Posts Tagged ‘obfuscation’
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.
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Outrageous, Iatrogenic “Therapeutic” Jurisprudence
The first two words seem to apply. The second two do not.
Just a sampler of outrageous cases<<<
- Mom in jail for fleeing out of state for documented sexual abuse of their children by not one, but two men. (Riggs)
- Three children drowned (dead) on weekend when a pediatrician mother begged that visitation not happen on the basis that the father had displayed suicidal tendencies. (Castillo)
- Two children, and their father, dead (all, by the father, apparently) after being kidnapped (Conolly/Leichtenberg).
- A teenager having to flee to Los Angeles, where much of this nonsense, began, to get its help getting free from abuse (Krause).
The link I enclosed has samples from across the United States. Please look at it.
If you are unfamiliar with what some of the warning signs ARE, look up: “Barbara J. Hart” or “Lethality Assessment Tool.”
Or read enough newspapers and look for the common threads. Or get, read, and then give to someone else the book called “The Gift of Fear.” Or read Lundy Bancroft book. Or LISTEN when a mother talks.
You, readers [I see blog hits from across the U.S. and another continent also] are not, probably, the ones signing the custody orders for unsupervised visitation to someone with a history of battering or child abuse, or making a livelihood off of such cases
I also don’t happen to think that any of you were (as some say) personally responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. However, it does kind of make a statement about human nature, particularly in crowd situations. We pick scapegoats, are easily incited, picking up the latest chant circulating around: “Crucify! Crucify!” (or, was it “Parental Alienation, Parental Alienation!” [a similar concept, with a different target]) and say it’s not our business. I think, resurrection or not, this is something of the central message of that Book — that the logical end result of human nature, unchecked, is that someone is going to get crucified.
But must the ones getting crucified (abducted, alienated — from their protective parents reporting abuse! — drowned, noosed, or shot. Or simply disconnected with those that raised them) continue to be so YOUNG? Or, be parents with their hands tied by court systems that declare themselves too much wiser, too much more powerful, and too much more equipped with a set of advisory ‘experts’ to take a protective parent at her word?
My children were stolen and hid. There exists a law in the penal code of my state that PRECISELY describes what happened. No one went to jail. The thieves was not the mother. I looked up the code. It’s clear, and it was clearly violated. There are penalties listed and also penalties for those who aid and abet such things. I looked these up and sent it to one of the participants. The judge, ON the transcript, acknowledged understanding that custodial interference (at the very least) had been deliberately messed with. Then, to “punish” the persons doing this, she gave them temporary custody, I suppose for their “initiative.” Another reward for this criminal type of initiative is cessation of child support.
Monday night quarterbacking (I still do it), I see some things I coulda shoulda, wish’d I’da known to do (in the heat of the courtroom). Unfortunately, rather than boning up on litigation techniques, immediately prior to this life-shaking event, I (being a mother, and foreseeing it — the signs were very clear) focused in stead on preventing the event. This was not easily done, and there was NO support for it from the powers one would think would care, or act when asked to.
I have resolved, since then, to learn to become multi-lingual, and to learn the languages that SOME in office appear to speak, and do. Since they do not care (obvious at a glance), about the welfare (“best interests”) of our kids, or (in all to many cases, alas) the rules of court, or for that matter, court orders, OR for that matter, laws already on the books containing the words “rebuttable presumption AGAINST….”) there must be something such entitities DO care about.
In other words, it is necessary to get into the mindset of persons and institutions who are callous, or have become callous (deaf), to the welfare of supposedly inferior (more helpless) beings. This is a very unpleasant place to go, especially when one had haunted the likes of Palestrina, gospel, folk songs, and positive interactions with clients and employers voluntarily so engaged. However, I suppose beauty needs to be balanced with ugliness. Chiaroscuro, El Greco, and all that. So the mindset is, where is YOUR bottom line? Where is the trail of accountability.
