Author: Super User

Los Angeles, CA–Background: J. Michael Bone (pictured) is an eminent authority on Parental Alienation, and I’ve often quoted his work in my newspaper columns on the issue.

Starting in late April Michael is going to be doing a four-part Teleseminar on how targeted parents can overcome Parental Alienation. The 4 week telewebcast series begins Tuesday April 29 from 8:30 – 9:30 p.m. EDT, and runs each Tuesday through 5/20. To register, click here or go to www.overcomingparentalalienation.com.

Below is Part II of my Q & A with Dr. Bone. Part I can be seen at ‘Mental health professionals who don’t understand Parental Alienation will find small imperfections in the targeted parent as an explanation for the child”s alienation…’

Glenn Sacks: What are the key things that a parent who is the target of Parental Alienation needs to do in order to get their judge to understand what is really happening in their case?

Dr. Bone: I believe that the most important issue to keep in mind pertains to the history of the relationship between the child and the alienated parent. In these cases, this relationship will be dramatically different before and after the separation, or soon thereafter. The audience (the Judge) must be repeatedly reminded that the relationship between the child and the parent deteriorated during the time when the child had little or no contact with that parent. This is exactly the opposite of what one would expect if the child had become resistant to seeing a parent who had, let’s say abused them. Therefore the historical picture, one that clearly and vividly conveys the relationship between the child and the targeted parent, and how quickly it fell apart, for reasons that do not justify the child’s reaction, is the issue that the judge must be made to wrestle with.

Glenn Sacks: Dr. Bone, you warn parents who are targets of Parental Alienation not to agree to “Counter-Productive Recommendations.” What are some examples of this?

Dr. Bone: Recommendations that do not work are those that do not cause the damaged and alienated relationship to be healed and returned to normal. In many PAS cases, these recommendations are outpatient counseling.

It is not uncommon for Family Law Judges to believe, and reasonably so, that counseling could and should be helpful. However, when parental alienation is present in the PAS form, such outpatient counseling often turns into a format for the child to act out their alienation to the therapist. Under these circumstances, the child”s job becomes the convincing of the therapist as to why they should not see that parent.

If the therapist does not understand the PA dynamic, they will most likely be pulled into the alienated view of the child. If the therapist does understand the PA phenomenon, then the child will begin to protest the therapy and will begin to say things such as it “…is not helping.’

Kentucky–Background: According to TIME magazine, “For nearly two years, James Rhoades…has been fighting to establish in law what science and fact already have shown beyond any doubt: He is the biological father of the boy dubbed J.A.R…the boy’s mother, J.N.R., whom Rhoades met while taking an online graduate course…was — and still is — married to another man, who was stationed at a Pensacola Air Force base during their affair in 2005. And that’s the problem.

“[A] divided Kentucky Supreme Court told Rhoades that he could not press his paternity claim, no matter what evidence of fatherhood he might have, because J.N.R. was, and remains, a married woman…The decision has left Rhoades devastated. ‘What I wanted was not just to see my son but to participate in his life. He is my son and I love him.'”

In my recent blog post If there were ever a guy in a no-win situation, it’s James Rhoades, I explained that I “have mixed emotions about Rhoades and his case.” Ned Holstein tackles the difficult case in his recent blog post Sanctity of Marriage, or Discrimination Against Dads? Rhoades is pictured with his son above.

In a recent post, fathers’ rights activist David R. Usher called Rhoades “a predatory marital gigolo.” I quoted from Usher’s article and linked to it so my readers can see Usher’s perspective and judge for themselves. However, Usher took his article down and asked me to remove the quotes. My quotes were fair use but, as a favor, I have removed them.

Rhoades’ reply and the readers’ comments are below. As I noted earlier, I remain ambivalent about Rhoades and his case.

