More Insanity By The Courts

Mother chooses jail over visitation

Updated: Saturday, 02 Apr 2011, 2:21 PM EDT
Published : Saturday, 02 Apr 2011, 2:21 PM EDT

• BY KATHRYN BASSETT kathrynb@kpcnews.net

AUBURN, Ind. (WANE) - The following has been provided by the News Sun :
 
An Angola mother is spending this weekend in the DeKalb County Jail for refusing to comply with a court order to take her 8-year-old daughter to see the girl’s father in prison.

Last month, DeKalb Circuit Judge Kirk Carpenter found Jenny Collins-Thompson in contempt of a parenting-time order that grants the child’s father, Pedro Moreno, visiting time with the child once a year for up to two hours at the Indiana Department of Correction.
Moreno was sentenced to 20 years in prison for robbery by a Steuben County court in 2004 and is serving his time at Westville Correctional Facility, Thompson said.
Thompson said a decree of paternity that adjudged Moreno to be the girl’s natural biological father was issued in June 2006.
“Welfare wanted me to name the father to go after her birthing expenses,” Thompson explained. “I ended up having to name him.”
Thompson said up until that point, Moreno had made no contact with her, despite knowing she had given birth to the child.
Thompson said she had not wanted Moreno to be a part of her daughter’s life, because of his criminal history and the choices he had made.
“I knew he had gone to prison. I knew what he did. I thought, as her mother, it would be better to just not have him involved,” Thompson said. “Almost right after he accepted paternity, he filed for visitation and parental rights.”
Those rights were granted in June 2007, and when Thompson failed to take her daughter to visit Moreno in prison, Moreno asked the court to hold her in contempt.
Cases and court hearings involving paternity and parental matters are not open to the public. However, Thompson chose to share copies of her court documents with this newspaper.
According to a motion filed by Moreno from Westville on Oct. 10, 2008, DeKalb County Judge (pro tem) Thompson Smith issued a court order June 29, 2007, granting Moreno visiting parenting time with the child once a year for up to two hours at the Indiana Department of Correction.
Moreno said the order instructed Thompson to take her child to the Department of Correction. It said Moreno would be responsible for arranging the visit and notifying Thompson of the arrangements.
Moreno’s motion said the order stated that visitation should take place between June 1 and Aug. 15, and that Thompson should encourage the child to send letters, drawings and pictures to Moreno. The order also allowed Moreno to send letters, cards and appropriate gifts to the girl, Moreno said.
In his motion, Moreno said Thompson had not tried to bring her daughter to visit him, even though Moreno had notified Thompson when she could visit. Moreno said Thompson also had not encouraged the child to send letters or drawings.
Thompson said transporting her daughter to Westville posed a problem financially, because she worked part-time and earned minimum wage.
“Ms. Jenny Thompson has recklessly disregarded the court order for two years now,” Moreno wrote. “If the courts (sic) does not act, then she will keep on disregarding the court order. Mr Moreno will remind the courts how important this court order is, how much he loves his daughter and how much she means to him.”
At a hearing in December 2008, Thompson was found to be in contempt of the order, but was told the charges would be relieved if she took her daughter to see Moreno, she said.
Moreno sent another letter to the court in February 2009, saying about his daughter, “I would like to get to know her before it’s too late. I don’t want her to make the same mistakes I made. I’d like to be a part of her life.”
Still, Thompson said, she did not take her daughter to see Moreno.
On Feb. 11, 2010, the court entered an order of contempt enforcement and required Thompson to report to the DeKalb County Jail by Feb. 22, 2010, to begin serving a 180-day sentence.
Thompson hired Sara Seibert of Angola as her attorney. Seibert asked the court to stay the order requiring Thompson to report to jail, allowing time to review the case record.
Carpenter denied the request and, to avoid going to jail, Thompson said she had planned to take her daughter to Westville to visit Moreno. However, those plans were sidelined when it was discovered that Moreno was not registered to have visitors.
Seibert again filed a motion asking the court to withhold its Feb. 11, 2010 ruling. That motion was granted. But since that time, Moreno has registered to receive visitors, Thompson said.
Thompson said her attorney then filed a motion to transfer the case to Steuben County. At the time, she lived in Fremont and did not have reliable transportation to court hearings in DeKalb County, she said.
Carpenter denied the motion May 6, 2010, saying “… the court finds that to have the cause remain in this court is not a manifest inconvenience to the parties.”
In October, Thompson filed petitions to vacate the contempt order and deny Moreno’s parenting time. But Thompson said attorney fees became too costly

