Ten Parental Alienation Fallacies

Psychologist Richard A. Warshak is the parental alienation expert, and he has published:

False beliefs about the genesis of parental alienation and about appropriate remedies shape opinions and decisions that fail to meet children’s needs. This article examines 10 mistaken assumptions: (a) children never unreasonably reject the parent with whom they spend the most time, (b) children never unreasonably reject mothers, (c) each parent contributes equally to a child’s alienation, (d) alienation is a child’s transient, short-lived response to the parents’ separation, (e) rejecting a parent is a short-term healthy coping mechanism, (f) young children living with an alienating parent need no intervention, (g) alienated adolescents’ stated preferences should dominate custody decisions, (h) children who appear to function well outside the family need no intervention, (i) severely alienated children are best treated with traditional therapy techniques while living primarily with their favored parent, and (j) separating children from an alienating parent is traumatic. Reliance on false beliefs compromises investigations and undermines adequate consideration of alternative explanations for the causes of a child’s alienation. Most critical, fallacies about parental alienation shortchange children and parents by supporting outcomes that fail to provide effective relief to those who experience this problem.

The full article is behind a paywall. His previous article was on Batman's Traumatic Origins.

Another leftist attack on men's rights

I mentioned that Mother Jones has a hit piece on Warren Farrell and now the leftist BuzzFeed has one on Paul Elam, of A Voice For Men. He responds. BuzzFeed found an ex-wife or two with some nasty things to say about him.

It was too long, and I didn't read much of it. What I read was minor and unverifiable. While AVFM is a leading men's rights site, the arguments were never based on the details of some marriage between 20yo kids decades ago. Who cares?

The men's rights movement rarely gets any attention at all. Why this? When leftist sites like Mother Jones and BuzzFeed really hate a movement, they launch personal attacks, and make them as nasty as possible.

Their readers do not function on reason and logic. They form political stances from emotional responses. If they can somehow trigger a negative emotional reaction to Farrell and Elam, then their typical liberal reader can dismiss whatever they have to say.

Attacks on artificially assisted reproduction

A National Catholic Register newspaper commentary writes:

Feiler found the work of Marshall Duke, a psychologist at Emory University. Duke came up with a questionnaire for children called the “Do You Know?” scale, which contained 20 questions about the child’s family history. Children were asked, among other things, if they knew where their mom and dad went to high school, where their grandparents grew up and which person they looked most like in their family.

What Duke found was surprising. The single best predictor of emotional health and happiness in children was how well they performed on the “Do You Know?” scale. Feiler wrote, “The more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned.”

This finding may not be so surprising, considering the popularity of websites like Ancestry.com, where the creators invite visitors, “Join us on a journey through the story of how you became, well, you.” Even TLC has a genealogy show called Who Do You Think You Are? — which implies that our very identity is rooted in those people who not only begot us, but those who begot our parents and grandparents, as well.

And yet society has embraced, without question, creating children who will intentionally be denied part, or all, of their family history.

So is this about the millions of kids who are cut off from their parents by government action? No, it is a complaint sperm donation and other such technologies.

These technologies have stabilized as a very small percentage of births, and it is strange for anyone to be concerned about them when other ways kids get alienated are many orders of magnitude bigger.

This article, and another by the Center for Bioethics and Culture make a big deal out of a London Dail Mail article 7 months ago:

Gracie Crane was one of the first children conceived from donor embryo
Born before the 1998 Embryology Act, she has no right to know who her biological parents are
Despite her parents unconditional love, Gracie says she can't truly feel part of a family that doesn't share her genetics
Not knowing who she is makes Gracie wish she'd never been born
Gracie wants to be a mother one day, but says her experiences mean she would never have a child through donor conception
Every year 2,000 people opt for egg, sperm or embryo donation in Britain

It is wrong to say that society has embraced this without question. As the Mail article explains, Britain abolished the anonymity in 1998. German courts are abolishing it now. In the USA, regulations vary from state to state, but IVF is expensive and usually not covered by insurance.

I previously mentioned the bioethics center, and a movie they made to convince you that these things are bad.

The Mail story is about a mixed-race girl who was a test-tube baby for genetically unrelated older white parents. They adopted two more mixed-race siblings, had the girl diagnosed with dyslexia, and shipped the girl off to a Hogwarts-style boarding school.

Do you really want to make public policy based on the rants of one bratty teenager?

The Mail has a knack for finding some troubled girl and sensationalizing her story. Here is their latest:

Growing up in a happy middle-class home in Surrey, Emily Hunter Gordon, now 25, had every advantage and everything to look forward to.

Her parents, although divorced, were loving and sent her to the best private schools they could afford, all while ensuring she never wanted for anything.

Yet by the age of 12, Hunter Gordon was a regular cannabis user and swiftly descended into drug addiction, first attending rehab at the age of 16.

Later, she became addicted to dangerous meow meow, a drug that has been linked to more than 200 British deaths, and stole from her mother in a bid to pay for drugs.

Now clean and mother to a two-year-old son, the 25-year-old says that while getting off drugs was hard, rebuilding her relationship with her mother has been even tougher.

So does someone want to pass a law against whatever these parents did?

The Catholic Church is not opposed to the anonymity, as it has run agencies for anonymous adoptions for many years. The Church does oppose divorce, illegitimacy, and the main causes of alienated kids.

