Baby guru and child psychologist Penelope Leach has, as one might imagine, angered fathers’ rights groups by suggesting that separating mothers and small children from each other to allow for overnight contact with fathers is damaging children and not in the best interests of these children. And we couldn’t agree more.
As Penelope points out in her new book, there is a great deal of research which shows that this kind of arrangement does not only cause attachment issues, but it can also cause serious problems with development. She quite rightly points out that these overnight arrangements merely suit the adults in question and take no account whatsoever of whether or not they suit the child. It’s Parental Rights gone wild, and as we don’t advocate the notion of a ‘right’ when it comes to what parents feel they are ‘entitled’ to regarding their children, we applaud this lady’s courage for telling it like it is.
There is however one caveat to this sentiment for us. Not all mothers make for the best carers of young children, and there are many fathers out there who are far better at giving that kind of care than their mummy counterparts. The lesson to learn from all of this, is that we are still looking at parenting as a rights-based issue rather than a sharing of responsibilities, which should, we would argue, be allowed to fluctuate easily from one parent to another, without one parent feeling that they have lost a battle of some kind.
We salute you, Penelope.
Researching Reform 
So who is going to reeducate the F C judges and fight off the army of Guardians and Children’s Solicitors who completely believe in all of this ?
LikeLike
Hi Dick, do you mean believe in shared parenting or that this kind of contact isn’t in the best interests of the child? In my experience, more often than not, the courts try to cut a child in half with no regard to the welfare of the child. I think it’s a national disgrace.
LikeLike
No. F C judges and the G’s and C S’s believe in overnight stays and this kind of contact with the fervour of fundamentalists and this goes entirely against their actions.
LikeLike
Yes, I agree with you.
LikeLike
Hi Natasha,
Several thoughts on the Solomon Parable.
And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the
king. And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the
one, and half to the other. Then spake the woman whose the living child
was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O
my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said,
Let it be neither thine, nor mine but divide it. Then the king answered and
said, Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it: she is the mother
thereof (I Kings 3:24–27).
Critics of joint residence often argue the account of the first recorded custody dispute,
between biological parent and stranger supports the assertion that two competing
parents cannot jointly nurture their child after divorce. However, a reading of the parable does not support such a conclusion. The lesson of the Solomon fable illustrates that in a child residence dispute between natural parent and non–parent, other things being equal, the claims of the birth parent are to be preferred, “as a natural parent is likely to be more solicitous about the welfare of his or her child than a stranger.” (Dickey 1990)
The Hearing
Two women came to King Solomon both claiming to be the biological parent of the same infant. Unable to determine which woman was in fact the mother of the child, he
commanded that the child be cut in two by a sword and then divided equally between the claimants. One woman spoke up, pleading with the King to spare the child and to give the infant to the other woman. Solomon decided this woman, willing to forego her claim to the child, was probably the parent. She preferred that the child be given to her rival, rather than have the child suffer death because of their quarrel.
This contest was relatively straightforward for Solomon to settle. The King reasoned that a biological parent would normally have a greater concern about the welfare of their child than a stranger. After hearing the replies from the two women, Solomon knew that even if his assumption was wrong, he could clearly make the correct decision according to the best interest of the child.
But what if both women who claimed to be the child’s mother had retracted their claims, how then to determine the issue? Perhaps the Royal drawing of lots would have enabled the hard choice to be made.
If it had been a mother and father contesting residence, Solomon would have decided
the case according to the prevailing Jewish law at the time––residence to the father (the sole residence solution). Joint residence does not require splitting a child away from any parent as do sole residence decisions, but permits the child to continue and retain an equal relationship established with both parents––just as prevailed prior to separation or divorce.
LikeLike
A small child needs a safe, secure, constant and consistent physical and emotional environment in which to thrive and which a child usually receives when parents are living together. When they separate, then such provision is undermined, and it creates insecurity, uncertainty and instability for the child. That is the parallel of divisiveness to the Solomon fable.
LikeLike
“clear evidence that such overnight separations from the mother are not only usually distressing, but also potentially damaging to the brain development and secure attachment of children under about four.” Where can I find the studies on this subject? Do you know what she is referring to?
“when people say that it’s ‘only fair’ for a father and mother to share their five-year-old daughter on alternate weeks, they mean it is fair to the adults – who see her as a possession and her presence as their right – not that it is fair to the child”. I dare say, but courts haven’t approached contact issues on that basis for the last 20 plus years. I do wish commentators would catch up with what is really going on in courts. The child’s welfare is paramount. Parental rights don’t get a look in.
LikeLike
Hi Jonathan, if you do a google search a lot of data comes up. I’m sorry, I don’t have the time to do that for you right now, it’s a little hectic here, but I’m sure you’ll find it. As for the courts, I know you have a different view to mine, but I see a wide spectrum of contact orders and a lot of them focus on cutting children in half, so to speak, regardless of what’s best for these kids.
LikeLike
No. This practise by the courts is INCREASING.
It’s all about parents rights and their relation with one another and the child’s rights don’t get a look in.
F C judges just go on what the Guardian says and say “the G is the child’s voice in court”, and as I say G’s fervently believe in this.
LikeLike
Yes, it all lacks a lot of common sense.
LikeLike
You should all re-read the Constitution, then see if your local community college has a course in common sense. It is not, and never has been, the business of the courts or the government to tell parents what is in the best interest of their children. That right relies solely on the parents. One parent is not granted superior rights over the other. Instead of reading VAWA funded studies, perhaps you should read studies that show the result of Fatherlessness in America. Perhaps instead of forcing alienation upon families through false studies, you should study it alienation and its emotional implications. It is imperative for both parents to have equal access to children throughout their childhood. Study after study shows this. Then again, so does common sense
LikeLike
Not all of us agree!!
LikeLike
That’s okay, I know a lot of you will disagree or perhaps even be a little angry with me for my point of view (!), but for what it’s worth I do agree with Penelope on this one.
LikeLike
One thing Family Court will NEVER stop is our opinions!
LikeLike
🙂
LikeLike
I don’t agree either, so Natasha you are not speakng for me when you use the pronoun “We”.
If you had to go through the torments of the family courts like a lot of fathers have to and fight through the blatant wall of prejudice thrown in your way you would be singing a different tune and crying in your bed each night. It is no accident that suicide rates for men increase 10 fold at times of separation, but remain the same for women.
The system creates the problems and is one of the biggest crimes committed by the state against its citizens.
LikeLike
Less than 0.8 per cent of applications to Courts for contact are refused. So where are this “lot of fathers”. The single major factor in male suicides throughout the world is unemployment and the male age group 18 -35 years are the majority age group for suicides. The age of fathers in contact cases tends to be higher. So where is your evidence that “suicide rates for men increase tenfold after separation”.?. Perhaps you can direct us to just one case in a Coroner’s Court where separation and/or failure to have child contact has been determined as the reason for the suicide of a father. I;m afraid your assertion is complete mythology and FR propaganda.
LikeLike
Indeed James
LikeLike
Of course, if the parents did not separate in the first place, it wouldn’t be a problem at all.
LikeLike
I think we have to accept that separation is not the enemy. Some separations are caused by domestic violence, others by other types of wrongs. And staying in that environment can be equally damaging to a child.
LikeLike
That is true, but we are not dealing with a balanced and fair system. When a woman leaves, she takes the kids; when a man leaves he takes his suitcase. If you check Google and official sources, there are countless support mechanisms for women, for many men it ends up in homlessness and even prison and despair. The men I have come across in this situation very quickly lose their friends who don’t want to hear about his problems and, everywhere they go, somebody is trying to touch them for £.
LikeLike
actually, if you will do research before you make statements, you will find the majority of separations/divorces are not cause by DV. But lets take a look at the numbers. Most separations are because “I fell out of love.” Of those with DV claims, these claims do not usually present themselves until there is a custody battle. of the 2.5-3 million POs issued each year, recent studies in numerous states show that between 75-80% of these are falsified POs or do not meet the legal definition of DV. On cases of DV, women and men offend at the same rate. On child abuse, women actually abuse at…wait for it… A HIGHER RATE THAN MEN! The most important thing we can do for a child in regards to abuse is to have shared custody, as offenders are less likely to do so with the other parent having equal access to the child.
LikeLike
Using the children against the other parent is domestic abuse and it’s more often committed by mothers against fathers. Everytime a resident parent frustrates contact or ignores the arrangements laid down in a court order, that can be construed as emotonal abuse, but you never see such abusers being charged.
LikeLike
A large number of mothers have been imprisoned, fined thousands of pounds, ordered to pay massive court costs for both sides, and worst of all, have had their children removed and with no contact until the children are 18 years old, for refusing contact orders for fathers who they believed had abused the children but was unable to prove it under stringent standards of evidential proof. (see for example the recent Swefford and Telford – Austlii)..
LikeLike
a large number? care to name your source? Is there actual statistical data? I can assure you that this is not happening in The US.
LikeLike
Mr. Grenville, you were demanding supporting research from me earlier, now can we ask the same from you to back up your claim of a “large number”? I would be inclined to believe that you are a troll. Either that, or completely divorced from reality. (pardon the pun)
LikeLike
James – I too have already asked that question of our “MR”. Grenville but as yet have not received a reply – that or it has been terminally ‘moderated.’
LikeLike
Just as you have consistently evaded my question, which to recap was, when a UK senior judge proclaims that even paedophiles have a right to contact with their children and accordingly convicted paedophiles, child rapists, violent offenders, and drug addicts have been given contact and even custody of children by Family Courts, then just what heinous activities have those fathers engaged in which has caused such Courts to refuse them contact?.
In answer to your question, there are no statistics nor research regarding my statements, it is derived from my own studies of a great many case judgements of Family Courts in the USA, Canada, Australia & New Zealand, some European countries, and here in the UK and which I shall be publishing in due course. You should try looking at case judgements it would widen your perspective of events rather than the rather narrow
Rwhiston – It is rather unfortunate and sad that you are so singularly obsessed with knowing my gender and about my feminist leanings and it is similarly unfortunate that you choose to engage in your passive-aggressive sarcasm in attacking the actor rather than the play, which clouds the occasional point of interest you are able to make. I am as much a feminist as you are a patriarchist, if that helps resolve your obsessions.
LikeLike
I think you may mean “Patriarchalist.” But there are two distinct definitions – which one did you have in mind ?
LikeLike
Child development and maturation is basically about a human constantly moving away from its dependency on its mother (providing there are no issues).
You don’t need a load of research to prove this. Just look at how children develop. Pre-birth they are totally dependent on mother. After birth, they learn to feed independently. As they become more physically active they start to explore the world about them.
Reaching adulthood is effectively about complete independence from mother. So, as time moves on a child moves from 100% dependency to 0%.
The argument on sleepovers should be about a sliding scale where contact with the father (providing there are no issues) increases with time.
LikeLike
I brought my youngest daughter up from a baby on my own as a father and despite the continual attacks and 16 years of not so thinly veiled suggestion that all single dads of girls must be paedo’s according to one social services department, she has turned out fairly well, doing good at college, going to have a career in computer games development, is bright and intelligent, well read and very much into culture and art and I hearken back to that initial custody battle when she was a baby and the social worker saying quite plainly “We don’t do single dads here”
And you would think that would be enough, to show this sparkling example of parenthood, would be enough for social services to say “Yes, we know you can do it” with my grandsons, in fact that is how it all started, the team leader and social worker from the first team actually asked me to put myself forward but when the senior practitioner who had been on the verge of joining her colleague getting the sack found out, she waged a proxy war, forced the original team off and put one of her “own” on the case and I went from prized parent to criminal overnight and they were not going to let me win a second time and because the lads were my grandchildren and not direct children, they won too.
Now when I found my eldest as her mother had done a bunk with her when she was two and the terrible mess I had to sort out 15 years later, mentally ill, drug and drink dependent, little concern of safety, venereal diseases and even had to instruct her using help from my youngest in such things as hygiene and I took on the appalling mess the ex had left to rot in some squat somewhere and despair but it took some 5 years and now she can hold her head up high, no more issues with drugs, she looks after herself and can function as an adult and she can feel good about herself.
That is parenting in my book, this prissy almost fluffy version people out there think its all about is just daft, its a lot of sweat and tears, nappies and smells, illness and tempers, pain and heartache but when you get them in the right direction, making their own decisions and knowing they have worth and can see worth in others, that is the reward of a job well done.
LikeLike
Oh and I forgot to add that bringing up youngest that I could probably count the times I ever had to raise my voice on one hand and I always believed in an old London principle of not raising hand to woman or child and never felt even at the worst of times compelled or angry enough to need to smack her.
LikeLike
This institutional prejudice against men who raise children seems rife amongst the social services and family ‘in’justice system. I will continue to say that they do not work for the best intedrest of the child and when one judge does get it right, it become newsworthy.
LikeLike
I’m sure that prejudice must exist, it’s a hotbed of all kinds of bias, unfortunately.
LikeLike
Thank you, AG. I do think lone fathers are wonderful, and van, and do, provide that secure attachment children need.
LikeLike
Its a crazy system, the same judge that refused me guardianship of my grandson was the same judge who gave me custody of my daughter.
And the dire predictions lobbed out at random in court, I mean I came across when I was fighting for my littlun as a cross between Pol Pot and Charles Manson, because I had been in the armed forces I was violent, because I had short hair and tattoos I was undesireable, one social worker made a comment she thought I was “weird” because I enjoyed the bonding from the simple things like the bath time or changing the nappies which for us both was a happy time as I used to do things like put the clean nappy on my head and say to her “Hey wheres that nappy gone”, used to drive her into fits of laughter.
What made it worse is for many years social services forced contact on the child which was unsupervised with her mother who is a severe paranoid schizophrenic and when it comes out later on the woman was harming my littlun it was my fault for allowing it! I have it on record that I was told by the courts that I HAD to allow contact despite my protestations that littlun was coming back traumatised and showing signs of severe injury, if I refused I was going to go to prison for contempt of court.
And back to every one of them dire “predictions”, of 16 years documented court record not one, not one of their “claims” ever in the tiniest fraction showed signs of actually happening and they just could not believe that here was a happy child with her dad, who really didn’t want to see a person who was harming her.
’tis why I despise the profession, out of 13 social workers only two ever showed any competence, the rest were seemingly anti male, very strange people who showed a very disturbing view on life where even the most innocent of gestures is translated into abuse and harm.
LikeLike
I unreservedly agree with Penelope Leach as a general principle. There is enormous psychological and emotional and sometimes physical harm being caused to babies and infants by being ordered into such arrangements. It is heart-wrenching to watch hysterical, screaming. protesting, and completely distraught infants having to be handed over by their mothers and to be forcefully restrained in father’s cars. They are often still in the same state of distress on their return and increasingly become alienated from their mothers for failing to protect them from such experiences. i.e. the right to a meaningful relationship for a father, invariably results in a meaningless relationship for both parents.
Family Court judges should be required to observe some of the horrendous outcomes of their decisions for the children concerned.
The starting point for all decisions concerning the custody of children should be a comprehensive assessment of each parent’s knowledge, skills, and attitudes to parenting (its not hard to do such assessments). their way of life, and whether or not a meaningful relationship exists between them and the child. The second point of reference should then be the child’s wishes and feelings regarding which parent the child wishes to live with and what amount of time they wish to spend with the non-resident parent. And thirdly the parents wishes and feelings should be considered. Parental rights to ownership of a child should not be a consideration.
LikeLike
Most FC judges have never brought up children and, if they had any, it was decades previously. Some of the screaming and distress is not always from leaving the mother, but not wanting to leave the parent that is looking after them. The consequences of FC decisions are not monitored and they should be. I have not seen any studies of outcomes that relate to FC decisions. All I do know is that social services and CAFCASS are some of the worst institutions for considering the best interest of children.
LikeLike
The majority of issues you mentioned are only propaganda to push your agenda. Do you know that according the DHS women abuse children more than men? So judging by your statement about protecting children, I guess we should err on the side of caution and give all kids to their Dads? And No, I dont really believe thats right (because I have a moral compass some here seem to be lacking). The child and both of the parents deserve to have a relationship with each other.
LikeLike
You can believe that feminist hogwash if you want to, I know that the facts are quite often the opposite of what you say. For example, I have had 4 boys, and the fact is that they go through phases, sometimes they favor their mother, and other times they are hysterical unless they have their father. I think it’s about time that the courts, and the public start seeing the laws in place for what they are, custody laws in most states are really all about how much money the states can make. We need to eliminate the Title IV-D federal kickbacks to the states, and minimize money ordered for child support, if we take the financial incentive out of having the children, perhaps we can eliminate all the infighting that takes place because of custody. mandate 50/50 parenting, and I guarantee that our children will be better off. Stop allowing custodial parents to poison the minds of the children against the non-custodial parent during the “Tender Years” To say that men are incapable of raising a baby is sexist and wholly inaccurate. The truth is nothing hurts our children more than the court sponsored parental alienation. You say fathers shouldn’t have overnights with children before age 5, and I am telling you all that BS is doing is trying to achieve the feminist goal of eliminating the father from the parenting process.
LikeLike
Attachment does not have to be with mothers at all. Many men have shown that they are every bit as capable of raising some healthy children.
