Calling All Angels- Finally a Real Campaign for children

 

There have been many dodgy campaigns in the so called “rights for children”, but are in reality only there for the sole purpose of securing the child as though they were a piece of property.  Statistics can be skewed all they like, but at the end of the day most children are better off with their mothers after divorce.  Nature knows it, criminologists know it and deep down we all knew it, but because the shared parenting campaign sold as well as the renown pyramid scheme – we all fell for it.  Religious commentators might say that it was like scientists “playing god”, but in this case it was male supremacists, robbing motherhood.  In their own sense of paranoid delusions, they thought that single motherhood was an “invasion of feminism”, but its not.  Its mothers working extremely hard through all of the hate set against them to raise their children to become strong and good human beings.  That is all, no matter how one tries to paint it, there is no more.  Now, because children’s rights have never been so appalling along with women’s rights, mothers have embraced feminism like never before.  The support every year for the white ribbon campaign grows every year and more people, whether men’s groups like it or not are beginning to see through the FRs hatred and propaganda.  I can be very thankful to learn that Australians are certainly not a dumb country as much as these vial groups represent.  The more violent incidents against women and children, the more people begin to know who is the real problem.  The continued support by dads in distress, dads on air members and even fathers4equality of a known perpetrator is a statement in itself that reveals what this group is truly about: Its not about and never was about men’s rights – it was abusers rights.  The right to conceal, the right to punish victims, the right to continue their terror unchallenged and most of all: The right to have judicial authority to continue to do this.  

Know that there is indeed a war on children and motherhood.  

Know that a critical mass can stop this

Know that the courts are accomplices in some of the most disgusting crimes of the century beyond 9/11  If we put all of the victims of this child and mother massacre: it would be classified as the greatest act of terror and genocide by the state and its actors.  

 

Posted via web from australiansharedparentingdebate’s posterous

Japan and why they wont sign the hague convention

Gerald Nissenbaum, a family lawer and a columnist from the bosten herald stated:

 Japanese divorce laws almost always award the kids to the mother unless she’s proven unfit. Japan also hasn’t adopted the applicable Hague Convention.

Japan is one of the few countries left on earth that honours mothers and truly appreciate the unique gift of what motherhood can provide for children.  With children as men’s property back in fashion, the world has embraced a disturbing trend.  Embedded within the Japanese culture are some of the most humanistic religions that do not force one to consider religious teachings without first questioning logic.  

Japan has a great history of quickly embracing western ways, but not without careful consideration.  Japan has promised to review whether it will sign the treaty, but aimed to investigate it properly first.  Something, other governments have failed to do and have unnecessarily reacted upon pressure of angry men’s groups.  

Posted via web from australiansharedparentingdebate’s posterous

Safety: They’re not asking for much

Some mothers work and some mothers spend many unpaid hours caring for their children.  With the growing amount of mothers continuing in the workforce, it is obvious that child support or welfare payments were not the incentive.  A majority of the working mother population use day care and after school care with the comfort knowing that the carers have been screened for a criminal background.  We expect in a first world country that our children receive the highest amount of care and in most cases they do.  Some of the experts caring for our children have been trained into enhancing the learning of our children, so that the time they spent away from their family is also progressive.    

Those who choose to stay at home often provide our schools with many hours of unpaid work, whether it is assisting with the canteen duty, reading to young children or participating in school working bees.  These are efforts that could not have been accomplished without the help of these women.  Whether paid or unpaid, most mothers are continually working often unnoticed and undervalued.  It is therefore in our time a complete outrage to claim that mothers only care for their children because of government incentives.  It is ridiculous to state that mothers lie in the family court for financial incentives.  In most stats, single parent families live below the poverty line and receive little or no child support.  Adding insult to injury, some are left with STD(Sexually Transmitted Debts) to pay with almost impossible financial odds against them.  