In most cases, I would say that a kid has a right to know his genetic parents. But there are good arguments for anonymous adoption, as well as anonymous donation of genetic material. So there can be a conflict between what the kid wants, and what the genetic parent wants.

The German Supreme Court (BGH) decided on Wednesday that the children of sperm donors have a right to know who their biological father is at any time. Because most men are only willing to donate anonymously, German women may have to do like British women and go to a foreign clinic to get anonymous sperm. In the USA, courts do not interfere with contracts so easily, and contracts for anonymity have been consistently upheld.

But in the USA today, millions of kids are denied access to parents because of some judge's opinion of the BIOTCh. It is very strange that some "center for bioethics" would be created just to whine about a handful of cases where a kid wants to meet the sperm donor dad, and ignored the millions of kids who are separated by the courts from their real dads.

Crying rape to win child custody

There are feminists who claim that family court are so pro-male that abuser usually win child custody. Their real complaint is that a mom's phony allegation does not always win. Here is a recent New York case, where the mom was not believed:

[Mother] testified that [Father] threatened to advise Ms. J that he could possibly be the father of the child and not the donor that she and [Mother] chose. [Mother] testified that Ms. J first found out about [Father] when [Mother] received the Petition for Paternity and their relationship ended after the DNA results.

[Mother] testified that during the paternity proceedings she testified that there was another man, B. B., hereinafter “Mr. B,” who could be the father of the child. She testified that she and Ms. J chose Mr. B as their donor, and that Mr. B signed a contract. [Mother] testified that in the contract with Mr. B, he agreed to relinquish all rights to the child and to donate his sperm.

[Mother] testified that after the results of the DNA test, she tried to deny [Father]‘s paternity and informed the Court that [Father] raped her. [Mother] testified that she never filed a criminal complaint against [Father] in relation to the alleged rape.

[Mother] also testified, at the May 17, 2013 paternity hearing that she did not want to ruin [Father]‘s life, however she did not think it was fair that he be a part of the child’s life when she planned to have this child with her partner, Ms. J. [Mother] testified there was not supposed to be a father in the child’s life, and [Father] was not supposed to be the child’s father.

Subsequently, at the June 24, 2014 hearing, [Mother] testified that she did not want someone who raped her, specifically the [Father], to be a part of the child’s life. During the May 17, 2013 hearing, [Mother] also testified, and affirmed during her testimony on June 24, 2014 that [Father] is a “good guy” and a mentor to her. [Mother] testified she lived with Ms. J in a one bedroom apartment, in Staten Island, while they dated. ...

The Court did not find [Mother]‘s testimony credible. [Mother]‘s demeanor was inconsistent with the seriousness of what she was alleging and testifying to in Court. In speaking of the alleged rape, and the child’s visitation with the [Father], she often smiled and laughed; showing a lack of seriousness for the situation at hand.

[Mother] also made many contradicting statements regarding the [Father] and the importance of the relationship between the [Father] and child. The Court finds [Mother]‘s testimony incredulous. ...

The Court finds that the child enjoys a loving relationship with both her parents and ought to continue to have frequent contact with both parents.

Wherefore, based upon the foregoing, this Court finds that given the factors enumerated above, the child’s best interests warrant that sole legal and physical custody of the subject child, C.J., be granted to [Father], P.P., with parenting time granted to [Mother], C.G., in accordance to this Court’s Final Order of Custody and Visitation that follows.

I expect feminists to cite this case to say that rapists win custody of the result of the rape. They are expanding the definition of rape:

With an effort also underway by the American Law Institute to reconsider when an assault becomes rape, some legal experts predict that changes to criminal laws in many states may not be far off.

As a social issue, sexual assault has seen a significant uptick in attention over the past year or so. There have been a flurry of federal actions, for example, aimed at countering rape in the military, prisons, immigration detention centers and on campuses.

But there is still little uniformity on how to define rape, which makes counting rapes, and countering and even discussing the issue, difficult. In many contexts, such as the major federal law on prison rape, “sexual assault” is used instead of “rape” because it covers nonconsensual acts like kissing and groping that fall short of many people’s definition of actual rape. Until 2012, the Federal Bureau of Investigation still considered rape a crime committed solely against women, a definition that has since been expanded.

Over all, states have broadened the definition of rape and assault more than the federal government, according to a survey of the legal system conducted by AEquitas, a nonprofit group that provides prosecutors with resources on violence against women.

Even the French have protestors against a statue of an American sailor kissing a girl:

French feminists are demanding that a giant statue of a sailor kissing a nurse – based on an iconic photo of a kiss in Times Square at the end of World War II – be removed from a war memorial site in Normandy because it allegedly depicts a sexual assault.

The 25 foot, 13 tonne sculpture, titled 'Unconditional Surrender', is based on a picture by Alfred Eisenstaedt that shows a sailor on VJ-day in 1945 kissing a woman with one arm around her waist and another behind her neck.

Someday a lecherous glance is going to be considered rape.

There are women who argue that a woman's accusations should always be believed. Here is another that it hard to take, from celebrity Amanda Bynes:

Los Angeles (CNN) -- Amanda Bynes' claim that a microchip implanted in her brain made her tweet bad things about her father could be key evidence in keeping the actress in a mental facility, according to experts.

