Category: Blog

“‘Elian II,’ the sequel we hoped never to see, is what fathers’ groups are calling a Miami case that once again highlights our confusion about paternal rights in child custody battles…“The principle is…Does the biological father, assuming he is fit, have a right to his own child? The answer should seem obvious: Not yes, but hell yes…“Projecting our own values, it’s easy to imagine that [the five-year-old girl at the center of the custody battle] would be materially better off in America. We’d all prefer to live among prosperity in a free country than in relative poverty under a communist dictatorship.

This week I partnered with Dr. Ned Holstein and Fathers & Families in a campaign to protest this injustice. Thousands of you have answered our call to action, the campaign has been covered by the Associated Press and many others, and Florida DCF has opened a dialogue with us. To learn more or to join our campaign, click here.

Parker is concerned about the decline of fatherhood, and was one of the most articulate defenders of Juan Miguel Gonzalez during the original Elian Gonzalez case in 1999/2000. Her new column is Elian II: The Sequel (10/19/07).

Background: Charlotte Hardwick’s Dear Judge (Kid’s Letters to the Judge) is a fascinating collection of letters which children caught in divorces have written to family law judges.

In the letter below, a young girl blames herself for her parents’ divorce.

Dear Judge,

I think my mom and dad are fighting because of me. Could you put me in a new family so my mom and dad can be happy again?

Sandy S.

Background: In the outrageous “Elian Gonzalez II” case in Miami, Rafael Izquierdo, a fit, loving father, has faced numerous obstacles to reunite with his 5-year-old daughter. From day one of this case, the Florida Department of Children & Families has done everything in its power to separate Rafael Izquierdo from his little girl.

This week I partnered with Dr. Ned Holstein and Fathers & Families in a campaign to protest this injustice. Thousands of you have answered our call to action, the campaign has been covered by the Associated Press and others, and Florida DCF has opened a dialogue with us. To learn more or to join our campaign, click here. Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker, who is published in over 300 newspapers every week, is concerned about the decline of fatherhood, and was one of the most articulate defenders of Juan Miguel Gonzalez during the original Elian Gonzalez case in 1999/2000. She has covered our campaigns in the past, including our Campaign Against PBS’s Father-Bashing Breaking the Silence in this column, and has expressed interest in our Elian Gonzalez II campaign.
Below I reprint excerpts from one of Parker’s best columns–When did fathers become fair game? (12/12/99)–written during Elian Gonzalez I. Parker wrote:

“The persistent negative messages about fathers as abandoners, ‘deadbeats,’ or batterers is so pervasive – and has been so successful – that we readily condemn men guilty of nothing.

“Just as readily, apparently, many Americans have been willing to essentially kidnap a child from his only living parent on the basis that, well, he’s only a father.

“My mail the past few days following a column in which I insisted the boy be returned to his father – Juan Miguel Gonzalez – underscores the strength of this bias against fathers. Though the majority agreed, a disturbing many questioned the father’s ‘motives’ in trying to get back his son. Love isn’t enough, apparently; there must be an ulterior motive.

“Readers suggested variously that the father might be an abuser. After all, he and his wife were divorced, surely through no fault of the woman’s. Or, as one wrote, ‘He may have been boozing, whoring, gambling, etc, instead of loving. It may be that she (the mother) went to such desperate measures to escape his influence on her son.’

“Maybe. Then again, maybe not. Shouldn’t we presume that fathers are as good as mothers absent evidence to the contrary. Why do fathers have to prove they’re fit, while mothers enjoy our instant support? The gender bias implicit in such questions – and the inherent prejudice against fathers – has rarely been so clear…

“Critics of Elian’s return to Cuba have justified their position by saying we know nothing of the father. We don’t know his birth sign or his suit size, that’s true, but we do know that the father loves his child and had an ongoing relationship with him, according to Elian’s own U.S. relatives.

“That’s good enough for me, but there’s more. Juan Miguel Gonzalez was a custodial parent, caring for Elian during the day while his mother worked. Elian’s mother cared for him at night while his father worked as a doorman at a resort hotel. Theirs sounds like the kind of cooperative post-divorce relationship most Americans couldn’t manage if world peace depended on it.

