I lost my children largely to the fact that I have been treated for ADHD for the past 8 years.In California, the law forbids any parent losing custody because of a disability or handicap. The California supreme court ruled unanimously to that effect in In re Marriage of Carney (1979).
The custody evaluator in my case, Dr. Edward J Connor of Connor and Associates, claimed that he had a hard time understanding me because of my ADHD. He claimed that my writings were confusing and difficult to follow. Dr. Connor claimed that my ADHD was to blame for the communication problems with my ex-wife. Dr. Ed Connor even suggested that people with OCD are better suited to care for young children that people with ADHD.
I don't think that ADHD is a significant handicap, but this evaluator is way out of line whether it is or not. If it is not a significant handicap, then he should ignore it. If it is a significant handicap, then the evaluator should be looking for ways to accommodate that handicap, and not using it as an excuse to take his kids away.
It is not the public policy of California to take kids away from disabled parents. If it were, then disabled citizens would be second-class citizens.
This is one of those exceptions to the Best Interest Of The Child (BIOTCH) doctrine. All other things being equal, it would seem preferable for a kid to reared by a healthy able-bodied parent than say, a blind parent. The BIOTCH would be for a parent who can see. But we do not have a policy of taking kids from blind parents.
If they can't take kids away from blind parents, then they certainly shouldn't take kids away from ADHD parents. Having ADHD is barely even noticeable. The fact that the evaluator would complain about something so trivial and irrelevant just shows the bias and incompetence of the evaluator (assuming Dan's blog is accurate).
8 comments:
I've read Dan's blog as well as his comments on yours and his writing is clear and to the point so from what I can tell the ADHD isn't interfering with his writing. Psychs, lawyers, and social workers just love to have a few big boxes to sort people into so they're easier to manipulate with no time taken for perceiving nuance or deeper understanding. McJustice and McDiagnosis renders high throughput with the desired end results of large incomes and large amounts of people under their control.
Yes, the idea that some communication disability makes him unfit to be a parent is just absurd. First, we do not have a literacy test for parenthood. Second, even if we did, then he would pass easily.
I know you've posted on the upcoming DSM, the psych diagnosis "bible". The ramifications those diagnoses have on the legal world is astounding, no wonder there's so much lobbying by various activists and vested interests to include, remove, or alter the definitions of cataloged behaviors. Always wondered how you can catalog human behavior like countries in an atlas....
Sounds like Connor is trying to stretch some of that since Dan called him on some of his baloney. Granted as you point out it's illegal, but since when has due process and the law really had anything to do with the family law world? It's all in the BIOTC, as in "the best interest of the court", and the attendent parasitical industries that orbit the family law courtroom. As you know, JJJ is giving a two day symposium w/Saposnek, another parasitical piece of work, down in Pepperdine's school of law in a couple of months on family law and psych. Teamwork! Oh yeah, forgot Saposnek was one of the designated counselors in SC county family law dept, now in a lucrative private practice like Berenge. No worries, Johnson will cut the official cord once he gets a few more years under his belt and do likewise. Bet this happens all over the country.
They do take children away from blind parents, all the time. Its wrong, and taking away children from a parent with ADHD is wrong as well.
Thanks for posting the obvious. It's unfathomable how the Judge punished me for filing numerous legal pleadings in my attempts at trying to obtain the evaluator's case file and punished me for my internet writings that my wife submitted to court, all while accepting the testimony of a psychologist that claimed that I could barely put two sentences together.
I also want to applaud you for writing "(assuming Dan's blog is accurate)". Activism doesn't entail hopping on the bandwagon with everyone that appears to have a sad story. When I talk to people who have had bad experiences with the family court system, I do not judge whether the person is "right" or "wrong", I look for discrepancies in the court process. There are many circumstances where the court probably made the "correct" custody decision, but failed to do it with any logical or scientific reasoning. If a "bad" parent loses custody or parenting time with their children, it should be based on good reasoning. The moment the judge makes a "safe" assumption about a bad parent, is the second the judge makes a bad assumption about a good parent.
Another woman who had an experience with the same judge and custody evaluator contacted me last week. She said a friend forwarded my website to her. You never know the whole side of the story, but her first complaint about Dr. Edward Connor was consistent with everyone I have talked to. She claimed she made statements to Dr. Connor and Dr. Connor wrote in the evaluation that her ex-husband made the statements. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal except everyone I have spoken to says the same thing. One woman told me that Dr. Connor's office cancelled an appointment and then wrote in the report that she cancelled the appointment. One man I spoke with had prior engagements when Dr. Edward Connor scheduled his evaluation sessions so the man had to reschedule. In that man's evaluation, Dr. Connor speculated on the validity of the man's prior engagements. In my evaluation, Dr. Connor claimed that my mother was supposed to show up at the at home visit at my house so she could be interviewed but she never arrived. I asked Dr. Connor on a few different occasions if he wanted to interview my mother and he said it wasn't necessary because she didn't live with me. Dr. Connor testified that he did not attempt to call my mother but told me to tell her to be present. Dr. Connor claimed I could barely tie my shoes yet he claimed he put me in charge of scheduling his interviews. He didn't call or interview any of my references. He did so for many of my ex-wife's references. This is consistent with many of the other people I have spoken with. Dr. Connor sometimes claims it isn't necessary to interview the references of the "losing" side because he has enough information; and then he denies people the right to inspect the information that supports his decision.
Thanks again for sharing my story. I don't want people to grab their torches and pitchforks and rush into the street just because someone writes about how they have been wronged by the system; I want people to absorb information in an effort to become more aware of what needs to done to correct the problem.
Feminists caused the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
http://ihatewhitewomen.blogspot.com/2009/12/feminists-caused-wars-in-iraq-and.html
Yes, that's right. Feminists caused the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The muslims who are fighting the American army mainly just don't want the feminist western culture to come to their countries also, which is why they are fighting against the western powers. They don't want their women to also be turned into prostitutes.
If these stupid American bitch feminists want equal rights, they should also go to the front lines and risk their lives. But no, they'd rather just send the men out to die for their "equal rights" while they sit at home in Starbucks, and cheating on their boyfriends who are over there fighting.
Feminism is directly responsible for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And to anyone who doubts that feminism is a major cause of this bloody war, let's not forget that feminists have openly tried to justify this war in the name of "liberating the Afghan women". If these scumbag feminists feel that way, why don't THEY go out to the front lines? That would be REAL EQUAL RIGHTS! But no, they send the men off to go die so that they can continue to sit on their fat ass and watch Sex in the City. I refuse to fight for or defend such whores. Let the feminists defend themselves, since they "don't need men", anyway. Feminists are such hypocrites.
These feminists have the blood of all of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians killed in Iraq/Afghanistan on their hands. May God save them from their sins.
Too bad there isn't a policy about taking children away from selfish, vindictive, hateful, immature parents (also known to many as the loony custodial ex-wife, or as it may be in rarer cases, ex-husband). Ah, that would be too wild and crazy, I suppose, to actually honor the CHILDREN in "best interests of the children".
I am a mother partnering with a father with adhd. The main reason I continue in the relationship I am in is because I couldn't trust the father with unsupervised visitation of the child. He would never ever do anything purposefully to hurt our child, yet he is unable to supply her with a safe environment. He does not make good decisions. His children from a previous marriage were injured because of this handicap. One daughter fell from a kitchen counter to the floor from an unsecured bouncy seat as a 3 month old and the other he took ice skating at one year old... himself carrying her on the ice (he is not a good skater) and he fell and hurt them both. There are more stories - these are just examples.
I suppose there are different levels of adhd, but I could see that it should be grounds for custody to be based - depending on the level.
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