Bynes, 28, was admitted to a Pasadena, California, facility on an involuntary emergency psychiatric hold Friday, but a probable cause hearing must be held this week if her doctors want to keep her there.

Her admission to Las Encinas Hospital came hours after Bynes posted a series of tweets alleging her father verbally, physically and sexually abused her. However, she disavowed responsibility for the accusations in a tweet a short time later: "My dad never did any of those things The microchip in my brain made me say those things but he's the one that ordered them to microchip me."

She needs a microchip in her brain. Too bad the technology is not available yet.

Empathy back in the news

Empathy is a big fad in the liberal news media. I used to post regular updates, but it dropped off my radar until NPR radio had two empathy stories yesterday.

First, they tie it into the Gaza conflict:

In the waiting room at Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital, an Israeli woman was shouting at a Palestinian mother whose son was being treated for a beating he received from a Jewish mob.

"Go away you trash," the Israeli woman yelled at the Palestinian. "I would bury you in Gaza."

A second Israeli woman joined in the verbal barrage, complaining that her taxes shouldn't be paying for Palestinian treatment.

Two other Israeli women came over to comfort the Palestinian mother. But she is in no mood for reconciliation and retorted: "What good will your apologies do?"

My NPR colleague Daniel Estrin witnessed this exchange and it reflects the lack of empathy in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza these days, even in the few communities where Jews and Arabs mix like Jerusalem. ...

Back in Jerusalem, the generational difference in empathy for the other side is striking in the walled Old City, which has Arab and Jewish neighborhoods.

Empathy has nothing to do with it. Palestinian arabs have a religion that teaches extermination of the Jews.

The next story concerns an attempt to drug kids who supposedly do not have enough empathy:

Scratch one more simple explanation for autism off the list. This time it's the idea that children with autism have low levels of oxytocin, often called the "love hormone" because it can make people more trusting and social.

"Our data blew that out of the water," says Karen Parker, a Stanford researcher involved in the most rigorous study yet of autism and oxytocin levels. The study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that children with autism were no more likely than other kids to have low levels of oxytocin in the blood.

The so-called oxytocin-deficit hypothesis has been appealing because social difficulties are a hallmark of autism spectrum disorders. And there have been hints that the social functioning of people with autism improved with a little extra oxytocin, even a single dose.

Next they might try giving oxytocin in Gaza to try to stop the fighting.

This is offensive. It would make more sense to give oxytocin to gay men in order to make them more attracted to women.

Parental Alienation Awareness Day

Today is Parental Alienation Awareness Day.

April 25 has been chosen as Parental Alienation Awareness Day (PAAD), part of a global awareness campaign to raise awareness about parental alienation. The idea was introduced in Canada by Sarvy Emo in late 2005, with the original date being March 28. This was changed after the start of the campaign for marketing reasons and was put into practice in 2006.

In 2011, Bermuda, Seventeen U.S. states (New York, Maine, Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Montana, Nebraska, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi, West Virginia, Indiana, Oklahoma), many Canadian towns and cities officially recognized April 25 as Parental Alienation Awareness Day.

See http://www.paawarenessday.com/.

Woody Allen, Feminism, and ‘Believing the Survivor’

Cathy Young writes in Time magazine:

breakup and custody dispute between Allen and Dylan’s mother, Mia Farrow? If you think this is relevant, the feminists say, you are embracing the misogynist myth of vengeful women using sexual abuse allegations as a weapon. In fact, asserts Zoe Zolbrod in Salon.com, “research shows that it is not more common for accusations made during custody battles to be proved false than it is for any other sex abuse accusation,” with only 1% to 6% of abuse charges found to be maliciously fabricated; what’s more, writes Zolbrod, custody-related false accusations usually come from fathers, not mothers.

But these claims are contradicted by a major Canadian study that tracked more than 11,000 reports of child abuse and neglect in Canada in 2003. While reports of sexual abuse made during custody or visitation conflicts are fairly rare — the study identified 69 such cases — they are also quite likely to prove unfounded. Child protection workers substantiated just 11% of these charges, while 34% were “suspected” to be valid but not fully confirmed; 36% were classified as unsubstantiated but made “in good faith,” and 18% as deliberately false. By contrast, the rate of false allegations for all child sexual abuse reports was 5%. (The claim that malicious accusations in custody disputes come mostly from fathers is based on an earlier phase of the same study. However, fathers’ false reports were overwhelmingly of child neglect and sometimes physical abuse; false charges of sexual molestation were more likely to come from mothers.)

In a 2007 U.S. survey of child welfare workers, 80% reported having seen cases in which a child was coached to make false allegations of sexual abuse, usually by the mother in a custody dispute; more than a fourth said they had encountered 20 or more such cases. Notably, as author Kathleen Faller pointed out, these estimates came from professionals inclined to be supportive of children; it is also worth noting that three-quarters of them were women.

Yes, of course false accusations are made to win child custody disputes.

Book about recanting false accusation

Here is a video promoting a 2010 book on “My Lie: A True Story of False Memory”.

Meredith Maran: “When I was in my 30s I accused my father of molesting me, and then I realized it wasn’t true”

Friend: “The same thing happened to me”

The accuser is also the victim here, as some evil shrink convinced her to blame all her emotional troubles on some fictional abuse.