for her, and Seibert withdrew from the case Jan. 20.
Thompson appeared without legal counsel at a March 9 hearing on her petition to vacate the contempt order and deny parenting time. In a ruling filed March 11, Carpenter said Thompson had not presented evidence to show that Moreno should not have the right to parenting time.
Carpenter also found that Thompson had not presented evidence to justify her intentional disregard of the court’s prior parenting-time orders.
“In order to enforce the prior parenting-time orders of this court, the court orders that the mother serve an executed jail sentence in incarceration of four days,” Carpenter ruled. With credit for good behavior, Thompson can serve the sentence in two days. She was scheduled to report to jail at 3 p.m. Friday.
Carpenter said Thompson also must follow the parenting-time order issued in June 2007 and that this year’s visit with Moreno must take place before June 1, with annual visits before June 1 of each subsequent year.
“If such visits do not occur, the court shall consider further enforcement orders,” Carpenter ruled.
Thompson said she is anxious and afraid about spending time in jail, but added, “If this is what I have to do to protect my daughter, then this is what I’m going to do.”
Thompson said she has allowed her daughter to send and receive letters and pictures to and from her father, but is opposed to her daughter visiting Moreno while he is in prison.
“Why can’t he just wait, come out (of prison) and stay out of jail?” Thompson said of Moreno. “Why do I want my daughter to bond with a man, if he can’t prove he can stay out of prison?
“If he can do all this stuff, then I have no problem with her bonding with him, but I want him to bond with her somewhere she feels comfortable, but not somewhere that is being forced upon her. I can understand parents who were there with their child having rights to see their child. But this is a man who wanted absolutely nothing to do with her and had made no contact with me until she was 4 years old.”
After serving her weekend in jail, Thompson said, she plans to appeal the denial of the motion to transfer her case. She also hopes to find assistance from legal aid or other outlets in seeking to vacate the visitation order and to take away Moreno’s parental rights.

 

 

Just so that we are all clear about how the idiots in family court think. This is a mother who has taken care of this child by herself for the past 8 years. Because this child shares some DNA with this man, the childs life and that of her mother has to be uprooted in some insane belief that there is a parent child bond that can be established. Again, never forget that the people in family court ( judges, evaluators, attorneys, GALs) are not thinking normally. Never trust them. Never believe them. Because they think that this is the right thing. 

The Evidence For Your Custody Decision

As you may have already realized, there is no scientific evidence that the custody decision that has been reached in your case is an appropriate one. Although you will often times hear or read that custody is determined "to be in the best interest of the child", what is in your best interest varies wildly from state to state and courtroom to courtroom. Judges are only people, they come with their own inherent biases and blindspots. Most judges believe that it is in your best interest to have an ongoing relationship with both of your parents, and in most cases they are correct. Studies show that children thrive under the love and caring of two responsible parents, whether those parents reside in the same house or not. The problem is that becomming a parent does not make some one automatically loving, caring or responsible. In cases in which a parent is not capable to form an a good parent child bond, either as the result of alcohol, drugs, or a controlling personality, there are no standard guidlines for custody.

This is particularly problematic in domestic violence cases, as the abuser ( overwhelmingly the father), utilizes the court system to continue to exert control over the mother and the children. For children caught in this tornado of lies and vindictiveness, there is often no calm until they reach the age that they can make their own decisions regarding custody. Until then they are marginalized by the court system and left vunerable by a mother who can not protect them. And the father's know it:

"Abusers understand that the best way to hurt mothers is to hurt their children. This is why so many abusive fathers who had little involvement with the children during the relationship suddenly seek custody when the mother seeks to leave her abuser. Court professionals often miss recognizing the fathers’ motivation because they have repeatedly heard that contested custody are high conflict cases when most are actually domestic violence cases. The worst part of this work is hearing about the unspeakable pain suffered by mothers and children when courts send children to live with dangerous abusers and take safe, protective mothers out of their children’s lives. It is extremely frustrating because these mistakes cause so much harm, but could be prevented if the courts would apply current scientific research.