James Rhoades’ Rebuttal to Dave Usher

David R. Usher in his post “The James Rhoades Case: Mercenary Gigolo Does Not Make Three” has leveled many stinging accusations against me as a man and as a father. He has called me a mercenary gigolo, marital gigolo, disgusting individual, creep, redundant father, marital invader, mercenary gigolo du-jour, and marital offender. Of course I’ve never met Mr. Usher nor have I ever spoken to him, never-the-less he insists on insulting and belittling me for trying to participate in my son’s life.

Usher asserts with his diatribe that I be considered not as a father but rather as someone who should be on a “marital offenders” registry. He claims that the 2nd husband of my son’s mother is the father of my son and that I should have no rights or should not be identified to my son as his father. He also says I should be held responsible for the financial expenses and mental torture I’ve inflicted on Mr. Ricketts. He concludes his post by saying, “…save fathers’ rights for good men who did nothing wrong.”

I believe Usher has characterized me and my intentions unfairly. I have admitted that engaging in an affair was wrong and take full responsibility, however, that should not bar me nor my son from continuing the father-son relationship we had for the 1st three months of my son’s life. Why should I be stripped of a relationship with my son because he was conceived during an affair? How does that make me a non-father? The facts are undeniable, which prove I’m my son’s father. To say that I should go to jail for having an affair is very different from saying I should be stripped of my fatherhood.

According to Usher’s views there should be no blended families nor should we recognize unmarried fathers who have children. Usher has in one sweeping blow declared I don’t deserve any rights because a married woman had my son. Furthermore, he has concluded I’m a bad man and I should wear a scarlet “A” around my neck. In his diatribe he neglects to consider the implications upon my son or the value and importance of the truth. A truth my son deserves to know and will know, for one day my son will discover the truth and will discover how much I love him.

I’m not asking to be initiated into the men’s movement that Usher promotes–rather, I seek a place in my son’s life.

Chicago, IL–Most fathers would do anything to protect their children, and here’s another example.

Like hero fathers James Kim and Albert Collins, Chicago father Joseph Richardson gave his life to save his child.

From Mitch Dudke’s Dad died saving his little girl: Father’s last act protected 4-year-old from crash (Chicago Sun-Times, 5/7/08):

“With an out-of-control car bearing down, Joseph Richardson grabbed his 4-year-old daughter and held her up out of harm’s way.

“It was his last act — and one that apparently saved his daughter’s life.

“Richardson, a 39-year-old father of three, was killed Monday evening by the car, driven by a man who police say was drunk.

“The car pinned Richardson and his daughter Kaniyah against a wrought iron fence at 95th Street and Wentworth, police said.

“Kaniyah survived and was listed in critical but stable condition Tuesday evening at Comer Children’s Hospital, where a spokeswoman said she was doing well.

“‘He held the baby up to keep the car from destroying the baby, but it totally destroyed him,’ said Richardson’s father, the Rev. L.V. Richardson.

“Richardson was walking his daughter to a McDonald’s for burgers at 6:40 p.m. Monday when a 1990 Chevy Cavalier jumped a curb and careened towards them, police said, citing witness accounts.

“He grabbed his daughter just before the car slammed the two into the fence, police said…

“Joseph Richardson, the father of two girls and a boy, all under the age of 11, was described as a devoted father. His other love was music. He was a gifted pianist and organist and performed in choirs at Cottage Grove Baptist Church and Greater Revelation Missionary Baptist Church, where his father ministers. His idols were Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, his family said…”

Read the full article here.

Canada–This article by Rebecca Eckler, author of Toddlers Gone Wild!, is so offensive in so many ways it’s hard to know where to begin.

Here’s one. Rebecca writes:

“On behalf of my four-year-old, who has a Yahoo account in her name, I recently sent an e-mail to her father, who lives in Alberta.

“‘Hi Daddy,’ I typed, as my daughter was fast asleep. ‘Mommy has been talking about Mother’s Day. I only have 143 pennies in my piggy bank. She’s the best mommy ever. She’s been pretty exhausted. I’d like to get her something nice. Can you help? Love you.’