Note that the friend is still playing the role of a victim when whe says “The same thing happened to me.” People are responsible for their false accusations. But give the author credit for having the guts to come clean with the truth.

Allen-Farrow victimization continues

The Woody Allen story rages on. AP reports:

Unclear what will happen next in Woody Allen controversy

A week bracketed by op-ed letters of accusation and denial of child molestation left little clarity and scant hope for resolution in a bitter saga that has haunted Woody Allen and the Farrow family for more than two decades.

The back-and-forth between Allen and his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, breathed new fire into a long dormant scandal, but what happens next is uncertain, with the possibility of legal recourse and continued scrutiny in the weeks and months ahead.

No, this has been resolved. There is no evidence of abuse that would hold up in any court.

A pink site reports:

On the heels of Woody Allen‘s open letter in The New York Times where he denies every having molested his daughter and blasts her mother, Mia Farrow, for having orchestrated the claim, Dylan Farrow is fighting back.

“For 20 years, I have never wavered in describing what he did to me. I will carry the memories of surviving these experiences for the rest of my life,” Dylan said in a statement obtained by RadarOnline on Saturday.

Dylan then gave a point-by-point rebuttal to Allen’s insistence that he [had NOT] abused her and was exonerated by investigators more than 20 years ago.

“Nothing he says or writes can change the truth,” Dylan said today.

I am not sure that I can trust a site with pink headlines and which misses such a crucial "not". Of course Allen cannot change the truth. She seems to be using the word "truth" to mean her ability to tell a fabrication.

NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is the one who publicized this story, and he wrote:

Dylan, Allen’s adopted daughter who is now married and living in Florida under a different name, tells me that she has been traumatized for more than two decades by what took place; last year, she was belatedly diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. She says that when she heard of the Golden Globe award being given to Allen she curled up in a ball on her bed, crying hysterically. ...

I asked her why she’s speaking out now. She said she wants to set the record straight and give courage to victims: “I was thinking, if I don’t speak out, I’ll regret it on my death bed.”

These are extremely tough issues, and certainty isn’t available. But hundreds of thousands of boys and girls are abused each year, and they deserve support and sensitivity. When evidence is ambiguous, do we really need to leap to our feet and lionize an alleged molester?

But I want to leave you with a sense of Dylan’s resolve. She declares:

This time, I refuse to fall apart. For so long, Woody Allen’s acceptance silenced me. It felt like a personal rebuke, like the awards and accolades were a way to tell me to shut up and go away. But the survivors of sexual abuse who have reached out to me — to support me and to share ...

Kristof is always writing about human rights abuses and social injustices on the other side of the world. I always assumed that he was sincerely exposing problems, even if he was a bleeding haart liberal. Now I think that he is just another dishonest leftoid propagandist.

Kristof pretty clearly says that Woody Allen should not get an award for his movies because of an unverified and uncertain allegation from 20 years ago against him.

NPR radio reports:

FOLKENFLIK: McBride has written extensively about the coverage of sexual abuse.

MCBRIDE: Because Woody Allen has a reputation out there, we somehow feel like his right to protect his reputation trumps her right to tell her story. And I don't think it does.

Yes, I do believe that slander and libel laws have a good purpose, and that is that his right to protect his reputation does trump her right to tell an apparently-false story.

Some feminists are offering support:

Some of the most vocal and aggrieved reactions to Farrow's letter have often come from women under 40. These include 27-year-old "Girls" creator Lena Dunham, who called Farrow's words "courageous";

No, Dylan Farrow is not courageous. She does not have the courage to face Woody Allen, or to face the press, or to use her current name. She may indeed be a crazy mixed up woman today, but that is more likely the fault of shrinks, n ot Allen. Whatever Allen did, it did not cause PTSD 20 years later.

Dunham may be courageous to portray herself as a crazy slut on her semi-autobiographical HBO show. But not to take cheap shots at Woody Allen.

You can read the 33-page 1993 child custody decision against Woody Allen. It is a disturbing window into the lives of rich movie-making celebrities with irresponsible child-rearing attitudes and practices. Why was Farrow adopting all those kids if she could not proved a good home for them? Things might have been different if DNA paternity tests had been available, and Allen had demanded one.

The more I hear about Dylan Farrow's mental trouble, the more I think that she needed a father, instead of being reared by crazy bitch Mia Farrow. Kay S. Hymowitz has a NY Times op-ed on How Single Motherhood Hurts Kids. Even if Allen had abused Dylan, she got worse treatment from Mia Farrow, the family court judge, and the shrinks.

Woody Allen replies

I posted the Creepy Woody Allen story when I saw it in the NY Times, not realizing that it was going to be a huge national story, and a repeat from 20 years ago.

The publicity forced Allen to reply in the Sunday NY Times:

TWENTY-ONE years ago, when I first heard Mia Farrow had accused me of child molestation, I found the idea so ludicrous I didn’t give it a second thought. We were involved in a terribly acrimonious breakup, with great enmity between us and a custody battle slowly gathering energy. The self-serving transparency of her malevolence seemed so obvious I didn’t even hire a lawyer to defend myself. It was my show business attorney who told me she was bringing the accusation to the police and I would need a criminal lawyer.

