Newsweek: Fighting Over the Kids

Newsweek says:

according to one 2004 survey in Massachusetts by Harvard's Jay Silverman, 54 percent of custody cases involving documented spousal abuse were decided in favor of the alleged batterers. Parental alienation was used as an argument in nearly every case.

Funny, the paper is not on Silverman's web site. Perhaps that is because he was caught in a scandal involving suspicions that he cooked the data. I don't believe that he can back up his numbers. Spouse abusers do not win child custody cases.

The spousal abuse allegation is just a big smokescreen anyway. If the parents are divorced, then spousal abuse is irrelevant. If they aren't married, there is no spousal abuse. A spousal abuser could still be a good parent.

Newsweek tells a sob story about how some mom lost a custody battle, and blames it all on domestic violence. Glenn Sacks explains that in fact court evidence showed that the mom is a head case.

This feminist blogger attacks Glenn Sacks's commentary, and cites the mom's brief:

The court couldn’t deny the father abused the mother with excessive and harassing phone calls because it was established by his own testimony and phone tapes. He called ten or more times a day sometimes as late as 1:05 AM.

She also says that the mom is now suing her ex-lawyer and the judge in federal court.

It seems pretty silly to complain about 10 phone calls in a day being harassment. If she doesn't want the phone calls, she doesn't have to take them. My ex-wife calls as much as 5 times a day. It is no big deal.