“It was a slightly pathetic, but possibly cute, way of reminding my daughter’s father about Mother’s Day.

“On what is perhaps the Hallmark holiday of all Hallmark holidays, what’s a single mother to do to get some sort of recognition? It’s certainly not going to come from a child who still licks glue and is too young to understand the concept.

“But modern single mothers, whether they’ve chosen to be single, still get along with the father of their children, or have no contact with the father at all, are finding new ways to make Mother’s Day special (and, in some cases, more fruitful)…

“As for me, the e-mail worked. I’ll be at a spa, thanks to my four-year-old’s request via her mother’s e-mail.”

I love that–mom is so entitled to even more of dad’s money that she brags in the national media about her need to “remind my daughter’s father about Mother’s Day,” as if it’s his problem.

Here’s another:

“All mothers of young children rely on gifts made by someone else. For the single mom, feeling the need for something more than a crumpled card in a knapsack – something that comes with a gift receipt – presents a particular dilemma. You can’t very well hand over $20 to your three year-old to do your shopping.

“So some have learned to lobby on their own behalf.

“‘I’ve drilled it into him,’ says Toronto-based Vanessa Craft, the author of Out of Character, about her three-year-old daughter’s father, who lives in England.

“Growing up, Mother’s Day, like most holidays, had always been recognized in my house. So it’s a big deal. I even remind my daughter’s father that on her birthday I should also get something, for the fact that I gave birth,’ Ms. Craft says.

“‘Her dad knows to make me cards, at the very least, on behalf of our daughter,’ says Ms. Craft, adding, ‘I’ve never had a bad Mother’s Day being a single mom.'”

Huh? Her ex owes her a Mother’s Day gift?

One other note–in both cases (Rebecca Eckler and Vanessa Craft) the children are very young and the fathers live far away. Rebecca dumped the father of her child, to whom she was engaged to be married, for another man. I don’t know what happened in Vanessa’s case, but statistically the odds are good that she was the one who initiated the divorce/breakup. In both cases it was probably the women who moved away. So having already severed most of the loving bonds between the fathers and their little children, the women now feel deprived and entitled to even more from dad.

Here’s a third section:

“Stacey Otis, a single mother of three, says that without a partner there is ‘such a greater connection with your children,’ and that Mother’s Day is always ‘awesome.’

“She celebrates the day at her house, or at one of her siblings’ houses, and has turned it into ‘Family Mother’s Day.’

“Unlike many of my mother friends, who moan about husbands forgetting Mother’s Day entirely, or who complain about partners not even giving them two hours of alone time, Ms. Otis says, ‘My Mother’s Days are always special. When my kids get excited to give me what they made at school, it’s like gold. When you know all you have is each other, it makes the day really special.'”

So Stacey Otis’ kids are better off because they don’t have a dad? That’s odd, since being without a dad greatly increases their chances for most youth pathologies, including drugs, crime, teen pregnancy, and dropouts.

And of course Stacey is better off, because all of her friends’ husbands are louts who spend much of the their time working to support their wives and children. And Stacey’s excessively critical female attitude probably gives you a good clue as to why her and Rebecca’s and Vanessa’s relationships ended, too.

The full article is–get this–Get what you want this Mother’s Day. Twist the ex’s arm (Globe and Mail, 5/6/08). To write a Letter to the Editor of the Globe and Mail about this piece, click on Letters@globeandmail.com.

Thanks to Luc Chagnon, a Canadian reader, for sending the article.

Los Angeles, CA–Two weeks ago we launched a campaign against Fox’s proposed reality show Bad Dads. Bad Dads unfairly depicts divorced fathers as uncaring and selfish, and publicly humiliates children of broken families by depicting their fathers as not loving or caring for them.