I naïvely thought the accusation would be dismissed out of hand because of course, I hadn’t molested Dylan and any rational person would see the ploy for what it was. Common sense would prevail. ...

Here I quote Moses Farrow, 14 at the time: “My mother drummed it into me to hate my father for tearing apart the family and sexually molesting my sister.” Moses is now 36 years old and a family therapist by profession. “Of course Woody did not molest my sister,” he said. “She loved him and looked forward to seeing him when he would visit. She never hid from him until our mother succeeded in creating the atmosphere of fear and hate towards him.”

Many things are weird here. Allen and Farrow were never married, and kept separate apartments. They adopted kids together, but they are named Farrow, not Allen. They supposedly had one biological kid together, but now that is in doubt:

In a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, Farrow stated that Ronan could "possibly" be the biological child of her first husband Frank Sinatra, with whom she claims to have "never really split up."[141]

Allen addresses the issue:

I pause here for a quick word on the Ronan situation. Is he my son or, as Mia suggests, Frank Sinatra’s? Granted, he looks a lot like Frank with the blue eyes and facial features, but if so what does this say? That all during the custody hearing Mia lied under oath and falsely represented Ronan as our son? Even if he is not Frank’s, the possibility she raises that he could be, indicates she was secretly intimate with him during our years. Not to mention all the money I paid for child support. Was I supporting Frank’s son? Again, I want to call attention to the integrity and honesty of a person who conducts her life like that.

In my opinion, paternity fraud is a serious crime.

Ronan Farrow is now 26 years old, and that is his picture above. For 26 years, Allen thought that he had a son, and this boy thought that he had a dad. But look at his picture above. I do not see any resemblance to Woody Allen. He looks like Frank Sinatra. No DNA test has been done. Even if Mia Farrow is unsure about paternity, as she now says, she is a monster for her infidelity and deception. How does a woman even keep such a terrible secret for 26 years? Apparently they do, as it happens on the TV show Paternity court all the time.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that there is a 5% chance that Allen did something inappropriate or abusive or criminal. He was not charged with a crime. He was allowed to adopt more kids. He lost his child custody battle, but many good parents lose those battles without ever being guilty of anything.

If you believe in "innocent until proven guilty", then you should just disregard the unproven allegation

As a comment said, if a man can be ruined by such flimsy accusations, then no man is safe and we have a system that encourages false and vindictive allegations.

To me, Mia Farrow's paternity fraud does not matter toward Allen's guilt or innocence. Mia Farrow is more evil than Allen, but that does not make Allen innocent. What makes him innocent is that the allegations were never proved.

Update: NPR radio reports:

FOLKENFLIK: McBride has written extensively about the coverage of sexual abuse.

MCBRIDE: Because Woody Allen has a reputation out there, we somehow feel like his right to protect his reputation trumps her right to tell her story. And I don't think it does.

Yes, I do believe that slander and libel laws have a good purpose, and that is that his right to protect his reputation does trump her right to tell an apparently-false story.

Creepy Woody Allen story

I believe people are innocent until proven guilty, so I have to give Woody Allen the benefit of the doubt. But the NY Times has this creepy story from his adopted daughter:

What’s your favorite Woody Allen movie? Before you answer, you should know: when I was seven years old, Woody Allen took me by the hand and led me into a dim, closet-like attic on the second floor of our house. He told me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother’s electric train set. Then he sexually assaulted me. ...

For as long as I could remember, my father had been doing things to me that I didn’t like. ...

I was stricken with guilt that I had allowed him to be near other little girls. I was terrified of being touched by men. I developed an eating disorder. I began cutting myself. That torment was made worse by Hollywood.

Allen was not her real father. Allen and Mia Farrow did not even live together when they adopted her, as she was secretly having a sexual relationship with Frank Sinatra. Farrow had a rather nasty split from Allen, so she could have helped poison the attitudes of the adopted kids. The allegations only occurred when Farrow was upset that Allen was dating a teenaged Korean girl that Farrow was adopting. He portrays himself as neurotic and self-obsessed in his movies, and in real life he underwent psychoanalysis for most of his life. If you followed his story, you may know a lot more about him than me. There are no witnesses or tangible evidence for the alleged molestation, and about 20 years have passed without anything that would convince a court. Decide for yourself. I don't know what to make of this.

The accusation is quite vague. Wikipedia defines:

Sexual assault is any involuntary sexual act in which a person is threatened, coerced, or forced to engage against their will, or any sexual touching of a person who has not consented. This includes rape (such as forced vaginal, anal or oral penetration), groping, forced kissing, child sexual abuse, or the torture of the victim in a sexual manner.

So Allen could have merely threatened to kiss the 7yo girl, and that could legally be considered a sexual assault.

In a non-sexual legal context, an assault usually means just a threat. You hear terms like "assault and battery", where the assault is the verbal threat and the battery is the physical beating.

The eating disorder is not evidence of abuse. It is just evidence that hte poor girl was subjected to years of psychotherapy that convinced her that something horrible happened to her.

So we have a vague accusation, no corroborating evidence, a story instigated by a vindictive ex, no criminal record, no witnesses, 20 years ago, etc. I do not have any facts. I am not sure the NY Times should have even published the accusation. If you want to judge Allen, I suggest using facts. There is other evidence that he is a weirdo, but not that he is a child molester.

