Psychology practiced by amateurs

I just ran across this Justice Scalia quote:

But interior decorating is a rock-hard science compared to psychology practiced by amateurs. A few citations of "[r]esearch in psychology" that have no particular bearing upon the precise issue here, ante, at 593, cannot disguise the fact that the Court has gone beyond the realm where judges know what they are doing. [Lee v Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992)]

No, he was not talking about a family court judge trying to make a custody decision.

Movie lines

Here are the top movie lines:

1. "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," Gone With the Wind, 1939.
2. "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse," The Godfather, 1972.
3. "You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am," On the Waterfront, 1954.
4. "Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore," The Wizard of Oz, 1939.
5. "Here's looking at you, kid," Casablanca, 1942.
6. "Go ahead, make my day," Sudden Impact, 1983.
7. "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up," Sunset Blvd., 1950.
8. "May the Force be with you," Star Wars, 1977.
9. "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night," All About Eve, 1950.
10. "You talking to me?" Taxi Driver, 1976.
11. "What we've got here is failure to communicate," Cool Hand Luke, 1967.
12. "I love the smell of napalm in the morning," Apocalypse Now, 1979.
13. "Love means never having to say you're sorry," Love Story, 1970.
14. "The stuff that dreams are made of," The Maltese Falcon, 1941.
15. "E.T. phone home," E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1982.

Guess which reminds me of family court.

VAWA 2005

Terry Lynn Tersak complains about Congress being about to pass VAWA 2005:

1) VAWA funds the progressive agenda which is anti-family and anti-fatherhood. The present structure also violates the Republican party's principles.

2) It must be taken out of the civil codes completely and moved into the criminal codes.

3) False Claims of abuse must be a treated as the crimes they are.

4) Due Process must be guaranteed for all.

5) Equal Protection Under the Law must be completely supported.

6) We must make it Gender neutral - something like, "The Domestic Violence Act" that should read, "A person who commits..." with no mention of gender. The funding for any act to replace VAWA must also be gender neutral.

I agree that VAWA has been a disaster, and should be allowed to expire. My wife used phony domestic violence allegations in an attempt to get custody. The local overfunded women's shelter provided her with an advocate. The whole operation is a big scam.

Spanking law

I just went to a parenting class. It was a complete waste of time, of course. Everyone else had to be there for some reason. The topic was child abuse, anger management, and related matters.

One woman was there because she gave her misbehaving kid a severe spanking, and the kid complained to school authorities. The school had to turn her into CPS, which is now called Child Welfare Services in California. They changed the name to emphasize that they are no longer focused on protecting children.

She said that the police and CPS explained to her that she can spank her kid as long as she does not leave a mark. She can even use a belt on a bare butt, as long as it does not leave a mark. California law says that it is a crime to spank and leave a mark.

In the case of this woman, no one ever saw a mark on the kid, but the mom did not deny the possibility that a belt might have left a mark for a few hours. So they took away her kid and sent her to a parenting class.

I checked the law:

A corollary to this fundamental principle is that parents have broad discretion in the disciplining of their children and are allowed to use corporal punishment. Under California state law, a parent has the right to reasonably discipline a child by physical punishment and may administer reasonable punishment without being liable for battery. People v. Whitehurst, 9 Cal.App.4th 1045, 1050 (1992). In order to be considered disciplinary the punishment must be necessary (i.e. there must be behavior by the child deserving punishment), and the punishment must be reasonable (i.e not excessive). Id. It is important to remember that the reasonableness of the punishment will be judged by a third party and it does not matter if the parent believes the punishment was reasonable.

So there is really nothing in the law about leaving a mark. According to my source, the police and CPS pay no attention to what the kid did to deserve a spanking or anything like that. All they look at is whether the punishment left a mark.

Dissolution as to status only

I just got a proposed court order from my wife's lawyer. Besides 6 other pages of inaccuracies, it says:

Status Only Dissolution:
A. The Court finds there are irreconcilable differences leading to the irremediable breakdown of the marriage, and orders a judgment of dissolution to issue as to status only.

She submitted this to the judge for signature, as part of a "Findings and Order After Hearing -- May 13, 2005".

If this is correct, then the judge has already dissolved our marriage. Or maybe it will be dissolved when the judge signs the order, I don't know. But what does "as to status only" mean? Am I married or not?