“Now, imagine that your own child, whom you love and care for every day, suddenly disappears and is found days later floating on the open sea. Suppose he is rescued by citizens of a foreign nation, which refuses to return him to you on the basis of your country’s political system.

“Let’s just say that if I were Juan Miguel Gonzalez, the people detaining my child should consider me armed and dangerous. Juan Miguel Gonzalez deserves not only his son, but an apology and, perhaps, a congressional medal for self-restraint.”

I 100% agree with that last sentence.

Boston, MA–As a result of over 2,000 protests from around the nation, Florida’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) has asked me to meet with them this Wednesday in Miami. Our protest campaign, led by Fathers & Families in Boston and Glenn Sacks in Los Angeles, has been covered by the Orlando Sentinel, the Associated Press, nationally syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post Writers Group and others. If you haven’t sent your protest yet, please do so now. It only takes two clicks. If you want to know all the facts of the case first, click here and you will find everything you might want to know.
But if you trust Glenn and I on this, just click here to go straight to the protest email, which you can modify or send as is. In this case, a Cuban mother brought her young daughter to the U.S., but quickly deteriorated psychologically and eventually attempted suicide. The DCF found that she had repeatedly hit and neglected her five-year-old girl, whose father is Cuban farmer Rafael Izquierdo, and placed the girl in temporary foster care. The DCF made no attempt to contact Izquierdo in Cuba even though it had his name and phone number. Worse, once Izquierdo learned on his own and came to the states to get his daughter, the DCF ginned up a series of now-discredited accusations against him. In September, District 11 Judge Jeri B. Cohen found that Izquierdo is a fit and committed father. But, instead of dropping its case against him, the DCF has escalated, hiring 21 lawyers to appeal Judge Cohen’s decision and to wrest custody away from a fit father so that the girl can be given permanently to her temporary foster parents. In our Wednesday meeting in Miami, I will ask DCF to drop its appeal, to get out of this girl’s life, to let her grow up in the loving care of her father, and to respect the right of fit parents to raise their own children free of government interference. I will also suggest ways that DCF can improve its outreach to non-custodial parents so that other cases like Izquierdo’s can be avoided. And I will inquire about yet another case that has come to attention, “Elian Gonzalez III.” Glenn Sacks says, “It is to DCF’s credit that they are willing to meet with those who disagree with them in this case. It shows that they have heard the massive protests of those who believe that politics should not be allowed to interfere between a child and her parents.” Once again, join this bandwagon, and add your voice to the thousands whose protests are already making a difference. Click here if you want to learn more details about the case. But if you just want to go straight to the protest email, click here. I will give you further updates after the Wednesday meeting.

Background: In the outrageous “Elian Gonzalez II” case in Miami, Rafael Izquierdo, a fit, loving father, has faced numerous obstacles to reunite with his 5-year-old daughter. From day one of this case, the Florida Department of Children & Families has done everything in its power to separate Rafael Izquierdo from his little girl.

This week I partnered with Dr. Ned Holstein and Fathers & Families in a campaign to protest this injustice. Thousands of you have answered our call to action, the campaign has been covered by the Associated Press and others, and Florida DCF has opened a dialogue with us. To learn more or to join our campaign, click here.

The Miami Herald article “Cuban child custody cases piling up” (9/21/07) reveals that there is an Elian Gonzalez III case, and apparently Florida DCF is doing the same thing to the dad as they’re doing to Rafael Izquierdo. Miami Herald reporter Carol Marbin Miller writes:

“With her father’s consent, a small child emigrates from Cuba to Miami with her mother. Some time later, the little girl’s mom is gripped by mental illness and ends up in a psychiatric hospital.

“The girl, now 5, is in the care of state child-welfare administrators. Her father, still in Cuba, wants her back.

“Sound familiar?

“Just as the battle for custody of Rafael Izquierdo’s 5-year-old daughter enters what could be its final chapter in Miami, a strikingly similar case is attracting attention.

