay and no medical benefits, or I would lose my grants. Luckily, another single mom told me I could get AFDC, at least for Medicaid and food stamps, and I did. I did so well in that Washington state university that I got a fellowship to go to the most elite school in California.. . .
So far so good.
Then . . . .
“…Dummy me called them to ask for a social worker or someone to help me get my son home and work things out. Yup, obviously Stanford had affected my good-South-Bronx-ghetto-child sense.. . .
She’d paid her dues, she asked for help for a situation…
“The police, CPS, social workers, all did absolutely nothing. . . that never before had anything been held against me in my caring for my child, alone, for 13 years. They did not care I was sad and depressed from finances, and from having to be around the most selfish, ego-centric, richest and most messed up people in the world, while I worked my butt off in my studies and part-time work. “
“…Never, ever ask for help from any agency. It’s completely pitiful for the moms and kids, but there is absolutely no institution you can trust for any help raising or just keeping your child. “
Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 
PAS posts: Pro, Con, & Corollaries
leave a comment »
This post will be updated later let’s hope.
This week several states, stupidly, are having “Parental Alienation Awareness Day.”
So I pause from tracking the funding of the “Fatherhood Initiative” and violations of due process in order to attain a government mandate to stop singlehood, I suppose (or is it motherhood?), to address this “Parental Alienation Awareness Day,” and question the thinking behind assigning single days, or months, of awareness to this and then to that, nationally (or, internationally). No wonder medicating for ADD & ADHD is big business: The innocent observer trying nobly to make sense of it all will find his – OR her — brain darting too and fro, or asked to throw dollars at one problem/passion, ignoring the rest, then wonders where all those dollars went.
For a(nother) great example of bureaucratic dollar-throwing, see:
No, that is NOT a joke, unfortunately. Meanwhile, at one local charity: “Demand up, Donations Down, 5 items only.”
The purpose of having an “awareness” of something is not a fleeting glance, but an incorporation of that awareness into one’s values, principles, and purposes. Or, dismissing it.
“PAA” Day: I am utterly opposed to this terminology — because of its origins, and how “PAS” is used to divert the public conversation from much, much, more hard topics to face — and these have ugly names, but not nearly as ugly as ignoring them is to the people suffering them. These topics are as ugly as (but not unrelated to) “Domestic Violence Awareness Month,” which (good planning on the part of PAS folk?) was about six months apart from this new “day.” As this term is primarily (though not only) directed against custodial Mothers (in order to help switch custody, or gain more access to children), how silly that one month later, we have “Mother’s Day.” Yet, nationally the problem supposedly is “fatherlessness” — referring to a state of children, rather than actions taken previously by their parents (Huh?). So, are you giddy yet? No wonder the year starts out with the month of January, after the god “Janus,” looking two ways.
Today I choose to post links to these ugly-content, hard-to-stomach topics, and to (again) talk about them. The $30K/month link above I found from “lostinlimaohio” which blog somehow came up when I was tracking down why a judge placed a gag order on the Huckaby/Cantu case. In that case, also a judge has (inexplicably) recused himself, and I heard that the DA had issued charges before he had either the coroner’s report OR reports or recordings from the 5-hour long interrogation leading to Ms. Huckaby’s arrest, without bail. 8-year-old Young Miss Cantu is physically GONE, she herself no longer has a future, but 28-year-old Ms. Huckaby is on trial for her life, without bail, and after sensational, high-profile, nationwide (at least) media coverage because of the horror of the accusation & crime (especially for a Sunday school teacher, female). Anomalies caught my eye that I started (reluctantly — I’m busy!) following this. Because it’s about confidence in the prosecutorial process, and due process, and more. If you want my input on that so far (and I may be wrong), post and I’ll reply. Then they gagged it!
One upside of pursuing these topics is you run across other information and insights; and if life is not about insight so that we can live reasonably upright and effective lives, what is it about?