If I am out on a date, and a woman asks me if I am married, shall I say that am divorced as to status only?

I guess she wants to legitimatize her sleepovers with the boyfriend and continue to litigate child custody and support issue, but she would be doing that anyway.

Two new xrays

I got two new xrays of my ankle yesterday. You can still see the break, just to the right of the fourth screw in the right-hand picture. If you look carefully, it almost looks like two breaks, but it really just broke in one place all the way thru. The break was curved, and not planar, and shows up and two lines in an xray from that particular angle.

The orthopedist says that it is healing fine. No, I do not have xrays of the judge's leg.

Judge breaks leg

I just found out that the local family court judge broke his leg, and took early retirement. I live in a sleepy little beach town with just one family court judge. So now there is some rookie judge that has become the family court judge. All the time I spent sucking up to the previous judge now seems to be wasted.

It is a little funny that we had a trial 3 months ago that focussed entirely on safety, and now the judge and I both have broken legs! Somebody might say that it was the blind leading the blind!

On the positive side, a rookie judge is likely to be very conscientious and trying to follow the laws and rules. I think that he is just an acting judge, and probably wants to be promoted to being a regular judge.

Rally of divorced dads

A reader sends this news from New Hampshire:

CONCORD — A group of about 40 divorced fathers and their supporters rallied at the State House plaza yesterday to bring call for better treatment from family courts.

Members of several groups representing fathers argued that courts are biased against them, and that the current family court system follows a double standard, harming both fathers and children. ...

Chase and others said they consider House Bill 529, which will be taken up by lawmakers in the fall, an important step in their bid to change the way custody cases are decided. The bill would establish a presumption that each parent has equal custody rights in a divorce case. It would require a court to find clear and convincing evidence of a need to issue a custody order that found otherwise.

The California Family Code says:

3010. (a) The mother of an unemancipated minor child and the father, if presumed to be the father under Section 7611, are equally entitled to the custody of the child.

But a lot of courts seem to ignore the law. We need some state to pass a very strong presumption, so people can see that it works.

Oleanna

I just spent an hour talking to my wife, and it reminded me of the 1994 movie Oleanna. That is a David Mamet movie about a student who is struggling to pass a class, and she doesn't like her professor's attitude. So she stumbles upon a plan to ruin his life. Once she gets some outside support for her vindictiveness and gains the upper hand on him, she is scary.

The whole movie consists of dialogue between the two parties. The dialogue is completely stilted, artificial, and unconvincing, so I don't necessarily recommend it unless you are a Mamet fan. Here is a review.

Witness against me

At a court hearing on March 25, my brought in witnesses to try to prove that I was unsafe with the kids. Her first witness was Maria Agnes M. My wife's lawyer questioned her:

Q. And do you know the party's children, Jenny and Mary?
A. Yes.
Q. And how do you know them?
A. We meet once a week in our play groups and we've had birthday parties together, our kids.
Q. Have you ever observed either of the children to be in a situation that you felt was unsafe?
A. About a year and a half ago my family and I were at Costco. We were, kind of, in a rush and I noticed two little girls out in front playing and I realized that they were Mary and Jenny. And I came up to them and I said, you know, "Is your mom with you?" And they indicated that my dad was with us and I looked around. I didn't see George anywhere. And so Jenny pointed to the tire center on the side and said he is in there. And I was in a rush and I just, kind of, glanced over and I didn't really see him and I told the girls to just they were kind of near the entrance where the cars are zipping by and I just told them to stay in that one area where the columns --
THE COURT: They were off the roadway; right?
THE WITNESS: Yeah. So I told them to just stay in that one area and they sat there and I left. We were in a rush.
Q. (BY MS. GRAY) What do you do for a living?
A. I'm a pediatric nurse at Dominican Hospital.
Q. Did you feel that the situation was dangerous enough that you needed to report it?
A. No, no. They sat in there place and I, kind of, watched over and there were other families walking by and so I thought they were pretty safe -- I mean, you know, I wouldn't have left my kids there but they seemed like they were going to stay in that area. ...
THE COURT: Did you look in the tire store?
THE WITNESS: No. I didn't have time.I had my kids with me and my husband was waving me, "Let's go." ...

