People will often dismiss or deny the affects of an absentee father. The rationalization is that children are adaptable and they make the adjustments. While, yes they do adapt, that doesn’t mean that they are not masking immense pain.
“Why don’t I have a daddy like [insert name]?” is a question that starts to get asked around ages four and five as kids start to see all the other kids in their schools, teams, neighborhood with two parents. This is just the awareness that something is different and then the tough questions start to follow – tough questions that many times go unanswered and a mask is created.
When a man leaves a woman after they conceive a child together, the effects take place instantaneously. Lack of father involvement impacts early births, low birth weight, and infant mortality. The mortality rate for infants in the first 28 days is four times more likely to occur when a father is absent.
BREAKING NEWS: Three national nonprofit organizations have applied for a $100 million MacArthur Foundation grant to reduce fatherlessness in the United States.
There are a lot of problems in American society and culture including drugs, alcohol, teenage pregnancy, violence, gangs, poverty, obesity, and other mental and emotional problems. While this seems like a wide-range of issues, they call come from the same source – the absence of a father.
If fatherlessness was a disease, it would be an epidemic in America. More than 24 million children are being raised without the presence of their biological father, while millions more have the physical presence but emotionally absent. This equates to one out of every four children (with some studies suggesting one out of every three) are fatherless.
FEDS ABANDON ‘EQUAL RIGHTS‘ CLAIM TO RAISE YOUR KIDS
‘Much work to be done before decades of federal overreach is reversed’
Federal officials have reversed their claim that they have “equal rights” to children to raise them, a claim that stirred outrage in many quarters of America when it was first made a few months back.
The claim originally was included in a draft policy by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education and generously allowed that parents, too, should be allowed to help raise their own children along with the government, through various programs.
The document, the “Draft Policy Statement on Family Engagement From the Early Years to the Early Grades,” stated at the time: “It is the position of the departments that all early childhood programs and schools recognize families as equal partners in improving children’s development, learning and wellness across all settings, and over the course of their children’s developmental and educational experiences.”
That one sentence, wrote William A. Estrada, the director of federal relations policy for the Home School Legal Defense Association, “unmasks the federal government’s true philosophy behind decades of federal involvement in welfare, kindergarten through 12th grade education spending and policies, programs like Head Start, and now the push to create universal early education for young children from birth through age 5: the federal government believes that its role is equal with the role of parents.”
The newest release of the statement, however, now provides that, “Families are children’s first and most important teachers, advocates, and nurturers. Strong family engagement in early childhood systems and programs is central – not supplemental – to promoting children’s healthy intellectual, physical, and social-emotional development; preparing children for school; and supporting academic achievement in elementary school and beyond. Research indicates that families’ involvement in children’s learning and development impacts lifelong health, developmental, and academic outcomes.”
The HSLDA had blasted the earlier statement, in fact, dispatching Estrada to meet with senior officials from the U.S. Department of Education and “personally” explaining the significant issues with the draft statement, including opposition from parents to the “bureaucratic arrogance.”
The change is a very mich improved version, the HSLDA pointed out, making clear that “families have strong and sustained effects on children’s learning, development, and wellness.”
“Despite this victory,” the group explained. “there are other problems with the document that remain. The document’s working definition of ‘family’ still includes not only a child’s parents or legal guardians, but ‘all adults who interact with early childhood systems in support of their child, to include biological, adoptive, and foster parents; grandparents; legal and infromal guardians; and adult siblings.’”
HSLDA exlained, “In situations where conflict may exist between a child’s parents and other family members regarding educational choices, this still quite broad definition of family is not hepful for clarity regarding parental rights in education.”
The organization explained, “There is much work to be done before decades of federal overreach in K-12 education is reversed.”
The document does still include a suggestion that families and institutions “partner” to give children better results in school.
WND reported the original plan by the government was to “systematically” engage families about their own children.
“At HSLDA, we believe that these statements reveal these agencies’ true beliefs: that a child’s God-given family does not matter. Family is whomever or whatever the government says it is,” Estrada wrote at the time.