Fox has received over 5,000 calls, letters, and faxes from our supporters, and our protest garnered coverage in over 300 newspapers. Nearly a hundred educators, mental health experts, and family law professionals publicly condemned Fox’s Bad Dads and endorsed our campaign. We also drew support from advocates for low income families.

As Kathleen Parker noted in her syndicated column, this campaign was an early, preemptive strike. The pilot has not been made yet, and all that has been contracted is a 10 minute promo for a pilot. We now have good reason to believe that we will never see Bad Dads aired.

Given the large response and media coverage, we have made our point to Fox, and have decided to suspend the campaign against Bad Dads. We will continue to monitor the situation, and if in the future we have good reason to believe that Fox will be going ahead with the show, we will renew our efforts. The campaign web page will remain up, as will all relevant information concerning the campaign.

Thanks to all of you who participated in what we believe has been a successful campaign.

Sincerely,

Dr. Ned Holstein, president of Fathers & Families
Dr. Linda Nielsen, president of the American Coalition for Fathers & Children
Glenn Sacks, newspaper columnist/radio host, www.GlennSacks.com

Boston, MA–Nearly 100 educators, mental health experts, attorneys and
physicians have condemned Fox”s possible television show “Bad Dads.’ These
professionals have endorsed our campaign against the show, lending
additional credibility to our cause. We have also garnered support among
advocates for low-income families.

Most importantly, our membership has deluged Fox with over
5,000 letters, faxes and emails protesting the show. These protests are the
result of a cooperative effort between Fathers & Families, ACFC, and Los

Are you in a relevant profession and willing to add your
name?  Then please do so on our blog comments at the bottom.

The list of endorsing professionals follows:

Howie Altholtz
Attorney at Law
Boston, Massachusetts

Marc E. Angelucci, Esq.
Men’s Legal Center
San Diego, CA.

Lloyd Axelrod, M.D.
Mass. General Hospital
Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA

Maury D. Beaulier
Attorney At Law
St. Louis Park, MN

J. Michael Bone, PhD, President
JMB Consulting, PA
Winter Park, FL

Dawn Bowie
Attorney at law
Rockville, MD

Jan Brown
Founder and Executive
Director Domestic Abuse
Helpline for Men and Women
Harmony, Maine

Anthony C. Campagna, MD
Senior Staff  Physician
Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Lahey Clinic
Burlington, Massachusetts
Assistant Clinical     
Professor of Medicine,
Harvard Medical School
Boston, Massachusetts

Steven Carlson, The Custody Coach™
Child Custody Coach
Orange County, CA

Michael Carolla, LMFT
Co-Parenting Mediator
Pleasant Hill, CA

Jose David Cohen
Doctor of Clinical Psychology
North Hollywood, CA

Victor Clark Cohen
Attorney, Divorce Mediator
Board Member, Breakthrough
Parenting Services, Inc.
Los Angeles, CA

Gene C. Colman
Attorney at Law
Ontario, Canada

Anthony J. Comparetto, Esq.
Attorney At Law
St. Petersburg, FL

J. Christian Conrad
Attorney at Law
Laguna Hills, CA

Robert Anthony Cornejo, J.D.
School Principal, Attorney At Law
Montebello, CA

Terrence J. Cullen, Esq.
Attorney at Law
Bedford, MA

Mark T. Davis, Esq.
Family Law Attorney
El Paso, TX

Charles H. DeBevoise, Esq.
Boston, MA

Claudia Dias, MSC
Attorney at Law
Family Law Mediato
Domestic Violence Intervention Facilitator
Sacramento, California

Peter J Dimatteo MD,
FACEP
Duxbury, MA

David Dodson, MD
Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine
Tufts University School of Medicine
Wellesley, MA

Brian C. Downs, Esq.
Candidate for Judge of the 17th Circuit Court
Grand Rapids, Michigan

Dr. Donald Dutton
Professor of Psychology
Univeristy of British Columbia,
Vancouver BC.

Christian A. Eades, Esq.
Family Law Attorney
Washington, D.C.

