Joint Custody

From JWLESTER@aol.comMon Sep 25 13:26:08 1995 Date: Mon, 25 Sep 1995 13:05:53 -0400 From: JWLESTER@aol.com To: manifesto@christianparty.net, familylaw_l@lawlib.wuacc.edu Subject: Joint Custody backlash Subject: Review of Joint custody (fwd) Fathers @soho.ios.com asked: So IF, and only IF, "Liz" [see below] is correct, then WHO is the best custodial parent -- the father who has the highest income and who produces less than 1% of children who make up the prison population when he runs a single-father household, or the mother who often requires us taxpayers to subsidize her so she can raise her children in poverty and who produces 70% of the inmates who inhabit our prisons? Dr. Hirzcy responded with: NEW ACADEMIC ARTICLE Joint custody: The option of choice Research results on joint custody have changed and a consensus has emerged in the psychological literature which suggests that joint custody should be a rebuttable presumption. Twenty states currently have joint custody as either a presumption or a preference. The available literature also supports the following conclusions: (1) Non-custodial parents are often intentionally victimized through visitation denial, and children are hurt when the relationship with either parent is broken in that manner; (2) Children adjust much better to divorce in joint custody compared to sole custody situations; (3) Children's attachment bonds to both parents are essential for healthy development, and those bonds should be protected by the courts; (4) Joint custody leads to much higher compliance with financial child support obligations; (5) Mothers are much better adjusted and supported more in joint custody situations; (6) Litigation and relitigation is lower in states which have a presumption for joint custody; (7) Joint custody is the preferred option in high conflict situations, because it helps reduce the conflict over time-and that is in the best interests of children. Source: Abstract William N. Bender. "Joint Custody: The Option of Choice." Journal of Divorce & Remarriage. Vol. 21(3/4) 1994. The author is an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education, College of Education, Univ. of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-7152. And I have added my comments in parentheses to the original post below: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 22 Sep 1995 12:51:38 -0500 From: liz To: Subject: Re: JOURNAL review article Joint physical custody has been recognized as logistically impractical and psychologically detrimental for years now. (No, actually joint physical custody has been rejected without test by those gender bigots such as Liz, some of whom sit on the Family Court bench. Warshak does a good job of reviewing and explaining the mistake or deliberate lies put forward by opponents to joint custody in his book, The Custody Revolution, Poseidon Press 1993. ) And joint legal custody, or shared custody, with one parent remaining as the primary physical custodian does little to alter the amount of time a child spends with the noncustodial parent, (The amount of time spent is strictly controlled by the orders of the court, which seldom reflect the desire of fathers for more time with their children. So this argument is circular. Legal joint custody limits the amount of time fathers have with their children, fathers with legal joint custody don't spend more time with their children, so why give fathers even joint legal custody if they don't spend more time than the court allows with their children? Huh?) and does a lot to create control conflicts between parents who continue to harbor resentment stemming from the failure of the marriage. (This can be read as, "Because father still has some limited rights as a parent, mother can't completely dictate what happens to the children. This frustrates her desire to be in complete control and causes her to resent this lack of complete autocratic dictatorial power over the lives of the other members of the former family, which she asked the courts to dissolve in 75% of divorce cases.) In the Summer 1995 Family Law Quarterly, Joan Zorza summarizes the concensus of enlightened thinking (What Liz should say is that this is the consensus of gender bigots about any threat to the continued process of judicial kidnapping of fathers' children in divorce courts. She later cites an objection to ANY consideration of fathers' rights as detrimental to the best interests of the child. This repeats her theme that narcissistically equates mother's interests with child's interest.) about joint custody generally, although her article otherwise discusses the battered spouse situation ("Recognizing and Protecting the Privacy and Confidentiality Needs of Battered Women": (Please notice the shift from battered spouse to battered women. Once again Liz reveals her gender bias by not noticing that she has ignored battered husbands.) "Joint custody awards do not improve the lot of children. In fact, most children in court-imposed joint custody (not just those with abusive fathers) do poorly (Liz doesn't say that the children do poorly in comparison to children whose parents are NOT divorced. There is no comparison to children in the sole custody of fathers in this study either.) [ft.nt.60 Gina Kolata, "The Children of Divorce: Joint Custody is Found to Offer Little Benefit, N.Y. Times, Mar. 31, l988 at B13; Nancy D. Polikoff, "Joint Custody: Only by Agreement of the Parties," 8 Woman's Advoc. 