What is making fathers angry is that many have experienced open sexism at the hands of the FCs and now, P. Leech will be providing fuel to add to that prejudice. Many people view fathers v mothers rights as a balanced affair to begin with, but it has always been heavily weighted in favour of mothers. Whatever the merits of Ms. Leech’s assertions, her findings will be used by the misandrist ideologues to inflict further pain on otherwise decent fathers.
LikeLike
“Family Court judges should be required to observe some of the horrendous outcomes of their decisions for the children concerned.”
Indeed they should.
LikeLike
Natasha, I am sorry to say Penelope Leach is following in the footsteps of Jenn McIntosh PhD in Australia and based her advice on the flawed research of Dr John Bowlby. Professor Linda Neilsen calls such people ‘Woozles’ in her article about ‘Their role in custody law reform, parenting plans, and family court’ from Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Vol 20(2), May 2014, 164-180. Penelope Leach joins a long line of ‘woozlers’. I have included a description of ‘woozling’ in my complaint to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. kip
https://www.facebook.com/kingsleymiller/media_set?set=a.10152555987603203.1073741842.538163202&type=3
LikeLike
Hi Kip, Bowlby aside (and not everyone feels the research was wrong), there is a lot of modern research which bolsters the view that removing a child in this way is harmful to them. As for Neilsen, I agree with her that fathers should be in their children’s lives. I don’t see any evidence in her work though that suggests she thinks Leach is a woozle, as you put it.
LikeLike
and there is tons of research that says parental alienation is extremely harmful to children, your research is flawed and inaccurate.
LikeLike
Hi Dustin, thanks of for your thoughts. Firstly, it’s not my research. There is a lot of research out there and by and large anyone can pick a point of view and bolster it with research, generally speaking. I agree with you that children can go through phases. I also agree with you that mothers are not superior to fathers in any way. There is a much more nuanced picture here, which if I find myself talking on the radio tomorrow, I will be elaborating upon.
LikeLike
If you are talking about this on the radio, please see http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/co-parenting-after-divorce/201304/the-impact-parental-alienation-children, http://strongfathers.com/the-positive-impact-of-strong-fathers-on-early-childhood-development/, etc. You can merely google the importance of fathers in the development of children and you should realize how dangerous it is to advocate eliminating overnight visits with any parent at any stage in a child’s life. This Misandry is what we as fathers are fighting in the court system every day. If you are going to discuss this issue, go at it with an unbiased point of view. and Make sure you point out how important fathers are in forming our children into the next generation. I don’t understand how you can complain about absent fathers, when you are undeniably advocating the complete removal of the father figure during their early development. It’s absolute lunacy to even hint that Fathers don’t have a stake in bonding with their children when they are in their early years…..
LikeLike
Once again, I think all of this varies on a child by child basis.
LikeLike
Natasha, again, do you mind informing us of where to find such research. This article is more comical than it is educational. For ANYONE to tell me what is in the “best interest of MY child” does my child absolutely no good. It is all propaganda to keep Title IV-D money flowing. If you look at this article LITERALLY, I do agree that there shouldn’t be overnights, I think a child should be with their non custodial parent half the time, EXCEPT in the case of abuse or neglect. Visitation is for criminals, not for parents. What I’d REALLY like to know is…. these alienating parents that have boys? What position will they take when their child grows up, has children of his own, and faces this corrupt and abusive system?
LikeLike
Just do a Google, Jeff.
LikeLike
Do a Google? Do you know how many hits that would come up with? So you’re telling us that you are on the radio, but cannot supply any sources?
LikeLike
I do have sources, Jeff, but I don’t have the time, at the moment, to provide you with them. You should be able to find it very easily, I did.
LikeLike
Natasha, do you have children?
LikeLike
This research you keep mentioning wouldn’t happen to be feminist research? The sort of research that insists that domestic violence is almost always men on women or the kind of research that ignores the fact that boys do get raped by older women? It tends to be the kid of selective research that has hatred of males as its bottom line.
LikeLike
No, James.
LikeLike
and In case you weren’t aware there was a national rally Friday, that was meant to shed light on the plight that fathers face in family court. Please anyone who is reading this look up the Father’s Rights movement, and learn about the fatherless day rally.
LikeLike
Dustin, my child looked pretty well adjusted, did he not?
LikeLike
absolutely Kai was very well adjusted and behaved. It was absolutely a pleasure meeting you and Kai!
LikeLike
Yes Dustin, lets look at the history of the Father’s Rights Movement. Lets look at the quasi- terrorist activities they’ve engaged in.
But first let us look at their origins and purpose. They began as a reaction against the setting up of the Child Support Agency. Previously Court Orders for child maintenance were rarely enforced and the vast majority of fathers did not pay the necessary maintenance, thereby financially abusing their own children. But that changed with the CSA who began actions against those who refused to pay and set up a much fairer system to ensure children were properly maintained. The reactions of such errant fathers was firstly to protest and then to look for means to avoid and evade the attentions of the CSA. And so the FRM was born.
One of the things they quickly realised was that if they obtained an Order for contact then they could get large reductions in child maintenance contributions and if they got 50/50 shared parenting, they did not have to pay any child support. So this was what they pursued and still are for the same reasons. Some however were and are determined to retain power and control over their former partners and children and to continue to abuse and torture them and the Family Law and the courts provided them with the support to do this.
And now came the terrorism to get what they wanted. A judge and a judge’s wife were murdered by FR supporters. (see David Opas) and lawyer’s cars were bombed. Mothers were murdered even on the Court room steps. Children have been murdered by their fathers in acts of vengeance against the mothers.
They threatened to kidnap a Prime Minister’s children to have their demands met, but that was a step too far and they rapidly stepped away from such an intent.
Groups of FR members laid siege to Court buildings and abusively attacked mothers, terrorising them. FR group members sent threatening letters to CAFCASS workers and lawyers at their offices and their homes, sometimes containing faeces. The Batman and Superman performers were merely an amusing distraction while more serious activities took place. Many FR groups contained and still do, men who have convictions for violence and assault.
I think you should look very carefully at those who you associate with and find out a little more about their backgrounds before engaging in any activities with them. Otherwise it’s a case of birds of a feather, sticking together.
For a more detailed account of the formation and development of the FRM, search for Michael Flood’s research
LikeLike
I am sure Richard, that if you had been put through the ringer in family courts your tone would be different. You can preach about how it’s all about the dads not wanting to pay child support, and you can believe that feminist BS, but let me tell you, that if you go through it, and you have the courts order you to pay more than 2/3 of your gross income to your ex in child support and alimony, and you watch her get government assistance for everything from rent to foodstamps to utilities, and you are struggling, or end up living in your car, then I promise you will be glad the father’s Rights movement exists. I don’t mind taking care of my children, but I shouldn’t have to support my ex’s entire lifestyle while she sits at home and has to do nothing. And I promise you that if I didn’t have to pay child support at all, I would still be fighting to have equal time with my kids. I hope that you end up in our shoes, and it knocks you off your high horse.
LikeLike
Birds of a feather playing pigeon chess.
LikeLike
Richard, are you living in the 60s and 70s still? We’re almost half a century from those times buddy. I think it’s safe to say the world is a different place now. I suggest you change with it.
LikeLike
Jeff, try to keep your comments civil, please. No one needs you to tell them whether they need to change or not. One more strike and you’re out, buddy.
LikeLike
Jeff if you examine the history of Family Law, it is the Father’s Rights Movement who are reversionary and are seeking to take the Family Law back to mid-19th Century provisions. (which incidentally still apply in the Channel Islands and in some respects in Ireland). i.e. on separation the husband has complete and sole ownership of all assets and children.
LikeLike
No Mr. Grenville, there have been fathers and mens rights activists for a lot longer than the recent phenomenum. Check out Karen Straughan who has looked into this going back to the 19th century when white middle class women started crying about their ‘oppression’ and blaming men for all the ills of the world whilst conveniently ignoring all the good things men have done. Michael Flood is not a good source except for playing to the feminist agenda which plays the same tune.
The men I have encountered have not been about avoiding paying child support. They have been about having a meaningful relationship with their child.
Where there is violence it is more often than not mutual and in 80% of cases initiated by the woman and, BTW obstructing a parent from meaningful contact with their child is a form of domestic abuse.
LikeLike
Oh, gosh James, look at this study by Dr Elizabeth Bates: “Women are ‘more controlling and aggressive than men’ in relationships” – can it be true ? Has our “MR” Grenville seen this I wonder ?
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/10927507/Women-are-more-controlling-and-aggressive-than-men-in-relationships.html)
LikeLike
Curiously there were no fathers rights lobby or pressure groups prior to 1970. Now they are in every country so one has to ask “Why” ? FNF is the oldest father’s pressure group and it was founded not by disgruntled dads as feminists like to believe but by Alick Elithorn, a child psychiatrist at a London teaching hospital. He could see what the system was doing to father and child relationships.
Fathers pressure groups as a bloc only began to emerge by the early 1990s and then not in response to CSA but to the Children Act of 1989. If you were at all familiar with fathers’ pressure groups you would know that they divide roughly into two, one concerned with custody issues and the other ameliorating CSA burdens.
LikeLike
What baby guru and child psychologist Penelope Leach really says is that children under five should be deprived of their rights children to overnight with their fathers.
Leach, Mckintosh etc will always be around but come on Natasha I gave you a bit more credibility that to swallow their hogwash.
LikeLike
Overnight stays, with any parents, is not a right, Kineli. Can you honestly tell me that if your child was upset at leaving their mother for the night, you would force that child to do so, because of some obscure right that doesn’t really exist? Wouldn’t it be better to wait until that child felt ready?
LikeLike
What if the ONLY reason that child is upset is because of lies the mother feeds him/her? You have no way of knowing.
LikeLike
Yes, you do. That’s what a good psychiatrist does. In any event, we are just talking about overnight stays here, this is not a debate about contact as a whole.
LikeLike
Again, do you have children Natasha?
LikeLike
We’re not going to make this personal, Jeff.
LikeLike
I want to know if YOU have reason to even be speaking on this topic? I do. I live it daily. If you don’t, then you’re just making points on what you’re TOLD. I’m not making it personal. I just think readers should know whether you have a stake in this.
LikeLike
If you look on my site, it’s very obvious. I state I have a child explicitly. I also explain that I’ve been through the process and have seen first hand how appalling it is. Nevertheless, I don’t claim a stake in anything. My passion is child welfare and reforming the system so that children are better represented and understood. I just happen to be mad about kids, and as a woman who grew up as a Daddy’s girl, I’m the last person on Earth that’s going to be anti-father. I am, however, pro common sense, and looking at each child as an individual, which they are.
LikeLike
I think what you are also missing Natasha is that we shouldn’t let our children dictate their upbringing. It’s our job as parents to teach them right from wrong, and I am pretty sure that 9 out of 10 child psychologists will tell you that you shouldn’t give into a child’s temper tantrum. You have to teach them where to draw the line. Don’t you see a difference in the quality of young adults now than in the 1950’s. Now we give into whatever our children want for fear of someone calling CPS and accusing us of abusing our children. Our children today believe that they should all get a trophy, and that we shouldn’t foster true competition. Our country has become litigation happy, and it’s because people like you Natasha who represent this bric-a-brac as fact, when there is sufficient evidence that provides a more realistic analysis of what is best for our children. This type of misandry and gender discrimination should be looked down on just as much as any article that would remove the mother form a child’s life….
LikeLike
I think you’re confusing issues, Dustin. Allowing a child to feel safe and secure by ensuring they only have overnight stays when they’re ready is not the same as giving in to a temper tantrum. It’s that kind of thinking which allows women to say that men are less adept at parenting small children. The devil really is in the detail and paying attention to your child’s feelings is incredibly important.
And no, I don’t see a difference in quality. The men and women you are referring to are responsible for the wave of greed and corruption we have today, a legacy of sub prime mortgage crises and white collar theft on a grand scale. Every generation has its good and bad. This generation will be no different.
LikeLike
So then, after my weekend when we’ve gone fishing, played Hot Wheels racing, bbqd, and just had a blast, and I bring him back and he says “I don’t want to go to mommy’s yet”, then what. I suppose I’M being abusive for telling him he has to. Can’t have your cake and eat it too.
LikeLike
I think the clue is in the word ‘yet’.
LikeLike
You feminists have tunnel vision don’t you? You think “the clue is in the word yet?” You jump from “case by case” basis, to Bowlby, to knowing what a child thinks, just from what he says. And on top of that, you think you know what MY child is thinking. Funny stuff. Why don’t you tell us the circumstances around your child. Are you with the father? Was it a marriage? Other? Here, I’ll start: my son’s mother never wanted a father for my son, she even admitted to me about asking one of her gay friends to father a child for her. That friend is no longer hers, but mine. She played the part for a year, then left. So be it, except she slept with the WRONG guy if she didn’t want a father. Now don’t get me wrong, while it is apparent all you want to do is HURT the father, I, and I believe I speak for most of us, would still, even after what she did to me, protect my child’s mother with my life…why, you ask? BECAUSE THAT’S HOW IMPORTANT A PARENT IS! This article, this Penelope Leech, and anyone that thinks this way is along the lines of that Cocoa Puffs bird.
LikeLike
For the record, I’m not a feminist. And whilst I appreciate all points of view on this site, even if they are different to mine, I appreciate civil posting. You can disagree with me, or other posters any time, but please try to remain polite.
LikeLike
Oh, that was polite. I thought of a lot worse people to mention, believe me. So if I had my child 87% of the time, do you think he would happily go with his mother ever other weekend? People in general don’t like change. Don’t like to be out of their comfort zone. I put my child to sleep every night for the first year of his life then that was TAKEN from HIM, not ME, him. So are you going to explain your situation? Do you allow your child to see his/her father? If you’re going to write on the subject, you should probably be able to enlighten us with your awesome parenting skills.
LikeLike
I think you, along with a lot of angry fathers, are confusing the issues. This is not about denial of contact. This is about waiting for a child to feel ready, and secure enough, to have overnight stays. Every child is different. Some go sooner, some later.
My own personal circumstances are not really any of your business, but yes, my son sees his father frequently, and our arrangement is almost 50/50, with the exception of the holidays, which are exactly 50/50.
The fact is, you are not really listening to what I’m saying. You are angry and focusing on your own personal circumstances all the time. Which is why hurt fathers, although many deserve to be heard, are not. It’s that kind of selfishness which puts people off and gives the impression, unfortunately, that fathers are not in touch with their children’s needs.
You are welcome to post here, but if you carry on being rude to me, or any other posters, I will remove you from the forum.
LikeLike
Almost 50/50? Please …..elaborate. And you’ve misconstrued hurt and emotional abuse on TWO people as anger. You’ve got this forum, yet show an unwillingness to share any personal experiences, THEN say each case is different. So is it safe to assume your child had no overnights with his/her father until they were 5? I’m just curious as to why you think people should listen to you. That’s all. I don’t see anything rude in that.
LikeLike
Jeff, I’ve shared a lot here, over a period of many years. And no, my child had overnight stays from the age of three, which was how old he was when the divorce took place. Now, on to you. Why don’t you have any contact with your child? Did the court forbid it? Was there a reason?
And I don’t assume anyone should listen to me. I write a blog and I express myself. If people wAnt to comment, they can.
So come on Jeff, why are you banned from seeing your child?
LikeLike
I can see you take time to actually READ comments.
Late nap results: http://youtu.be/LqaS5i4KQ84
Does that look like I’m banned to you?
LikeLike
He’s a sweetie pie, jeff, and I’m sorry you’re in such pain.
LikeLike
Do you know how psychiatrists decide on whether a condition is real or not? They have an annual conference and vote on it. Its not usually decided on objective evidence. Ms Leech’s weakness is her ‘opinion’. She is making assumptions based on the strength of her ‘expertise’.
LikeLike
Richard Wa’rshak says it brilliantly….’
It is time to resolve our ambivalence and contradictory ideas about fathers’ and mothers’ roles in their children’s lives. If we value Dad reading Goodnight Moon to his toddler and soothing his fretful baby at 3 a.m. while the parents are living together, why withdraw our support and deprive the child of these expressions of fatherly love just because the parents no longer live together, or just because the sun has gone down?’
LikeLike
Hi and thanks for your comment. Yes, where that bond exists, it would be wrong to deny it.
LikeLike
good one Jeff, and she seems to be avoiding it big time…..a simple yes or no doesn’t take but a second to answer…..so we have to assume she does not have children or she would have jumped on it……so in turn….”We’re not going to make this personal, Jeff.” is her way of avoiding your question, because she knows that she will (and in this case has) loose all credibility …….. so who is the professional here, someone who sets at a computer with research destroying the world, or the actual parent who has lived it and proved it and is in the circle of other parents living it? You are Jeff and Dustin, in my opinion……Thanks for your input and education to those that thinking playing house in a class room makes them somebody……Go guys! spread the word!
LikeLike
Thank you my friend! We will. And I want to emphasize ONE point made earlier by Scott, I believe it was….I am NOT trying to take my child from his mother, I just want more than 13% of the time with someone that is half ME. This article, the way it is written, basically AGREES with our point anyway, I am NOT a visitor, I am DADDY!!! PRESUMED EQUAL SHARED PARENTING!!!
LikeLike
Yes Jeff – 13% wont get you much reduction in your child support payments, but 50/50 will relieve it totally for you.
LikeLike
Richard you keep going back to child support, Jeff didn’t say anything about child support, and 50-50 doesn’t eliminate child support in NC, just saying.