Stephen D. Finstein, LCSW,
LMFT, LSOTP
Mental Health Consultant
Dallas, TX

Michael Friedman, M.D.
Psychiatrist
Berkeley, California

Sheara Friend, Esq.
Attorney at Law
Boxboro, MA

Matthew D. Gold, M.D.
Neurologist
Associate Clinical Professor
Tufts Medical School
Everett, MA

Stephen A. Gershman, CFLS
Certified Specialist in Family Law
Board of Legal Specialization
Sherman Oaks, California

Glenn D. Herlihy, Esq.
Attorney at Law
Haverhill, MA

Edwin C. Holstein, MD, MS
Clinical Assistant Professor
Mr Sinai School of Medicine
New Your, New York

Robert J. Hundertmark
Attorney At Law
Woburn MA 01801

Stephen J. Johnson, Ph.D., 
LMFT, CRC
Director, The Men’s Center
Los Angeles
Woodland Hills, CA

Karen Jones
Author, Relationship Coach
South Lawrence, MA

Michael Kennedy, JD
Child Support Liberation, Inc.
Upland, CA 91786

Gregory T. Kotonias, M.D.
Assist. Professor of Clinical Psychiatry
Boston University
School of Medicine
Boston, MA

Neil Leavitt
Attorney at Law
Hollywood, Florida 33021

Edward H. Lee
Family Law Attorney
Springfield, NJ

Stephen Levine, Esq.
Certified Specialist by
the State Bar of California
Criminal Law
San Bernardino, CA.

Wayne M. Levine, M.A.
Director, BetterMen.org
Agoura Hills, CA

Jayne A. Major, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Breakthrough Parenting

Anthony Mancini, J.D.
Peabody, MA

Jacqueline R Mark, Esq.
Family Law Attorney
Reading, PA

Brett W. Martin, Esq.
Attorney at Law
Westminster, CO

Linda G. Mills, B.A., M.S.W., Ph.D., J.D.
Author, Violent Partner
New York University
New York, NY

Enrique A. Monteagudo, J.D
Child Advocate
San Diego Family Law Council for
Children
San Diego, CA

Steven W. Newell, M.D.
Children”s Voices of Colorado, Inc.
Lone Tree, Colorado

Tracy Nightingale
Attorney at Law
St. Louis Park, MN

Michael L. Oddenino
Family Law Attorney
Arcadia, CA

Patricia Overberg, MSW
Former Director, Valley Oasis
Domestic Violence Shelter
Lancaster, CA

Nicholas Palermo, Esq.
Family Law Attorney
Boston, MA

Curtis J. Patton
Family Attorney
Pittsburgh, PA

Pat Piper, PhD
Child and Family Therapist
Wellesley, MA

Kevin Polis
Family Law Attorney
San Diego, CA

Jay Portnow, M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Clinical Professor, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation,
Tufts Medical School
Boston, MA

Hon. Milton H. Raphaelson, Esq.
Retired Massachusetts District Court Judge

Al Rava, Esq.
Civil Rights Attorney
San Diego, CA

Adam M. Sacks, Esq.
Family Law Attorney
Beverly Hills, CA

Shari Schreiber, M.A.
Counselor/Author
Los Angeles, CA

Frederic H. Schwartz, MD
Worcester, MA

Lisa Scott
Family Law Attorney
Seattle, WA

Wendy Sheppard, MSW
Parenting Coach and Therapist
Ambler, PA

David C. Stone, Esq.
Family Law Attorney
Anaheim, CA

Paul Stuckle
Attorney at Law
Plano, TX

Henry A. Tenenbaum, PH.D.
Psychologist
Sarasota, FL

Michelle Ventimiglia, MA
Early Childhood Educator
Northridge, CA

Karen Wagner, MA
Parenting Coordinator
Marietta, Georgia

Albany, New York–A bill before the New York State Legislature would require that ALL persons who received restraining orders would be required to wear an electronic dog collar (OK, I admit, it”s actually a GPS ankle bracelet). For more information, see the bill here or here. 

