The money follows the child

Palo Alto psychologist Ken Perlmutter did an evaluation for the court. He said that I was not any worse parent than my ex-wife, but that my contact with our kids should be supervised because of what I might tell them.

He testified on Dec. 14, 2010:

Q. And what was the comment that I made that was so
harmful?
A. There were several.
Q. Okay. Can you name one?
A. One was that you acknowledged that you said "The
money follows the child." That would be one.

That is the family court practice of ordering the dad to pay the mom thousands of dollars every month if she can make allegations that result in her getting custody of the child. Perlmutter concluded that my ex-wife's allegations of abuse were entirely false and unfounded, and that it would be harmful for the kids to learn that she had lied to the court in order to enrich herself and to cut their dad out of their lives.

What I actually said was that my kids ought to know that I am not a child abuser, and that I am paying child support. He admitted that no child has ever been harmed by such information. But the story is harmful to the reputation of the court, and his primary responsibility was to protect the court from disclosure about its bad decisions.

It is simply not possible to prevent my kids from learning the truth. They already know these facts. Many others in town know them. The longer the court tries to punish me for telling the truth, the more the truth will be apparent to everyone.