LikeLike
Thanks Dustin! I was JUST going to say, where did I say anything about child support. But since he wants to beat that horse. Its kind of funny that my son’s mother doesn’t send clothes with him. Hell even ones I buy him don’t come back, but I dont complain. He’s my child. I’ll give him whatever I can.
LikeLike
Dustin – You are quite right. Jeff didn’t mention Child Support. You did – in an earlier post and by doing so placed it in the arena for discussion. It is my view that the two matters of Child Support and applications for contact are inextricably linked and the primary motivation in most cases.
LikeLike
So riddle me this Batman…are you saying Title IV-D incentives have NOTHING to do with keeping a child from a parent?
LikeLike
Mr. Grenville, you seem to only focus on materialism such as child payments. The fathers here and the many that I know that want to have involvement in their child’s life have an emotional bond with their child. I wonder if you are capable of understanding that? If you cannot grasp that point, it says a lot about you as a person.
LikeLike
James, I very much agree with you. Isn’t it fascinating that only women bring up this subject in discussion never men ? This leads one to conclude that we may not be dealing with a “Mr.” at all but a pseudonym. This particular “troll” is turning up on a variety of sites, BTW.
LikeLike
i’m sorry, but far from John Bowlby being wrong and attempts to discredit the research of him and his school, it has been found to be correct and had to be brought back.
But its discrediting was used to unleash numerous evils of which this business of overnight stays and custody is a minor one, the worst being Forced Adoption, since the child id a goods truck on a railway that can be just uncoupled and recoupled to other adults as Attachment can be broken an just remade.
I suggest you find this lady’s research and see how reliable it is.
LikeLike
Yes, Bowlby has made an extraordinary comeback in new research, and I think that highlights the fact that his research has stood the test of time.
LikeLike
So which is it? Bowlby or each individual child? Are you saying the studies on children that come from fatherless homes are wrong? Would you disagree that in a “normal” household with mother and father present, that the father takes on more of a discipline role, while the mother the more nurturing? And would you argue the importance of BOTH? That lack of discipline could result in the staggering statistics of teen pregnancies, drugs, criminal behavior. Your researchers that put children on a nice comfy couch to “analyze” them, instead why don’t they go out to the inner cities, visit kids with only the mother present, the only male role model being the gang leader or drug lord down the street. Their father’s not there, not because of not WANTING to be, but because they’re in jail because they COULDN’T, not wouldn’t pay the ungodly child support amounts. Yep, sit in your little make believe world and determine what’s best for children. Smh. Thank God there is someone higher than me to judge.
LikeLike
There are 800,000 separated fathers in the UK who evade paying child support to the tune of over 1.4 million pounds and CHOOSE not to take any part in their children’s lives. Domestic violence (against mothers), poverty, poor quality accommodation, criminal activities and unemployment of fathers, sexual abuse by a male relative, and living in a lower socio-economic area are the major factors leading to ” teen pregnancies, drugs, criminal behaviour” whether a father is present or not.
Barack Obama, George Washington. Thomas Jefferson and many other American Presidents grew up fatherless, as did many other political leaders around the world and captains of industry and commerce. So whether or not a father is present during a child’s formative years appears to be an irrelevance, especially if that father is a poor role model or a threatening figure .
LikeLike
sounds to me like you are one of those poor examples of a father Richard. Karma is a witch, and she is going to catch up to you.
LikeLike
Please keep it civil, Dustin.
LikeLike
Natasha, I am keeping it civil, but when Richard insinuates that the majority of fathers have no effect on how their children turn out, well he is saying that all fathers are ineffective, and that is a direct insult to Me to Jeff, and to every father who has the desire to be with their children. Richard insinuates that we deserve the treatment we are getting, and if he feels that way now, well I PROMISE, if he was in our position he wouldn’t be civil either. I’m Just sayin!
LikeLike
Still, play nice! 🙂
LikeLike
Dustin – Courts have never placed any restrictions on my contact with my children. So who is the “poor example”
LikeLike
I’m sorry but the situation you described plus the discrediting of Bowlby’s Attachment theory opens the gates to unleash a situation where children will be rounded up to be taken into Care and once there put to Forced Adoption. This ontop of the private law custody situation.
LikeLike
Please give references for “the discrediting of Bowlby’s Attachment theory” or anything which challenges Bowlby’s FINDINGS. (not theory).
LikeLike
For a discussion on Bowlby’s work see the below study and the references therein.
Warshak, R. A. (Feb 2014) Social science and parenting plans for young children: A consensus report. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Vol 20(1), 46-67. at 47-48
LikeLike
I cannot agree whole heartedly with the research as the outcomes of children depends on so many varibles. Separated fathers and mothers should work together to arrange when they will see their child/children that is acceptable to both of them. The child will follow suit. A case of which came first the chicken or the egg? If certain arrangements are the norm I feel sure the kids as they grow up would accept it as the norm and will not be harmed. Its the infighting that causes the problems both to the parents and the children. I grew up thinking I had rights over my children and despite hearing of late I have responsibilities not rights I still believe as a parent my rights come first! Most parents will think the same. A child will fare better with 2 loving parents and this should be encouraged. This research will downplay the separated parent usually the father’s, importance in a child’s life and that’s wrong!
Rarely we condemn a mother that makes it difficult for a father to see his child/ children, as reasons put forward by the mother often point out the father’s “failings” and therefore it becomes acceptable to prevent a father from seeing their child and we forget that is not about the parents, who are/have separated but about the child.
Let us not forget that social workers are guilty of causing harm to children when they stop parents seeing their children. Again its supposed to be all about the child not social workers vs parents!
I too would love for a judge to see first hand the outcomes of their decisions but to take it a step futher and hold them responsible! There should be a record of all family court judges decisions and a tally of how the child fared! There should also be a reference to what the child would have liked and if that happened. That would be the only way to see cause and effect and make changes that really would be for the child.
LikeLike
Thanks for your thoughts, D.
LikeLike
PS
Bowlby’s “research” was a theory, not fact nor based on anything but conjecture!
LikeLike
So was eureka 🙂 until it was proven 🙂 Bowlby too, has been proven, in recent research as well as old.
LikeLike
No, it was not.
By attacking it you open the way to Forced Adoption, long term fostering with minimum contact with family, a horde of children being taken into Care and Reversals of Residence and parents’ needs coming before the children.
Can you see nothing beyond your own immediate needs ?
LikeLike
CANADA REJECTS `SHARED PARENTING LAWS – and for very good reasons
http://www.lawtimesnews.com/201406164024/focus-on/focus-equal-shared-parenting-bill-defeated
LikeLike
Ignorance really is bliss.
LikeLike
The Bill was trying to establish as a starting point 50/50. It was not saying that should be the final outcome because it recognized that other factors would weigh one way or the other.
The defeat of this Bill is a set back for advocates striving for the best interest of the child. It means that unreserved power still lies in the hands of resident parents and, where there is power, comes abuse of that power, hence all the grief and expense of a non-resident parent trying to maintain a relationship with their child.
It also means that where the mother has mental and personality issues, the child, who is almost totally dependent on her, is exposed to her toxic culture. A lot of these things are about ££$$$$, which the legal system feeds off like a parasitic entity. They don’t want change whilst they are getting fat over the carcasses of broken lives.
LikeLike
How is it in the “best interests of children” to be shuttled back and forth between two houses like Ping-Pongs and not being able to call either “Home”.?. Of experiencing two different methods and standards of care and rules?. Of having to live out of backpacks?. Of not being able to maintain and sustain relationships with their peers in either area where the houses are situated?. Of not being able to participate in leisure, recreational, and sporting events in those areas?. Do tell.
It is far more likely to cause immense insecurities and uncertainties in the child and a lifelong inability to maintain and sustain relationships with others and a powerful sense of anomie’.
50/50 Shared Parenting is disastrous for children in all respects.
LikeLike
Quite.
LikeLike
Thank you for your thoughts, Kenneth. I found both yours and charlottes story very touching.
LikeLike
I see nothing in those references which points to countervailing research studies which have replicated Bowlby’s studies for the WHO, only a few opinion pieces. There is a small number of slightly adverse peer-reviews which are normal for such studies, but which are a very small minority of such peer-reviews. the majority being supportive and have even developed the conclusions from Bowlby’s studies for the WHO.
I’m afraid you are clutching at straws dear friend.
If you wish to engage in personal invective and insulting comments. I’d be happy to oblige you in such an exchange but this is not the place. Insults and abuse thrown at opponents only serves to illustrate a lack of intellect and reasoned argument by the abuser.
LikeLike
Shared Parenting is not 50/50 and it is not disastrous. How do you explain households where Mum and Dad live apart for occupational reasons and share the children? Are you saying that it harms the children? Example: seafarers. I was away from my under 5s for months and they came to stay on my ship for a few days and loved it. It was a cargo ship. They had not seen me for 4 months. Were they harmed?
Children who are in shared parenting arrangements can benefit greatly. If the child does not like Mum’s new boyfriend then they have the benefit of a refuge in dads place. I have seen kids trapped in single parent households deteriorate into anti-social behaviour, drug abuse and prostitution. The prison population is largely made up of these characters. And you are saying we should continue with this madness? You offer no solutions. You are just anti-father and refuse to even try to understand that many dads leave because of abuse from their spouses.
LikeLike
Well said James
LikeLike
Richard, your point is assuming the parents don’t work together on “rules”, or the child (ren)’s relationship with peers. I would bet that you’re somehow involved in one of the professions that benefits from a parent being alienated from his/her children.
LikeLike
And again, it is clear you ignore the statistics on children from fatherless homes. Someone mentioned Washington, Jefferson, then Obama. First of all, Jefferson and Washington were 238 years ago, and what were the circumstances of them being fatherless? I highly doubt you could use them as an example. And Obama? Ha! That is the poorest example of a person that could have been used. His criminal behavior AS PRESIDENT, has been all over the news. Who’s your next example, Hitler?
LikeLike
Hi Natasha
Whilst, Twitter and the press have focussed upon the headline I feel that your caveat is by far the most important part.
In a couple where the mother is indeed not the better carer of their young child and possibly not the one that took to this role it naturally follows that for her to suddenly assume this role upon separation through a perceived right or convention could also be unsettling and damaging for the child. I have often thought that the best post separation outcome for children, in a particular family, is the one that worked best pre-separation.
Have I been misled by what appears to be uninformed tweeting? And, is Penelope actually putting her head above the parapet, engaging some common sense and “telling it like it is” i.e. suggesting that we should actually be looking at how each separating couple can do the best they can for their child and dividing up care arrangements accordingly? In other words is someone actually advocating that separation and divorce should REALLY be child focussed by evaluating how a particular childs needs can best be met by separating parents instead of the “lone parent model” excuse for a “child centred approach” that we have at present?
Much of our present system pays mere lip service and actually hides behind the notion that the welfare of children is paramount. Whereas the reality is that as long as it’s just “good enough” then the courts and CAFCASS are happy.
If Penelope is actually proposing that we approach the welfare principle honestly and abandon the concept of rights in favour of achieving the best deal possible for every child in every case then she deserves much more than a salute.
She may also need protective clothing because the backlash from some quarters will be fierce!
LikeLike
Hi Stevie, thank you for your thoughts, and I agree with you in part. At the end of the day there are better ways of dealing with divorce where contact is involved.
LikeLike
Thank you for your reply Natasha. But contact should ALWAYS be involved unless there are very good reasons, ratified by a court, for withholding it.
We are talking about children’s rights (crc) and parental responsibilities / duties. These are far too important to our children’s futures to be left to maternal whims or gender politics. I feel that all would benefit from having these spelled out.
I note that you mention new research in this area and i think it is vital to ensure that what you rely upon is in fact new. There is unfortunately is too much “new research” that is simply the old data being recycled in a way that more favourably represents the writers personal prejudices and agendas. The Warshak paper is a good example of an objective and critical review and a good lens through which to assess anyting purporting to be new. These matters are far too important to be assessed on the weight of the paper they contain. If you could find the time to simply cut and paste the sources you refer to that would also be most helpful.
I appreciate that you are facing a deluge but i am a little confused at who precisely is saying what. Is the caveat your own thoughts or Penelope’s?
It would be helpful if you could indicate where are in agreement.
LikeLike
Hi stevie, I think a lot of people are getting confused between contact per se and the narrower issue of overnight stays. To my mind it’s just about being sensitive to the child’s needs. Penelope has been largely misrepresented in the media, she was an advocate of dads a long time ago and still is. Her caveats are, I think, very similar to mine. And her sentiment is, as she explains, just a general principle. It’s a shame few people have read her material; she is without doubt a balanced, pro father voice. On train at the moment so apologies of reply is a bit stilted 🙂
LikeLike
I agree with Stevie wholeheartedly. Pre-separation I took just as much care of my son’s mother as I did for him. At least he was in diapers, and has no recollection of a drunk mother that couldn’t make it to the bathroom.
LikeLike
I am, like Harris, critical of the Bowlby model. The family courts take the veiw that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree when removing a child from parents they deem not fit to raise that child. That view is extended to grandparents too. I believe, like Harris that peer pressure has so much more influence on a child.
Social workers, following the Bowlby theory, should not take newborns from their mothers but they do. They twist theories to fit what they want to do!
http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/lee.html
LikeLike
SW’s DO NOT follow the classic theory of Attachment of Bowlby.
If they did they would have to close down their Forced Adoption departments.
As well as taking far fewer children into Care.
Instead they promote a Disrupted Attachment theory in which any disturbed behaviour is blamed onemotional abuse in the original home.
LikeLike
They don’t “promote” but rather “create!”. As I said they are very adept at twisting information to get the result they desire!
LikeLike
Social workers are under a primary dictat to remove children for adoption. No findings on Attachment or any other study of children’s behaviours and reactions are considered under such a dictat.
LikeLike
There is one simple reason why Penelope Leach has made such an inflamatory claim – she has a book to sell.
LikeLike
Yes, I think that has a lot to do with it, and I’m going to be mentioning that on the radio if and when I get the chance.
LikeLike
I split from my son’s father on Boxing Day last year. Yes, it was very Last Christmas of us. My son has just turned two. And I am the primary carer. Not because I’m his mother, or a woman, but because I earn the most and my mother cares for my son during the day so that I can go to work and pay our mortgage and bills.
His father sees him twice a week, but only during the day. Mainly because a hasty exit from our family home found him in a house that doesn’t allow children. And I do see the pain in his eyes every time he comes to collect his son.
I think it’s very easy to give an opinion on a topic like this, especially when they have not experienced it.
When you split from your child’s father or mother, you do so with a very heavy heart. Because it’s the most selfish act you can make as a parent – at least, that’s how it feels. I went back to work when my son was 8 weeks old, because I simply had to in order to keep up our mortgage repayments and bills and all of life’s commitments. According to much research out there these days, my son should be a ‘damaged’ individual. But he is among one of the happiest children you could meet. And my love for him is something no one could argue with.
The simple fact is that society has changed, but the ‘rules’ have not changed with it. My son never comes back from spending time with his father, with a tear-tracked face, he comes back smiling and flushed after what I know was a fun day.
I come from a happily-married childhood sweetheart family and I grew up believing that was the aim in life. But my son was wanted, loved and will always be. I think it’s incredibly disappointing for statements like this to be spread (to sell a book perhaps) when you can’t possibly have any real insight into how any family, together or apart, operates.
People are different. Children are different. And when my son’s father moves into a house that welcomes our son this summer, I will welcome it. My son needs his father. He needs stories before bed. A kick-about in the garden. He needs to feel loved. And he needs to feel wanted. And he needs to know that ‘home’ is just as much about people who love you, as it is four walls and a front door.
I think the damage left by excluding a father’s role, or by fathers who simply do not stick around, is far more long-lasting than having two parents who want to provide a home for their children. I wrote about this myself, from my own perspective, over on my site.
And I value any view. I just feel like it’s a statement based on theory and observation, not experience.
LikeLike
Hi Charlotte, thank you for your thoughts. You do inadvertently make the point Penelope is making – that dad does not have overnight stays and you are the primary carer, and your son is thriving. Whether that is due to him not having to leave your side is another issue, but I agree with you that all children are different and that’s why we have to look at these things on a child by child basis.
LikeLike
When I listen to children like Amira Willghagen the winner of 2013 Hollands got talent I come to the ultimate conclusion that kids are born with a genetic code and it has nothing to do with nurture and everything to do with nature. This 9 year old has no training, she listened to a song and replicated it! That talent she possesses was not because or created by her upbringing, she was born with it!
LikeLike
I was deeply moved by Charlotte’s very real and personal experience and her expressed view, which may actually represent the reality for many.
Penelope Leach’s views seem to go against existing professional wisdom; parental experience; and also the expressed views of children.
The problem when relationships come undone where children are concerned is that there is no framework or benchmark setting out the norms of contact and frequency of visits in the median case. Its as simple as that. Such a framework would bring many contact disputes to a close before the Court door.
Other cultures have been doing this quite well for decades, and to a great extent have become ‘court phobic’. Parents and the Courts need a benchmark – a start point – based on what parents will agree, not the present process starting at ‘no contact’ and working upward. Solicitors benefit – children and Society lose out.