If there was a scientific basis for these decisions, an evaluator could tell the court how his recommendations have worked out for the children in earlier cases. There is no such research and the closest we have are the Courageous Kids. These are young adults who have aged out of custody orders forcing them to live with abusive fathers and denying them a normal relationship with their mothers. These kids have a moral authority that none of the rest of us has because the decisions were supposed to be made for their benefit. The decisions gave control to the fathers who had tremendous power and resources to silence the children. This means the many Courageous Kids who have spoken out, often in great pain in order to help other children from suffering the same fate, represent a small percentage of spectacularly mistaken decisions. They describe tremendous pain and suffering during childhood and many problems that last into their adult lives. In many ways they are the lucky ones because other children in this situation commit suicide, destroy their lives with drugs and other harmful behaviors or otherwise never reach their potential."

The excerpt above speaks volumes to the need for children, like you, to speak out in whatever fashion possible to explain how these decisions have affected you. Currently there are small beams of light shinning through the darkness on YouTube, Saving Damon, and Courageous Kids Network, giving children caught in custody a voice. However, if there is any hope of the court system listening to you, the children, you first have to speak up and fight for yourself. There is no evidence of your pain, until you first give it a voice. Please feel free to send FUCCED any stories, information, drawings, or emails regarding how you feel about your custody situation.

Father's Relationship with Their Children vs. Father's Access to Them: What Matters More

by Herb Goldberg

A number of years ago, when I would pick up my daughter after school in the sixth grade, there

was a man I would see there who was faithfully and daily picking up his two children. He was

earnest, devoted and reliable and the personification of a caring father. He was a single dad who

had custody of children who hadn’t seen their mother in several years.

Toward the end of the school year, I noticed that he hadn’t been coming to pick up his children

for several weeks, so I inquired about him from a parent who was a friend of his. I was told that

their mother had recently come back to visit the kids and, after a weekend of being with her, the

children happy and excited, expressed a desire to move back with her to her home in Colorado.

The father was helpless in the face of his children’s pleading and urgency.

In another instance, a man had recently separated from his wife. During his marriage, this

successful businessman dad had structured his busy work life so that he could be available to his

children, They were his first priority, even though he had an engineering consulting business

with 11 employees and clients all over the country. As his children became young teenagers, he

began to work out of his home so that he could be there for their little league games, PTA

meetings and at home projects such as building an addition to his house. He bought a private

plane just so he could always return at will from business meetings in order to attend his

children’s games and school functions. So concerned was he about their education that he ran

for and won a position on the school board. Whenever any of his two children had a problem at

school, he was there to meet with their teacher, to defend them against any unfair action and to

straighten things out.

His relationship to his wife wasn’t good. She was often critical of his opinions about the

children and his parenting philosophy. She was withdrawn sexually from him for years because

of her many resentments. Consequently, when his youngest was 14 years old he began an affair

with a prominent local businesswoman and subsequently left his wife to be with her.

What he discovered was that all the years of being there for his children and making them a

priority had resulted in a “worse than nothing” relationship. Specifically, they didn’t want to be

with him. On the weekends and other times when they were in his custody they were hostile and

withdrawn, sitting silently and sullenly watching television at his apartment until it was time for

them to go back to their mother. Once they passed the age of 18, both of his children opted not

to see him at all.

While he could blame his wife for ‘poisoning’ the children’s minds and promoting the alienation,

it became clear that it had little to do with her. His children just didn’t like being around him.

While he had been the ‘perfect’ father in terms of his commitment, caring and devotion, he

couldn’t connect with them. In their minds he was a know-it-all who lectured them and always

knew the right way to do things. They disliked him and learned to tune him out.

A woman I knew who wanted a child began dating a married man who thought she was on birth

control. When he found out she was pregnant, he was enraged and withdrew from her

completely. The mother, an independent professional, decided not to pursue child support

because she didn’t want the angry father in her life. When I met and became friendly with her

and her seven-year-old daughter, I discovered that the daughter was constantly composing letters

of longing to the father who lived nearby but didn’t want to see her because he felt he’d been

used by the mother. Years later, when the father finally responded to the child’s letters and

messages, his child was overjoyed. Even though she had never seen her father, when she finally

met him she was excited happy and so appreciative.

