Of Fathers and Cranes

Since Friday February 15, Serge Charnay, has been on top of an abandoned crane, in  a Nantes (France) old shipyard. Charnay spread a banner with these words: “Benoit, two years without his dad.”  Benoit is Charnay’s son. He has not seen his father for two years. Serge lost his visitation rights when he sequestered his son for ten days in 2010 and two months in 2011.

Serge Charnay (Photo Frank Perry, AFP)

Also Charnay wrote on top of the crane: “Let’s save our children from the justice system.”

What is it with some fathers and cranes ? Five years ago, in September 2008, Paul Fisher (Ohio) and Donald Tenn (California, President of Fathers for Justice USA) climbed on a crane near Ohio State University. They were requesting a non-partisan investigation into the family court system by the governors of their respective states – then Ted Strickland in Ohio, Arnold Schwarzenegger in California.

I love it. Men perched on a phallic piece of machinery screaming their lungs and their powerlessness at the unfairness of the justice system and claiming their rights to see their kids, like their exes do.

In any case, Serge Charnay may have made significant breakthroughs for the fathers rights movement in France, perhaps because awareness on the topic has previously been raised by Moreno’s protests against the family justice system (Moreno went to Nantes to support Charnay). On Friday night, Serge Charnay was told – by  the Prefet (a high government official) that he could benefit from a request before family court to review his case. As Charnay refused to get off his crane, Jean Marc Ayrault – Mayor of Nantes and Prime Minister, mind you- asked the Minister of Justice (the French Attorney General) and the Minister of the Families to meet next week with father rights organizations.

When has any high- ranked government official ever met with fathers rights organizations in the US? Did governors Strickland and Schwarzenegger ever ask their Attorney Generals to investigate the family court systems in their respective state? I guess not. And  I think it may have to do with the fact that father rights movement are no lobbyists with big pockets.

Serge Charnay, you are most welcome to talk about your experience on this blog when you will get off your crane.

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Nicolas Moreno’s Way of Saying “I Want to See My Kids”

That’s the bottom line: for fathers claiming their rights, it all starts with the desperation from not seeing their kids: Jason Hatch (England) could not see his, Charlie and Olivia. He joined Fathers 4 Justice (UK) and stunted Buckingham Palace in September 2004 (The New York Times Magazine, May 8 2004). At the end of 2007, I had not seen my girls for almost three years and was harassed by ex via Manhattan Family Court. I was seeing myself going straight to jail and at least, I wanted my girls to know why; I started this blog.  Nicolas Moreno, from Romans (France), has adopted a bolder way: hunger strike.

Dauphiné Libéré, 01/21/2013

Let me say first that if I could trade the New York State family justice for the French one, I’ll do it in a second. There, I bet justice may be slow but there ain’t no trial for child abuse that lasts more than 6 years; no judge arrogant enough to tell you, after having found you innocent of child abuse, that your relationship with your kids is “damaged” hence your kids and yourself are doomed to therapeutic visitations for an indefinite period of time; finally,  joint-custody is the default option in divorce.

Is the French justice system faultless? On paper, it acknowledges the right to fathers to be part of their kids’ life; Yet it did not protects Nicolas Moreno’s when ex moved with Luca and Evan, their sons, some 400 miles away from him, for no justifiable reason.

Nicolas is part of SVP Papa, a father rights organization which is asking for the inclusion of alternate staying of the kids with each parent into family laws. There is a fathers meeting in Nantes, the city whose mayor is Jean-Marc Ayrault, the Prime minister, on February 20; to help him hear the Nicolas of France.

Hat Tip: Scott Gabriel Alexander Reiss

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Albert Einstein Was One of Us

“There are no big coincidences or small coincidences, there are just coincidences” says Rava to Elaine Benes in an episode of Seinfeld. True.  I just mailed today a letter to my oldest girl (a letter from the French Consulate sent to my address) wondering if it would ever be given to her, if she was not the one picking up the mail. And forget about any acknowledgement of reception. Coming back home, I saw a friend had sent me a link to a 2008 Daily Mail article about Einstein being an early fathers’ rights campaigner.

That’s quite interesting, indeed.  One learns that in a 1914 letter to his soon-to-be ex-wife, Mileva Maric,  Albert Einstein was reproaching her not to pass on his greetings to his children, Lieserl, Hans Albert and Eduard. If she had, he would have received an acknowledgement from them.  In other words, Einstein had to deal with the alienation of his children by his ex-wife, well before the concept of parental alienation was even coined.