Fact is, it is for parents to parent – and not for children to opt out of being parented; especially in cases where a child’s view is influenced by one parent seeking to hurt the other. Its not about suiting the child. Of course, responsible parents make arrangements for their children’s activities and support their hobbies, etc, but its important to reiterate that its not for children to opt out of being parented which seems to be what Penelope is suggesting.
On the basis of ‘shared parenting’ (which does not necessarily mean equal time) – having got the Courts out of the way – my ex-wife and I agreed to parent our children on alternate weekends; midweek time and sharing the holidays. How do you gauge the benefit? Well, the children were evidently much happier – and prior to setting down arrangements my children’s schoolwork was suffering; however, after the above arrangements were in place their schoolwork significantly improved.
It used to break my heart when my son pleaded with me to come and live with me, but each time I used to take him back to his mum after his time with me as agreed. Sadly, he got his wish when his mother passed away due to longterm alcohol abuse. It only came to light many years thereafter, that she had been physically abusive toward my son when drunk – and she drank a lot – but the abuse had stopped at the age of 11 when he began fighting back. (Worthy of note that Cafcass refused to hear his concerns, so what useful purpose do they serve?).
The children used to plead with their mother about her smoking and drinking, to which she would always reply, “Its my life”. My daughter tells me she used to find her ‘stash’ and pour the alcohol away, or put water in it; and also throw away the cigarettes. She passed away when she was aged 44, and the children were 12 and 14 years old.
I wonder what Penelope would make of my children?
Contrary to Penelope Leach’s expressed views, my children may not be perfect – but they have grown up seemingly normal, happy and balanced, and have reached 23 & 25 years fairly well adjusted, despite their life experience. Both are happy, and in caring loving relationships. My daughter has two children of her own, and I’m a ‘Bampy’.
Whether you support Penelope’s view or the opposite supported by her peers, the fact is – it is for parents to parent. Any professional intervention – where needed – should be minimal and child-centred, and set the ground to leave parents to get on with the important job of parenting their children.
LikeLike
As Natasha has consistently pointed out, no two cases are the same and should not be treated the same. But there are general principles and rules which need to be applied and this is what Penelope Leach is arguing in regard to under-fives. There will of course be exceptions to every rule, and in a small number of cases, the father may well have been the primary caregiver, the caring and protective parent, and a responsible parent and in such cases the rule may need to be modified in consideration of each child’s individual physical, emotional, psychological, social needs at each respective age.
The general rule applied at the moment was perfectly set out by Pagelow M.D. who stated “Father’s Rights will be protected (by the Courts) no matter what the costs to the children. the mother, or society.” `Effects of DV on children and their consequences for custody and visitation arrangements;. Mediation Quarterly 7, 347-363. The proof of this can be seen daily in Court judgements on such matters, where domestic violence and child sexual abuse are given very little consideration in decision-making.
Viewing the world through personal and highly subjective personal experiences cannot be used to set these principles and rules, as they are very often the exceptions.
The statements made to you by your children clearly indicate the need and right of children to have their say in proceedings and to give evidence of their ill-treatment as matters for the Courts to give the highest possible consideration.
In law, children have the right to be treated as competent witnesses and for their testimonies to be accepted as credible and reliable. Yet they are consistently denied this right because of misguided adult opposition.
LikeLike
Penelope Leach is trying to sell a book.
LikeLike
you asked for data that discredit’s Bowlby’s maternal attachment theory. See http://eventoddlers1.blogspot.com/2011/09/john-bowlby-and-discredited-theory-of.html
or
http://books.google.com/books?id=haEfq-nKqjgC&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=bowlby+attachment+theory+discredited&source=bl&ots=Tk1J_abmoH&sig=Vl0xyivCy19-hawSOHkpdbnUuDI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gDagU4-REMSiqAbj14CoCw&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=bowlby%20attachment%20theory%20discredited&f=false
or
http://www.parental-alienation.info/publications/51-atttheandparali.htm
or
http://eventoddlersdrmcintosh.wordpress.com/bowlby-rutter/
or
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/233461286_Attachment_Theory_and_Parental_Alienation.
I could keep going but in the end I don’t think it would matter how much data I provided you with, I don’t believe I would change your point of view. The fact of the matter is that Bowlby’s attachment theory has been discredited over and over again, yet our court systems continue to use the tender years doctrine to assign custody, and if you want me to be frank with you, any man who supports this discredited theory does so because they are disinterested in playing a significant role in their child’s upbringing, or they have been brainwashed to believe the feminist agenda. However for us fathers who genuinely love and care for our children, well we are just as capable of giving our children a loving and nurturing home. It is about time that we stop using this discredited theory, and stop allowing mothers who want to use it to control or cause pain to the men who they were once in love with enough to make a child with them. Why are we giving tools to people that are really only used to cause disagreements in court, (which by the way racks up money for the attorneys who are supposed to be representing their best interests.)
The ball is back in your court Penelope.
LikeLike
Unfortunately it hasn’t.
The exact opposite is the case.
PAS is opposed and rejected by an opposing psychological school.
Where is the published research, control group and peer reviews for these articles ?
LikeLike
No Dick, PAS was first rejected by the Family Courts as having neither merit for credibility in the respective professional community because it is completely lacking in scientifically conducted research. It was based only in the musings of a particular psychologist Richard Gardner who earned a massive fortune promoting it until he finally admitted to having considerable sympathies with paedophiles and eventually took his own life in a gruesome way.
It is unsafe and unsound for any Court to accept any psychological theory which does not have any basis in research, has not been positively peer-reviewed and cannot be supported by statistics on False Positives/ True negatives etc.
In some countries, PAS is now commonly referred to as the paedophile’s defence.
LikeLike
His question was…Does Ms. Leech feel the same about overnight stays with the mother if the father has custody?
LikeLike
I did answer that. I said that I imagined that would be the case, however I’m not her rep so I can’t speak for her. You may be interested in an interview she gave in 1994 – some 20 years ago before fathers even got a look in and it was avant garde to suggest dads had something to offer in the parenting department. She’s been misrepresented quite a bit, though I imagine that was on purpose. She has a book to sell….
Anyway, the quote in the interview worth mentioning is this one:
“15 years ago most mothers in Britain were at home, and it was unheard of for a father to be. The reality now is that a baby’s needs may be met by several different people.’ Sensitive to her feminist critics, those who have complained that Baby and Child should really have been called Madonna and Child because of its sanctifying of motherhood, Leach tells me that she has always been ‘at some pains’ to stress that the mother-child unit ‘need not remain exclusive after the first few months. Baby care is shared all over the world and always has been.’
LikeLike
Does Ma Leech also suggest that when a Dad has residence, overnight stays with the mother would be harmful to the child?
I’m beginning to ‘question it!’ when we all go on piously (including me) about the ‘best interests of the child’. In most cases, the best interests of the child would be if the parents stayed together – separation is traumatic for any child and I have seen this first-hand with my step-grandson. My generation poured scorn on the idea of ‘staying together for the sake of the children’ but I’m beginning to see that parents split up often for rather self-centred reasons and ‘the best interests of the children’ rather take second-place. I know this would be an absurd generalisation, but I’m not generalising. In cases of domestic abuse/violence the best interests of the kids are likely to be to move away from the abuser. But ‘falling out of love’? I’ve probably said this before, but how can the State possibly say that IT always works in a child’s best interests when they take kids into ‘care’ and then woefully neglect them?
How can the courts say this when it is proved beyond doubt that children are more at risk from live-in lovers, boyfriends etc. even step-parents, than from their natural parents; yet often stop one parent (usually Dad) from seeing the kids whilst allowing any new lover to walk in to the home of the children with no questions asked? How does that serve a child’s ‘best interests’? How does it make sense that I could see any child – any child in the world – except my own? And that my child could see anyone, except me? If Ma Leech (or anyone else) could answer these questions satisfactorily I might be more impressed. I’ve never had any answers to them. Perhaps there aren’t any.
You did expect a lot of comment on this, didn’t you? Happy to oblige! xx
LikeLike
Hi roger, I think she might do. I certainly would, depending on the circumstances, but that cuts both ways, too.
LikeLike
I would really like to hear an answer to Roger’s very first question.
LikeLike
Remind me of the question. Jeff.
LikeLike
I was shocked when Birmingham Council’s director asked by the BBC straight “Are children under your care safe tonight” and he replied “probably not” and yet removals, forced adoptions didn’t stop or reduce and that begs the question if the LA is that appalling then surely its casework, its legal work, its claims to courts should be considered unsafe too?
I am reminded of Charles Pragnall’s critique where if you follow it through, you can see a child is actually less safer in most circumstances in state care simply because the whole system is incapable of policing itself credibly and there is little tractive effort to bring in laws to protect children in care from systemic abuse or protect their rights because as soon as such a bill rears its head, the NSPCC, NCH, etc all fight it to the death because a) too many influential people are making an absolute fortune from the current anarchic system b) misguided and somewhat suspect guiding policies in these groups led by some very strange pressure groups who exhibit very anti male and anti family views and one of those people just happens to be Judge and barrister Cherie Blair.
And we are back again too to the conflict of interest being Anthony Douglas, on the one hand he is the guiding hand for every court guardian in the UK yet it is in not his interest financially for seeing the family unit thrive as he is also a director of the BAAF and is given a bonus pot share every year between him and the other directors for increasing adoption rates and this pot is in the millions of pounds divided between about eight directors.
Lastly, the desire for change as you could ask Tom Watson MP, is that there exists a very powerful and almost immune to the law “elite” paedophile ring that is said to contain some very powerful people including MP’s, Lords, Judges, senior police officers, I was bang on the money about Rochdale and this network of predators who use the freemasonic networks to protect themselves will always block any attempt to promoting the family circle and they use children’s homes and even some of them have become foster carers themselves to practice their vile activities. Lets take that senior Met police officer a couple years back, she was in the process, not finalised but in the process of adopting a forcibly removed girl, the police officer was 50 YEARS older than the child and she was also sent to prison for 18 months, she is also a former bankrupt and had a historical criminal record as well. Essex county council REFUSED to stop the adoption which was bizarre as this woman alone ticked every “anti” box the adoption process has but her husband it came out was a powerful freemason who used his position to force Essex council to allow this to go through and it went through as well.
Britain has had a very strange view towards children for a long time, whether selling Irish children to American plantation owners when black slavery was abolished, to selling children who were abused and died in the colonies that was still happening as late as 1970 to the current state of affairs where children are being still sold as a commodity, into foster homes arranged and organised by social workers and their management who illegally profit from ensuring these homes are kept “stocked” and are protected again by the Masonic networks from investigation and sometimes houses have been bought and paid for by taxpayers who cannot even query this illegal practice, this fraud because as soon as your councillor brings it up in the council chamber, he will be visited quite soon after by legal team representatives for the council “warning” them off or else.
And the sad thing is, the whole disgusting state of affairs is right out there, in the public domain but people are too scared to speak out or lining their own pockets to care.
LikeLike
Richard Grenville: You have not been involved in any split up issues then? Contact Orders are not worth the paper they are written on. If a resident parent does not wish to cooperate then there is no enforcement. Not only that, it is still the default position that custody goes to mothers in at least 80% of cases.
Solicitors will charge £100s a time. A father wanting to have to see his children has to ‘prove’ himself worthy. I have not met any men in these battles who wasn’t broke. From what I’ve seen mothers can be as mad as a bat and still get custody. I do not have to just rely on figures, I do actually engage with these dads. Women have far more support than men do and far more sympathy.
LikeLike
There is provision in the law for Contraventions of Orders and if they are proven and there is no reasonable excuse, then very severe penalties apply and are applied i.e. imprisonment, heavy fines, made to pay full courts costs, and worst of all perverse reversals of child custody. This has all happened on many occasions
if you took the time to look.
LikeLike
“If you took the time to look” – then give everyone on this forum the chance to see for themsleves, or is this some deep dark secret ? You demand proof and URLs and then fall silent when they are produced. But you are never forthcoming. Please supply proof and URLs so that your critics may perhaps fall silent.
LikeLike
I just did – but obviously it needs to be more simplified for you. So here are a few more direct references.
http://www.familylaw.co.uk/news_and_comment?filter%5Bcategory_id%5D=2349
https://www.canlii.org/en/on/
http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/divorce
http://www.familycourt.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/FCOA/home
LikeLike
In reality, PA cannot be other than a common factor in disputed post separation child contact cases.
Richard Grenville’s comments on the matter above are both offensive and clearly intended to be inflammatory. Perhaps he would care to enlighten the forum on how he would describe a parent who takes steps to poison the mind of a child against the other parent?
LikeLike
Angry Grandparent II – Essex is one of the worst Councils in this regard. Ask Maggie Tuttle. And remember the story last week of the Grandparents who against all the odds managed to ‘win’ their grandchild after Essex had lied, misinformed and misled in order to pursue and procure an adoption order. Everyway is Essex, except humanity and honesty (their SS that is).
Kenneth – I think the problem with Parental Alienation is its labelling as a ‘syndrome’, which it may be but there is no concrete evidence yet to support it. Just call it ‘parental alienation’ – we all know it exists!
I found many of Richard Grenville’s comments offensive. I was a member of Fathers 4 Justice but I did not do it to avoid paying the mother of my child. In fact I wasn’t involved with the CSA at all, and voluntarily paid what I hope was a fair sum each month. I stopped when I found out that she’d met a rich jeweller and suspected that none of the money I was paying was benefitting my daughter. I got a letter saying that mum would ‘have to tell H (my daughter) as she would have to stop her riding lessons’. I volunteered to pay the riding school direct, but that, of course, was ‘unacceptable’! That was parental alienation, and a lie to boot, as H continued with her riding, her favourite occupation, and is now a competent horse-rider. I joined F4J because I found their mixture of humour and civil disobedience appealing, and I strongly believe that there should be no monetary payment demanded from a disenfranchised parent of either sex unless or until that parent is able to help support a child emotionally as well. Why is it only money that is important to the CSA? Is the emotional support not equally important? F4J certainly complained that many fathers were being treated as ‘walking cashpoints’ and they had a fair point.
This has been – and continues to be – a great debate, and although Mr. Grenville’s comments are offensive, we should defend to the end his right to say them. We know he’s talking a lot of inflammatory nonsense, but there are grains of wheat amongst the chaff.
LikeLike
So you are not disputing my pocket history of the Father’s Rights Movement, only offering a single anecdotal example regarding the motivation of yourself in being a part of that Movement and which was contrary to the general motivation.
When you say, “I strongly believe that there should be no monetary payment demanded from a disenfranchised parent of either sex unless or until that parent is able to help support a child emotionally as well.”, do you not agree that the converse should apply?. Should not a parent who has failed to make monetary payments (thereby financially abusing the child), not be permitted “to help support a child emotionally”?. Or should such a parent not be penalised for such irresponsibility, unless of course they have reasonable excuse.?.
LikeLike
Hi Richard,
I do dispute your ‘pocket history’ of the Father’s Movement, as one who was involved in it. But I’m the first to admit my view was entirely the result of the way I, as a father, was treated in the Family Court. I have since learned that when mothers are ‘targeted’ by the SS and the Family Court system they are, too, treated with a cruelty and sadism that almost defies belief. So now I campaign for the ‘Families movement’. I agree with you that if a father (‘cos it’s usually so) wilfully does not contribute financially then he should be denied his emotional contact – but I don’t go along with ‘financial abuse’. But the CSA never mentions emotional support. It’s all, and only, money,money,money. It’s just too narrow.
May I ask, Richard, whether you have children? And if so, have you ever been at risk of losing them through a vindictive partner and have that behaviour endorsed by a Court of Law? If you don’t and haven’t, may I suggest that you come across in some of your writings as someone who just cannot understand or comprehend at all the pain, the sense of loss, and the worry about what’s happening to the children, and a little more compassion and sensitivity wouldn’t go amiss. If you do have kids and you’ve experienced all this, then I can’t understand you at all.
All that really matters is the truth. If statistically children do best by knowing both parents then children should know both parents, unless there is a bloody good reason why not. And a PROVED good reason, not merely hearsay or ‘the balance of probabilities’. If more married couples stay together than co-habiting couples and it’s proved beyond all reasonable doubt that kids do better if their parents stay together, then we should be applauding Judge Coleridge and his marriage foundation rather than deriding him. It doesn’t matter what our own preferences are, it doesn’t matter what ideologies we hold – if we are serious about ‘putting children first’, we have to acknowledge what is true.
What I do know is the truth, is that losing a child through Court Order is like a living bereavement. Anyone who loses a child through an accident or murder receives the utmost sympathy, but those who lose their children through the Family Courts are regarded with suspicion ‘there must be something wrong’ which only adds to the hurt. We adults matter too, for our children, God willing, will become adults one day too. Would we want them to suffer like this?
Roger
LikeLike
Hi Natasha,
The following reference is a good measure of current thinking & yes, this is the same J.E. McIntosh previously relied upon by Liz Trinder et al and corrected by Warshak.
“An integrative perspective suggests that the goals of attachment and early parental (typically paternal) involvement with very young children after separation are mutually attainable and mutually reinforcing rather than exclusive choices. An optimal goal for the family is a “triadic secure base” developed through a co‐parenting environment that supports the child’s secure attachment with each parent and the recognition by each parent of the other’s importance to the child. Cautions against overnight care during the first three years are not supported. The limited available research substantiates some caution about higher frequency overnight schedules with young children, particularly when the child’s relationship with a second parent has not been established and/or parents are in frequent conflict to which the child is exposed.”