So the kids were safe and in my plain sight. The witness was in a hurry and did not see me, but was satisfied that the kids were happy and safe. The kids could see me and they were waiting for me to complete a transaction at the store counter. If the witness had thought that it was child neglect or anything like that, she would have been obligated to report it.

This was just one example of my wife's crazy and silly accusations.

Feminist 4 Fathers

Egalitarian Feminist 4 Fathers is a new blog on fathers rights activism.

Kids need fathers

Focus On The Family has a good statement on why kids needs fathers and mothers. Fathers help in ways that
mothers don't.

Women also initiate domestic violence

I found this:

SUMMARY: This bibliography examines 169 scholarly investigations: 133 empirical studies and 36 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 152,500.

There is more info at this blog.

Good Alabama law proposed

Here is some Birgmingham news and comment:

In the Alabama legislative session just completed, there was a bill (HB650) before the legislators that, if passed, would mandate joint custody for all divorce cases, except those where one parent can show that the other has been found "guilty, under criminal standards of proof, of a violation of the law which bears directly on the care of the minor child involved." ...

Research studies have shown that children raised in homes with chronic conflict between the parents fare better emotionally after a divorce if the fighting stops. Mandatory joint custody would force parents, who couldn't work together in the first place, to continue interacting. The conflict for the child would not end with the divorce.

For a time, the state of California ordered joint custody more often than not but returned to issuing primarily sole custody unless the parents agreed to parent together in joint custody. It is my understanding that the experience in that state was that forced joint custody didn't work. A generation of children was left in the middle of parental conflict before the precedent was reversed.

No, there is no study showing that joint custody didn't work in California. It has never even been tried with anything like the proposed Alabama law. All the custody studies have concluded that joint custody works best.

The proposed Alabama law is excellent. There is no other proposal on the horizon with any hope of fixing the current family court mess. The current system in Alabama and elsewhere of awarding primary custody to one parent (usually the mother) has two big problems (among others). It reduces one parent to the status of a visitor, and allows parents to use unproved allegations in a malicious way. This proposed law would neatly cure both, and cut divorce lawyers out of a lot of routine cases. (That is why the divorce lawyer lobby opposes any reforms like this.)

The columnist correctly says that studies show that low-conflict parenting is good for the kids. But she fails to consider the studies that also show that 50-50 custody is the best way to deal with a high-conflict divorce.

Some people have a hard time understanding why 50-50 custody would reduce conflict. One reason is that the typical 80-20 custody deal rewards the parent who is creating the conflict, and therefore gives that parent an incentive to continue the conflict. If she lets the conflict dissipate, then she risks losing her custody advantage.

Children don't like parental conflict, but 80-20 doesn't reduce the conflict from the kid's point of view. A 50-50 custody deal involves about the same number of parental interactions as the typical 80-20 deal. If the kids switch parents every week in a 50-50 deal, then the parents only need to see each other 4 times a month. Or none at all, if the handoffs are done at school.

The article also says:

The bill coming before the Alabama legislature in the fall would give divorced parents equal say over day-to-day matters such as choosing a doctor, choosing a school, or choosing a church. While it sounds reasonable that both parents should participate in these events and choices in the life of their child, it only works if the parents can agree or can come to a compromise. Many divorces occur precisely because parents cannot agree on these issues. Our courts might be inundated litigating day-to-day parental decisions.

There is no real reason why the parents have to agree on choosing a doctor or a church. Each parent can take the child to his or her own favorite doctor as the need arises. Choosing a school might be a contentious issue, but it is not a day-to-day decision.

One of the problems with divorce law is that it is primarily viewed from the perspective of the rights of each parent. The child typically has no legal representation except in situations of abuse. Even when a child has an opinion, he is rarely heard. ...

Some joint physical custody arrangements specify that the child resides with each parent every other week. Few adults would choose to live like this, yet we ask our children to do so. ...

Divorce is a lose-lose game. You cannot take 100 percent, divide it in half, and have either side feel like he got a good deal.

If divorce were really viewed in terms of the rights of the parents, then it would not be acceptable to zero out the rights of one parent in order to make the other parent happy.