1,3 (1987)] (Two comments about the above "citations", articles in the N.Y. Times are NOT evidence of any scientific study, and articles in an advocacy journal cannot be expected to bear any resemblence to truthful presentations of data.) and are more depressed and disturbed than children in sole custody, [ft.nt.61 Sheila J. Kuehl, "Against Joint Custody: A Dissent to the General Bullmoose Theory," 27 Fam. & Conciliation Courts Rev. 37 (1987)], even when the parents genuinely choose joint custody [ft.nt.62 Id.]. (See the reference cited at the start of this post to recognize another distortion) Furthermore, joint custody results in lower child support awards, (Ah, now we get the real reason Liz is opposed to joint custody. It will reduce monthly payments from the victims of judicial kidnapping.) which fathers are no more likely to pay than awards made when the mother has sole custody. [ft.nt.63 Polikoff, supra, note 60.] ( I suppose we should believe a woman's advocate instead of the US Census bureau about the relationship of payments of child support in joint custody versus sole mother custody cases. After all the Census Bureau is less experienced in this survey research sort of thing. :) See G.H. Lester 1989 publication about payment of child support under various sorts of custody arrangements.) Joint custody does not even result in the father spending any more time with his children. [ft.nt.64 Frank F. Furstenberg & Andrew J. Cherlin, "Divided Families: What Happens to Children When Parents Fail 33-38 (1991).]" (Of course what is unsaid here is that the study was one of LEGAL rather than physical joint custody. So by following the court orders fathers get less time than they should have with their children.. The misrepresentation that fathers CHOOSE to spend no more time with their children than the court allows, is just another lie from our feminist friends.) And, Zorza says "when the father is an abuser, joint custody awards frequently endanger both the abused parent and her children. [ft.nt.65 Polikoff, supra note 60.] (Let's change the gender of this statement to see if it would be true as a propaganda statement intended to slam women. "When the mother is an abuser, joint custody awards frequently endanger both the abused parent and his children." Yep, it works just as well when we make the false assumption that most mothers are abusers as it does when she falsely assumes most fathers are abusers.) Professor Mary Ann Mason had this to say about joint custody in "Equality Trap" Simon and Shuster l988: "There are many things wrong with this unthinking rush to joint custody, but the primary objection is that it changes the focus of custody away from the 'best interests of the child' to the best interests of the parents--or, more precisely, to the best interests of the father." (Note once again the linkage between child and mother as if they are one and the same. Any shift from best interest of child is to best interest of father. This is a narcissistic departure from reality.) Joint custody *increases*, not decreases, covert resentment ( on the part of the non-victorious mother?) and conflict, because it permits the parent who is *not* spending the day-to-day time raising the children and operating the household to exercise veto power over decisions made by the CP (how can there BE a CP if there is joint custody?), and if so inclined, to meddle and interfere, (as do many mothers with sole custody when visitation can be denied with impunity) creating stalemate, and power plays to attempt to break it between the two parents. Some of these "power plays" are: good parent/bad parent game, visitation conflicts, and withholding of support. And, for a summary of the relationship found by one researcher between visitation denial claims and child support, and also debunking the popular myth that women increasingly use false sex abuse allegations as a weapon against fathers in divorce cases, see an article by J. Pearson, Ph.D., published Summer l993 FAMILY LAW QUARTERLY, Vol. 27 No.2 American Bar Association, Ten Myths About Family Law, a synopsis of research conducted by The Center for Policy Research. A key factor in successful parenting in intact homes is the ability to parent in unison and provide a united front. (See, e.g. Penelope Leach, and other child development experts.) Persons who are married have difficulty enough parenting in unison and doing a good job of it, but at least where they disagree, they share common goals, and have a relationship between themselves to preserve, which is incentive for compromise and respectful discourse. That's absent in a divorce situation, and strained even more when stepparents enter the picture with their own interests and agendas. Psychological researchers who have expressed negative opinions about joint custody include, among others, Anna Freud and Judith Wallerstein. In short, a major problem is the child's, in Wallerstein's words, living a life in "no man's land." Children who routinely shift as a temporary resident between two households that have other permanent members who "really" live there presents a destructive outlook for a child, damaging of identity and self-esteem. Young children form a sense of identity from their family