Pruett M K, McIntosh J E & Kelley J B (2014) Parental Separation and Overnight Care of Young Children, Part I: Consensus Through Theoretical and Empirical Integration. Family Court Review 52 (2) 240-255.
No one can reasonably argue with the added cautionary note and in the same way the caveat added to your blog is entirely reasonable but, with an appropriately cautionary approach involving anything to do with our children, I must say that I am amazed with the certainty adopted by some in their dismissal and denial of the phenomenon of parental alienation.
The reputation of Gardener always gets dredged up. The fact that the phenomenon of parental alienation, ( named by Gardener in 1986, but first reported around a decade earlier – the pathological triangle), now has an easily accessible body of research spanning almost 40 years to support it, also seems to be conveniently forgotten.
In 2010, Justice HHJ Bellamy Re.S (a child) stated’
“The concept of alienation, as a feature of some high conflict disputes may today be regarded as mainstream.”
Following Sir James Munby’s transparency reforms there are new cases involving alienation being reported every week. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be consistency in the words used to describe it.
Furthermore, the alienation of children against a targeted parent is described in DSM V as “psychological abuse”.
The fact is that, whilst some deny the existence of an abusive phenomenon and these contradictory and specious arguments continue, there is a very real prospect that children are being harmed and those in denial are providing cover to psychologically abusive parents.
I cannot understand why people that vehemently deny the existence of alienation, sometimes with such evangelical zeal, do not include any caveats or cautionary notes in case they are wrong. If they did their claims to be acting in the best interests of children would be believable.
LikeLike
Hi Stevie,
I think all of this depends on context, which is something I have said previously and still believe. The research you cite makes one very important distinction:
“The limited available research substantiates some caution about higher frequency overnight schedules with young children, particularly when the child’s relationship with a second parent has not been established and/or parents are in frequent conflict to which the child is exposed.”
We see this a lot with separating couples, still. We know that the majority of primary carers are still mothers, but that’s a side issue, really, in terms of attachment. It’s about the creation of bonds and the intention behind the overnight stay. And whilst the parent who may be less prevalent in the home due to work commitments may love their child deeply, the fact is, that level of trust is not always set up by the time separation occurs. As I said in the interview, a lot of children are already feeling very vulnerable prior to separation and removing the one parent at night whom they feel safe with, is a terrible thing to do. I appreciate that may sound as if that’s a criticism of the less available parent, but it’s not. It’s just biology.
Children need to feel safe with whomever they spend the night. Being a father, or mother, is not enough, no matter how much we want it to be. Small children have very real needs and we cannot ignore that. If the child has already developed a bond with both parents, then there is no issue. I have said that often , too.
But what I am saying, and what Penelope, I suspect, is saying, is that in scenarios where there is conflict, tension and mistrust, where one parent has not had the time to build up enough of a bond to make their son or daughter feel safe at night without the other ‘full time’ parent, and where parents do not co parent very well, which is what we see a lot of in separation (for all sorts of reasons), then it is wrong to assume that a small child will cope with an overnight stay in this context.
This isn’t then, so much about parental alienation, although I know how tempting it is to bring that into the mix.
LikeLike
So Natasha, It sounds to me like you think that when there is conflict at the end of a relationship then the child should only have overnight stays with the mother. The mother who in 90% of cases, (at least here in America) is the instigator of the animosity. The mother who presents false evidence to the courts to get false restraining orders so she can legally alienate her children from their father. You want the mother to have the only overnight contact with a child at such a young age when SO MANY mothers are poisoning the minds of their children against their fathers. (this isn’t my case, but as a father’s rights advocate, I see it in case after case, after case.) You are right before when you said that no two cases are the same, however I would wager that if you took the monetary incentive out of divorces and separations, you would see a much higher rate of shared parenting, and a much less acrimonious divorce proceedings. Remove the leaches from the family court system (Paid psychologists, lawyers who feed the acrimony to delay proceedings and rack up outrageous attorney fees, not to mention the corrupt CPS officials who only care about how many cases they can create to increase their funding). maybe if we put a cap on what attorneys can charge for a case at say $3500, then we have happier citizens, we don’t have clogged up family court dockets, and we save the taxpayers money. Really doesn’t that sound like a win-win situation. AND LET ME ADD that you say that often times there isn’t enough time for one parent to build the trust with the child, I say that is baloney… For all of my children when they woke up in the middle of the night, it was DADDY who got up to calm them, when all of my children were scared (no matter the age) it was daddy who comforted them. It was Daddy who made my children feel safe, and daddy who made them feel loved…. AND DADDY NEVER TRIED TO KEEP THEM FROM THEIR MOTHER, she is the one who insisted on every other weekend but SHE wouldn’t accept the deal if the roles were reversed. (and my children were 6 and 8) at the time.
LikeLike
Hi Dustin, I would say, as I’ve said before, that it depends on the context, relationships, whom the child has bonded with and so on. It’s very difficult though, to have a rational debate about this sort of thing if we’re going to start from the view that most mothers are alienaters. I understand you may have had a terrible experience and that your anger may be justified, but there’s a whole other world out there, that is not telling the same story.
LikeLike
Hi Natasha
Many thanks for taking the trouble to respond comprehensively. I commented upon alienation simply to straighten things out.
Considering, where this started I’m pleased at how much of this we seem to be in agreement on. It’s easy to identify the problems but how do we make this work in the best possible way for our children?
I’m afraid that I will have to address this later. My excuse is a good one. I’ve just taken on a new rescue dog and she’s just started her season. As there are a few doggy lotharios in the neighbourhood I’m repairing the garden fences as a matter of urgency. Otherwise, I’m afraid that I may well be having to deal with a few unwanted “attachment” problems of my own!
LikeLike
It’s my pleasure, Stevie. You’re such a polite poster and you never fail to write thoughtfully and without malice. That goes such a long way. I did use an example in the interview I gave of a very common practice in Sweden, where the family home remains the base, primary carer stays with baby and non primary carer comes for sleepovers, rather than little person! It works so well over there and whilst this may not be the right approach for every family, it highlights, I think, the ways in which we can solve these dilemmas with children in mind.
Your last paragraph made me laugh so much….. good luck and I hope you and your new friend have a wonderful life adventure together 🙂
LikeLike
PadreStevie – “The fact that the phenomenon of parental alienation, ( named by Gardener in 1986, but first reported around a decade earlier – the pathological triangle), now has an easily accessible body of research spanning almost 40 years to support it, also seems to be conveniently forgotten.”
The very serious flaw in all contentions of `alienation’ is that it fails to evaluate the occurrence of Self-Alienation by parents and to suggest how they may be distinguished by Courts. Violent assaults on their partner, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse of children, indifference to children’s needs, are some of the causes of children becoming alienated from a parent. Yet very often that parent, after separation, alleges that the other parent has `alienated’ the child.
While such a flaw exists and both phenomenon are studied together, then any assertions of alienation are invalid.
LikeLike
Natasha, Just to say I have listened to your interview on the Jonathan Vernon-Smith radio show. Firstly the interviewer makes the point that you were arguing against yourself, in effect saying that ‘the exception makes the rule’, which is plainly wrong. Secondly you relied heavily on the so-called ‘sensitive period’ in child development. But this is my area of expertise and ALL periods are sensitive to children and it is quite wrong to suggest that 0-5 is more sensitive than any other. The idea of a ‘sensitive period’ is a convenience used by Social Workers to justify taking children from their parents when there is no other evidence to support their action. You were talking from your heart not your head. kip
LikeLike
Hi kip, the interviewer didn’t understand what I was saying. He was too busy trying to look for a way to make his show sensational. I agree with you that all periods are sensitive, saved for the fact that very young children have a limited ability to cope with certain things. And I always speak from my heart, because it is in tune with my head. One cannot ever move forward without aligning the two, and this is quite different to speaking through pain or fear.
LikeLike
Natasha, Very well said but I was thinking the same as the interviewer before he came out and made the comment. I am not a ‘shock jockey’. I was amazed also to hear the expert on Jeremy Vine on Radio 2, Suzie Hayman, also criticize Penelope Leach. Another point to note from your interview is that there can be more than one ‘primary carer’. The concept of ‘monotropy’ was coined by Dr John Bowlby. This too, like the idea of a ‘sensitive period’ is flawed. Children can have more than one primary carer, in fact in most societies it is the ‘norm’. kip
PS These are the principles I cite from Professor Sir Michael Rutter was knighted for his work in Child Development which contradicts Bowlby’s research.
i. Investigations have demonstrated the importance of a child’s relationship with people other than his mother.
ii. Most important of all there has been repeated findings that many children are not damaged by deprivation.
iii. The old issue of critical periods of development and the crucial importance of early years has been re-opened and re-examined. The evidence is unequivocal that experiences at all ages have an impact.
iv. It may be the first few years do have a special importance for bond formation and social development. (‘Maternal Deprivation Reassessed’ Second Edition, Penguin, 1982, page 217)
LikeLike
Hi Kip, yes, I agree with you, there can be more than one primary carer, and funnily enough so does Penelope. I shared this link with another poster on here yesterday – it’s an interview in 1994 with Penelope. I think you’d find it very interesting, so I’m going to share it with you too. Bear in mind that 20 years ago the concept of dads being hands on was still very new and so anyone espousing the view was pretty cutting edge, and open minded. The fact is, Penelope’s views were purposely distorted, probably by her publicist, as she has a new book out 🙂 What she is saying, and what I am saying essentially is that in the separation scenario, children need to feel the anchors they’re used to.
If Dad is an anchor, then of course he should be called upon to be there, but where he isn’t, regardless of whether or not he loves his child dearly, he should wait until the child is ready for overnight contact. Forcing this issue is just as damaging to the child as it is to the relationship that father has with his child. I think it’s a tough sentiment to swallow, but we have to be honest with ourselves when it comes to kids. The bottom line is this – if the child feels safe in your care, there’re no issue. If there is not enough trust or not a strong enough bond (for whatever reason and that can sometimes just be due to Dad’s workload), then we need to be sensitive to the child. That’s all I’m saying. I appreciate that not everyone will find that view palatable, but there it is. I know plenty of couples who divorced amicably and because dad (and sometimes mum) worked long hours, they felt it was best for the little one to stay with the primary carer at night. The result? Each child has grown up to love and respect the non enforcing parent and they’re inseparable. At the end of the day, my view is, ultimately, a pro family one.
Here’s Penelope in her interview in 1994 – she’s not quite the ogre everyone thinks she is. And that’s the way the media works 🙂 >>>
LikeLike
Hi Natasha
In between fending off randy pooches I have written a response to Mr Richard Grenville.
Some posters appear to have been offended by his views. They could improve their understanding by checking the exchanges here:
Dear Mr Grenville
Thank you for your comment. Unfortunately this does not add anything to my understanding of these issues or to this debate. Labelling the reliably reported phenomena of alienation as mere “contentions” (sic) attempts to belittle the work and demonstrates a degree of bias in your thinking. In any event your conclusion (apart from being a non-sequiter, based upon a false premise), is out of date since all the points you make (and a few more besides) regarding the spectrum of alienating behaviours are cogently argued in:
“Children Who Resist Post-Separation Parental Contact: A Differential Approach for Legal and Mental Health Professionals (American Psychology-Law Society) [Paperback]
Barbara Jo Fidler (Author), Nicholas Bala (Author), Michael A. Saini (Author)”.
Sadly, the fact that this work is readily available also demonstrates cherry picking and a lack of academic rigour on your behalf.
In my last post I also stated,
“The fact is that, whilst some deny the existence of an abusive phenomenon and these contradictory and specious arguments continue, there is a very real prospect that children are being harmed and those in denial are providing cover to psychologically abusive parents.
I cannot understand why people that vehemently deny the existence of alienation, sometimes with such evangelical zeal, do not include any caveats or cautionary notes in case they are wrong. If they did their claims to be acting in the best interests of children would be believable”.
Perhaps someone would be kind enough to enlighten me because I really do struggle to understand why this appears to be so.
LikeLike
Hahaha, thanks Stevie 🙂
LikeLike
Because it is extensively being used in the courts to seize control of the children in an extensive racket by Guardians , children’s solicitors and judges, all of whom buy into this theory, which is then used to Reverse Residence and then severely restrict contact with the parent being attacked (which may be the father by the way) or stop contact totally.
Any incident reported by the mother, or stated by the children will be held to be PAS and an “accusation”.
The ruthless legals for the ex (whichever sex they are) will then work for Reversal of Residence, which is seen by judges, Guardians and children’s sols. as suitable punishment for the other ex.
The PAS theory will be believed in totally.
This also applies in allegations of sexual abuse, in which the normal ABE procedures are stood on their head.
Overnight stay applications are almost invariably used to begin to facilitate this and then engineer various disputes to claim the resident ex is making “accusations” and therefore “irreconcilably alienated” and “failing to cooperate”.
The views of the children are totally ignored.
This may not be what the psychologist actually raised for discussion but is highly relevant.
LikeLike
Hi Dick 100
Many thanks dick100 for your comments.
I gather that you do not subscribe to the theory of PAS. It may surprise you to learn that neither do I subscribe to the notion that this is a medical condition. It is a moot point, a red herring and a straw man argument.
I do however, respect the substantial body of research findings that have accumulated in almost 3 decades since this label was first coined to describe sets of observed bahaviours in certain parents and the alienation reaction elicited in their children. The fact is that there is now a considerable body of scientific evidence that confirms the parental alienation hypothesis. Furthermore researchers, such as Dr. Amy Baker, have compiled accounts from the adult survivors of this form of emotional abuse termed parental alienation (see her book “Breaking the ties that bind”). Her vast body of work includes references to many similar accounts and the statements of children that have recovered from the alienation reaction. It is without doubt a highly damaging form of abuse which causes lasting psychological damage. It is not confined to a single gender, it is not confined to separation and it can take place in “intact” partnerships.
I must admit to being sceptical about the scale of an apparent conspiracy and flaunting of due process that you suggest is at work in our family justice system and widespread in the UK. My personal experience is the antithesis of your description. Do you have any data, evidence or research that you can share to back up your assertions?
Almost, every day we are now being told of new cases of historic child abuse and it appals me that in many of these cases the victims told someone about their experiences but they were not believed. They have been let down terribly but hopefully the convictions we are now seeing will bring them some sort of justice and closure. I cannot begin to imagine the anguish and pain these child victims felt when, to add insult to gross injury, no one believed them and they have been forced to suffer in silence for the best part of a lifetime.
Why on earth would anyone even suggest that victims of psychological abuse should not be believed, possibly be made to stay with an abusive parent and possibly not even acknowledged?
I repeat the question asked in my last post since no one appears to want to answer it,
“The fact is that, whilst some deny the existence of an abusive phenomenon and these contradictory and specious arguments continue, there is a very real prospect that children are being harmed and those in denial are providing cover to psychologically abusive parents. I cannot understand why people that vehemently deny the existence of alienation, sometimes with such evangelical zeal, do not include any caveats or cautionary notes in case they are wrong. If they did their claims to be acting in the best interests of children would be believable”.
Perhaps someone would be kind enough to enlighten me because I really do struggle to understand why this appears to be so.
LikeLike
There are serious defects and deficiencies in the conjectures, assertions, and contentions of those who put forward `Parental Alienation’ as a reason for a child rejecting a parent.
Firstly their arguments are usually based on an assumption that children are a homogeneous group or class of person. Such an assumption is intrinsically defective as every child is a unique individual with individual feelings and emotions and personality traits.
Secondly, their arguments are based on an assumption and view that children are simply pieces of soft clay or a blank chalk board and that parents can simply mould or manipulate their emotions and feelings and beliefs and that they will thereafter behave in a particular way. Yet examples of the independent and free will of children are in evidence every day in shopping malls and supermarkets, where even two year olds will loudly protest and demonstrate their opposition to the will of their parents and demand that their own will and wishes is are acceded to.
Thirdly, those who present allegations of `Parental Alienation’ in a public context e.g. Family Courts, invariably fail to present the criteria on which their allegations are based and the evidence which meets those criteria. When children demonstrate animosity and antipathy towards a parent, such feelings, attitudes and actions can have at least two quite distinct causes. Firstly, the parent held in antipathy could themselves have caused the child to have such antipathy own behaviours and actions or absence of feelings for a child. E.g. Parental indifference to and lack of respect of a child as a person, abuse and psychological ill-treatment of the child, and abuse and ill-treatment of the other parent. If the child has developed such feelings and attitudes, it may be the case that the other parent cannot dissuade the child of such feelings and attitudes, or the other parent’s failure to respond either positively or negatively, to the child’s expressed views and the other parent may have taken a neutral stance.
The suggestion that children can be so easily indoctrinated into beliefs and values which they do not already hold is not borne out by the evidence of children’s assertiveness. Even very small children can refuse to eat certain foods which parents may consider better for their health and growth, or vehemently oppose a visit to a doctor for vaccinations. In such instances there is a strong emotional element which does not even begin to compare with the emotions and feelings of a child who has a pre-existing `meaningful relationship’ with a parent and would not therefore easily be persuaded otherwise.