“The new case is one of at least three involving children born in Cuba currently being handled by the Florida Department of Children & Families, which already has spent more than $250,000 in an effort to prevent Izquierdo from getting custody of his daughter…

“The other Miami case began in late August. The 5-year-old girl’s mother was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital, according to DCF spokeswoman Erin Geraghty.

“The girl’s father lives in Havana and is seeking to regain custody. DCF investigators believe, however, that he has a drinking problem.

“The department has not yet discussed the girl’s plight with the dad, Geraghty said.

”’We are in the initial process of contacting the father,’ she said.

“The parents lived together in Havana, but separated when the girl was two, Geraghty said. The case has been assigned to Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Valerie Manno Schurr.

“The girl is currently in the care of her mother’s cousins. It is unclear whether they are seeking permanent custody.

“Reached by telephone in Cuba, the father declined to comment on the case…”

Interesting. In “Elian III”, DCF’s reason (or pretext) for cutting the young girl’s father out of the picture is that he may have a drinking problem. Well, maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. But it’s strange how DCF is capable of ascertaining this intimate detail of his life, yet has somehow been unable to contact him.

DCF says they are “in the initial process of contacting the father.” They make it sound so long and difficult, but it wasn’t a problem for the Miami Herald reporter, and DCF had a lot more time than she did. I would bet that if we had his phone number from the DCF file, we could call him directly and have him on the phone in about a minute.

This week, Fathers & Families and I launched a campaign in defense of Rafael Izquierdo, the embattled father in the “Elian Gonzalez II” case in Miami. In that case, Izquierdo, who a Florida court found to be a fit, committed father, is fighting the Florida Department of Children & Families’ long, expensive, and highly-publicized effort to keep his five-year-old girl in foster care. To participate or to learn more about the campaign, click here.

Our campaign asked Florida DCF to contact Ned Holstein, MD, MS, president of Fathers & Families, to discuss how procedures can be changed to help ensure that in future cases, assiduous efforts are made to reunite children with their fit noncustodial parents.

To DCF’s credit, Patricia Badland, Director of DCF’s Children and Families Family Service Program, has contacted Dr. Holstein and opened a dialogue. Badland is a member of DCF’s newly-formed Task Force on Child Protection. Florida’s Award for “Excellence in Child Welfare” has been known as the “Patricia Badland Award.”

To learn more about the “Elian Gonzalez II” case, visit our campaign page here.

Rafael Izquierdo, the embattled father in the “Elian Gonzalez II” case in Miami, yesterday expressed anger over the impact Florida Department of Children & Families’ new legal appeal will have on his daughter’s schooling. He explained: “I don’t want her to fail second grade,” he said. “I thought everything was going to be a lot faster.” Izquierdo, who a Florida court found to be a fit, committed father, is fighting DCF’s long, expensive, and highly-publicized effort to keep his five-year-old girl in foster care. This week, Fathers & Families and I launched a campaign in defense of Izquierdo, and Florida officials have received thousands of letters,
faxes, and calls from our supporters. To email and fax the relevant Florida DCF officials, click here. The Associated Press discusses our campaign in Cuban girl’s fate left hanging during appeal (St. Petersburg Times & others, 10/17/07). Laura Wides-Munoz, the AP reporter, can be reached at Lwides@ap.org. To learn more about the “Elian Gonzalez II” case, visit our campaign page here.

“The world is seeing nobody can just take a child away from you.”–embattled Cuban father Rafael Izquierdo (pictured)

Embattled Cuban father Rafael Izquierdo has publicly said very little during his long struggle to get his daughter back from the Florida Department of Children & Families, but what he said yesterday spoke volumes. In the outrageous “Elian Gonzalez II” case in Miami, Izquierdo, who a Florida court found to be a fit, committed father, is fighting DCF’s long, expensive, and highly-publicized effort to keep his five-year-old daughter in foster care.

This week, Fathers & Families and I launched a campaign in defense of Izquierdo, and Florida officials have received thousands of letters, faxes, and calls from our supporters. To email and fax the relevant Florida DCF officials, click here.

