This letter to the editor gives readers a window on how domestic violence in this country is reported (Chicago Tribune, 4/23/09). It's from Jeffery Leving, Chairman of the Illinois Council on Responsible Fatherhood. Apparently he was interviewed by a reporter for the Tribune for an article on supervised child visitation centers. While expressing his... »
For decades, syndicated columnist Neil Peirce has been one of the best informed writers on urban issues in the United States. This piece is a good example (Seattle Times, 4/24/09). It's about decriminalization of marijuana. Thirteen states now have some form of law permitting the possession and use of marijuana for any of an array of... »
"But worst of all, the producers of this show, which is supposed to center the welfare of children, think nothing about turning kids into collateral damage."--syndicated advice columnist Amy Alkon Author and former Fox News columnist Wendy McElroy and syndicated advice columnist Amy Alkon are backing our Campaign Against Lifetime TV's New Reality Show Deadbeat... »
When this case appeared on my screen, my first thought was "Oh, I've already done a piece on that," and started to delete it. After all, it looks a lot like the Alicia Zebrun case I wrote about in "Sentencing Discount for Woman Who Left Newborn to Die." The two women even look somewhat... »
I guess this is progress (Chicago Tribune, 4/20/09). The Nation's Katha Pollitt takes on domestic violence and the question of why women don't leave their abusers. Unfortunately, about half of her bout with that question is just feminist boilerplate, but the second half actually looks like a serious effort to come to grips with the... »
This is a little different from the usual GlennSacks.com fare, but, as the text says, if it doesn't bring a smile to your face and a tear to your eye, well... You may have seen this video. If you have, it's worth seeing again. If you haven't, don't delay. It's a mix of musicians from... »
"I once wrote that slave labor is probably the only solution, but national public humiliation is also good." Examiner columnist April McCaffery backs up Lifetime against our Campaign Against Lifetime TV's New Reality Show Deadbeat Dads in her new column Standing up to deadbeat dads is standing up for your children (4/28/09). McCaffery's... »
This article shows another aspect of the genius of the child support system at work (AVVO, 4/20/09). The State of Florida currently has $28 million in child support payments that it doesn't know what to do with. It can't figure out who should receive the money. About $5 million of that has been sitting... »
This article is a must read (Seattle Weekly, 4/14/09). It's an attempt to deal somewhat comprehensively with false rape allegations. It has its faults, certainly, but it places many of the issues before the public in a fairly balanced way. The article includes the actual experience of a college teacher falsely accused of rape by a student. ... »
The page for our new campaign against Lifetime's father-bashing reality show Deadbeat Dads has been on the front page of FoxNation.com all day today, asking the question "Does Lifetime TV Bash Dads?" To participate in our campaign, click here. In Lifetime TV announces new reality show: Deadbeat Dads (4/28/09), Examiner.com parenting columnist Barbara Thompson writes: According... »
The Tennessee General Assembly's lower house passed a bill that would allow a man to discontinue child support payments 60 days after learning, via genetic testing, that he is not the biological father of the child. The companion bill in the Senate is currently pending before the Judiciary Committee. The vote in the House... »
For children of the unwed, especially among the underclass, life without a mother and father in the home is the rankest cruelty self-absorbed adults can inflict unintentionally. This column by Jim Wooten is much needed (Atlanta Journal Constitution, 4/21/09). Wooten is one of the staunchest champions of fathers and of children's need for fathers in... »
Detroit News columnist Kevin OShea takes Lifetime TV to task over its new father-bashing reality show Deadbeat Dads in this new column. Lifetime TV has received thousands of letters and phone calls from Fathers & Families supporters today--to join our campaign, click here. OShea writes: We're familiar with the term "deadbeat dads." I've long felt it's... »
Lifetime TV announced the launch of its new, father-bashing reality show Deadbeat Dads last week. To email and fax a letter to Lifetime Executives protesting this show, click here. "Neither accurate nor fair." --Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker, Washington Post Writers Group, on Deadbeat Dads According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Deadbeat Dads, originally ... »
In Roberts Misunderstands DV Bill, Robert Franklin, Esq. criticizes Carey Roberts' piece Ladies, want job security? Just scream 'abuse!' (RenewAmerica.com, 2/4/09). Roberts responds: I was surprised to read Robert Franklin’s recent blog, “Roberts Misunderstands DV Bill,” which characterizes much of my February 4, 2009 article on the Security and Financial Empowerment (SAFE) Act as “flat... »
I usually like Carey Roberts' stuff. He's a good writer, funny and often makes trenchant points that need to be made. But in his piece Ladies, want job security? Just scream 'abuse!' (RenewAmerica.com, 2/4/09) he blows it. His column is about a bill that's before Congress sponsored by Lucille Roybal-Allard of California and Texas Republican Ted... »
Not long ago, I wrote a piece on a Canadian father whose daughter sued him because he had grounded her. The court ruled for the girl who now lives with her mother. I, and I think a lot of people were astonished that a child could get away with that, but now I think... »
Here's yet another case in which a mother literally killed her newborn baby and the court gives her a tap on the wrist (Buffalo News, 4/21/09). But it's far more than a standard story of the female sentencing discount at work. Alicia Zebrun was a college student. She gave birth by herself at home, placed... »
Way down at the southern tip of Texas, a Brownsville teacher has been acquitted of indecency with a child. Andres Chavez Rodriguez walked free after a jury found him not guilty of the charge and will now try to put his life back together. Apparently, a teenaged girl levelled the accusation at Rodriguez in retaliation... »
Here's the link to a press release by the Parental Alienation Awareness Organization. It's sponsoring its fourth annual parental alienation day. The incidence of PAS is hard to know. As the site points out, many people know of divorced couples who use the child to express their anger towards each other. Many people know parents who actively... »