In conclusion, far more detailed research is needed into the emotions and feelings of children towards their parents and why, on a number of occasions, they can reject a parent and view contact with that parent after parental separation, as even more painful than a visit to a dentist for a tooth extraction or to be hospitalised for major surgery. Each child must be independently assessed and far more investigation should be made of their individual rejections, than simply making an assumption of `parental alienation’ as a naïve and simplistic rule of thumb.
LikeLike
Please make your mind us is it; a) serious, b) defective, c) deficient, d) conjecture, e) assertions, or only f) contentions ?
Are children a homogeneous group or class of person ? Or to quote again is “every child is a unique individual” ?
If the answer is the latter then we can do away with schools immediately and abandon any immunisation programmes. But that’s only the beginning of having to treat each child as an individual. Hospitals too will have to be abandoned and so too clinical research as each child will require individual hospitalisation and individually tailored drugs.
And, of course, we would have to abandon the attachment theory as that is based on all children being the same.
LikeLike
rrrrwhiston – in regard to your first point, I’d suggest you avail yourself of a good standard Thesaurus and learn the differences in meanings of words, some often subtle so I hope that wont confuse you too much.
There doesn’t appear to be a point in your second statement.
Children are unique individuals, schools provide them with knowledge and help their understanding which they intellectually accommodate and assimilate according to their individual and unique personal beliefs, values, and attitudes. Immunisation is protection of the herd against what is perceived by some as a threat – nothing to do with the uniqueness of individuals. Hospitals treat children’s individual combinations of diseases, illnesses and injuries – they may use common methods on some occasions to do so, and that is because human bodies tend to be much the same, but not the personalities, beliefs, values, and attitudes of those individuals.
Attachment theory id based studies of common reactions to given sets of circumstances, that does not detract from individual uniqueness if there are common responses in similar situations. Could you perhaps take some time to study human growth and development, it is difficult having to condense many years of studies and opinion articles into a simplistic form that you can understand.?..
LikeLike
Natasha, could you moderate this contributor please, and put him /her on notice as he / she seems to be defiantly anti-constructive, ie a Troll.
LikeLike
R, everyone on this site is entitled to their view. That doesn’t make them a troll.
As a polite reminder, here are the rules for posting once more:
All posters are welcome to share their thoughts about the subjects offered for discussion on this blog. However, they must do so with courtesy and respect for others’ points of view. Posters who fail to observe this simple etiquette, will find their comments will not be posted on the site.
Many thanks.
LikeLike
Too infantile to respond to – sad really. very sad.
LikeLike
Richard, you mentioned above that it is your belief that the Father’s Rights movement intends to create a revisionist rule for family courts that would grant fathers “Sole proprietorship of all their belongings and the children” when families fall apart, and In suggesting as much, you show your ignorance of the goals of our movement. The fact of the matter is that throughout history children have been consistently awarded to either parent, but not both. The Father’s rights Movement wants to move forward and to encourage the Family court system to evolve to realize that our children need both of their parents to thrive. We want equal time with our children. We want due process in the Family Court system. We want to take money out of the equation and then look at what is truly in the best interest of our children. We don’t want to own our children, we don’t want to keep their mothers out of their lives, we just want equal access, and we want protections under the law for when that access is denied. Before you speak about a movement, take some time to learn about it please. You can say well historically this was your agenda, and I am here to tell you that every movement evolves, and if the movement was only pushing for men to get full custody I wouldn’t be a part of it. Almost every comment you make is offensive, stereotypical, and condescending. (Yet I noticed that Natasha hasn’t scolded you for your offenses, probably because you are supporting her position) You show no empathy, and seem to have a disconnect about what it is truly like to be in the situation of having to see your children only every other weekend. (and if you do have your children every other weekend and think that works for you, then you are part of the problem).
LikeLike
Absolutely right, Dustin. I do notice that Richard has not replied to my question, or a similar one that was posed earlier. I stood in the last general election as a candidate for the Equal Parenting Alliance – the clue to my beliefs is in the title.
However, I do see that for some children overnight stays might not be welcomed at least at first. Forcing the issue does not help, and it becomes a selfish aim. Not many people have mentioned this, but love will conquer a child’s fear soon enough. Love them and they will love you right back, and long for the time they can spend with you, and they will welcome overnight stays then. We have to be patient and sensitive ourselves, and not presume that what we want is what they want. On the other side of the coin, what a child wants may not always be what is in that child’s best interests. It’s not a black and white issue.
Roger
LikeLike
You are right Roger, It isn’t a black and white issue, and every case is different, and that is what in my honest opinion is wrong with this story. Penelope is saying that NO UNDER FIVEs should have overnight stays with their father’s, and that presents a picture (which will be used in divorce courts) that is black and white. That says the mother should ALWAYS get custody with the father not having any overnight visits with their child until after the age of 5. I mean Seriously? This woman is off her rocker, and so is anyone else who buys into this dangerous theory. Richard and Natasha have been saying the same thing (which contradicts the story that they are trying to support) that no case is the same, yet it seems that almost every person who has posted about this story, who has been through the family courts, has given examples of how wrong this theory is, and the only response from those who believe this BS is “well every case is not black and white” or “you can’t use your personal experience to determine how all children react” or something along those lines. Sure some children may not be bonded to their fathers, but a great deal of children are bonded from birth. That is what makes this so dangerous.
LikeLike
Hi Dustin, that’s not quite what she says. She says it’s a general rule, not a one size fits all. I hope that helps a little bit. She’s been taken out of context quite a lot.
LikeLike
Natasha, Please look at the title of your story that YOU posted. “Penelope Leach Says Under Fives Should Not Have Sleepovers With Separated Fathers – And We Agree”. How again does that not imply that one size fits all….. That is all that the courts are going to look at. So maybe you should change your title, because it is BLACK AND WHITE. It says UNDER FIVES SHOULD NOT HAVE SLEEPOVERS WITH SEPERATED FATHERS, It does not say “IN SOME CASES under five’s should not have sleepovers with separated Fathers” It does not say “under fives should not have sleepovers with separated Fathers with some exceptions.” it just says Under Fives should not have sleepovers with separated fathers…… Explain.
LikeLike
Dustin, first of all, you won’t make much sway with me by being dictatorial. If you’d like me, or anyone else on the forum, to elaborate on a point, you will need to ask politely.
LikeLike
I am just pointing out the dichotomy between what you are saying in this forum and the title of your story.
LikeLike
Yes, and that’s fine, but if you want an explanation, it’s probably best not to simply state, “Explain” and to ask politely.
LikeLike
and I am not trying to be dictatorial, I am just trying to emphasize the discrepancy between your comments and your title. Your title is designed to be sensational and collect hits, I get that, but it is misleading of your point of view, or is it. Do you agree with your title, or are you saying that each case should be judged on it’s own merits?
LikeLike
I grant you, the title could be misleading. In fact that’s the title from the news item which first mentions Penelope, and as you can see once you start reading it, she explains it’s a general principle. So I will clarify my views below, for anyone who does not already know them:
I do not think this is a gender issue, or a fathers’ rights issue.
I believe that where children have been successfully co-parented, or cared for by several people well, that overnight stays are unlikely to be an issue.
However, I think that issues arise where the enforcing parent/ party is in conflict with the other parent/ party Or, where there has been a ‘traditional’ family set up and baby has not established enough of a relationship with the enforcing parent/ party.
These last two scenarios are quite common, and so I think they are important. We forget that whilst a lot of parents have started to co-parent, there is still a significant volume of parents who are not doing that, for all sorts of reasons.
So yes, under fives should not have to experience overnight stays without mum, if dad has not been co-parenting and the child is clearly distressed at the thought.
As a final thought I would like to add this: the sentiment above does not equate to my feeling dad/ mum should not be able to be with their child overnight. As I mention in the radio interview, there are all sorts of wonderful ways of getting around that. I gave the example of Sweden – where it’s common practice for the parents to revolve around the child and for the main residence/ family home to be the child’s base. That way, dad/ mum can stay the night, with the other parent there, so that the child is in a familiar place, with his or her parent/s. The truth is that the only reason these obstacles arise in the first place is because parents refuse to put their differences aside so that they can focus on parenting instead. It’s much easier, after all, for so many, to war with the other parent than to get down to the serious job of child care.
LikeLike
I apologise Natasha, I can just see how this is going to affect fathers who are already struggling to get time with their children, and sensational headlines like this, are going to be used against us in our quest to remain in our children’s lives.
LikeLike
Hi Dustin, that’s kind of you, don’t worry, and I hear you, but I don’t think this will permeate through to the courts, in all honesty. It’s in such disarray, that it can hardly take on board any more white noise.
LikeLike
Sir Michael Rutter was not an opponent of Bowlby and other’s findings on Maternal Attachment and Maternal Deprivation. He raised points of contention with some of the conclusions which were:
1. That some children can recover from the effects of maternal and other deprivations if they are placed in a caring, constant, and consistent loving environment (from his studies of Romanian children adopted into British families)
2. That children should have a variety of additional relationships with other caring adults, in case of the loss of the mother.
Sir Michael Rutter: “Attachment theory was a major contribution to child psychiatry, and there is no doubt he (Bowlby) put it on the map in a thoughtful way. He postulated that the selective attachment between baby and mother was SPECIAL in a sense that it later became the basis for love relationships, close friendships, and parenting but different from (all) other types of interactions such as play behaviour, important for learning in children. He (Bowlby) emphasised that selective attachment (i.e. to the mother) had a functional role of providing a source of security, and secure base, and animal evidence have amply confirmed that view. ……..
“Where Bowlby was misleading in his initial writings was in seeing this all in terms of the exclusive mother relationship, saying it was different from all other relationships, evidence shows that this is not always the case, children are capable of more than one selective relationship and it is advantageous for children to have more than one so that if something happens e.g. there is a death in one of the major attachment figures, then they have other relationships to turn to.”
Bowlby took account of these points in his subsequent studies and findings.
In practice, many infants have emotional attachments to other close female relatives and even close friends of the mother, and older female siblings have been known to have such attachments when a mother is unable, due say to illness and hospitalisation, to become the primary attachment figure and perform the maternal role as a substitute. Such child/other female attachments are also common in animal studies.
It is perhaps notable that neither Bowlby nor Rutter attach any significant importance to any attachment between an infant and a father or what effects such separation may have on the child.
Although I don’t have the reference to hand, I do believe that Bowlby gave some importance in his later works to the father’s role in providing continuing emotional support to the mother and thereby to the child.
Nor is there any mention of there being any significant benefits to the child if any infant is left in the sole care of a father for extended periods, and which would compensate for or even ameliorate the separation anxieties experienced by the child from maternal separation and deprivation. Perhaps you can point to some validated research which suggests that it is advantageous and beneficial for infant children to be in the sole care of their fathers and how the harmful effects of maternal separation can be effectively ameliorated or compensated for in such situations. Or even research which suggests that infants suffer similar or equal deprivational harm when separated from their fathers.
LikeLike
Good for you! And I’m sure that you will edit your article to make it clear that you also don’t think children should stay overnight at their maternal grandmother’s house, or aunt’s house, or friend’s house, etc, etc, etc. You need to make your position clear that MOMMY is soooooooo important that even one night away with stupid, evil, daddy and his BAD BAD man-penis could forever damage a child. If mothers are so important, then I’m sure that Penelope Leach (I won’t even call her “Doctor”, I believe the technical term for her is “dumb cunt”) will specify that children shouldn’t ever be with ANYONE overnight except the mother. Otherwise, this is a just another example of misandry…which of course doesn’t exist.
LikeLike
Joe, you’re welcome to comment on this forum, and express whatever views you wish, but the same rules apply to you as they do to everyone else. Write civilly, or you will be barred from posting.
LikeLike
This is a simple a case of a bitter, prejudiced person putting point-scoring in the gender war above the well-being of children.
Penelope Leach mis-quotes a single study done in Australia to justify her prejudice and completely ignores the many studies that show that children with absent fathers suffer emotional and behavioural difficulties.
LikeLike
Natasha, Who are you to say whether the father’s bond is strong enough? Are you seriously going to tell me a judge can look into a child’s mind and make a decision about ‘trust’? Family life should not be adversarial. Penelope Leach was on ITV This Morning programme. She tried to back-track and also referred to her earlier work. I am afraid the interviewers knew more about Child Development than she did! – The principle should be in favour of Shared Parenting legislation and fathers should not be punished for the breakdown of a relationship by taking away their relationship with their children. Apparently Penelope’s Leach’s current work is based on Jenn McIntoshes flawed ideas from Australia.
kip
http://www.itv.com/thismorning/hot-topics/family-breakdown-controversy-penelope-leach
LikeLike
Kip, that’s not for me to say and I’m not suggesting I should be the judge. That’s for the parents to sort out between them, and many do, or for the courts to, if the parents can’t work these things out between them. I’ve already made my points about Penelope.
LikeLike
Yes, you have made the point that you are as prejudiced as she is.
LikeLike
It is standard in Britain. Please stop trying to imposed US conditions over here. The system remains locked on punishing “uncooperative” mothers by reversal of residence and not contact with the children.
LikeLike
Pingback: ‘That’ Statement on Overnight Contact And Where We Stand | Researching Reform
Pingback: Penelope Leach and Sleepovers | OnlyDads
Am I alone in observing that both ‘Richard Grenville’ and ‘Ragnvald’ both surround their question marks with full-stops.?. Is this something Michael Flood teaches his students.?.
LikeLike
No, you are not – and both use the odd phrase “pigeon chest” in some sort of derogatory way.
LikeLike
Pingback: Let’s sleep on it / Pink Tape
Natasha, I have been following the debate. Do you still hold to the proposition that ‘Under Fives Should Not Have Sleepovers With Separated Fathers’? kip
LikeLike
Kip, I’ve made my position very clear. It’s on my latest post. I’m not going to comment further.
LikeLike
Pingback: Sleepovers with Penelope Leach: | ExInjuria
I met woman last year whose best friend was fighting a nasty divorce, and the daughter of the family was cutting herself – yet the mother could not see the connection between that and the divorce due to the blindness of divorce vitriol.
But the REAL issue is ….. I asked the best friend if she was going to tell her divorcing buddy that the divorce was the cause of the daughter self harming. The response?
“I can’t. My friend will never talk to me again!”
And there is the problem – we are afraid to say uncomfortable things because we don’t want our best friends to reject us.
In a divorce survey by Mischcon de Reya, one in five parents said that their primary objective during separation is to make the experience “as unpleasant as possible” for their former spouse. Half of the parents involved said that they had sought a day in court to haggle over residency arrangements despite knowing it made matters worse for their children.
Instead of standing aside and leaving parents to unwittingly harm their own children, how about we all refuse to listen when one parent slags off the Ex, and then direct them towards parenting coaches and divorce mediators?
Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing, if we all felt brave enough to put the welfare of children before upsetting our friends?
LikeLike
Re: Grenville – It is typical of some ‘women’ and some of those opposed to greater father involvement to cite contact and then go on to assert that only 1% of applications are refused – that’s not the point. Contact can be a few ours or a few days per month. No mother would be content with only a few hours a month. Why should it be different for fathers ?
Contact can even be indirect, i.e. by email only or by phone only. That’s simply not good enough and contradicts the spirit of “family life” legislation.
What the writer does not discuss (and she has written extensively on my shared parenting blogsite), is the number of shared parenting awards that are denied or that the computer for dividing Child Benefit cannot share it either for one child between two parents or two children between two parents. Nor does she comment on the fact that in the UK state benefits are sexist – they are only payable to mothers, not fathers.
LikeLike
Robert, Here is my revised complaint to the UN posted today covering the points you mention. I hope others find this helpful too, kip
Human Rights Council Complaint Procedure Form
V. Submission of communication to other human rights bodies
1- Have you already submitted the same matter to a special procedure, a treaty body or other United Nations or similar regional complaint procedures in the field of human rights?
Yes
2- If so, detail which procedure has been, or is being pursued, which claims have been made, at which times, and the current status of the complaint before this body:
The original complaint was made with reference to the violation of Article 9 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to the Committee on the Rights of the Child. However according to the letter dated 22 May 2014 Ref; G/SO CRC-IC GBR (GEN) from the UN Petitions & Inquiries Section the application was inadmissible because Great Britain is not a State party to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Nevertheless a complaint to the Human Rights Council can be made under the Complaint Procedure previously known as 1503 procedure which was adopted under resolution 5/1 entitled “Institution-Building of the United Nations Human Rights Council”.
This complaint procedure was established to address; (1) consistent patterns of gross and reliably attested violations of all human rights and all fundamental freedoms occurring in any part of the world and under any circumstances, as well as, (2) communications submitted by individuals, groups, or non-governmental organizations that claim to be victims of human rights violations or that have direct, reliable knowledge of such violations.
It is in accordance with the criteria for this new procedure the complainant respectfully resubmits the substance of his complaint made to the Committee on the Rights of the Child which was made in five parts;
PART ONE – PETITION TO EXAMINE THE UK VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 9 OF THE UN CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD; This gives specific details of the violation. In particular it goes to show how progressive legislation which would have reinforced the child’s right to a relationship with both parents post separation, in the form of Shared Parenting, was rejected in the House of Lords by an amendment made by a retired judge and former President of the Family Division, Baroness Butler-Sloss. The amendment now states that involvement post separation between children and their parents can be either ‘direct’ or ‘indirect’. (‘Indirect’ usually means by correspondence or telephone).