He cited other government agendas, such as pushing the political correctness in Common Core, “dangerous U.N. treaties,” as well as suggestions for universal preschool.
Federal officials have reversed their claim that they have “equal rights” to children to raise them, a claim that stirred outrage in many quarters of America when it was first made a few months back. The claim originally was included in a draft policy by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the […]
If You Support Men’s and Father’s For Equal Parental Rights, You Have to Vote for Cara Nicole, Not Juan Mendez! Why? Because Juan Mendez, An Example of an Anti-Father’s Rights, Liberal Moron! – Men’s Rights Group of AZ
If you think Juan Mendez is a complete fool, moron and just unfit to hold public office your not the only one!
In fact, according to the American’s for Parental Equality and men’s rights advocates, you could be right!
Many men’s and father’s rights activist have long held the opinion that Juan Mendez has single-handedly worked against legislation to change bias family court laws. This opinion appears to be true in recent public statements Juan Mendez has made.
Juan Mendez was recently asked,
“What do you plan to do to bring equality to fathers being denied rights to their children in family court when there is no domestic violence or criminal history?”
Juan Mendez looked a little shocked by the question and even asked for it to be repeated so he could compose himself. Then, the idiot (in our opinion) spilled his feminist guts.
At least from his statements…
Mendez openly plans to keep denying father’s rights to their biological children.
Source: Juan Mendez, An Example of an Anti-Father’s Rights, Liberal Moron! – Men’s Rights Group of AZ
Fathers Demand Parental Equality at U.S. Supreme Court | Leon Koziol.Com
Exactly five years after an oppressed father protested discrimination by burning himself alive on the steps of Keene County Family Court, four victimized fathers calmly walked up the steps of the United States Supreme Court to file a writ for parental equality.
Media throughout the beltway were discussing it, news releases were confirmed everywhere, and these four made history outside the halls of our nation’s highest court. And it’s high time. Give dads their due. We sacrifice in the line of duty every day for our children.
Whether it be law enforcement in Orlando, firemen headed into the towers on 9-11, or our military in foreign wars, we are sick and tired of the abuses inflicted upon us in divorce and family courts. We are tired of returning to anything but “equal justice” as promised on the top of the Supreme Court edifice.
These four professionals, a doctor, lawyer, dentist and engineer made their case at a news conference on the eve of Fathers Day. They are Dr. Mario Jimenez, M.D., Dr. Leon Koziol, J.D., Dr. Dan Pestana, DDS and John Bautista, BSME, MBA, sacrificing their professional standings by taking up this cause. They need your help.
Yes it’s Fathers Day again with those worn out stereotypes about manning up. And that’s exactly what these professionals did from New York, California, Florida and Virginia. They asked our government to man up to its responsibilities for equal rights. Being born male does not give our courts a power to denigrate our authority as equal parents under supreme laws.
While other traditionally discriminated groups have made great strides in achieving reform, fathers continue to be remanded by our courts to lower class parent status with all the oppression which comes with it. Fathers remain 85% of all parents paying support, nearly 100% of those sent to a debtor prison for delinquencies and even shot dead in the back by a traffic cop while fleeing unarmed from a support warrant (Walter Scott).
Dignity Rights for Mrs. Doubtfire: A Place for Fathers in Custody Disputes | New York Law Journal
In the iconic movie, “Mrs. Doubtfire,” a judge confronts Daniel at a hearing following the exposure of Daniel’s identity as the daddy inside the nanny and lowers the gavel. The judge dismisses Daniel’s baleful explanation of the charade—a sincere, even desperate love for his three children—as mere additional evidence of superb acting ability. He assigns permanent custody to Miranda, orders supervised visitation, and refers Daniel for psychological counseling.