The Orlando Sentinel and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Ft. Lauderdale/Miami cite our campaign in their new article DCF files appeal in case of Cuban girl, 5 (10/17/07). The author, Maya Bell, can be reached at mayabell@orlandosentinel.com.

To learn more about the “Elian Gonzalez II” case, visit our campaign page here.

One area of keen interest for divorced fathers is how alienated children reunite with the parent who was the target of the Parental Alienation campaign. Sadly, sometimes this reunification never occurs. Many times it does, but only years later.

A few years ago I did a His Side with Glenn Sacks show called Hope for the Holidays: Spontaneous Reunification, in which I discussed this issue. One of my guests was Allen Green, author of Blind Baseball: A Father’s War. Green has experienced PAS and reunification firsthand, and he had some interesting advice. I don’t have the exact quote, but he basically said, “Don’t destroy yourself. It’s very, very hard, but if you’re the target parent of Parental Alienation, play for the long haul. Remember you still have the kids as adults, plus you have grandchildren. Fight the best you can, but always keep the long-term in mind–sooner or later, the children usually come back.”

In Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome: Breaking the Ties that Bind, Amy J.L. Baker details many of the reunions between children and their alienated parents, and delineates some common scenarios under which this occurs.

One of Baker’s reunification scenarios is not a happy one–the adult child reunites with the alienated parent because they now themselves have experienced Parental Alienation as a parent, and see through the lies they were fed as a child. I’ve previously discussed the case of David, one of the adult children of Parental Alienation who Baker interviewed–David’s parents divorced when he was six, and he who was caught in his mother’s long-term alienation campaign against his father. (To learn more about David’s case, click here and here).

David only began to gain insight into the way he had been misled when, in his 20s, he himself divorced and his ex-wife turned his daughter against him. Of his divorce, David explains:

“Initially there was some problems with the parenting time but then I was always able to get things worked out. I started keeping pretty good notes so that if I had to go back to court I would be prepared. When we did go back to court they would slap my wife”s hand and I would see my daughter for a while until the next time. I noticed this from an adult perspective and I started to remember things that had happened to me and there started to become a number of similarities. For example, little instances would happen (between he and his daughter) and they would be blown up way out of proportion and out of context and then I wouldn”t be able to see my daughter. I started to see too many similarities. And actually my current wife started to say that I should get back in touch with my dad and then I called him up and made arrangements to get together.’ David had seen his mother employ the same tactics when he was a kid, and began to see that his negative feelings about his dad had largely been created by his mom. He contacted his father, for the first time in decades. He explains:“It went pretty well actually. I called him up and introduced myself and he said, ‘Fine. Great.” We talked for a while and made arrangements to meet for lunch and we went there and we sat and talked and ate lunch and really things couldn”t have gone smoother. We talked a little bit about that (the alienation) but never really in detail like maybe we could have because I never really felt like we had to.’Sadly, to date David has been unable to reunite with his own daughter, who is now 25, and who he has not seen in over 10 years. He says:

Background: TV often portrays men and fathers as idiots–to watch some videos of “dad as idiot” TV commercials, click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

We’ve done two campaigns against these types of commercials, and have been more or less successful. To learn more, see Campaign Against Anti-Father Verizon Commercial and Campaign Against Anti-Male Advertising on our campaign page here.

If you have a daughter in the nine-year-old range, you’re probably familiar with the Disney show Hannah Montana. My daughter often forces me to watch it with her. Well, “forces” isn’t exactly accurate, since she snuggles up in my arms as we watch, which would probably make even going to the opera worth it.

Anyway, there’s a surprising thing about this show. In an era when we have a long parade of “doofus dads,” in Hannah Montana the family is being raised by a single father, and the father is actually a smart, loving, very-competent dad who is respected by his children. It’s refreshing to watch a show where a father’s intervention in a crisis or incident isn’t just a set-up for a joke about what an idiot he is.

In the show, the father, played by country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, is a widower who is the sole caretaker of his children and who gave up his successful career as a country singer to raise his kids. Hannah is played by Billy’s real-life daughter and the show often has nice flashbacks of pictures of the two of them together as the little girl grew up.