Just keeping the old family car running can be a journey.   Going single as a mother is financial suicide and if we were all stockbrokers, perhaps we would be jumping of buildings too.  We care more about our children enough not to do that which is more than can be said for those suicidal fathers, who claim that access to children will somehow cure them,  In fact children are more unsafe with suicidal fathers than they are with mothers as they are more likely to take the children with them.  When a mother decides to leave a relationship, it is usually for a very good reason.  A majority of the so called, "high conflict" divorces in the family court are in fact cases involving family violence.  "High conflict" is a term often used to trivialise the abuse that has occurred in the courts.  Only 6% of mothers and children are graced with the opportunity to walk away.  The rest are slugged with orders that don't protect them or their children from family violence.  Most cases are not investigated and remain unsolved.  The general legal advice is not to investigate as it can be viewed as "medical abuse".  Of course, when mothers enter the family court, they expect like they do with all other organisations associated with children that they will have the children's interests at the highest priority.  It is after all, expected from mothers and society demands that from us.  Our transport systems are built to include technology that increases the safety of their passengers.  Bouncers are required to monitor nightclubs to increase the safety of their patrons.  These measures are introduced because it is an area that violence is likely to occur.  We know that women are at the most risk at the end of a relationship.  There are few moments that go by in Australia where we do not hear of a homicide after separation.  More occur unreported and not publicly available are the homicides after family court proceedings.  What we do know is that the consequences of not introducing safety measures are fatal.  The right to the protection of person is a human right and a basic one at that.  The benefit of providing safety outweighs the costs as family violence already costs the Australian community 8 billion dollars.  Providing blanket protections without addressing this problem will only exacerbate the original sum. It is crucial that not only the Family Law act is reviewed, but judges are in a better position to really consider the safety of children and women experiencing violence as the top priority and most of all, should never ever be too much to ask for.  

Posted via email from australiansharedparentingdebate’s posterous

The Politics of Child Abuse

Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity. 
-Albert Einstein 

If one were to summarise all abuse case outcomes, it would be factual to establish that child abuse is only recognised as criminal when it has not been perpetrated by the state or its actors.  

In both the child protection and the family court system, cases where the government is responsible for the abuse go unchallenged by the public and independent organisations.  This is because both laws surrounding children restrict publication.  The argument for restriction is that it “protects” the names of the children involved.  In ABCs Law Report titled “Restrictions on media coverage of child protection and family court matters“, journalists raised cases where the child abuse was not being addressed.  The story with the cases and a variety of commentary provided an evidential backdrop on the reasons why suppressing deaths and abuse of children is not being protective.  It highlighted how the government had misused children’s rights as a means to a political end.  

The inquiry into family law was purely based on politics as most of the submissions were from men’s groups.  All of these groups requested laws aligned entirely with their own interests. When groups against child abuse began to appear regularly in the Australian media spotlight, men’s groups responded with political blackmail:

I know that separated groups, fathers’ groups in particular, shared parenting groups can conjure up over a million votes and that’s something that I think the Government will take into account. – Michael Green

No doubt, that men’s groups have influenced the general population to believe that men are far more disadvantaged than children and women, that their rights must be taken into consideration above all others.   This is reflected in the survey findings on community attitudes on violence against women.  Some members of society even believe that it is ok to rape.  It should not be a reason for politicians to see it as an opportunity to lower the rape law bar so that they can appease the growing population of rapists.  There needs to be a point where popularity is not the drive for our leaders.  

 

Posted via web from australiansharedparentingdebate’s posterous

Its not shared parenting: Its dads getting full custody

Some may wonder as to why members of the shared parenting council often celebrate, commend and applaud   the removal of a mother from a child's life.  That's because if they straight out said that they want all fathers to get full custody, no one would support them.  Shared Parenting is merely a tool for that and does not reflect the consistency in care that was provided for the children before separation.  Shared Parenting is a pathway for full custody.  

The expectations on mothers are exhaustive and so we are naturally set up for failure. Then there are those who look at our gorgeous children as if they are window shopping for mantelpieces to trophy in their lounge room.  In a world where money can buy everything(or so they market people to believe), they begin to calculate how they can wear down that mother so she will hand over that child. As though we are merely pedigree show dogs that are breeding the next batch of wonders. Today's favorite sport is not football or tennis as society bores of the ballgames – It is "who is going to get that baby." Its an intellectual sport where the player must convince the lawmakers that it is a morally superior act and should be done for the sake of the child. It is an unfair sport perhaps no different to the rabbit on a greyhound course flighting a group of dogs gone wild. The rabbit of course is the mother and the greyhounds are the team that works together in competition to rip the child away from the mother. 