I confess, there are days when it’s almost a consolation to know that what I am going through is not reserved to regular Joes like me. Folks like Einstein have experienced it too. Lucky Einstein however had only to handle Mileva Maric, not a New-York- State-type family court.

Hat tip: Diego Olivé

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Custody Laws Are Changing in the UK. When in the US?

Photo: Fathers- 4- Justice

That’s happening in the UK;  The government is to attempt to change the law so that both parents – mothers and fathers- will have the right to see their children. Family Courts will have the responsibility to give to fathers time with their children. This is not joint custody, but a step in the right direction.

Matt O’ Connor, the President of Fathers 4 Justice (UK) , is not happy about it. From what I understand of the debate in the UK, the law is not going to prevent women to invoke child abuse to deny fathers access to their children.  Point taken.  Yet, from New York State  (and most of the States), where family courts have one motto – bleed the turnip  (the non-custodial father who does not see his children)-, a law like this would be significant progress.

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New York State Court System to Fathers: Paying Child Support Will Make You a Dad, Son

It has become a reflex. I freeze anytime I happen to hear or read about making us better dads. Check this piece, by Jill Colvin:

Rashomon (Kurosawa)

Midtown Court Helps Ex-Criminals Become Better Dads.  We are not talking of something published by New York State Child Support Collection Unit but by a media outlet,  DNAinfo.com, sadly enough.

In this piece we learn that Bronx Family Court refers ex-criminals to Midtown Community Court, a project of the Center for Court Innovation. Here they attend the Dad United for Parenting  (don’t dream, it ain’t a dads’ grassroots organization) program where they learn skills that will help them find jobs. Why is the Bronx Family Court doing that? The students dads of the program have child support payments problems. Some have accumulated arrears in child support while there were in jail.

That’s where the silence of the piece is deafening: The fact that by law you owe child support while in jail. Let us just talk money here. Depending on your ex-spouse’s financial situation, being in jail has possibly caused hardship to your children. But this hardship, if hardship there was, is past and in civilized countries there are institutions protecting the welfare of those in need. Child support as conceived by New York State laws is accessorily about your children. It is mostly about providing a rent to your ex-spouse no matter what: whether you are employed or not, institutionalized or not.

To reintegrate oneself into society after a jail sentence is not easy, even less so with a debt to pay off. What is the ultimate purpose of this project to better dads? Help ex-criminals to cope with child support laws that provide them with the incentives to do things that will bring them back to jail. It would be a million times more efficient to reform New York State Child Support laws.

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The Government Wants Me to Take Time to Be a Dad; Alas, Ex and Family Court Don’t!

The Advertising Council is about to launch an advertising campaign for the Department of Health and Human Services. The punch line: “Take Time to Be  a Dad.” The campaign is targeted at minorities;  it is assumed that white males know how to spend time with their kids. Among the truths that the campaign wants to stress, the fact that the smallest moments between a dad and his kid make a difference, and “I don’t need to be a hero to be a dad.”  I feel much better already.

Nicely-marketed paternalism stinks as much as the nineteenth centuryish, holy Joe do-gooder one. The government has its priorities on fatherhood wrong. If the Department of Health and Human Services really cares about fathers being fathers, the first thing it has to do is to preserve their rights. In New York State for instance, that entails changing the family laws of the state.  The government should spend whatever it takes to change the mentalities in family court. Most judges, support magistrates and law guardians have one view on fatherhood: “Pay stupid.” Time with kids is for mum.

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Unpublicized Fiscal Reforms: New York State Made Child Support a Payroll Tax

“Tea partiers” have it all wrong.  They are after the government for being where it is not (health insurance ) and they are nowhere to be found when the government abuses its prerogatives.  For instance, when New York State strip searches non-custodial fathers for child support payments.

New York State has recently introduced a new rule for the payment of child support: the time when non-custodial parent was sending child support checks to the custodial one, or to the Support Collection Unit, is over.  Now, unless the non-custodial is self-employed, child support is to be deducted from the non-custodial paycheck. What’s the difference? First,  New York State family laws could  care less that you see  your children. Second, what New York States cares about though is that you pay child support. And It does not trust you to do it yourself.

