A self-censored chronicle of family court dramas, lived by parents who lost all or some visitation with or custody of a child or children based on perjury and/or other false courtroom evidence
The film follows the dramatic journeys of eight young women from the tough city streets of Washington,DC as they struggle to overcome poverty, poor educational systems, no healthcare, and the most difficult life circumstance they have been dealt… the absence of their fathers.
Dear Daddy is not only about the struggles to survive and navigate as a young woman of color, but at its core, it’s about the importance of a father’s role in the lives of their daughters.
Recently, I have found myself thinking a lot about the best, and the worst, custodyarrangements for very young children. When I say very young children, I am thinking about infants (aged newborn to roughly 18 months) as well as toddlers (aged 18 months to about 3 years).
Below, I will offer some of my own thoughts about this very important, and it seems, increasingly controversial topic. But at the outset, I want to invite readers to share their experiences about what is working for you, and what isn't; about what custody arrangements you have chosen for your own very young children, and about what schedules were imposed on you by a court, an ex, whoever.
I am looking for your input, because I have been hearing more and more from parents who are very unhappy about parenting plans for their very young children. Mostly, I have been getting emails or telephone calls from parents, usually mothers, who are scared to death that their very young child has been divided - and is being damaged both now and in the long term. I also have heard from other parents, mainly fathers, who are afraid they are being shut out of their very young children's lives - now and for the long run.
There are a lot of complicated psychological, practical, and legal issues involved in custody arrangements for very young children. I will not delve very deeply into the details in this post, or I will end up going on for too long. Look for future posts with more specifics.
Psychologically, the quality of attachment relationships is the main concern about the well-being of very young children. Children form a close bond with those who care for them, usually their parents, in the first year of life (and beyond). The development of attachments is a biologically driven process, one that is observed in other primates, other mammals, and precocial birds. (Think of ducklings swimming in line behind their mother on a pond in springtime.)
Very young children can and do form multiple attachments, including to mothers, fathers, grandparents, nannies, and so on. Still, children have a primary attachment figure, the person they prefer to offer them comfort in times of anxiety or pain. (A daycare worker can comfort a distraught toddler when no parent is available, but given a choice, an 18 month old will run to Mommy - or Daddy.)
Now we are getting to the nub of one controversy. A great deal of psychological research shows that the quality of the primary attachment - particularly whether it is secure or insecure - in very young children predicts the development of various psychological and social problems in the future. (Importantly, attachment is a central concern not only for custody but for other issues like day care, families where both parents are employed for long hours, hospitalized premature infants, incarcerated parents, and a variety of other issues involving parents' relationships with their very young children.)
So in disputed custody cases, parents, lawyers, and various experts can and do end up debating whether a very young child's primary attachment (usually to the mother) is all-important and pretty fragile - or whether their secondary attachment (usually to the father) is just as important and perhaps is being undermined, maybe deliberately, by a doting or vindictive primary attachment figure. Specific questions and debates range from whether babies, or toddlers, should have overnights with their secondary attachment figures to whether parents should share joint physical custody of infants, alternating back and forth every day if necessary.
A Mother's Day message from Dr. Mark Roseman of The Toby Center.
For an increasing number of moms, Mother’s Day without their children are expected, and characteristic. It’s characteristic of mothers who are court ordered to have visitation that they not see their children on this day. For dads, too, there are many whose children cannot spend time with their them.
Why? Court orders.
Court orders in Family Court, especially require parents to have a shared parenting plan, a plan which delineates when each parent may spend quality time with their children. Not because of social media, and cell phone compulsions. It is because when they separate and divorce, children’s time is allocated. Like any commodity. Litigation is used to advocate for a parent’s time; litigation is used to prevent a parent’s time. Consider: Thirty percent of parents who separate are very unhappy, angry, and vindictive. They seek to punish each other, or at least to claim themselves a victim of anything that will deprive the other parent of significant quality time with their children. Such parents are considered to be in ‘high conflict’ and seek to blame, deny, and often, to run away with the children.
Litigation damages many among these families, for there remains not enough opportunity for children to spend time with their parents, particularly, when their parents need to pay for shared parenting time that must besupervised. Supervised visitation is used by the courts when the judge believes there needs to be a neutral third party to observe, and guard against emotional and physical abuse.
But supervised visitation works when the custodial parent does not interfere with the child’s scheduled visitation. As Toby Center’s Program Director, I have seen this happen over thirty percent of the time. We can’t enforce visitation for those who may even have money to pay for this service.
Who can afford these unfunded services? Well, 40 percent of those asking for these services in Central Florida cannot. In South Florida, 30 percent cannot. Supervised visitation services are little funded in Florida. Florida’s funds come from the Federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through their office of Child Support Enforcement. These monies are to be used by states for furthering supervised visitation and family mediation. These are cases found in the Family Courts.
Yet, in Florida, these monies are used solely and entirely by the Department of Children and Familiesthrough thirdparty case management companies. Though DCF client families benefit from funded services as visitation and therapy, even more significant are the needs of families whose child custody cases are heard in Family Court. In the latter case, such families did not have their children removed from their homes. Even though the reasons for family court action may be quite the same or similar to some in Dependency Court.
I have served in this field since 1999 when I began working in Washington, DC with the national Children’s Rights Council. Then, it was David L. Levy, Esq. who emerged the loudest advocate for joint custody, and established the largest network of supervised visitation locations. I was appointed by David to be the Assistant Director for Child Access. In charge of visitation curriculum and training, I joined David on numerous visits to the Office of Child Support Enforcement, meeting two Directors of CSE during the Bush Administrations.