With less than perfect judgment, beset with unusual habits, perhaps even a bit eccentric, but with no dangerous or truly aberrant characteristics, Daniel is like many devoted fathers of the some 70 million American dads who are knocked senseless by the legal system when spousal strife prevents amicable resolution of custody and visitation disputes during divorce and separation proceedings. On custody, she usually wins, he usually loses, especially if the children are young. He becomes a mere visitor in his children’s lives (hence the term “visitation” rights) obligated to pay child support and often doomed to fight monumental battles with spouse and court to maintain even the slightest contact with his children. A common story in states across the nation, rarely with a happy ending.
Is a disguise, a masquerade, a Mrs. Doubtfire, the only route out of the quagmire for devoted, competent fathers? Or might there be some recourse or solace to be found in the law, some concept or theory he might grab onto? The answer is a tentative, guarded, but perhaps inevitable “yes,” a right ripening on the vine called human dignity or “dignity rights,” a right that just may elevate them to the sanctum of a protected class.
In New York fathers ostensibly begin on a level playing field of equal protection and due process. Under the Domestic Relations Law there is no prima facie right to custody in either parent; fathers are not automatically excluded (DRL Sec. 70[a]; Sec. 240 (1)[a]). Case law, moreover, shelters visitation with repeated emphases on the crucial role a noncustodial father can play in the development of the children (Ronald S. v. Lucille Diamond S., 45 A.D.3d 295 (2007)), and the obligation of a custodial mother to assure meaningful contact between children and him (Bibi Khan-Soleil v. Armani Rashad, 111 A.D.3d 728 (2013)).
But then there is the “best interest” test which both custody and visitation courts impose as an objective evaluation of parental qualification (DRL Secs. 70, 240; Friederwitzer v. Friederwitzer, 55 N.Y.2d 89 (1982); Eshbach v. Eschbach, 56 N.Y.2d 167 (1982))—a test fathers flunk in some significant degree or another more frequently than mothers.
Continue reading To interfere at any time with that contact , that natural bond, that dignity, is to defrock him as a parent, diminish his very identity as a man, and likely scar his children forever.
Turner v. Rogers, 564 U.S. 431 is a case decided by the United States Supreme Court on June 20, 2011, that held that a state must provide safeguards to reduce the risk of erroneous deprivation of liberty
GUEST POST: Turner v. Rogers and What It Means To Me | Criminal Law & Psychology Blog
[Chris Castanias is a father of two who was held in civil contempt for failure to pay child support. Although he requested appointed counsel due to his indigent status, the domestic relations court refused to entertain his request and he was subsequently sentenced to over 90 days in jail. In this piece, he shares his experience. — Zachary Cloud]
Divorce can be financially devastating, and equally so for both mother and father.
Imagine for a moment that you experience a 50% reduction in pay and at the same time are ordered by a court to pay not only your rent or mortgage, but that of your neighbor. Could you do it?
The economics of that scenario are similar to that of an obligor (the person ordered to pay child-support), previously living in a typical two-earner, two-child household. What happens at divorce is that the earners split up and no longer jointly contribute to the family’s financial obligations, while the designated obligor picks up an additional involuntary debt (child-support obligation) that is likely close to that of his or her existing rent or mortgage payment.
In the fictional situation described above, would you consider it fair if you were at risk of being jailed for not making both your and your neighbors housing payment in any given month. If you faced the potential of jail, would you want legal representation? If you couldn’t afford to make the housing payments, how likely would you be to afford an attorney. Is it possible that financial scenario might create a situation where you would need to ask for court appointed counsel?
There are similar parallels to my hypothetical scenario, the case of Turner v Rogers and many countless others who have been sentenced to jail without being allowed representation of legal counsel, after allegedly falling behind with child-support obligations.
The world is currently experiencing the worst economic period in modern history. In this country, foreclosures are at record high levels, yet no one is imprisoned for failing to pay their mortgage or defaulting on their rent. In 2008, statistics show that nearly 16 million child-support obligors nationwide were in default on the child-support obligation. One state, Illinois reported 88% of their obligors to be past due. For more information, see here.
I’m writing as an strong advocate of Michael Turner, because I personally experienced the exact same fate, and since the completion of what I feel was an unjust imprisonment over a year ago, I’ve no longer had any access to my children.