Meanwhile, children (mine) are growing up, and children (others) are entering and being hurt by this outrageous, iatrogenic, therapeutic jurisprudence mindset. With any luck, “More” always being thought “better” for those in control, I suppose with our administration of “Change,” and extra extra funds for early childhood education (and less for welfare, general assistance, public transportation, and battered women’s shelters), newborns will be caught as their heads crowned, umbilical cords snipped even sooner (did you know, it’s good to wait a BIT before this?) and children will be scooped away from mothers who are deemed “at risk” of depression simply because they were pregnant.
That these things still happen, and that unfortunate drama and bad things will continue to happen, is inevitable. BUT, the courts have to stop exacerbating the situation. This is NOT a good alternative to population control.
So, although the problem exists, and was not “your” fault, one GREAT way to NOT participate in the next outrageous (set of) incidents is, the next time your state proclaims “Parental Alienation Awareness” day. simply promote a “Doublespeak Awareness Day” Acronym intentional.
IF the true crises of our times is fatherlessness, perhaps some of it is due to these wars men start with each other. Perhaps it is due to the fact that some people finally passed some laws about beatings one’s wives. Or, raping one’s sons and daughters (sorry, but this IS an issue in the highly contested custody cases, quite often). Move to Germany. America, love it or leave it.”
Like the word “adolescence,” these terms have an origin. They did not come from antiquity, the phrase has more recent organizations, they came, and it IS possible for them to also fade into history again, along with things. Feminism had a history too, eh?
The concept that Jurisprudence should not be jurisprudence,
but rather therapy, is outrageous.
It is also Iatrogenic, meaning, causing the problems it purports to solve.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Remember that in a violent relationship, the violence is behavioral modification, a pattern of attempting to DOMINATE another person, by force if necessary. It is basically a pattern of punishment.
In cases where a woman has been treated like a child during her marriage (though she may have given birth to one or more children, nursed them, raised them, and protected them by attempting to leave such a violent situation) it is inappropriate to then in the courtroom treat both parents or even one of them, as a child.
If there is a childlike behavior around, it would be bullying, I say. It is contraindicated where civil rights exist, or laws, or constitutional rights, and all that is supposedly “American.” Supposedly. Or, if you are a religious person, all that is “godly.”
Why is it then that I so often realize the things have already been said, adequately?
http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/child-custody-evaluations.html
This is today’s reading material, or tomorrow’s. What I have copied here is not the complete post. Please click on its version, which is easier to process visually. . . . . I first read this years ago, only a few years into the family court spiderweb. From this side, it seems too gentle, too objective, and not passionate enough. To be placid and detached in tone seems to me highly inappropriate. But that’s just me.
However, as I believe Dr. Phyllis Chesler noted about 30 years ago, in “Women and Madness,” the typical outrage (or whistleblowing) is simple:
1. Repudiate
2. Isolate, and if not possible, then
3. Medicate (or order counseling, at client or government cost).
This beats changing the status quo, or addressing what causes the outrage.
Or is it, “alienation” of children in divorce situation.
Link above, excerpt below. Please consider. Truths haven’t changed in the interim….
Reevaluating the Evaluators: custody evaluators child custody evaluations
Rethinking the Assumptions of Therapeutic Jurisprudence in the Family Courts
This article discusses the minimum disclosures every child custody evaluator, “best interests” guardian ad litem GAL [1], or parenting coordinator (herein called a “mental health professional” or “MHP”) [2a] should be required to make, responding satisfactorily and in full, before being appointed in any family law case to do anything beyond answering a list of limited, detailed, specific, and narrowly-crafted questions the answers to which are directly within the MHP’s field of proved expertise. This format is being used to help illustrate a problem, and with another purpose in mind. That purpose is to call for a revolt altogether against the notion of “therapeutic jurisprudence” — which has been proved to do little to benefit children, much to benefit the divorce industry, much to complicate and pervert our family laws, much to erode fundamental rights and liberties, and much to harm the families who become trapped in the system. There are many problems, of course. But they are symptoms. Step one is to get the agent of most of them out of our family courts. The Emperor has no clothes.custody evaluators child custody evaluations
There have been many calls for reform [2b], but for the most part, while they are admirable and well-documented intentions, they miss the boat; while they identify various problems and propose fixes in the system, they fail to identify and address the core reason the system is sick. Thus the proposals seek to treat only symptoms while failing to apply a cure to eliminate the disease.