Some gnaw away at the emotionality of the cruel process, pointing at every turn, "She is not mentally fit to be a mother, she is crying – She must be depressed!". The usually the crowd goes wild as they scramble in to seize the moment grabbing the child whilst the mother is still weak. The umpire in the game turns his head whilst the bribes are pushing at the seams of his back pocket. How many times have you heard a radio station offer a contestant large sums of money to lie for the audiences amusement? Since the alienation craze spread through the family courts, mothers have been losing children left right and center. They actually call protecting – "Maternal gate keeping" and thats a reason for a mother to lose a child.

In UK, mothers who have had history of violence used against them have their children not only removed -but adopted out. Its a nice little system where social workers are paid $3000 when the child is adopted. Not only do they play a sport that contemporary society considers, "Fun", but they get paid to do it. De-mothering is sadly not restricted to the UK, but everywhere and as the enthusiasm drives this culture, justifying it for empty reasons – We are going to need an Olympics devoted to the entire sport. Why we don't have it on television already? Perhaps just seeing it would expose how barbaric some members of our society truly are.

Posted via email from australiansharedparentingdebate’s posterous

Why Shared Parenting is Extremely Selfish

A great amount of disinformation is going around stating that those who reject shared parenting for children are “selfish”. In this article there are several key points where this notion is clearly not true.

1. Children don’t really have a place that they can solidly call “home”.

When they are required to fill out a form and asked where they live, there is usually one space for one address on the form. A majority of our society reside in one main address and rarely spend 50% of their time at another. These children must constantly pack their bags and live out of a suit case swapping between homes, never feeling settled.

2. Time with Dad is put above breastfeeding.

Infants are being ordered to go on formula if the mother cannot express milk like a machine that is extremely unnatural. Others are ordered a time limit on how long they are to be breastfed for. The time with the parents is put above the nourishing benefits the baby gains from breastfeeding.

3. It attracts dads seeking to deviate from child support obligations.

Mens groups promote shared parenting for the primary purpose to deviate from their obligations with child support. They might use other terminology in their campaign plans, but reduction of child support remains the end result.

4. Maternal Deprivation.

Not only is maternal deprivation unnatural, but also harmful to children emotionally and psychologically. The long term consequences of maternal deprivation might include the following:

• delinquency,

• reduced intelligence,

• increased aggression,

• depression,

• affectionless psychopathy

5. Its completely Disruptive for the child.

Children cannot maintain regular friendships within their neighbourhood. They are constantly shuffled between houses where one parent might have a different bed time to the other, so added to the problem is midweek sleep disturbance and routine disruption.

6. Provides opportunities for stalking, harassment and violence.

Parents who were ordered not to see the children as a result of past violence seek shared parenting as an opportunity to continue the dominant abuser role. Court stalking has become a developed phenomenon in Family courts, where orders are deliberately used as a control mechanism. Some might see shared parenting as a pathway for full custody as a tool to hold the children ransom in return for the mothers full submission to ongoing violence.

7. They cant keep up with outside school activities.

For children subjected to a rigid shared parenting routine where they are undergoing week by week arrangements, find themselves missing out on activity’s that they were able to maintain prior to divorce. Most activities outside school require children to attend them weekly in order for them to get anything out of them.

For those lucky parents who are not forced to share parenting have the opportunity to negotiate arrangements around the children to avoid these effects. Most parents are forced in these circumstances and do not have the opportunity to negotiate on behalf of the children s needs. Some chose shared parenting because they felt that they had no choice.

Peace For Women and Children

So much has been written about what women and children don’t want. The purposes of this article is to write about what we do want. Peace sometimes can be confused with passiveness. That is not real peace. Real peace is without oppression, hate and violence. If peace were an ideal, the declaration of human rights would not have been realised. It would have gone down in history as a collective”pipe dream”. Awards for the nobel peace prize would never have been given. It is a reality that everyday, there are people working towards bringing out true peace to all people.