Indeed, it was David Levy who challenged the Federal Government during the Clinton Administration to allocate money for families journeying through very costly child custody matters in Family Court. With his successful testimony on Capitol Hill (and he was a wonderful, passionate orator of my time!), David created this annual earmark so that more families would not be denied the visitation services so essential for building and strengthening parent and child relations.
Social research has shown that children best thrive when both parents are involved in their children’s lives. It is therefore incumbent upon grantors and state agencies to find the money to preserve our families post separation. If we do, then we will reduce the rate of alcohol and drug abuse, juvenile crime, teen suicide.
Mother’s Day. Father’s Day.
For the forty percent of public school children living in single parent households, nearly half of our families today, family holidays just ‘ain’t what they used to be’. But with more funds, and support, they come close.
The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently protected parental rights, including it among those rights deemed fundamental. As a fundamental right, parental liberty is to be protected by the highest standard of review: the compelling interest test. As can be seen from the cases described above, parental rights have reached their highest level of protection in over 75 years. The Court decisively confirmed these rights in the recent case of Troxel v. Granville, which should serve to maintain and protect parental rights for many years to come.
As long as CPS is allowed to have an exaggerated view of their power and is allowed by state officials and the courts to exploit that power and abuse it against both children and parents, they will both be continually harmed. The constitution is there for two primary reasons, 1) to restrict the power of the government and 2) to protect the people from the government, not the government from the people. And the constitution is there to prohibit certain activity from government officials and that prohibition does not apply to one type or kind of official but to ANY government official whether it is the police, CPS or FBI.
“More money flows through the family courts, and into the hands of courthouse insiders, than in all other court systems in America combined – over $50 billion a year and growing. Through extensive research and interviews with the nation’s top divorce lawyers, mediators, judges, politicians, litigants and journalists, DIVORCE CORP. uncovers how children are torn from their homes, unlicensed custody evaluators extort money, and abusive judges play god with people’s lives while enriching their friends. This explosive documentary reveals the family courts as unregulated, extra-constitutional freedoms. Rather than assist victims of domestic crimes, these courts often precipitate them. And rather than help parents and children move on, as they are mandated to do, these courts – and their associates – drag out cases for years, sometimes decades, ultimately resulting in a rash of social ills, including home foreclosure, bankruptcy, suicide and violence. Solutions to the crisis are sought out in countries where divorce is handled in a more holistic manner.Continue reading
Divorced Parents: Kids Should Decide Where They Live/Custody
Divorce can be ugly, but it doesn't have to be ugly for the kids.
Parents who are divorcing often get sucked into a nasty competition when it comes to the kids, with each parent vying for custody of the kids. Of course, both parents often want to keep the kids with them, which frequently results in joint custody. Once the arrangement is set, the kids shuffle between Mom's and Dad's respective houses, while the parents often avoid asking the kids what they want to do or with whom they want to live.
Well, the truth is that there are endless misconceptions about divorce and its effect on kids. Many people feel that divorce is psychologically harmful for kids, though the research - and I'm referring to Judith Wallerstein's research, in particular - actually shows that divorce does not harm children over the long-term unless other factors come into play. For example, divorced parents who maintain a bitter relationship post-divorce and talk badly about each other to the kids can cause kids major anxiety and distress. But aside from such instances, there are many things that divorced parents can do to limit the harm caused to the kids.
One thing divorced parents can do is make an ongoing effort to check in with the kids about how they feel about the assigned living arrangements. While children are young (10 years or younger), joint custody can provide an important reminder to the kids that their parents still love them and will both remain a fundamental part of the kids' lives. Yet the problem often starts when the kids get a little older.
Once kids reach the puberty years, they start to have a more active social life. During this time, kids start to develop the beginnings of an adult identity, and they start to make some of their own decisions. As they reach adolescence, kids of divorced parents understandably want more control over their environment, including where and with whom they live. Plus, as kids get older, the homework increases and their extracurricular activities become more involved. In other words, gathering all their stuff (books, notebooks, special articles of clothing, sports equipment, etc.) and dragging everything from one house to the other gets difficult. If a child in this situation doesn't particularly want to live with one of the parents, the child will become resentful and the resentment will manifest in a variety of acting-out behaviors.
If you are a parent who shares joint custody with your ex and your child is approaching the teenage years, set your own feelings and ego aside and ask your child how he or she feels about the living arrangements. Sure, it can be awfully hurtful to give up time with a child you adore, but sometimes letting someone go (a little) is the best way to show your love for them. Most importantly, divorced parents need to remember that the child did not choose for his or her parents to get married or divorced, so they should suffer as little as a possible as a result of the failed relationship.
Ultimately, talk-talk-talk to your child. Give your child a space to say how he or she really feels about the living arrangements, and try not react too emotionally to whatever they say. Though navigating these years can be difficult, the most successful parent-child relationships will always be those where the child feels that his or her feelings are respected.
If it turns out that your child would prefer to live with the other parent, work on developing a compromise that makes your child feel heard and simultaneously allows you to still spend meaningful time with your child. The teenage years are a great time to make an adjustment to the living arrangements, which could include the following: rotating houses in intervals of one or two weeks, as opposed to every few days; one parent having the child during the academic year, while the other has the child during the summer; maintaining the usual plan of 50/50 time during the academic year, but living with only one of the parents during the summer.
Ultimately, the point is to listen to your child, focus more on his or her feelings than your own, and model how to compromise. If you compromise with your child about custody now, you might find twenty years from now that your relationship with your child is stronger because of it.
Dear Daddy is not only about the struggles to survive and navigate as a young woman of color, but at its core, it’s about the importance of a father’s role in the lives of their daughters.