Contrary to the public perception, and the perception that those seeking lucrative appointments in the court system wish to convey, a degree in some field of mental health does not qualify the individual to perform work that consists of open-ended investigating, evaluating, recommending, or decision-making about other persons’ families and children.
The milieu in which the MHP will be working is the justice system, in which litigants have certain rights of due process [6] and in which decisions made in connection with one issue can materially affect a litigant’s position as to seemingly unrelated issues in the same case, and in which milieu, inter alia, centuries of jurisprudence have honed certain concepts involving what constitutes reliable evidence, burdens of proof, and other legal aspects bearing on the ultimate resolution of a case. [7] Sociologists, psychologists, and even real scientists by reason of their formal training tend to have little understanding of or appreciation for these legal concepts.
. . . .
[11a] They tend to be vested in protecting themselves, their paychecks, and their “behinds” as the first priority (contrary to the traditional definition of a “professional”) [11b], and they often appear to lack even a rudimentary understanding of why they are present, posturing as having a broad authority and expertise they do not have, coupled with fuzzy ideas about what they are supposed to be doing and their “role”. {{BLOGGER NOTES: I HAVE GOTTEN PARTICULARLY FUZZY RESPONSES WHEN ASKING DIRECT QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS, AS TO COURT-APPOINTED ATTORNEY}} For example, some think {{“OBJECTION: HEARSAY. WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT SUCH A PROFESSIONAL “THINKS” ONLY OBSERVABLE BEHAVIORS}} the sum total of a custody case is something called “the psychological best interests of the child” [12] which aside from not being the custody decision-making standard in any state of the United States, is itself an undefined concept; others have opined that they are ‘the child’s voice”[13a] or the “eyes and ears” of the judge [13b]; and others behave as if rather than being just another witness in a case, they are tantamount to being the de facto judge (the court, by calling them in, presumably having admitted to incompetence beyond uttering administrative orders for their benefit at the parties’ expense, and handling case minutiae.) [14] And yet, they and their organizations have been instrumental in moving law and public policy toward a revolutionary deform of our family court systems for decades.
But it’s not just a forensic investigation or opinion. Save for the pretext of parens patriae [15] and the state’s interest in children’s welfare, the child custody evaluation appointment would be akin in another context to a court saying to an agent of the state:
. . . .
Moreover, having extensive experience doing child custody evaluations or parenting coordinations is itself fairly meaningless. [55b] This kind of experience provides training in things such as following practice guidelines and procedures (such as those promulgated by the APA [56] or AFCC [57], {{BINGO — SEE LINK TO RIGHT, SEE NAFCJ.NET}} which themselves have been published in order to promote the trade practice and create the appearance that the many problems with these ideas, such as are identified in this article, can be addressed with regulations — and preferably “self-regulation”). [58] It also serves to increase facility in writing reports [59], testifying in court [60], avoiding board complaints [61], and becoming familiar with what other evaluators like to do and think (such as gaining familiarity with customs in the practice or the prevailing views in trade literature about, e.g. attachment theory or relocation or domestic violence or parental alienation, whether right or wrong). [62] The prevailing “wisdom” tends to be clubbish, perpetuated by group think and informal schmoozing in psycho-legal organization conferences,
{{I read this article a few years — or should I say, pleadings — earlier. From this perspective, I think the author has understated the problem. the tone seems inappropriate, when the results are body counts and tossed-about children, and lives. I think the appropriate attitude is outrage, indignation, and concerted action on that outrage and indignation. ONE of the concerted actions could be exploratory, another writing, another speaking, another AUDITING some of these accounts, organizations.
ANOTHER Action I (blogger) recommend is taking time away from something ELSE, and learning how our court systems work, your local rules of court, and in general, getting whatever education in these matters you didn’t get in K-12, or Grade 13-16 in your profession, should that apply. This requires time to read, solitude, and forays in to fora (forums?) where these things can be discussed and compared.