When we ask the courts to protect our children and ourselves from violence, we are asking for peace. Restraining orders are there for that purpose. Unfortunately, Family Court orders have overridden these orders and disturbed our journey for peace. The type of peace that the Family Court has asked of us is false. It is oppressive, hateful and violent towards us and our children. Living under these circumstances is intolerable and wrong. Our human rights are in most cases severely violated. Despite the great harm, no women and child on this earth has engaged in violent protest to stop it. This is because we believe in true peace. Some of us have taken the peaceful way out and left countries to find peace. We have in turn been hunted down as though we are some wild animal that threatens society with our freedom. This is not the case. It is a clear delusion that mothers who run with their children for these purposes are somehow an adversary to societies peace. There are at present few legal remedies to this situation that are not further detrimental to our cause. There is no justification that could disassemble our cause of peace, it is therefore rightful that leaders take up the opportunity to properly understand and implement a remedy.

Let mothers and children find peace where ever they may travel.

True reason for problems of "fatherless" children

The fathers’ organizations have been claiming that child having an ongoing relationship with the father is at all times good for the child. They site statistics such as that children growing up with fathers in the house are much less likely to become criminal or addicted than the children raised without the fathers. In all cases, the claims are wrong, and the correlations drawn miss the causal third factor that is common to both divorce situations and situations of children’s deviance. That third factor is violence and abuse by the father.

Nobody divorces just for the heck of it. The “high-conflict” situations are for the most part situations of real violence, perpetrated by the husband against the wife and the children. The violence that the children have seen and been subject to in situations of divorce is far more common than they are in general population. Which means that the violent, criminal and dysfunctional behavior that is ascribed to children being raised without fathers are in fact causally linked to the violent, criminal and dysfunctional behavior by their fathers when the father was present in the house. A woman staying in such a situation with their children is not going to have children becoming good citizens. She will have children doing as the father has done.

In those situations, it is staying in the situation, rather than leaving the situation, that inflicts the greatest damage upon the children. The violence and the abusive, destructive attitudes build from year to year and destroy the child. Whereas getting the child away from such attitudes and behavior may be the only realistic way to save the child, and as such the only responsible solution.

The family court fails to account for this; indeed we see quite the opposite. A racket disorder known as Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) is being used to take children away from the mother and give fully over to the father when either the mother or the child bring up abuse. Not only are the children denied a way from a soul-destroying situation, but they are bound there still further and denied contact with anyone who can help them. The courts become accomplices in the process that destroys children.

To those who claim that a child must have both parents to become a functional citizen, it can be brought to bear that the most successful individual in the world – the President of the United States of America – was raised by a single mother; as were people as famous and functional as Jodie Foster, Tom Cruise and Al Haig. On the historical level, the supposedly dysfunctional baby boom generation was raised with both parents in the house, whereas the supposedly upstanding Generation X was raised by the baby boom generation, in which divorce and single parenting was common. The statistics of fathers’ movement ascribe causal factors to correlation due to a third factor – the violence and abusive conduct by the father. This true causal factor underlies both the woman wanting a divorce – and the violent, criminal and dysfunctional behavior in the child.

In homes that are broken by domestic violence, sexual abuse of children, and hatred of children by either parent, to leave with one’s children is in many cases the only responsible solution. The courts need to understand that, and they need to assist people in doing the same. Shared parenting works when this isn’t the case; but it doesn’t work when the abuse is ongoing. Women and children should be able to leave violence and keep away from violence. And in this they

deserve protection, not persecution, of the law and the community.

Australia’s Family Court Triage System

We don’t get much news on the Family Court because of the secrecy provisions. Few researchers are allowed access to court records. Fewer statistics are made publicly available and are often selective no different than the climate deniers research where years were purposely removed to convey propaganda. What we do know is that there is a very small portion of children being protected from child abuse and an even smaller portion of women protected from family violence. “No Contact” cases are as low as 6%, despite 98.5% of fatal crimes committed against children were by a family member.