One thing that struck me most clearly and powerfully during the period when Robert Bly was

prominent and father figure to the men’s movement, was the recurring theme in the lives of

many of the men who attended his workshops, of an absent or negative connection to their

fathers. Many hated the father they remembered as having been critical, abusive, alcoholic, selfcentred,

emotionally unavailable, controlling, angry and pretty much impossible to talk to.

Others just felt indifferent, as if they had no father at all.

Their feelings, which determined their memories of their father, were not that different from

what feminists had been saying that these men were like, The irony, however, was that in most

cases these were not absent fathers. These dads had been at home throughout. These were

fathers who, I’m sure, were convinced that they had been good parents, doing the ‘right thing’ as

they believed that to be. In the end these fathers, like my client and the Mr. Mom of my

daughter’s elementary school, were embittered and dumbfounded that after all they had done for

their children, their children could care less about them, and in many cases even hated them.

What seems clear from these examples is that the issue in fathering goes way beyond physical

access to the children and loving intentions. I have no doubt that most of the fathers who now

are rejected and even hated, loved their children. Ironically, those who were full time dads still

married to mother might actually have been appreciated more had they been at home less or gone

from home entirely. To the children, dad’s presence was toxic. A negative because of

related and how he was experienced. The more he was around the more he was disliked and

avoided. It didn’t matter what he thought that he was trying to do as a parent. What mattered

was how he came across to the children, how it felt to them to be with him.

How a father is experienced is usually something a dad can’t see, any more than most men can

see when they are being blatantly manipulated and used by women. Call it ego, cluelessness or

denial, fathers can’t see it, and children disguise their real feeling out of fear or cynical

indifference and disdain. What fathers aren’t aware of, however, is the real reason father-child

bonds dissolve, Were the bond there, no amount of physical separation could dissolve and

destroy the relationship.

How does all this relate to custody issues and battles? These power struggles over access to the

children are usually ludicrous and pathetic as two parents nit-pick over the exact amount of days

and times that they will spend with the children. The custody battles are misguided and

redirected control and revenge battles that have nothing to do with the children and their welfare,

nor will the outcome of these battles affect the deeper relationship between the children and each

parent, except for traumatizing and polarizing them. Particularly once, when the child is more

than three or four years old, the die has been cast. If the bond is positive and present, little will

disrupt it except temporarily. If the bond is absent or negative, the custody fight will exacerbate

it. The more dad battles mom for custody, the more the children will recoil from him, as they

perceive their mother as being abused. If he ‘ wins’, he will have won less than nothing as any

potential for positive bonding has been seriously damaged.

Looked at from another angle, in a relationship of love and attraction, whether romantic or a

friendship, think about those people in your life who you were drawn to and had a warm,

positive feeling toward, You may have only been with them little but their memory is large and

potent. Getting together is strongly anticipated. In between seeing each other, though they may

not be around in person, they exist powerfully in fantasy. If it’s a woman a man is attracted to,

weeks and months may go, but when she reappears it’s as if no time has elapsed. Likewise with a

beloved friend, years may pass without personal contact, yet the moment they are present it feels

exciting and enjoyable. Contrariwise, if a bond is not there or is negative, contact with the

person only strengthens the resistance and dislike.

I have seen men impale themselves emotionally and financially in misguided, destructive

custody battles. They are victims of a classic masculine blindspot, the belief that the relationship

to their children has to do with schedules, access and not letting mother ‘win’ or control the

children. They spend fortunes of time, money and emotion only to discover that the ‘victory,’ if

accomplished, was hollow.

When children are bonded to and love a parent, even if they see them rarely, they will be excited

and happy when they are with them. In between they will be anticipating, longing and thinking

about it. Contrariwise, I’ve seen men who gain joint or full custody in the courts, only to

discover that the weekends or times when they have it, their child doesn’t want to be with them

and is hostile, withdrawn and passive-aggressive. It becomes so painful and ‘impossible’ to be

together that eventually dad gives up and loses interest and desire. It’s not very enjoyable to be

with a child who makes it clear that he or she doesn’t like you and doesn’t want to be with you.

Or worse, to be with a child who sees it as punishment to be with dad.