[Article continued at above link… plus references….]
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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.”
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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.
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Wait a minute! “IPV,” “DV”– Social Scourges or Euphemism and Oxymoron?
Vocabulary Analogies.
I was tempted to call this “in which I discuss the dissemination of obfuscation,” but it’s not really a laughing matter when people are dying over this, weekly, and around the globe.
I am not of the belief that utopia is possible, at least as enforced by any state agency, government, religion, NGO, or anyone else. When I hear someone wanting to “help” me, at least someone I don’t know and didn’t personally solicit to do so, I try to head for the hills, and highly recommend this.
Unfortunately, with the advent of the Internet, the Language Police lurking around every corner, and our children being CAUGHT, practically, as they exit the womb by someone funded by someone fanatically suspicious of the mother/child relationship (i refer NOT to the practitioners — thank you, mine were born in a hospital — but to the premises behind some of the policies) — there are fewer and fewer hills left.
This includes hills and pockets of time as well, and that is almost nowhere as true as when a woman, with children, tries to exit a man, who has threatened and hit her, with institutional intervention.
Just as, thanks to the increasing attempts to criminalize “homeschooling” (another misnomer) in my home state, there is less and less time available to the average citizen — whether parent, teacher, commuter employee, or child, unless it is built into one’s profession. I have some perspective (age, profession, and parenting) from which to say this, but have not as yet decided to share identifying go public in more blatant identifying detail (see topic, leaving domestic violence…)
So in general, people do lack either time, or motivation, to address IPV and DV unless we are typically involved by personal association. It is, after all, less pleasant than stopping to smell the roses; in fact it’s profoundly disturbing.
But I say, how about time to stop and smell the vocabulary? Those most inclined to do this are those who have tasted its fruit, where that fruit is sometimes stale and putrid. Maybe you could from the safety of your home (I’m not asking for money, or for you to call your legislator, am I?) might stop a moment to consider.
Some of these terms have become SO proprietary they are almost meaningless, although I am VERY grateful for the women and men before me who passed laws to criminalize “IPV” and “DV” and I am VERY very grateful that I had at least one opportunity to evict someone who had battered me in the classic definition of the word and was engaging in a pattern of what is called “domestic violence.”
IPV for the uninitiated is a version of “Intimate Partner Violence,” itself probably a linguistic migration from “DV” (Domestic Violence). Trust me, there is nothing domesticated about violence, it is per se a refusal to be domesticated. Nor does it only occur domestically (in the home). It’s a lucky person that can domesticate a few cats, but who can “domesticate” a person that has taken to hands (or other handy implements) to intentionally: tame the shrew, or beat/threaten/punish the woman (oops, “partner”) in the process of teaching gender differences DO rule, and some divides were ordained by God (yeah, right) and not cross-able. Note in that concept the transference of protesting hitting one’s (in this example) opposite-sex partner (with whom one has engaged in sex) to illustrate the girls do NOT rule, Boys do. [This is a particularly religious thing, though not limited to it].
Intimate PARTNER? Now that I think of it, when the relationship is He hits Her (or He hits Him, She hits Her, or She hits Him for the politically more correct than I am feeling today), it is the precise opposite of what the word “partner” means. I mean, there’s a “partners in crime,” a humorous phrase used sometimes of a rapscallionly escapade that’s not really a crime. I was mugged twice myself –outside the home. I didn’t go back and “partner” with the guy who made off with my purse.
Why then would I attempt to with the guy who made off with my children? Can we not depart in peace, or get some assistance in this process, eh?
More to the point, why would some agencies in Washington, D.C. and (yes, I looked) Colorado, as tested in a variety of states, usually including California, determine that my doing so would be good for the overall populace? It really goes against nature and common sense. WHO was it that didn’t respect boundaries to start with, generating what’s called some form of separation?