I wouldn't want to switch residence every week, but my kids would prefer that over the current arrangement. They want 2 parents, not just a parent and visitor. The court has ignored the wishes and the rights of the kids.

Paying for college

A lot of people think that custody obligations end at the age of maturity, typically 18. They imply that fathers get off easy by escaping the largest single expense of children -- the cost of college education.

In fact, approximately 21 states authorize family courts to order non-custodial fathers to make support payments beyond age 18, or even beyond age 21, for education or sometimes even other purposes. New Jersey is one such state. See Newburgh v. Newburgh, 88 N.J. 529, 443 A.2d 1031 (1982).

Indiana is a state where non-custodial fathers are routinely ordered to pay college expenses. A recent appellate decision, Snow v. Rincker,
shows how unreasonably that power is exercised. A blue-collar father who earns $42,000 a year was ordered to pay the cost of his adult daughter's education at an out-of-state private university.

The appellate court did hold that in the circumstances of this case, the order was excessive. If paying for private college would reduce the father to poverty, the court said his obligation should be limited to the cost of paying for state-supported college. But even that modest concession was achieved by only a 2-1 vote, with one judge dissenting.

Why I name names

An anonymous reader asks why I chose to expose some true identities and not others.

I do not use my real name or the real names of my kids because I do not wish to unnecessarily advertise our problems. My kids are innocent parties to this. I realize that there is enough info for someone to figure out who I am if he is sufficiently determined, but that is a consequence of life in our modern society.

There are other people who have voluntarily gone out of their way to support a public court process that defames and punishes me. Furthermore, they have done it with the knowledge that they are causing great cruelty to my kids.

For example, I mentioned the real name of the court-appointed psychologist, Bret K. Johnson. He is the most bigoted and malicious person that I have ever met in my life. He decided that he didn't like me for various reasons, and that he was going to break all the rules in order to inflict as much punishment as possible on me and the kids. He voluntarily chose to appear in public court to use his reputation against me.

Bret K. Johnson is a homosexual psychologist who has no understanding of marriage, women, or children. His professional specialty is helping gay men get out of the closet. He actively and publicly goes around ruining people's lives under color of judicial authority. He does not follow the applicable statutes, court precedents, professional ethics rules, social science research, or generally accepted custody evaluation guidelines. He is the legal equivalent of a child molester. To my kids, Johnson's cruelty is the worst thing that has ever happened to them.

I believe that it is my right and my duty as an American citizen to speak out against the wrongful acts of government officials. I think that I have been quite fair to Johnson as I have quoted him in his own words. He should be willing to stand behind his public testimony. In my opinion, what he is doing is legal child abuse, and I intend to keep saying so.

I would have very much preferred to stay out of court. As long as I am being publicly attacked, I intend to defend myself.

Trying to finalize the divorce

I just got this letter from my wife's lawyer, Jennifer Gray:

At the recent hearing on May 13, 2005, Judge Kelly advised you that you are required to present a Declaration of Disclosure to the Petitioner, and further, that you file a Declaration Regarding Service of Declaration of Disclosure with the court. A filed copy of the Declaration Regarding Service should be provided to me for our file. I am enclosing the appropriate blank forms for your convenience in complying with the Court's instructions in this regard. Your prompt attention to this matter is appreciated.

I was expecting her to request that I sign some sort of proof of service, in order to facilitate her dissolution of the marriage. Instead, she implies that I was ordered by the judge to sign certain documents. I don't remember the judge saying that, and I don't understand the purpose of the forms. I guess I'll have to wait for the judge's written order, but even that may not clarify anything.

Summary of allegations

My wife has made a large number of allegations against me. She has submitted over 50 pages of declarations. Here is a brief summary.

There were some domestic violence allegations (regarding emotional abuse), and various complaints about our marital relationship. I do not believe that these are significant or relevant. The custody evaluator ignored them in his report, and so far the court has ignored them as well. There were also some allegations about money, and the court will have to address those, I guess.