base, and, notwithstanding the fiction, joint custody does not give the child a whole family, nor does it approximate a two-parent intact home. The child, in fact, is central and permanent to no home, which only reinforces and trauma of the divorce split. It would be far better for the child to have one, stable one-parent "intact" home and for the other parent to visit in a complementary way, rather than create the conflict of a competing "home." ( To call A. Freud and J. Wallerstein researchers is stretching that term beyond reasonable boundaries. Wallerstein is a clinician who has published summaries of her clinical experience. Not the same as objective studies conducted on "normal populations". For an explanation of just how Liz and others have erred in their interpretations of much psychological research on children and custody arrangements, see R. Warshak, The Custody Revolution, 1993, Poseidon Press.) Professor David Chambers has written articles from the legal standpoint, recommending primary caretaker presumptions and the forbidding of physical joint custody over the objection of one parent. For another recent article exploring these issues and concluding that a primary caretaker, rather than joint custody presumption is preferable, see Phyllis T. Bookspan, "From a Tender Years Presumption to a Primary Parent Presumption: Has Anything Really Changed? ....Should It?" 8 B.Y.U.J. Pub.L. 75 (1994). (This is the feminist backlash against fathers rights. In print. Have you noticed the gender split among the authors Liz cites? Very few men, mostly women. This issue is very difficult to be objective about. Most women feel very threatened when the idea of men as primary parent is the topic. Their fear makes them distort reality to dispute the fact that men are as capable as women of parenting, if the courts would give them that opportunity.) Finally, presumptions in divorce laws that purport to grant equal standing to parties with unequal power and differing position in real life, neither reflects reality nor administers justice. (Somehow this seems to dismiss that old Constitutional concept of equal protection. ) Eliminating litigation is not the goal. Eliminating the conflict that causes the litigation without yielding injustice *is.* Presumptions of equality as to unequal parties yields inequitable results--injustice. For example, see Zorza, supra. Also see White, A.C., Family Law and Domestic Violence, Fla. Bar. J. Oct. 1994 ("Studies show that abusive fathers are far more likely than nonabusive parents to fight for child custody, not pay child support, and kidnap children.") (What do studies show about abusive mothers and custody? Since upwards of 61% of all child abuse is perpetrated by mothers in single parent homes, shouldn't the courts use that as an argument to award sole custody to fathers?) As to the best interests of the children: There simply is no need to choose between unacceptable evils: lack of relationship with a beloved noncustodial parent or denying a child the right to one (obviously Liz can't conceive of two intact homes. Is that because she expects Dad to be impoverished by the child support he is ordered to pay?) intact home, regardless of the number of parents in that home. A primary parent presumption as to custody coupled with appropriate traditional visitation is what is in the child's best interests. ( This is based on zero scientific studies of outcomes for children. There are no such studies carried out over any span of time post divorce. The Wallerstein publications are excerpts from clinical work, not real studies of randomly selected cases of families post divorce. The result is similar to those gender feminists who report "studies" of the women in shelters for battered women and extrapolate those data to the whole universe of women. Most of the citations Liz offers are opinions published by women and lawyers who have no real data to support those opinions. Which is to say bigots can be published in many different ways, but without any scientific studies of the impact of both mother / father / and joint custody on many children, they are only repeating their bigotry. As to the TRADITIONAL VISITATION concept, shall we speak of traditional work roles for men and women in the same breath? The tradition of sole mother custody is a young one in the scope of history. Up until the 1870's the TRADITIONAL legal action was to place children in the custody of their fathers. Without the pseudo science which supported the infamous tender years doctrine, and the socialistic wealth transfer of welfare and child support laws, sole mother custody would never have been accepted or wanted by most women.) The politics of adult rights has no business injecting itself into this issue as a competing consideration to the best interests of the child. (The operative words here are "this issue" which Liz defines as equating best interest of the child with sole mother custody. This is consistent with her bias, and unfortunately the bias of many judges. It isn't supported by any research from the psychological literature. To fail to assert that ALL parties mother, father, and children, have rights that must be protected in divorce orders, is exactly the judicial abuse which will result in more and more civil rights cases against such gender bias in custody awards.) Liz Jerry Lester, Ph.D.