Correction: A comment below says that there is evidence from a witness. A nanny claimed to see something inappropriate.

Update: Apparently this has all been aired before, and there are many facts favoring Allen, and Allen defended himself in 1992. No one has alleged penetration. The evidence was inconclusive then, and there is no new info now. Do you want to jump to a conclusion based on an unsubstantiated allegation?

Feds looking at outrageous child custody outcomes

Examiner.com reports:

Concerned parents were elated this week when a much awaited segue for them to speak came forward as an invitation from the federal government, asking for clarifications on identified problems with child human rights in court, family rights in court and the lack of a uniform structure to respond to child sex abuse investigations, child abuse investigations and placement of children with a parent who is not known to them, has committed crimes against the other parent or is convicted of crimes that put the child at risk in their care.

This appears to be a project of the California Protective Parents Association, and they consist mainly of moms who do not want to share child custody with dads, as long as the moms are making accusations against the dads.

We have an anti-father administration in Washington, and I am not recommending sending your story until I find out more. The story does not give a way to send your story to the feds, but only to some private advocacy organization for screening.

I could not find the invitation from the feds, and only found this:

The Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women (OVW), in partnership with the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ), announces the selection of four courts to participate in the Family Court Enhancement Project (FCEP) to improve custody and visitation decision-making for families who have experienced domestic violence. The four courts selected are: Circuit Court of Cook County in Chicago, Ill.; Family Court of the State of Delaware; Hennepin County Family Justice Center in Minneapolis, Minn.; and Multnomah County Family Court in Portland, Ore.

“In order to maintain safety for the entire family, it is crucial that judges weigh the dynamics of domestic violence and its impact on both adults and children when making custody and visitation decisions,” said OVW Acting Director Bea Hanson. “Ensuring the safety of domestic violence victims and their children during and after court proceedings is an essential component of the FCEP. This project will provide guidance to courts around the country in implementing proven procedures and practices that keep victims and children safe.”

Reading between the lines, it appears that they want the mom to be able to make domestic violence accusations that lock the dad out of custody and visitation until he proves that he is not a threat. In other words, the man is guilty until proven innocent.

Coerced stepson to kill dad

Here is an extreme case of parental alienation:

An Ohio woman who forced her 10-year-old stepson to fatally shoot his father in November 2003, ruled an accident at the time, was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole Thursday.

According to the Toledo Blade, 46-year-old Judith Hawkey of Oakwood, Ohio, was sentenced in Defiance County Common Pleas Court, prosecutor Morris Murray said. She was convicted last month of aggravated murder, four counts of endangering a child and insurance fraud in connection to husband Robert Breininger’s death, which she claims was an accident.

She deserves the sentence, if she really did that.

I tend to be skeptical about these cases that depend entirely on some kid changing his story ten years later. He seems a little too happy with the outcome:

"Relief,” Breininger said as he describes his feelings to reporters after the sentencing. “I feel like she got what she deserved. I was ready to get it off my chest. I was bearing that burden for so many years."

Corey says now he can get on with his life.

"[I can] stop living in the shadows. I don't have to worry about anything now. My biggest fear... she's gone," said Breininger.

About once a month, there is a TV on a case like this. Typically the DA does not find enough evidence after an analysis of the crime, but certain vindictive family members spend years building a case against one of the suspects, and the DA eventually tries and convicts him.

The shows give the impression that justice was finally achieved, and someone who almost got away with murder is finally going to prison. Maybe so, in most cases, but it is very difficult to get the truth ten years later.

Shunning the adulterous wife

Yesterday's bad advice column:

Dear Annie: A year ago, our son, "Don," discovered that his wife of eight years was cheating on him. It came as a shock to all of us. Don was devastated and angry, and quickly divorced his wife and got full custody of their three young children.

What state is that? Here is California, adultery is not a consideration for child custody.

Don won't let her near the children. He says he doesn't want them to think cheating is OK. ... What do I do? — Confused Grandma

I cannot agree with the sole custody and alienation, but the wife' betrayal should not tolerated. We don't have the whole story, of course.

Dear Annie: I have a question regarding interracial attraction. Some of my friends have said they aren't attracted to men of certain races. For example, my white friend says she simply isn't attracted to black men.

... Are such comments acceptable? — Nebraska

Dear Nebraska: No. At the very least, these comments are offensive because they stereotype. ... People who make such remarks are bigoted, ... If nothing else, they will realize they cannot say such things without repercussions.

All women have ethnic and racial preferences in attraction. The way things are going, we will soon be considered bigots if we express a preference for romance with the opposite sex.

Here is a new documentary film:

FOR ALL THE STUDIES on how divorce impacts kids, no one seems to ask the most important people of all what they think about it — the kids themselves.

Ellen Bruno did.

The longtime San Francisco filmmaker interviewed a handful of children, aged 6 to 12, about their feelings about their parents' divorce for her new documentary, "Split." ...

There were a few common themes they heard from the children: they hate the fighting; they often continue to hope that their parents will get back together — even if one or both are repartnered; and many believe on some level that the divorce was their fault.

Divorce has become so normalized for adults, Bruno says, that "there's a misconception that it's also normalized for the kids. It's a profound change for children, even in the best circumstances. So this is really about getting kids to talk, and getting parents to listen."