The acknowledgement that violence against women is disproportionate to violence against men in intimate partner relationships, is outside the confines of the family law research community.

Fused with a male dominated court culture where women lawyers obtain few positions and opportunities to appear before the court, the culture creates an atmosphere of contempt for mothers and a proprietary view of children. The court deals with both property and children within the same venue as if there were little difference. Psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers are internal and external experts are dismissed as the court contains patriarchal views.

A paper called, “Bad Mothers and invisible fathers” is correct to challenge the courts ignorance and negligence towards children and mothers experiencing family violence. The last two reforms have only made these cases worse and the consequences less visible to a public that would challenge them. The hierarchy of priority in Family Court cases is clear within its judgements as it is in the picture this article accompanies. The most important thing to the courts is funding and this is reflected in the way its programs are presented. For instance, the Magellan program is renown for its “efficiency” in dealing with child abuse. In other words, like the federal magistrates court the focus is to cut as many corners as possible with more cases and the exorbitant amounts of money that accompanies it. There is of course a great need to ensure that there is adequate funding for necessary luxuries such as fine bone china that costs 60k alone. The next level of importance is to serve the gender that is more likely to preserve their expensive taste and of course the gender that a male dominated culture can understand and relate with. The angry men’s groups rhetoric is well served amongst this culture and in fact the differences are only in the dressing up of the language.

The mothers and children are of course at the bottom of the family court food chain. If the child does not support the fathers wishes, then their voice is unheard. If the mother raises violence, her claims are often treated by the courts as a ‘nuisance”, rather than something to be aware of.

Despite consistent global research supporting the fact that child abuse and family violence allegations are mostly true, the family court treats every allegation as though it were false. Evidence is routinely overlooked, no matter what the members have gone through to acquire it and most disturbing is the restriction of children to have access to specialists that can determine either way. The court in fact refers to such investigations as, “medical abuse”. It is beyond clear that there is a crisis in Australian Family Courts. It is obvious that key stakeholders must be proactive in changing the culture to provide a safer standard to both the children and mother who is enduring family violence.

When family violence occurs, the focus needs to ensure that all victims are safe from harm. This is the only circumstances where the child and the parents best interests should be considered on the same level. Finding ways to stop family violence in the therapy area, is the job of the therapists and simply making orders of contact for all but the perpetrator to endure is not going to make the problem go away. The choice to cease those behaviours is the choice of the perpetrator alone. All members of society have tried different antidotes to convince the perpetrator to cease the violence to no avail. Most of the time attempts that have involved continuing the relationship has only exacerbated the situation. The power to abuse is what needs to be removed and considering some of the positions perpetrator’s pursue, it can be a very difficult task at that.

The Family Court Could Save Lives

Asia (from left), Jarius and Grace Osborne with their grandmother. The family wants the children returned to the Waikato for burial. (source: nz herald)

A recent tragedy in Melbourne could have been avoided, but victims of family violence know that they cannot be protected by the courts. Only a tiny fraction of family violence victims were given the grace to go into hiding and provide a stable upbringing for their children.

In the Sunday Herald Sun, the mother of the victims in the Melbourne Murder suicide broke her silence when articles on the father portrayed him as a saint and the tragedy as, “unforeseen”.

She was a victim of domestic violence who was forced to leave without the children. She told of how she secretly watched over her children and how authorities failed to intervene.

“My heart breaks because . . . he had tried to commit suicide with an overdose of tablets (six months ago). Weren’t they concerned about the welfare of the three children if the father was doing that?”

“I was threatened from him. He had threatened me when I moved to Australia that if I was to take the children back to New Zealand – he took their passports, everything away from me,”

In some cases, emergency court proceedings have been made to protect children and others have been made to pursue children when the parent has absconded with the child. When this mother raised this with the police six months ago, an emergency order could have been made.

Unfortunately Family Courts routinely deny children and mothers the right to be safe and protected from this. Some proceedings even undermine restraining orders. The system must work together to prevent future occurrences like these tragedies from happening.