Therefore I say, Intimate Partner Violence has GOT to be some kind of triple oxymoron non-think that has just wormed its way into our vocabulary, nonprofit [and governmental] organizations to distinguish it from stranger violence.
Well, folks, IPV is far WORSE than stranger violence. Stranger violence, if you AND yours survive it, and are not maimed, is not statistically likely to reoccur and escalate to death. Stranger violence has the concept of accidence in it, you could MAYBE have avoided it, or it was unavoidably bad luck. Not so with “IPV,” which when magnified through the institutions designed to (but in general failing to) put a stop to it, is closer to a total blood transfusion, and entails a personal, specific, and persistent hostility and will to hurt from a specific individual specifically against another.
Anyway, words don’t just drop down from the sky. Many of the times (at least in the U.S.) they are federally mandated. Like “Access Visitation” — but that’s another topic for another time.
Once these words have been mandated, and promoted, from “on high” (that’s called, government of the people, by the people, and for the people — or it seems I once heard it was….) they are then circulating through the lower, plebian realms — courts, schools, police stations, nonprofit agencies, and so forth. And the attendant associations to these agencies and institutions, FEW of which YOU are going to be involved with unless you (a) work there, or (b) deal with someone who does, or (c) whose life has led through their doors, or (d) someone dependent on you, or vice versa, as a friend or relative, has also.
My sarcasm here is not really out of place. I have been tracing funding of dysfunctional organizations, with some guidance (NAFCJ.net being among but not the only source) of WHY when I knock on a door and sit down in an office, the agency-speak is simply in my native tongue, but with an entirely different set of rules. The general rule I apply anymore is that whatever it says on the door, the OPPOSITE is not just the effect, but the intended effect and implicit in the design.
Gentle readers should also understand re: blogger/survivors — there were years of being told NOT to talk (and still are) under our belt. So, part of blogging is just telling it. One woman’s simple attempt to summarize the problem (see “Australians Talk,” previous blog and links) spoke to me, so I slapped it up here, thinking it would suffice for a post.
No, darn it, I had to actually think about it. I thought about how insane/inane it is to sterilize these words, as we do, face it. If even God had to do quite a bit of show and tell (miracles, sending a Son, etc.) (was that a Freudian or Theological slip — mine is showing, I suppose), similarly, those who have actually survived this violence, trauma, and losing someone or something to it, should be setting policy AND vocabulary.
That’s enough for now.
Intimate, Partner, Violence.
Domestic, Violence.
No wonder we need mental health professionals throughout the fields attendant on these terms.
Can you wrap your mind around that one? (No wonder it’s a market niche around “family courts” etc…..)
the word “court” certainly applies, in the sense, court someone’s favor, or in the royalty application. The word family, again, has just about become meaningless when those promoting it as essential to the fabric of our nation (and to a degree, I Do agree, believe it or not).
I know women who went homeless fleeing abuse. They had homes and professions after the exit; the stability appeared to threaten the status quo, the basket was turned over and emptied out, and through the same mechanism that has put my stomach hungry some days, blogging where the internet is free, and unable to purchase a simple meal at the same time.
Alternately, these terms rolls off your thinking like water off a duck’s back, how many intimate, wonderful, partnering, dynamic, sensitive moments in life have along with the oil coating also rolled past your door? Some of the best parts of life (not just your body) are sensitive to others around you, and what national policies mean to immediate neighbors.
Let’s properly sort those terms:
“Intimate Partner Violence” and “Domestic Violence.”
Move the words around, and it makes much more sense:
Put “intimate partner” with “domestic” and you have something user-friendly.
Take the two “Violences” and keep them separate, and the antagonism is right there out in the open:
V2 (Violence X Violence). There’s no place for this in the home.
Again, just as a reminder, the definitions include a pattern of oppression. No, I don’t mean, being asked to wash the floors if you’re awoman. I mean being TOLD to wash the floors NOW, or else, and the “else” you already know, because it happened before, and hurt. Or destroyed. Or violated one of the rights listed in the Bill of Rights.
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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).
Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 
PAS posts: Pro, Con, & Corollaries
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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…
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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.
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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