PART TWO – DISPUTES IN ONE IN FACT WHICH INVOLVES LEGAL ARGUMENTS; Includes a submission by the complainant to the Court of Appeal in 2000 made before Lady Justice Hale, now Baroness Hale Deputy President of the Supreme Court. This document cites a reference which states,’current judicial thinking (2000) displays a tension between the earlier maternal preference and a less priori, open minded approach to whatever is in the best interests of the child’.
PART THREE – CHARITIES & THE VIOLATION OF THE RIGHT OF CHILDREN IN THE UK; Demonstrates how political pressure was brought to bear to change the Children & Families Act 2014 in favour of the ‘earlier maternal preference’ despite the government consultation process intended to implement Shared Parenting legislation.
PART FOUR – THE WELFARE OF CHILDREN IS PARAMOUNT; Refers to the progressive ideas of the ‘architect’ of the Children Act 1989, Baroness Hale, which are cited in contrast to the regressive views of Baroness Butler-Sloss who tabled the amendment to the Children & Families Act 2014 taking away the child’s right to direct contact with his or her parents post separation.
ADDENDUM – After the submission to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, Baroness Butler-Sloss gave an interview in which she described how the new Children & Families Act 2014 would operate in private family law;
I would like to see I must say, mothers who flout contact orders required to do all sorts of things that don’t actually send her inside. I can see absolutely no reason why she shouldn’t do community service. I should like to see her penalised in all sorts of inconvenient ways as long as it doesn’t have any impact on her care of the child. So as long as the child is over 5 or goes to a child minder, then there is no reason why she shouldn’t be required to go and clean the streets, whatever it may be. I would make her do something really unpleasant so that she understands the consequences of this. But to send her to prison is counter productive, because the child will not want to know the man who has sent his mother to prison, particularly when she comes back and tells him about it.
This statement publicly acknowledges the ‘Tender Years’ doctrine as the basis of changes made in private family law and demonstrates how the ‘tension’ in ‘judicial thinking’ described in 2000 was resolved in the Children and Families Act 2014 in favour of the ‘earlier maternal preference’ instead of the ‘less priori, open minded approach to whatever is in the best interests of the child’ as advocated by Baroness Hale, Deputy President of the Supreme Court. Yet separation in private family law should not give the judiciary the right to remove children from either parent.
Furthermore because Family Courts are not open to the public it is impossible to say the extent of these gross and reliably attested violations of family life but the words of the former President of the Family Division demonstrate that the judiciary in Great Britain have operated contrary to the Human Rights of parents and children for many years, despite the protestations of the complainant.
LikeLike
Re: RWHISTON – the 1% is all important when that tiny group of fathers are constantly whining and bleating that they have no contact – and it relates to only 10% of separated fathers as the vast majority are reasonable and sensible and make a mutual agreement in consideration of what they consider to be the best interest of their child and without Court proceedings. . And other examples from the Courts are sole custody to the father and no contact for the mother (standard punishment for mother and child if the mother flees with the child for protection of the child and herself), or 50/50. Or 65/35 (preferred by many fathers as it reduces Child Support and allows for work and pleasure arrangements for the father). Some fathers (and mothers) prefer Skyping, email, phone or letter, where travel is difficult.
So I’m afraid you would need to produce some more of your infamously erratic statistics if you are trying to make a point.
LikeLike
You and a lot of women of the radical feminist inclination make the same points incessantly when there is no foundation for them. I thought you would have learnt from the replies you have received on other websites to your disrupting posts. You are not really interested in seeing other people’s opinions but prefer to repeat half truth.
So for the 2nd or 3rd time let me draw your attention to some discrepancies.
1/. ‘tiny group of fathers’ – quite false and the reason why will soon become plain.
2/. ‘only 10% of separated fathers’ – numerically false. If it were 10% of fathers this would equate (on an annual basis), to 12,000 fathers (assuming 120,000 divorces pa and without adding in the thousands of non-spousal separations you refer to). However, as you have been told before the number of court applications total around 100,000 per annum (in 2011, when there were over 38,000 contact and 35,000 residence orders made). So rather than only 10% of couples needing to go to court (which is another line oft-peddled) it would appear that it is more likely that only 10% do not.
3/. ‘the vast majority are reasonable and sensible and make a mutual agreement’ – quite plainly an untrue statement given the above data,
4/. ‘sole custody to the father and no contact for the mother’ – this is unbelievable news, so unbelievable in fact that I‘d like to see the numbers and source, please.
5/. ’need to produce some more of your infamously erratic statistics’ – as always, I only cite ONS or Gov’t sourced statistics, so if you have an issue take it up with them. BTW for the data above you can find it at http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/statistics/courts-and-sentencing/jcs-2011/family-matters-tables-chp2-2011.xls. Or you might like to try http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2009-12-02c.302529.h
Any statistical point you may have been trying to make is now, I trust, permanently blunted.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Samara4baghad's Blog.
LikeLike
Just to stir up the pot PL has another article in the Daily Mail Femail about one the the unspoken scandals of our time, how vengeful mothers tear fathers from their children’s lives….!!!!
LikeLike
Natasha, The new article is ‘extracted’ by Corinna Honan. The first article was a complete and utter disgrace. It was pure poison. The latest article is a feeble attempt to backtrack to save her sullied reputation which I am afraid is now beyond redemption. Most parents would not touch her advice with a barge pole. Thank God! kip
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2678528/The-vengeful-mothers-tear-fathers-childrens-lives-Britains-parenting-guru-one-unspoken-scandals-age.html
LikeLike
Kip – I got the sneaking impression she was either trying to save her book’s sales at the behest of her publishers who have invested a lot of money in it and can’t afford a bad press reaction, or she was tying to widen its appeal by showing she was not ALL bad news for men and fathers in particular.
Can we call this a “U-turn” ?
LikeLike
Natasha, I thought we had seen the back of Penelope Leach but apparently the latest from Australia is that she has misrepresented the work she cites! (Controversy brews over social science, fathers and family law, 3 July 2014, Damien Carrick), kip
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lawreport/controversy-brews-over-social-science-fathers-and-family-law/5568852
LikeLike
Natasha, I like Robert’s reply regarding Penelope Leach. She has made a great play about not receiving any of the profits from her book but of course this does not include her publishers – Regarding the misrepresentation of her work based on Jenn McIntosh before I contacted the Australian Attorney General I obviously looked into her background. I think Penelope Leach has confused 2 strands of Jenn McIntosh’s work. Firstly there were the studies as part of a team working for the Australian government. However she then went on to produce infant custody guidelines for the Australian Association for Infant Mental Health, which found that ”babies under two years who lived one or more overnights a week with both parents were significantly stressed”. It was these guidelines I complained about which I believe Penelope Leach has adopted. Apparently Dr McIntosh has recently co-written a two-part paper soon to be published in the Family Court Review – Parental separation and overnight care of young children: Consensus through Theoretical and Empirical Integration examines the current research evidence and acknowledges that “cautions against any overnight care during the first three years have not been supported”. Sorry to repeat myself but you can see a copy of these original guidelines with the correspondence with the Attorney General on facebook, kip
LikeLike
I think this statement exposes the charlatanism of Warshak’s document and demolishes it as a serious contribution to these issues.
i.e.
Smyth has strong views about the Warshak Consensus Report, which critiques the McIntosh Report.
‘A petition approach isn’t science,’ he says. ‘I’m not quite sure why Dr Warshak didn’t just publish the review and let it stand on its own two feet. There are question marks about whether the piece was peer reviewed, which is of some concern, and we have no idea how many people Dr Warshak wrote to, exactly which version they saw, whether they agreed or not.’
LikeLike
Richard Grenville, I don’t know who you are but regardless of Warshak or any other of your reservations, as the documentation on my own facebook page shows before the furor, I took the extraordinary step of writing as an individual to the Attorney General in Australia about Jenn McIntosh’s Infant Guidelines. In particular I cited her reliance on the flawed theory of Maternal Deprivation developed by Dr John Bowlby. I guess I could be making this up. Certainly the correspondence was not ‘peer reviewed’ and I could have forged the papers. Then I guess the same could be said for the subsequent article by Prof Michael Lamb of Cambridge University along the same lines (See link below). Before I corresponded with the Attorney General’s Department I was on a similar forum in Australia. I had the same job convincing a female member that Dr McIntosh was talking ‘tosh’ and even went onto an Australian radio program (See link below) to criticize her guidelines. Either I am suffering from a some sort of grand delusional psychotic condition or there must be something to the widespread condemnation. Either way I think you should be more careful about who you call a ‘charlatan’. kip
Professor Michael Lamb re Dr McIntosh – A WASTED OPPORTUNITY TO ENGAGE WITH THE LITERATURE ON THE IMPLICATIONS OF ATTACHMENT RESEARCH FOR
FAMILY COURT PROFESSIONALS
Click to access lamb2012wastedopportunitytoengagewiththeliterature.pdf
YouTUBE – Research on Babies and Toddlers Contact with Fathers.wmv re Dr McIntosh
LikeLike
KIP – Excellent points but don’t expect to get a sensible answer.
LikeLike
Well, before you comment perhaps it might be a good idea to first ask him and find out whether what you say is true or you are completely barking up the wrong tree.
You will find him most approachable and I am sure he will look forward to putting you straight on some of the misconceptions your presently hold.
Bruce Smyth, you will have to accept, is still very junior and inexperienced when compared with Warshak. And, of course, the same can be said for McIntosh.
McIntosh and her acolytes have latched on to the view that Warshak’s paper is little more than a petition when in fact it is no where near that petty. It represents the consensus of leading world opinion. So that is corrupting the facts – as well as the science behind it.
A charlatan, as I understand it, is someone who practices quackery, pseudo science or some similar confidence trick. None of those descriptions apply to Warshak, yet funnily enough all can be validly levelled at McIntosh and her retreat statement underscores that verdict.
LikeLike
Well, before you comment perhaps it might be a good idea to first ask him and find out whether what you say is true or you are completely barking up the wrong tree.
You will find him most approachable and I am sure he will look forward to putting you straight on some of the misconceptions your presently hold.
Bruce Smyth, you will have to accept, is still very junior and inexperienced when compared with Warshak. And, of course, the same can be said for McIntosh.
McIntosh and her acolytes have latched on to the view that Warshak’s paper is little more than a petition when in fact it is no where near that petty. It represents the consensus of leading world opinion. So that is corrupting the facts – as well as the science behind it.
A charlatan, as I understand it, is someone who practices quackery, pseudo science or some similar confidence trick. None of those descriptions apply to Warshak, yet funnily enough all can be validly levelled at McIntosh and her retreat statement underscores that verdict.
Let’s face it, you are now having to clutch at straws and you are prepared to force the discussion down to this low level of personal attacks
LikeLike
Hi Natasha
I love the Internet. The freedom of access to information and the facility to exchange views with others in all corners of the world is amazing. I sometimes sit back and wonder how my father would have marveled at this privilege that we are so fortunate to enjoy. It is a precious right we have that is sadly not available to everyone that inhabits our planet. But, we pay a price and the cost in this case is that we all share an obligation to ensure that we do our homework before posting in forums such as this. This is an unstated rule and convention, along with politeness, which is sadly abused by a few. When people flaunt these conventions, which amount to no more than decent manners, then, I think it is open season.
[content removed]
Dear Mr. Grenville
Just like autism, which has an over simplistic dictionary definition of:
autism |ˈôˌtizəm|
noun Psychiatry
A mental condition, present from early childhood, characterized by great difficulty in communicating and forming relationships with other people and in using language and abstract concepts.
• a mental condition in which fantasy dominates over reality, as a symptom of schizophrenia and other disorders.
There is indeed a spectrum to alienation too. Bala et al (2013) describe it cogently. I pointed this out last time and provided a fool proof reference in that post. You clearly have no appetite for self-improvement and have not bothered to read it.
In his book “This demon haunted world: science as a candle in the dark” Carl Sagan describes a “Baloney Detection kit” in chapter 12. He lists the most common signs of fallacious argument and the rhetorical pitfalls that you appear to run into in a fabled lemming type manner. Here is a link to a pdf file of Chapter 12.
Click to access Sagan-Baloney.pdf
This chapter makes good reading for anyone that does not wish to be dismissed as an obsessive crank that misunderstands and fetishizes pet ideas.
I note that you do not acknowledge any sources in your splenetic jeremiad and you attempt to pass off the outdated ideas as your own. There is a word for this practice. It is called plagiarism.
LikeLike
Hi Stevie,
Thank you for your comment. Firstly, I’m no longer engaging in this particular discussion as I have said my piece and moved on. I need to write about other things, (which are equally deserving of time and consideration).
Secondly, I’ve removed your call to engage posters in a competition. You are very welcome to commandeer your own blog in any way you see fit, but on this blog, that is my call.
By way of a polite reminder, posters are invited to contribute the following: their views, questions they may have for other posters and myself, and any research or content they consider appropriate to the discussion.
Many thanks.
LikeLike
Insulting and abusive remarks delivered in a sarcastic and derisory manner betray only an considerable intellectual deficiency. Or in the vernacular, `Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit’.
Firstly I am forced to use a pseudonym because on those occasions when I fail to do so, I receive threats of violent assault and death to myself and relatives, from members of Father’s Rights groups and their supporters, and even from their sycophantic female acolytes.
As can be seen in these columns, anyone who opposes or even questions the belief system of the father’s rights supporters is immediately descended on by the mob and subjected to vilification, by written insults and abuse, and retaliation only invites cries of foul.
Neither Lamb (nor his co-conspirator Kelly) address the issues of defectiveness and deficiency I have stated above which is a much broader issue than a spectrum.
I am now finding this discussion tiresome and wasteful of time and energies which I better can devote to far more important work.
So I bid you adieu, and leave you to enjoy a mutual patriarchist whinge-fest.
LikeLike
i am a separated father. my children who are 3 and 5 spend 2 days and nights a week with me and 5 with the mother. the mother argues, like you and the social services, that it is in the best interest of the children if time spent with father is less than with mother. in fact she was the one who proposed 5-2 ratio, i proposed every other week. the youngest of the two is more attached to the father, the oldest to the mother. whenever i take children back to the mother the youngest physically attacks the mother and says that he wants to be with dad. the oldest is fine. last year we tried to change and do as i was proposing, one week each. the youngest suddenly stopped attacking the mother, he stopped crying when i took him back and he seemed more happy overall. the oldest was fine too. then the mother couldnt stand being without chídren for a week and she asked the court to go back to the previous regime. the social services sided with her citing the content of one of the hundreds of books on chíld development that you can find in any bookshop together with the one by Leach. the judge decided in favour of the mother and now my son is crying again and he is attacking the mother again etcetera. now, to the point. Number one, it is very very true that many times the interests of parents are pur in front of those of children. But if someone should be blamed for that i would say it is definitely mothers. Their attachment to children is so strong that they would do anything for having children more time than the father. That notably includes routinely accusing fathers of domestic violence tonthe extent that every separated father is now sure that once he gets to court it is veeery likely that the word violent will be used. Number two, attachment is something no research can destroy. Tell my son that he should always sleep with mum as recommended by Leach, he will laugh at you. You are trying to say that attachment to mother is stronger. It’s false. Then, because you are expecting objections you are saying that in reality some mothers aren’t very good, therefore there will be exceptions. Before you use that atgument i can assure you that the mother of my children is a very good mother, she dedicates all her energies to them and so do I. So, your objection would not apply. i think you should accept the fact that a strong attachment to both parents is (1) how nature works (provided that they are good parents) (2) very healthy for children and (3) inevitable. well not inevitable, we can continue to serve the interests of selfish mothers and break the link with fathers. But in that case please be honest, the truth is that you are looking after mothers, not children. Thanks for reading this
LikeLike
Thank you for your thoughts. As you still have young children, I have had to remove your name above for legal reasons.
LikeLike
Hi Kip,
McIntosh & Smyth are behaving like naughty children caught with their sticky fingers in the biscuit jar. They fail to acknowledge their study’s shortcomings, exaggerate its importance and sulk when other scholars point out problems in the data and interpretation. Sour grapes is no substitute for scholarship and McIntosh’s mischiefs as guest editor of the Family Court Review brought to light by Pamela Ludolph & Michael Lamb says much about her academic benchmarks.
As to Smyth ‘s peer evaluation objection, unlike the Warshak and Nielsen manuscripts published in the prestigious peer review journal Psychology, Public Policy and Law it is a pity that the McIntosh & Smyth paper did not first have the benefit of the type of peer review that customarily serves as an entry to publication. This might have tempered some of the extreme claims stemming from their heavily flawed results orientated work.
Moreover, consensus does not mean unanimity. It means a broad general agreement and the Warshak paper reflects a very strong broad social science concurrence. Defining consensus as meaning “unanimity” Is smoke and mirrors. Self-evidently, it’s not unanimity because the Warshak paper contrasts the view of the endorsers with the McIntosh & Smyth standpoint.
LikeLike
Hi Kip,
I disagree with PLs advice about overnight stays and am sympathetic to your stance about divorcing fathers but am concerned about seperation via family courts in public law. Having heard your broadcast I am left wondering about what is meant by separation. It is permanant or temporary? If temporary, I don’t believe harm does come to a child and that would include separation caused by divorce. I believe what harms kids is infighting between divorcing parents.