Not your best interest

From Non Sequitur. I do think that "best interest" is the worst idea that is widely accepted.

The neurodiversity movement

Here is today's bad newspaper advice:

Dear Annie: "Worried Grandma" was concerned about her granddaughter, "Kelly," who had difficulty modulating her voice and felt that men were turned off by her loud personality.

Please tell her to look into whether Kelly has Asperger syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism. Asperger's often goes undiagnosed until later in life, but its primary symptom is extreme social awkwardness and an inability to appropriately "read" the social cues of others.

With special training, Kelly can learn how to modify her behavior and pick up on these social cues. But it's unlikely she can do it on her own. A correct diagnosis can go a long way toward repairing her self-esteem. I hope her parents will get Kelly the help she needs to succeed in this world. — Vermont Professor

No, "loud personality" is not a symptom of Asperger Syndrome. It is debatable whether there is any such syndrome, as it is dropped from the DSM-5. This "Vermont Professor" seems to be part of the movement to pathologize normal variation in behavior.

There is currently a hot controversy over a neurodiversity movement changing the public face of autism:

... the autism community, which has increasingly been divided between those who consider autism a disability and those who believe it is merely a different, not worse, way of thinking and interacting with the world. This latter position is espoused by the autism rights movement, also called the neurodiversity movement, which has evolved over the past two decades from an ad-hoc association of individuals with high-functioning autism or Asperger’s syndrome and their families into a powerful lobby led by organizations such as Autistic Self-Advocacy Network and Autism Network International. ANI’s founder, Jim Sinclair, wrote the famous 1993 essay “Don’t Mourn for Us,” which accused parents who long to cure their children’s autism of really hoping “that one day we will cease to be, and strangers you can love will move in behind our faces.” Today, neurodiversity activists sit on the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (which advises the National Institutes of Health on how to allocate its autism research budget) and the National Council on Disability. 

The Neurodiversity Wikipedia page defines:

Neurodiversity is a concept suggesting that neurological differences be recognized and respected as a social category on a par with gender, ethnicity, class, or disability. Examples of these differences can include (but are not limited to) individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, dyscalculia, dyslexia, dyspraxia, Tourette syndrome, and others. ...

Proponents of neurodiversity strive to re-conceptualize autism and related conditions in society. Main goals of the movement include:
* acknowledging that neurodiverse people do not need a cure
* changing the language from the current “condition, disease, disorder, or illness”-based nomenclature
* broadening the understanding of healthy or independent living; acknowledging new types of autonomy
* giving neurodiverse individuals more control over their treatment, including the type, timing, and whether there should be treatment at all.

Not everyone wants to accept people as they are. Here is an effort to shame fat people:

Daniel Callahan, a senior research scholar and president emeritus of The Hastings Center, put out a new paper this week calling for a renewed emphasis on social pressure against heavy people -- what some may call fat-shaming -- including public posters that would pose questions like this:

“If you are overweight or obese, are you pleased with the way that you look?”

Callahan outlined a strategy that applauds efforts to boost education, promote public health awareness of obesity and curb marketing of unhealthy foods to children.

But, he added, those plans could do with a dose of shame if there’s any hope of repairing a nation where more than a third of adults and 17 percent of kids are obese.

“Safe and slow incrementalism that strives never to stigmatize obesity has not and cannot do the necessary work,” wrote Callahan in a Hastings Center Report from the nonprofit bioethics think tank.

The paper says:

The obese are said to be lazy, self-indulgent, lacking in discipline, awkward, unattractive, weak-willed and sloppy, insecure and shapeless, to mention only a few of the negative judgments among doctors and nurses.

If this works, maybe he will next start a campaign to shame single moms.

Dad wants baby his wife sold

There has been a huge public controversy over a Utah child custody case. It is quite clear to me that the dad is in the right. Dads have no rights at all, if a wife can sell their baby without his consent. The NY Daily News reports:

A South Carolina man whose wife put their baby up for adoption without his knowledge or consent will be reunited with his daughter after a nearly two-year legal battle, a Utah court ruled.

A Provo judge ruled he was “astonished and deeply troubled" by an adoption agency’s deliberate efforts to circumvent the legal rights of father Terry Achane, who was serving as an Army drill instructor when his child was adopted without his knowledge.

Judge Darold McDade gave the adoption agency and the adoptive parents, Jared and Kristi Frei, 60 days to return Achane’s daughter, Teleah, now 21 months old.

I don't know why people are donating to the Freis, because I see no merit to their position. They already have 5 kids of their own, plus another adopted kid. The Freis are white. They tried to buy two black babies from an adoption agency, for $25k apiece.

It sometimes happens that a single mom gives a kid up for adoption, and claims that she does not know who or where the dad is. That can be a problem. But in this case, the mom was married to the dad, and he was serving in the Army. There could be no doubt that there was a legal and biological dad available, and it was easy to find him.

The judge ruled the agency knowingly and deliberately ignored Achane’s parental rights.

“The right of a fit, competent parent to raise the parent’s child without undue government interference is a fundamental liberty interest that has long been protected by the laws and constitution of this state of the United States, and is a fundamental public policy of this state," he said.

The judge blames the adoption agency, and it does deserve blame, but the real blame should be on the Utah family court that ordered this adoption against the wishes of the dad, required him to litigate the case for 2 years, and is still forcing him to wait 60 days for his child.