Fairly often I find myself asking "How do these people miss the obvious?" This book review in the Wall Street Journal discusses the behavior of Americans when it comes to marriage, divorce, cohabitation and related topics (WSJ Online 4/13/09). The review provides a conduit for the thoughts of Andrew J. Cherlin, author of "The Marriage-Go-Round." And he has some... »
In 2006, the New York State Legislature enacted the Strengthening Families Through Strong Fathers Initiative. The first thing to come out of that legislation was a pilot program to try to ascertain if the initiative is succeeding. Now we have the Urban Institute's report on the pilot program. One of its authors is Dr.... »
If you have a teen or tween daughter and/or a wife (I have both), you're probably familiar with the Twilight book series by Stephanie Meyer and the recent movie Twilight. It's a dark, teen romance-type movie centering on Bella (played by Kristen Stewart, pictured right) and a teen boy who turns out to be... »
From Jennifer, a Fathers & Families' supporter: Although my partner has always paid child support faithfully, the court ordered wage garnishment at the request of his ex. Now we're having issues with appearing delinquent because my partner gets paid bi-weekly. Here's the issue (we'll call my partner "Joe" for ease of writing): Joe gets paid every... »
The tragedy is that the cost of family breakdown has been known for so long and yet has been wilfully ignored by politicians of both parties. This article is about the United Kingdom, but, with a few names and dates changed, every word could apply to the United States (Telegraph, 4/17/09). It's the long, sorry... »
This case raises a few interesting questions about just how involved the police should be in parenting (MSNBC, 4/22/09). Recently, I've written about the Canadian court that substituted its own judgment about what punishment was appropriate for a 12-year-old girl who disobeyed her father's rule about using the Internet. He grounded her, but the court... »
This article is short - about 100 words (Lex18.com, 4/17/09). But look closely and you'll see that it says more than those 100 words. For one thing, it actually describes as domestic violence a woman's stabbing a man. That may be a first in the annals of reporting on DV. More interesting is the fact that, when the... »
It seems each new story like this is more amazing than the last (KOMONews.com, 4/16/09). Seattle-area father Dirk Pratt had a single photo of his daughter, Francesca, when she was two years old. That's when her mother took her to Ecuador for what was supposed to be a short trip. But the mother stayed and... »
I read a lot in mainstream media about fathers, mothers, children and families. So much of it is uninformed, incurious. So much is just a bland recital of questionable facts and misinformation repeated with slight variations time and again. So when I run across a piece like this one, it's like seeing the first rays of... »
Recently I read Anna Politkovskaya's Putin's Russia, in which the Moscow Nord-Ost hostage crisis/massacre is discussed in great detail. According to Wikipedia: In October 2002 Chechen terrorists took the audience hostage in the Moscow theater that was showing the production of Nord-Ost, threatening to blow up the building and demanding withdrawal of Russian troops from... »
"here is a provable and consistent pattern in the majority of domestic violence awareness or service organizations and many official government agencies of considerable 'cherry picking' in reporting these various results to achieve a desired end: overestimate the number of abused women and downplay or ignore the number of abused men." The new, 10th anniversary... »
Montreal resident Frank Gonis is preparing to reconnect with his daughter, Ashley after two years. That's when she was abducted by her mother toward the end of a lengthy and bitter divorce. Gonis thought the court was about to award him custody at the time, and has been searching for the girl ever since with the assistance of... »
Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and Wall Street Journal Editorial Board member, Paul Craig Roberts published this indictment of the criminal justice (which he carefully follows with 'sic') system (OpEdNews, 3/11/09). Roberts rightly points out several obvious shortcomings about the system of incident, investigation, indictment, trial, appeal and incarceration that passes for justice in this... »
"The law, sir? The law is a ass - a idiot." Mr. Bumble, Oliver Twist. It didn't take the State of Florida to prove Mr. Bumble to be the sage he assiduously appears not to be. Plenty of other states and nations have done the job as well or better. But this case is further... »
This sloppy, unfocussed article pretends to deal with adolescents and "the talk," i.e. the parental talk with teenagers about sex (The New York Times, 4/14/09). Unfortunately, it's impossible to tell from one paragraph to the next what the author, Perri Klass, M.D. is talking about. (If she's as bad talking about sex as she... »
As a counterpoint to my blog post about Rick and Eleanor Hemmert ("Because Rick lost his job, his wife says I've just lost so much respect for him'"), read this article about stay-at-home dads (Sacramento Bee, 4/15/09). The Rick and Eleanor piece was a horror-show parable of gender role reversal gone awry. Rick had lost... »
"I am a divorced mother of two teenage girls, and I went through mediation. I acknowledge the need for my kids to have a strong loving relationship with their father and to be able to visit him in a comfortable home. "These Massachusetts child-support guidelines are outrageous. If I went through the courts and used... »
"As a family law attorney for two decades, I know very well that it takes months to get a hearing to modify child support, and that it is very difficult to get support recalculated."--Deborah Sirotkin Butler Joseph P. Kahn's front page story Amid layoffs, child support pacts fraying: Stressed-out parents ask family court for help,... »
"There is no pain greater on this earth to be told by the court system that you can only see your child every other weekend... "I was involved in every aspect you can think of until my relationship with my child's mother ended. The courts treated me as if I was... »
Any article that begins with "the patriarchy" and includes the wage gap in the first sentence can't be good, and this one's not (Mount Holyoke News, 4/9/09). But still when it says "in public discourse on violence...men are often left out of the equation altogether," I confess a spark of hope kindled in me. ... »
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