Anyhow, I had no major persistent troubles with the seamy side of life (even after being mugged twice, without physical harm, and despite living in some dangerous urban areas), this side of life arose through and as a direct consequence of who I married, and who have had to deal with since attempting to separate. Since the seamy side of life bit me pretty hard in the butt (and people associated with me, and related to), it bears addressing. One of the most valuable lessons I learned is that some of the less seamy “characters” don’t look it on the outside. If anything, they are in positions of policymaking, and good at dominating conversations, and people.
Meanwhile Mr. or Ms. lostinlimaohio appears to think like me. And (I believe) posted under the title “Wouldn’t Prison Be Cheaper?” an article on the $30,000 state support of this middle-aged man:
In other words, I think a little screw-up happened judicially, somewhere, or were the prisons just too crowded? As usual, when government screws up, everyone pays, not just emotionally, and family-wide, but also through the nose, which is why the NEXT quote, I put in red, which this state (and nation) currently is, deeply.
Do you know how abundantly I could (have) provided on that salary for my children, and me, and with $ to spare, had not local entities (who will be repeatedly named, on this blog — at least by function) not chosen, outside of my hearing or input, or even awareness, chosen to interfere with my livelihood with their (communal) It takes a Village to Remove [excuse me, ‘Raise’] a Child “help”? The last time I was in range of this salary, my kids disappeared, overnight, despite my attempts to avert that virtually predictable event.
Anyhow, many times, other people have said the thing better already.
I too, have my limits on what I can stomach in a day. I am already missing my daughters (as every day) and simultaneously grieving the lost time, opportunities for all of us (professional, academic personal), but I think perhaps most of all, that when I went for help to the justice, law enforcement, and nonprofits of my geographic area, and the situation became worse. ACTUALLY, in seeking to renew a restraining order, a relative? or? a spinoff employee/patron of the Promoting Responsible Fatherhood movement? helped my ex bounce it into family court, a more friendly venue to batterers, where he could better convince a judge of how much he “loved” his children, now (let’s not talk about the prior violence, OK?). Not only analyzing this past (done, long ago), but doing so looking for how to (THIS time round) handle the present is a full-time occupation, just about. One balances purpose, energy available, emotional health, statistical probabilities of succeeding in changing status qui (that’s plural, probably not in the correct cast, for you non-Latin folk), etc.
There are also other issues I follow and things I do in life, many of them. Like many of the people sponsoring blogs on these issues, in our own lives, the issues are not in “closed” mode, but the problems are ongoing and on-traumatizing also. This can affect quality of blogging — I know in particular that my copyediting is sub-par, and that the appearance of this blog is less than professional (nevertheless, it is getting some international traffic, I note). Some days, it’s better to defer to others who have already written, well, on the topic.
Today, also, another group, Legal Momentum, discusses 15th Anniv. of VAWA…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.randijames.com/2009/04/pas-is-real-targeting-noncustodial.html
Randi James responds to a comment on her site called “PAS is real” and suggesting that we (mothers groups, fathers groups) on stopping this. This is a teaser, the link above has more URLS than the post here I put this exchange in GREEN, for Go Take a Look!, but have not indented. Therefore, all the (contiguous) green below is all quote:
Posted by Robert Gartner to Randi James at Apr 22, 2009 12:33:00 PM
Unfortunately for you and your ilk, I know that “PAS is Real” is a catch phrase you use to target unsuspecting noncustodial mothers and men who have been primary caretakers. I also personally know that you lurk around women’s boards, especial single mothers and abused women, in order to recruit them into your camp. It is an unfair, divisive tactic that fathers supremacists have been using increasingly.
It’s not that they really believe you…they need something to hold on to…something that seems to make sense. Mothers and innocent fathers do not understand the depth of the origination of the term parental alienation syndrome, a history that should not be forgotten or obscured.