Growth for fathers means to gain awareness of how it is for the child to be with them, rather than

fighting for their ‘right’ to parent. It is traditionally masculine to turn a relationship problem into

an issue of right and wrong, or a battle over rights. However, it is my belief that a protracted

custody battle, and the perception that the courts discriminate against men and prevent them

from being fathers, is largely delusional and a final nail in the relationship coffin of men.

If a child wants to be with his father, and the mother does block or prevent it, the outcome will

be that the child will resent the mother and make mother’s life hell until she gladly gives the

child over to dad. Contrariwise, if the child doesn’t want to be with dad, and no positive bond or

connection exists. Even if mom is supportive of the child’s relationship with him, the experience

will be negative.

There are many psychological reasons why an ugly custody battle, particularly one in which a

man believes that he is fighting the system and the poisonous influence of the mother over his

children, is counterproductive and damaging to a man’s expressed desire to parent his progeny.

The following are some of them:

1. By the end of a marriage, a woman’s rage over feeling she has been controlled and

abused is at a peak. She sees custody issues as the final battle ground and will

relentlessly fight to any extreme in order to win Attorneys feed on this adversarial tone

and see it as a way to make money as they stoke the rage. She will pull out all the stops,

and drain the father and the finances in this final stand to not let him get his way “this

time”.

2. In most families, children have a stronger emotional connection to their mother. In

painful custody battles, because the children are vulnerable and threatened, they will

bond even more strongly with her and will perceive what father is doing through other’s

eyes. Whereas a man may believe his children will appreciate how hard he is fighting

for the right to be with them, he is wrong, just as fathers have traditionally been wrong in

the belief that they will be loved for being good providers. What the child sees is that

dad is abusing mother and is a jerk.

3. If a man has a loving bond already in place with his child, he will be missed by the child

and a mother who blocks the child’s ability to be with him will find her life made hellish

by an angry and rebellious child.

4. A woman is energized by a custody battle with dad. It is her chance to ‘pay him back’

for years of feeling and believing that she has been diminished and abused. Without such

a battle to engage in, it is very likely that mom won’t even want that much responsibility

or time with the children. She’ll focus instead on her need for freedom, the opportunity

to enjoy herself and to act on what she believes are her long suppressed impulses and

need to find herself. By a man not fighting her, she may in fact try and push the children

onto their father so that she can be free to date, be with another man or pursue her new

found passions.

5. Even in the worst-case scenario, where a man is denied contact with his children

altogether, if a positive bond is in place, it will remain and grow in memory. His

influence will remain, as the child will do things to make dad proud in the future. Once

the child enters teenage or young adulthood, he or she will seek out the father and the

intervening years of no contact will dissolve.

6. Fighting custody battles only promotes a masculine nightmare of personal and

relationship disconnection. Relationships are not about control, power, winning or

losing. They are about emotional connection, empathy and bonding. A man’s energy

should go toward personal transformation to develop ways to maximize his connection to

his child and overcome his relationship shortcomings. To do that, he must first

acknowledge them and overcome his belief that he is a maligned but good and loving

father who doesn’t have dysfunction but is being abused and misunderstood.

7. As a working therapist for many years, I’ve never seen a man benefit from fighting these

battles. Even if he wins in court, he has won the battle and lost the struggle to focus on

and nurture his bonding potential.

8. No matter what a court decides. The children will ultimately decide custody and the

emotional nature of the parent-child relationship. If the child wants to be with father

more, or even full time, it’s only a matter of time before that will happen. No parent can

withstand the atmosphere of a hostile child who wants to be with an absent parent.

9. Relationships with one’s children are continually in flux and no court can nail that down.

Whatever it is today, it will be something different tomorrow. Court made agreements

are washed away each time the tide turns.

10. Finally, lawyers feed on and directly or indirectly promote the alienation and antipathy

between parents. Get out of their clutches. They are the only ‘winners’ in these custody

disputes and the financial price and emotional bitterness can be devastating.

how he

This article is copywritten as part of Dr. Herb Goldberg’s upcoming book,

Time for Men: Surviving and Thriving in the Battle of the Sexes.

A Tough Love

Dr. Herb Goldberg is a licensed clinical psychologist practicing in Los Angeles and a

Professor Emeritus at California State University. Los Angeles.

Ten Reasons for Men

Not to Fight Custody Battles