What if, by any chance, too much is garnished from your paycheck? If, like myself, you have a  “credit”  as a result of a change in a  money order that did  not take effect at the right time? Too bad for you, fellah.  Child Support Information Line (1 800 846 0773) or Child Support Collection Unit on 151 West Broadway will tell you that this  “credit” is not really a “credit”. If this amount is less than your monthly child support, you ain’t gonna get your money back. You know, in case; these non-custodial fathers cannot really be trusted. And you are not gonna pay less in child support either the next month either. Free money for the custodial mother parent. Justice, the New York State way.

And it comes without saying that if you are late,  what you owe bears a whooping 9% interest rate on any arrears that you have, on whatever family court has decided you have to pay.

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In Dwyane Wade’s Divorce, Parental Alienation Is Given a Free Ride

Wade and Son

Looking at the lives of the rich and the famous is sometimes informative. I  guess that in their world, everything does not begin with the too-common Kay diamonds  but it certainly might end in a culmination of ugliness, with the children taken in the midst of the battle.

In the case of the NBA star Dwyane Wade’s divorce, money only does not explain how sour things have turned. Siohvaughn Wade clearly wants more than her share of her soon-to-be ex-husband’s wealth; she wants his skin or to deprive him of his rights to see his children It started with a phony accusation of having infected her with a sexually transmitted disease.  That’s ugly, but perhaps understandably so. What is not understandable ugliness is when Siohvaughn files a suit against Gabrielle Union, Dwyane Wade’s girlfriend, using her own two sons, 8 and 12, as plaintiffs.

Siovaughn does more than pulling her sons into her fight against their father. She makes them her accomplices.  A beautiful example of parental alienation. I did not even think the justice system would allow minors to be associated in a suit against one parent. US family laws are not only tolerant on parental alienation,  they encourage it.

Fortunately for Dwyane Wade, his case is unlikely to end up in family court, unlike that of the commoners. Lucky him. I hope he gets custody of his kids.

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If Only Frozen-Out Fathers Could Be Frozen

The new BBC series  titled “Who Needs Fathers?” is about children growing up without fathers. As a result of sole custody granted mostly to mothers, the ties between fathers and children quickly dissolve after divorce.   According to Cassandra Jardine (Telegraph.co.uk), the series is also eloquent on fathers’ suffering. Family laws have privileged the bond between child and mum, and gave up on fatherhood. Or assume that fatherhood could be put in deep freeze and resume at a later date. When the kid will be a grown up and feel like it, he would just knock at the glass window under which his frozen father lies. They will embrace as if nothing had happened. Thanks to the BBC, the world discovers that the guy under the glass window was not numbed. All these years apart from their children are marked by both the unbearable feeling of a loss and the equally unbearable feeling that their bond with their children may never resume.

It looks that in the wake of the 2004 family reforms in Australia, family laws might change in England,  whoever wins the next elections. There will be some degree of shared-parenting introduced into family laws. The reforms will be  possible because of public awareness.  This can happen when the media does its job.

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Thanks to the Recession, Men Get Custody of their Kids

On  Tuesday November 17. Brian Lehrer’s guest was Susan Riss, the editor

Scene of "L'argent de poche" (Truffaut)

in chief of Working Mother Magazine.  One of the topics of the show was the new trends in child custody discussed in the last issue of Working Mother Magazine, and what I heard caught my attention. Susan Riss pointed out that unemployment hurt men more than women. That’s no news; the scoop was that more dads are seeking custody and are winning 50% of the time. With the worst recession since world war II came grace. Family courts gave up the tender year doctrine that says that mum is more suited than dad to be with the kids at a very young age. Since unemployed men are at home, they can as well as mum raise the children.

From her interview with Brian Lehrer, Susan Riss is not somebody who seems hostile to the fathers’ rights movement. Quite the contrary. She stated that “joint custody is the ideal scenario in a divorce”. Not something that nut cases contesting the existence of parental alienation syndrome would say. Yet I cannot wait to check the source of her data. And I cannot help regret to have started a divorce at the peak of an economic boom and missed family courts ‘s coming to intelligence.  In 1999, my lawyer told me that joint custody was not an even an option in New York. The stupidest move of my life: I did not ask for custody. Three years after, I was deprived of my visitation rights by a phony trial in child abuse.

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