This device would allow the government to track their whereabouts 24/7. It costs about $4,000 per year to monitor a person wearing such a device. The monitoring is carried out by private companies that win contracts with the State to do the job. For about 50,000 restraining order per year in New York, the tab comes to about $200 million per year. But note that the New York State website states that the financial impact to the state would be “minimal.’ That means that they are planning to dun the wearer for the costs.

This bill takes away judicial discretion  — in other words, the judge would be required to order the dog collar, rather than judging the need on a case-by-case basis. It is striking that whenever the family court reform movement presses for a change, take shared parenting, for instance, we hear the hue and cry that our proposal would remove judicial discretion – even though most such bills would not. But here we have clear-cut loss of judicial discretion, and they are all rushing to pass this bill.

This bill appears to be identical to a bill that actually passed the New York State Senate last year, but mercifully died in New York”s other chamber, the Assembly. It seems to be identical right down to the following nonsensical sentence, which also appeared last year:

“In 1999 the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services received 55,558 police reports of family offenses involving adult intimate partners. In one out of five of these cases the victim knew the offender . . . . .’   If you read this sentence carefully, it seems to say that only one out of five people who are intimate actually know each other. This gibberish shows just how much thought has gone into this knee-jerk bill.

In February of this year, this bill won Fathers & Families” nationwide contest for worst family court legislation in the country. See the blog post here. Now it has been reborn.

Just in case you”ve been living on another planet and don”t understand what is wrong with this bill, let me tick off some of the problems:

– Restraining orders are given out pretty much on request. In the context of a failed intimate relationship, they are often requested not out of fear, but out of anger, spite, jealousy, desire to evict, desire to save attorney fees, attorney advice, or to gain advantage in a custody dispute.

– No study exists that accurately determines the proportion of restraining orders that have been obtained with false or greatly exaggerated claims. Court insiders such as attorneys and judges give estimates that range from about 25% to 80%. But the subject is so politically inflammatory that they will only speak off the record, so the abuses continue. Even if the lower estimate of 25% is accepted, that amounts to around 500,000 to 750,000 unmerited restraining orders per year. In New York State, it would be around 12,500 to 40,000 innocent people per year required to submit to 24/7 government monitoring.

– About half of the requests do not even claim a violent act or a threat. Rather, the complainant merely states a vague fear that something bad might happen in the future.

– There is no due process in most cases. Restraining order hearings are an evidence-free zone.

– The restraining orders harm children by cutting them off suddenly and without explanation from innocent parents, and putting them in the sole care of parents who are unscrupulous, to say the least. Children are hurt and bewildered when a parent they love disappears without explanation. It is even worse for them when the vengeful parent deceives them by saying their other parent is absent because he is evil, or because he is dangerous, or because he does not love the child.

Boston, MA–Another example of the hazards of Parenting While Male. According to Suspicious incident on-board MBTA bus resolved (5/6/08) from WBZ News in Boston:

“Transit police have identified the man seen with a young girl on-board a bus at Sullivan Station Sunday night.

“Officers have met with both the young girl, and the family member who was with her on the bus.

“A passenger noticed a man holding the child’s hand. That passenger says she overheard the girl say she was hungry, and the man told her to ‘Please be quiet.’

“The police say there was no criminal conduct. They consider the case closed.”

So the man (pictured, with the girl) was a “family member,” probably the father but maybe a different relative. He held his daughter’s hand on the bus and told her to be quiet when she was complaining about being hungry. For this, he’s investigated.

The case reminds me of the Victor Emmer case–see my blog post ‘The police can’t even stick a loitering charge on this guy, and they’ve gone and ruined his life’.

It also reminds me of the Virginia Billboard controversy–see my blog post Rush Limbaugh Covers Our Protest of Man-Bashing Virginia Health Department Billboards.