There was an assortment of allegations about child care. These mostly involved supervision, but some involved diet, hygiene, and other topics. Here is a sample:

22. c. Father sends our younger daughter (age 4) off to the back of the store to retrieve ice cream while he waits in the check out line.
d. Other friends witnessed Father allowing our younger daughter, when she was four, to wear her roller blades into the store. An employee from the store eventually made her take them off. Father reported that "the younger daughter got in trouble with the store employee." …
31. Our eldest daughter, during her first week of school at a brand new school (in December), did not know where the bathroom was located and had an accident in her tights. She went to the office and contacted her father. The school personnel related that she stated "Daddy, I peed in my tights, and here's what I think that you should do. Either bring me some clean clothes, or call up Mommy so she can bring me some clothes. That's what I think that you should do. Okay? Bye." Apparently she then hung up the phone, turned around, and told the assistant, "That's how you have to deal with my Daddy." They shared this story with me because they were impressed with her maturity. He, of course, contacted me to deal with the situation. However, I think this exchange illustrates an extremely important aspect to Father's capabilities. Our daughters, at this age, already know how to negotiate around their Father because they understand he is incapable of caring for them or their safety. This is unacceptable.

Emotional, Verbal & Physical Abuse
32. Father is incapable of providing care for either of our daughters. He lacks empathy. He is unable to comprehend why the above listed situations are dangerous for both our daughters. If confronted with my concerns, he dismissed them as trivial. [June 2004 declaration]

The custody evaluator was apparently impressed by several letters from [my wife’s] friends. One described an incident in which the kids got out of the car after it broke down and I parked on the side of the highway and used the emergency phone. Others described incidents such as the kids being temporarily separated from me at the store while shopping.

The custody evaluator, a gay psychologist named Bret K. Johnson, concluded:

Father's tendency to "do things over and over" such as feed the children one vegetable for a long period, have the young children brush their own hair because they are too fussy, and that he is unorthodox in parenting approaches may not be neglect or abuse in the pure sense of the words; rather it suggests he runs things in his own way, on his own time, and may not take new input well with regards to the children's best interests.

For that, he recommended that our 50-50 custody agreement be terminated permanently, that my time with the kids be reduced to occasional weekend visits, that I be ordered to take 6 months of parenting classes, and that I be ordered to undergo forced psychotherapy for an indefinite amount of time.

In hearings, the judge ignored complaints about broccoli, oatmeal, hair-brushing, etc, and said that only the risk and safety issues were significant. I testified about the highway incident and about supervising the kids in stores and elsewhere. I acknowledged that I let our daughter Jenny roller skate in Costco, and I explained why that was beneficial for her. I was asked about how I often take the kids for walks on a trail in the woods without holding their hands, and about how I let them play with the neighbor’s dog. A witness described an incident in which Jenny was happily doing some coloring by herself for about 10 minutes in a waiting room. Another witness described seeing the kids by themselves at a store, although she acknowledged that I was in a position to watch the kids and she thought the kids were safe. Another witness thought that Jenny was once in danger of being kidnapped at Toys R Us, just because she was left by herself for a couple of minutes.

At no time has my wife, her lawyer, the custody evaluator, or the judge explained what I did wrong in any of the allegations, or described what I should have done. (My wife has made some conclusory statements like paragraph 32 above. My wife’s lawyer has said nothing. One could infer from the custody evaluation that the evaluator should have had some reason for his punitive recommendations, but the evaluator never actually said that I did anything wrong. The judge once implied that he didn’t want to hear my explanation for roller skating in Costco, but when I testified about it, he listened patiently and only suggested that maybe some of the other shoppers could have been annoyed.)

Fathers' Rights Victory In Massachusetts

Wendy McElroy reports:

A determined father in Massachusetts has delivered an early Father's Day gift to non-custodial parents, the overwhelming majority of whom are dads.

Dr. Henry M. Fassler has successfully contested a 1998 Massachusetts law that requires a non-custodial parent to have court certification as a non-batterer on a yearly basis before he (or she) is allowed access to their children's school records. The school system currently views all non-custodial parents as guilty of battery until proven innocent. But all that is going to change. ...

The letter explained, "non-custodial parents cannot be denied access to school records unless there is evidence those 'rights have been specifically revoked'." The government cannot stand between parent and child when no evidence of abuse is present.

Good. It is outrageous that Mass. would just assume that fathers child abusers.

My ankle

My foot is on the left, with my toes pointing down. At the top is a stainless steel plate, with 6 screws in my fibula. The surgeon said this xray looks great. I haven't tried going thru a metal detector yet.