Usually it is the leftists and LGBT activists who are trying to redefine marriage. But this is Utah, a Republican state. Apparently the Mormons do not have much respect for dad's rights either.

What does marriage mean, if a man cannot stop his wife from selling their baby? It is taking him 3 years to get his baby back. And he still may not, as the Freis say that they are refusing to comply, and are raising money on their blog to finance an appeal.

Meanwhile, there more anti-dad propaganda in my local newspaper advice column. Here is a Wed. letter:

Dear Annie: I am perplexed as to what to do. I'm positive that my wife was a victim of incest, but I don't know how to broach the subject or how to help her.

Her sister manifests similar problems that I've heard are caused by rape by one's father. But I don't have any hard evidence, only a hunch. What can I do? How do you open such a discussion? — G.

This shows that even men have absurd anti-father prejudices. The guy has probably learned some supposed symptons from bogus pop psychologists like Dr. Phil or Dr. Drew. There are no such symptoms, and there are about 100 more commons reasons for crazy behavior in women. This is really sick that the public has been so brainwashed that a man comes to this conclusion about his own wife.

Here is a Thurs. letter:

Dear Annie: My incredible husband of two years has a 4-year-old daughter with his ex-wife. I have actively helped raise "Christie" since she was barely a year.

We haven't communicated with the mother since the time we took her to court for refusing visitation, ...

But lately, Christie has been questioning my relationship with her father, saying the reason her mommy and daddy are not together is because of me. When I ask her to do something she doesn't want to do, she says her mommy says she doesn't have to listen to me because I am not her mother. Even worse, she's been told that when my husband and I have a baby of our own, Daddy won't love her as much as the new baby. ...

Dear Stepmom: Many courts now recognize parental alienation. Suggest that your husband speak to his lawyer about this possibility.

No, this is not parental alienation. It is step-parent alienation. The court will not do anything.

The dad is just getting "visitation". If he has a baby with his new wife, and he is a real dad to that new baby, instead of being just a visitor to Christie, then he is probably going to love the new baby more than Christie. It is just human nature. The family court and the ex-wife have set out to screw up Christie, so having a new baby is his best chance for a normal child.

Guide to ruining dads

A reader sent this rant:

Here is a woman's fail-proof guide to ruining your ex using Family Court, state agencies, and their ignorant biases. If you are a resentful, greedy, manipulative woman with children, it will work every time. Of course it will destroy your children. ...

The key to getting and keeping children from the other parent is to use all three sides of the Iron triangle against that parent. What are those three sides? First, a Restraining order in District Court; Second, a Dept. of Children and Families case in Juvenile Court; and Third, a divorce or paternity case in Probate and Family Court. ...

EIGHTH, Take the children to "Therapy" -

This part of The Plan is critically important. You need to find a gullible therapist or social worker right away to take your children to see, in order to get expert opinion for court about the effect of the "abuse" on the children.

How do you find a good one? Here are some key factors: The therapist or psychologist or social worker should be willing to speak only with you, and never hear from the abusive father, because it may put her 'at risk'. The therapist has to be personally not very well adjusted, and must believe that men are evil abusers and women are victims. Most of all, the therapist has to know how to manipulate the innocent minds of your children to hate their father and to make them believe he is a bad man.

The site has not been updated in a while. The guy is probably a victim of someone who followed the formula.

Reached my empathy limit

Yeah, I reached my empathy limit a long time ago. From Non Sequitur.

Too much power to punish men

The feds are taking over your dumb Apple phones:

Apple’s eagerly awaited iOS 6 update for iPhones and iPads will include controversial ‘government alerts’ that some fear are part of the federal government’s takeover of communications networks. ...

Although users can opt out of receiving the alerts from FEMA and the Amber Alert program, messages direct from the president will be mandatory.

I thought that Amber Alerts might be a good idea, until I saw them implemented in California. Every one I've seen was a stupid child custody dispute.

Sure, dads should return kids on time according to court orders, I guess. But if a dad is a few hours late, I fail to see how that justifies mobilizing millions of citizens to go on a manhunt.

Here is another bad case:

Defendant, who is currently sixty-six years old, has suffered from severe obsessive compulsive disorder since childhood and felt abandoned by his family at a young age. His animosity toward his family intensified when, during his teenage years, his parents secured his involuntary commitment to a psychiatric hospital. Defendant harbored a deep resentment of plaintiff and the parties’ mother, B.P., as evidenced by his references to his family as a “cesspool” of human beings and “scum.” ...

Defendant testified that he had appeared at plaintiff’s residence “probably 8, 9 times.” He acknowledged appearing at plaintiff’s property two to three days per week, for between two and four hours at a time, from approximately April or May 2010 until the filing of plaintiff’s complaint. Defendant admitted that he raised both middle fingers in the air while walking back and forth in front of plaintiff’s residence at least “a couple of times,” although he claimed he was making a “victory” sign.

So the order restrains the man from going into any part of the town!

His family probably is a cesspool of scum. Judges should not have this sort of power. Some judge probably helped create this problem by signing off on a bogus commitment order for OCD. If the man committed a crime, then go ahead and prosecute him. He is 66 years old. If he were going to commit a violent act because of what happened 50 years ago, he probably would have done it by now.