Mothers are often the target of abusive husbands/fathers in relationships where the children have been taught to hate the mother, often taking the abuser’s side because of the perception of power that he has. This is trauma bonding through the use of maternal deprivation:
Anyone reading old enough to remember the experiment carried out on young monkeys, who were forced to choose between a warm fuzzy (fake) mother and a wire metal, milk-dispensing mother. Guess which one they chose? In the earliest years, kids need to be held and hugged (and later on, too!). I wonder what kind of personnel the new Zero to Five is going to attract to the expanded preschool industry, and who is going to monitor them (and at whose expense)….
“PAS” doesn’t want to talk about cases like this:
http://batteredmomslosecustody.wordpress.com/2009/04/19/california-incest-father-sentenced-to-109-years-in-prison/
Egregious case, but I provide it because a response to the post links to quotes from Richard Gardner, PAS-front-man (until he committed suicide, now adherents continue to carry the NAMBLA etc. torch in many venues):
A comment to THAT post links to a history on Richard Gardner, some of his less “choice” quotes.
CAUTION: some readers, especially survivors of sexual abuse, may find Gardner’s remarks deeply disturbing. Indeed, we all should. {{I chose not to post them. Even the subtitles are offensive. However, they remain as the background and underpinning of “Parental Alienation Awareness Day” and in its tawdry history. Now, when children (PAS in reverse?) are returned to the abuser, and then no longer bond with the protective parent (generally, not always, the mother), the feeling sure feels like “alienated” from this (case in point) perspective. However, there exist other terms already to address these actions and symptoms of such actions: kidnapping, brainwashing, Stockholm syndrome, others.
I think a difficulty arises in labeling something with which one has no personal acquaintance, or accepting this label (insert applicable epithet from other generations or ethnic, religious groups) wholesale. We cannot farm out our THINKING to the experts for long!
http://batteredmomslosecustody.wordpress.com/2009/04/20/quotes-by-richard-gardner-the-father-of-parental-alienation-syndrome/
April 20, 2009 — batteredmomslosecustody
Read, and Think About This before you sign another PAS petition.
THEN go to AFCC.net and look at the conference brochures, notice the similarity of terms, and consider:
Would you want your family’s future in the hands of these people?
If not, then stay married, take more abuse, do something . because on the way out, with children, they are going to be. Also, do a serious criminal background check before partnering up, and talk to former partners. Consider, they MIGHT be telling the truth.
. . . And by the way, domestic violence is a clear precursor, sometimes to homelessness (if not death) (or, if not, extended undermployment, and documented health problems.
Finally, the “lostinlimaohio” blog I discovered today, as I was so disturbed by a recent “gag order” on the Cantu / Huckaby case recently, where an 8 year old was discovered in a suitcase at the bottom of an irrigation pond, and a 28-year-old woman/mother is facing the death penalty or life in prison because of special circumstances. Several details in this case flagged my attention as not passing muster. Either my mind can’t conceive of the situation, or my instincts were right. Either way, the case is now gagged.
I don’t know anything more about this blog than that I think the writing is good, it covers many aspects.
It appears to have more of a criminal focus than some of these others, but as the issues that routinely pass through family court halls many times ARE criminal in nature, but handled as psychological and relationship problems (and shunted off for mind-therapy on how to get along with that violent person you just threw out of your house, legally, because, long ago, or not so long about, one of you impregnated the other, and the female partner did not abort).
I may need to separate the funding aspects of this blog into another one, but ALL these issues are related, of course.
Have a happy day… Be “aware” of what you are asked to become aware of. Pay attention to vocabulary, and who invented some of the jargon.
SHARE THIS POST on...
Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up
April 22, 2009 at 10:24 AM
Posted in After HE Speaks Up - Reporting Child Sexual Abuse, After She Speaks Up - Reporting Child Sexual Abuse, Domestic Violence vs Family Law, History of Family Court, Vocabulary Lessons
Tagged with domestic violence, men's rights, obfuscation, social commentary, trauma, U.S. Govt $$ hard @ work.., women's rights