Do you know who is Holly Collins? Well, me neither, until recently. Holly Collins took her children with her to Holland because her ex-husband was given custody of the kids by Minnesota family courts, while they were allegedly abused. Collins became an international fugitive for fourteen years. I could not help but feel immediate sympathy for her.
A documentary ,”No Way Out but One,” was made about the Collins’ Case. In a Huffington Post article, Nancy Doyle Palmer interviewed the director of this documentary, Garland Waller. That’s what spoiled my sympathy for Collin. What is there in this interview? In a nutshell, that kind of non-sense: The justice system grants custody cases to abusers -fathers- like banks mortgages to people before the 2008 financial crisis. Why? Judges believe in the parental alienation syndrome against the whole profession of psychologists. It just takes fathers to accuse “ex” of being an alienating parent, and that’s it: custody wrapped. Hello, have you been to court lately? Waller does not flesh out the reforms -as she does not give any data backing up her points- but there are not difficult to surmise: “lock’em all (divorced fathers) up.”
Ms Waller appears to be one of these crusaders of the consensus. She pretends 1/ that the consensus (courts favor women) is not the consensus 2/ her alleged consensus (courts favor men) is supposed to put women’s rights under imminent threat. Fortunately, the crusader is on the watch; she will call for the reforms that will correct this sad state of affairs. Since there are plenty of folks that support the true consensus, they will applaud the crusader, who has set herself up for an easy victory. If anything, courts are indeed likely to be even more biased for women, whether Holly Collin’s children were abused or not.
I then googled Holly Collins. I found this Glenn Sacks’ article about the case: unlike Palmer’s, there are plenty of facts showing little robustness in Collin’s accusation against her former husband.
I am not done researching the case. Yet, I am in no rush to see “No Way Out but One.” I don’t know yet if Holly Collin abducted her children for the right reasons. I know however that family justice in the US need not reforms grounded in cheap bashing of male abusers.
C’est ecoeurant, mon ami. A bias against mothers in Family Court? On which planet? Here in France, it’s clear: 80% children of separated parents in the sole custody of their mother. 40% see their father seldom (less than once a month, 22%) or never (18%). And mothers are complaining, about what? Can they not bear that 60% of fathers are actually actually allowed to see their children?
Pour ceux qui lisent le francais, l’etude de l’INSEE se trouve ici:
Click to access ip1195.pdf
Ca ne concerne que les parents identifies, localises, contactes par l’INSEE, et d’accord pour repondre, donc il n’est pas question de “deadbeat dads”. Normalement, il y aura trois etudes, 2005, 2008, et 2011. Ce sont les resultats de l’etude de 2005. J’ai contacte le directeur de l’etude, et il m’a repondu que les resultats de 2008 et 2011 ne seront publies qu’en 2013, ou 2014, ou jamais. Les “experts” n’aiment pas trop quand les donnees montrent qu’ils ont systematiquement tort.
Le plus beau dans l’etude, c’est le titre optimiste: “La plupart des enfants gardent un lien avec leur mère et leur père après une séparation”. Pardon? 40% des peres separes (et je repete que les “deadbeat dads” sont exclus par la methodologie de l’etude) voient leurs enfants moins d’une fois par mois ou tout simplement jamais, et le redacteur de l’etude se felicite des resultats? Quelle honte. Quelle injustice. Quel malheur pour nos enfants.
Here’s a group of fathers singing my daughter’s song before the Courthouse in Valence, France: http://youtu.be/Wm5nxhcFVvE
Here’s a slideshow of the same fathers enacting suicide in Paris:
(Sorry, not into watching suicide enactments. My ex had a habit of threatening it, his father actually did it, and I also don’t appreciate it being used to dramatize situations. I was beat up in my marriage but I’m a mother and absolutely wasn’t going to go there, or even think about going there.. I have survived close-calls involving weapons; a definite factor in my separating when I did. I would characterize my husband doing this as not yet fully grown, willing to seek-or-receive help, or stop blaming his present on his own father (or me). I was not up to being his “Mama” and our own kids’ Mama at the same time, not with the violence.
There have been murder/suicides in my area, and this is no laughing matter. (how many, one sometimes wonders, were on anti-depressants,anti-psychotics at the time).
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RE: The No Way Out But One:
I am familiar, in general, with some of the groups and personnel promoting this, and attempted to speak to both Holly and at one point, Jennifer Collins, who by virtue of fleeing the US, were not staying tuned with how HHS handles its taxpayer moneys and grants.
A number of women also have attempted to bring this topic up to the entire BMCC crowd (Mo Hannah, Barry Goldstein et al), who I believe are simply professionals marketing their wares to extremely distressed parents.
I’m no Glenn Sacks fan (not into cult leaders of either gender). People can literally start to read the tax returns and go to http://taggs.hhs.gov (Advanced search a good one) and start asking smart questions about what are all these groups doing once they get their marriage-mongering- millions.
In too many cases, failing to stay incorporated and file proper tax returns. In other cases, committing grants or billings fraud (see my “Supervised Visitation Sucks” post which found a few of these being reported — and the specific grant was used by both “fatherhood” practitioners, AND domestic violence “advocates.”
It sheds a whole different light on the situation. Sorry I’m not taking the time to add links to post titles…
Men and women can have intelligent and non-hostile conversations on these matters, but I suggest they happen out of earshot from people whose livelihood comes from a franchise system run through the childsupport or the welfare system. This country is up that famous creek without a paddle, and it won’t figure out where the paddles are; they are so used to someone else doing their thinking for them.