However, if that separation is permanant by a child going into care who then may be adopted I belive the child is harmed. You state that no harm comes to the children that are adopted but other research flies in the face of that. On RR there is another video that touches on the principals of the Primal Wound, that the outcomes of children who have been adopted cited more mental health issues in later life for both the birth mother and the child. The adoptive mother has expectations the child cannot meet so its unsatisfactory for her too.
It is also is significant that there are more serial killers that are adopted.
Governmental policy on adoptions is not evidence based as far as I can tell, research appears to be very scant but still the government pushes for more adoption! Government policy seems to be more financially led.
LikeLike
Dana, Thank you for your kind interest. The old adage ‘never fight in front of the children’ is still true as shown by the research. My main area of concern as you can tell from the broadcast is private family law. I hold it to be a fundamental truth that we all need to come to terms with who we are. For children this means knowing their parents in a significant way, even if their father is a murderer.Therefore I have complained to the UN about the Children & Families Act 2014 which takes away the child’s right to contact post separation. The ‘right’ to direct contact post separation is now a ‘privilege’ in UK private family law, at the discretion of the judge or a magistrate. I find this change abhorrent. In public family law I believe that a problem remains that institutions believe parents need to be perfect. I do not think this is the case and they should work as far as possible to support parents, both good and bad, and not take away children at the drop of a hat. I think the care of a child should be seen in terms of their overall development not on the basis of exceptional circumstances that may occur. I hope this is not too off the point. kip
LikeLike
Kip, I too have a great many issues with the Children’s Act 2014, in fact I find it hard to find many positive points for families! Well done for writing to the UN!
LikeLike
What did you think of Channels 4s programme series “15,000 and counting” ?
I saw how difficult and convoluted was the work of social workers but I also saw how their middle class values were being carried over into an idealised view of family and influencing rulings and decisions.
The prospect of grandparents having to put all their family mementos in a tin box for their grandchildren to open when they are 18 (by which time the grandparent will be dead), and not to have seen them grow up fills me with a horror I cannot put into words.
I have seen this happen with my own eyes to a working class, low income, married couple (in May 2001) and I could not save the six Biddulph children from being permanently ‘orphaned/lost’ by forced adoption – and to this day I do not know if they were kept together. The father was so desperate he single-handedly blocked traffic on the M6 to highlight his plight (I can mention the name because the case appeared in the newspapers).
LikeLike
15,000 and counting! Its totally shameful that so many children are being taken into care. I found the social workers arrogance cloaked in the guise of being in the best interests of the child nauseating. It was heartless and frankly I couldn’t watch more than the first episode. To watch loving grandparents being denied the opportunity to look after their own grandchild is appalling. Why couldn’t the social services work with the family? In the future people will look back at this era and wonder how this could happen? Why was there not an alternative? Why the politicians of the day not only allowed this to happen but were positively promoting it! Let’s hope there will be a wall of shame and the names of those Politicians who failed to help families are on it! Society is changing and the people will no longer accept what has gone before!
LikeLike
Robert, Thank you for your comments. Unlike many on these forums I have represented myself in the Court of Appeal on many occasions and appeared before senior judges such as Lord Justice Thorpe and Lady Justice Hale who is now Deputy President of the Supreme Court. I tried to use these opportunities to challenge the Case Laws upon which private family law is based. On my first occasion in front of Baroness Hale she said, “He appends to his skeleton argument a document entitled ‘Disputes in One of Fact which Involves Legal Authorities’. This is so well written that it could almost be an academic article. In this the father argues that the courts themselves have adopted some sort of maternal preference, and in doing so they have failed to have a proper regard to the more recent psychological literature and that, in any event, they are wrong; gender is not an appropriate guide as to who is the most suitable parent or as to how a child should be parented” (Please see below). I have used this document as part of my complaint to the UN. kip
http://openfamilycourtsuk.blogspot.co.uk/
LikeLike
KIP, I‘ve come across your work in the past from time to time and find it usually very reasonable and polished.
I had a look at the article you refer to but on my screen it comes up too small for my old eyes to read it easily.
What I would like to do is cut and paste it into a larger font and then I’d be delighted to put it up on one of my blogsites as it looks like it deserves an even greater exposure.
LikeLike
Hi Kip
This is very well curated and a valuable resource.
Unfortunately the recent transparency reforms have come a little late for you.
But, i don’t think we can under estimate the role that your voice and other similar voices played in order to bring this about.
Thank you for all the excellent and sincere work.
LikeLike
Padrestevie, More to come. Work still in progress! kip
LikeLike
Dana & Robert, Once again thank you for your kind interest. As far as the program on Social Services is concerned I did not see it because if focused on Public Family Law. Nevertheless I saw a similar program a few years ago and my heart cried for the arrogance with which the social workers treated the parents and eventually excluded the father. The social workers and presumably the BBC thought this was good practice! kip PS None of my work is copyrighted and anybody is free to use it.
Challenging the Children & Families Act 2014 – http://kipmiller.wix.com/unpetition1
LikeLike
Hi Natasha,
As Jennifer McIntosh’s research has been cited with approval by Penelope Leech the below article is relevant to the UK family law conversation.
https://nationalparentsorganization.org/recent-articles?id=21798
IN AUSTRALIA, MORE OF THE SAME ON CHILDREN’S OVERNIGHTS FROM THE ANTI-DAD CROWD
National Parents Organization
July 6, 2014 by Robert Franklin
One way or another, Jennifer McIntosh and her colleagues who oppose fathers having overnight care of their children before they reach age five just never quite seem to go away. And when they poke their heads up, they always seem to be saying the same things and those things always seem to be at odds with the truth. Indeed, the more they attempt to “correct the record,” the more the record stays the same.
McIntosh herself seems to have vanished into the mist. My emails to her are either answered by an associate or not at all. So, for example, when I asked her to comment on Penelope Leach’s flagrantly untrue remarks to the effect that overnight contact with fathers “damaged the brains” of young children, McIntosh replied by way of an intermediary who said she couldn’t comment. Just why it took a third party to say that remains a mystery.
But then reliable sources inform me that McIntosh is behaving in ways that are far more alarming than that. For example, at one conference this past May in Toronto, she informed attendees that she’d had to hire bodyguards to protect her (from whom?) and at another in Chicago, she refused to tell people where she was staying or interact with attendees, apparently due to fear of unspecified and seemingly unverified threats against her. Fortunately, nothing has come to pass that would bear out her concerns.
Then there’s the little matter of her status at LaTrobe University. Prior to the ABC program that’s the subject of this post, listeners were informed that McIntosh is now “on leave” from her position there. But that itself raises questions. For one thing, McIntosh was never more than an adjunct professor at LaTrobe. Now, she was always happy for those who were unaware to take her title, “Professor,” to mean she held a full-time and perhaps tenured position. That is now and has always been false. She’s an adjunct, which bears roughly the same relationship to “full professor” that a month-to-month lessee bears to a homeowner, i.e. not much. Essentially McIntosh, like every other adjunct professor, is paid to teach a class or two each semester with the understanding that, next semester, she may not be asked back.
So how is it that a person who has no long-term contract of employment and who, at any time, can simply be dropped by the university like a hot rock be “on leave?” It looks to me like an intellectual impossibility, but of course McIntosh is no stranger to intellectual legerdemain. Has La Trobe informed McIntosh that she won’t have even an adjunct position there? No one seems to know, but my inquiries to La Trobe produced a response by a person who told me he has no idea of who McIntosh is but that their records indicate she’s still on their list of adjuncts.
Whatever the case, Australia’s ABC did an interview with several of the players in the field of overnights for kids, the transcript of which can be seen here (ABC, 7/1/14). They invited academics Patrick Parkinson and Judy Cashmore, attorney Tom Reeve, Penelope Leach (of whom they asked but a single question) and apparently Jennifer McIntosh, prompting her claim to be “on leave.” (Exactly why that would prevent her from involving herself by telephone is anyone’s guess.) It fell to the co-author of McIntosh’s scurrilous 2010 paper that started this controversy, Bruce Smyth, to carry on the tradition of utterly misrepresenting both their and other people’s research. Birds of a feather.
Parkinson and Cashmore, being legitimate academic researchers, tended to keep their criticisms of McIntosh’s work low-keyed, but, to his credit, interviewer Damien Carrick, did pretty well at attempting to get Smyth to deal with some of the seamier aspects of their 2010 paper. So, Parkinson and Cashmore confined their remarks to things like this about Richard Warshak’s take-down of the McIntosh/Smyth work:
Judy Cashmore: It was written by Dr Richard Warshak, who’s a US academic at The University of Texas in the department of psychiatry. He’s a very well respected academic who’s been involved in the debates about early childhood development and particularly the debate about overnight stays with fathers since the early 2000s. Why was it written? Because there has been a great deal of concern, I think, about the way in which the research has been misinterpreted and used to support suggestions that it’s dangerous or harmful for children to stay overnights with their father before the age of three. And that conclusion is not well substantiated; it’s not supported by the research evidence.
Keep in mind that Cashmore is allowing McIntosh’s claim that their work was misinterpreted to stand. That’s generous of her to say the least. As I’ve reported before, McIntosh, et al are scrambling to save their professional reputations. That’s because their 2010 paper was based on research that would embarrass more scrupulous scientists. Among other things, it was based on sample sizes that were as small as 14 subjects and the data they produced failed to support their thesis — that “frequent” overnights (i.e. one per week or more) were to be avoided. Perhaps worst of all, four of the six measurements they used to gauge children’s stress had never been validated, and one had been validated for children’s progress in acquiring language — hardly the same as children’s stress. If that’s not shoddy “science,” I don’t know what is.
So, with Parkinson and Cashmore being altogether too kind to McIntosh, Smyth, et al, it fell to David Carrick to show listeners just what’s been going on among the anti-dad crowd. Recall that, in order to maintain the pretense that their work has been misinterpreted, McIntosh has had to overlook the fact that, one major Australian organization and one international one have, for the last four years, relied on her paper for the proposition that children become stressed when they spend overnights away from mothers. Not only that, everywhere she’s spoken, organizations in the U.S. and the U.K. have followed suit. This has been going on for four years and only when Warshak and 110 respected scientists around the world published an analysis of existing research one of whose main points was to kill once and for all any notion that McIntosh’s paper had any validity, did she start claiming to have been misunderstood.
As I pointed out just a month ago, that’s in plain violation of the canons of ethics of the Australian Psychological Society that requires members to correct misinterpretations of their work in a timely fashion after they’ve come to their attention. Needless to say, McIntosh, Smyth, et al, did no such thing. Until caught out by Warshak, they were perfectly content to see their paper construed to severely limit fathers’ time with their kids. Unsurprisingly, that’s exactly what attorney Reeve said.
Damien Carrick: Jen McIntosh is adamant that she has never, ever said never to overnight care. But why do you think there’s a perception that this is what the research says?
Tom Reeve: Because that’s how it’s used, and if you put your name to something and know that it’s being used in that way, then perhaps you have some responsibility for it.
For his part, Smyth is every bit as disingenuous as McIntosh.
Damien Carrick: Patrick Parkinson, and before him Associate Professor Judy Cashmore. The pair also have concerns about how the McIntosh research has been adopted by bodies such as the Australian Association forInfant Mental Health, which cites the McIntosh report to support the general proposition that infants under the age of two should not be separated overnight from primary carers.
Smyth: We’re surprised by the amount of attention our study’s received, and the extent to which the findings have been mangled and misinterpreted, and I think interpreted in a very black and white manner; they’ve been boiled down to a crude, divisive gender message: any overnights damage children. The truth is, we’re puzzled by this; we’re not sure why they’ve been interpreted this way and why they’ve been boiled down that way.
That’s at best dodging the truth. They’re no more surprised than the man in the moon. They’ve known for four years what people were doing with their work and never said one word about it until Warshak, et al came along. It’s pure, Claude Rains in Casablanca, i.e. the police official who pronounced himself “shocked, shocked” that there’s gambling at the club, a fact he’s known for years.
When Carrick asks him about the Warshak analysis, Smyth actually seems to go “a little funny in the head” pretending that, in some way, those 111 eminent scientists don’t grasp the concept of the scientific method.
I guess the key question for me is, why has the scientific method seemed to have failed in this particular instance? Why, when a piece of research comes out, rather than replicate or have a discussion with the authors or go and collect some data, and see what the findings look like, do you actually write a lit review and then send it off to a of people saying, ‘Do you agree with my lit review and my conclusions?’ It’s a very unusual way; it’s not the way science normally works. A petition approach isn’t science. I’m not quite sure why Dr Warshak didn’t just publish the review and let it stand on its own two feet.
Put simply, those are the words of a man who’s caught in a trap of his own making and is desperately trying to free himself in any way he can. First, the question of the “scientific method,” is nothing but a red herring that he as much as admits by the fact that he dropped the issue entirely in the space of a sentence. He understands, as we all do, that Warshak, et al’s paper was a review of existing science. As such it joins countless others throughout the entire field of science. It’s something scientists do and it’s a valuable exercise to simply summarize what is known at a particular time.
But where Smyth’s desperation becomes clear is his claim to not know why Warshak contacted all those scientists to get their endorsements. Warshak plainly cares about the wrongheadedness of public policy on children seeing their fathers overnight. That destructive policy was based almost entirely on McIntosh’s paper. As such, he was at pains to make clear just how bad that paper was and how at odds with the real science on the issue. He knew that a single scientist doing such an analysis wouldn’t have nearly the likelihood of turning the ship of public policy around, so he hoped to give his work greater heft. My guess is that every single one of those 110 scientists wanted the same thing, which is why they signed on to the Warshak paper. They wanted the death and burial of McIntosh’s influence.
Smyth of course knows this every bit as well as I do and probably better. His claim to mystification is nonsense.
Then Carrick turns to Parkinson’s and Cashmore’s recent paper that’s equally damning of McIntosh, Smyth, et al.
Damien Carrick: It’s, and I think I’ve got the quote but I’m not exactly sure, but, ‘Poorly constructed research, research which is agenda-driven, research which is misrepresented and research that goes beyond the data fails to illuminate the pathway to a decision that will work best for the child; worse, it can lead to detrimental outcomes for children.’ Do you agree with that?
Bruce Smyth: There are several commonalities with people who’ve been critiquing the research. I’d have to say that if there’s innuendo that our research isn’t quality research we’d go back to the scientific method, which is basically why don’t people collect the data or replicate the data with the LSAC data that we used.
Look again at Parkinson’s and Cashmore’s description of McIntosh, Smyth, et al’s work. Any reputable scientist would be embarrassed into silence to have his/her work described that way. Not McIntosh, not Smyth. They’re hell-bent on deflecting attention from their own lousy work and about the only way they can think to do so is to cast aspersions on their betters. It’s sad, it’s weak, it’s entirely unconvincing, but that apparently is just how these folks roll.
But more importantly, it gives the lie (once again) to their claims to have reformed. As I’ve recently reported, McIntosh has recently teamed with two new authors to produce two new papers. The first could easily be read as a mea culpa for her many past transgressions. Now she hymns the praises of fathers and admits that children do better with a dad in their lives. Has Jen McIntosh seen the light?
Don’t bet on it. Her second paper carried a handy “how-to” chart for judges confused about whether to grant dad any time at all with his child under the age of five. As I’ve previously reported, that’s where the bad old McIntosh rears her head. The factors she cites for denying Dad contact are nowhere supported by any science and all too many of them are entirely under Mom’s control. Is there conflict between the parents? That means no overnights for Dad even though it may be entirely Mom who’s causing the conflict.
In short, McIntosh now wants it both ways. She wants to be seen as not overly anti-dad while still denying him the contact he and his child need to bond.
And if Smyth truly understood that children need their fathers, he’d admit his work with McIntosh is flawed and that other work is what we should rely on to make policy on fathers’ and children’s contact. But no, he engages in a shameful exercise in lying, denying and passing the buck. He disgraces himself in the process, but in the end does us a favor. He demonstrates beyond the shadow of a doubt that, wrong as they are, dishonest as they are, the anti-dad crowd intends to keep doing what they’ve always done — trying to convince policy-makers that children are better off without their dads.
LikeLike
More on the smoke and mirrors fed to the Norgrove Committee and utilised by Penelope Leach in her no overnight stays for infants and toddlers nonsense
https://nationalparentsorganization.org/blog/21718-the-foundation-of-a-woozle
The Foundation of a Woozle
National Parents Organization
May 16, 2014 by Robert Franklin.
Of the eight studies done to date on the effects of overnight care by non-resident parents on very young children, seven of them show either no adverse effects or that overnights are associated with improved outcomes. That leaves the 2010 study by McIntosh, Smyth, Kelaher and Wells. To say that it’s a seriously flawed piece of work is to put it mildly. That it’s become the touchstone for the anti-dad crowd to continue their efforts to marginalize fathers in the lives of their children comes as no surprise first because the study can easily be read to do just that and second because the anti-dad crowd’s never much cared for intellectual scruples.
The study, that many call the “pre-schooler study,” was conducted for the office of the Australian Attorney General, and was based on data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). Now, the LSAC has a good bit of heft to it, comprised as it is of data gathered from some 10,000 children. But McIntosh, et al didn’t use all those kids or all that data. Indeed, constructing their study as they did, some samples they used had as few as 14 children in them. Most tellingly, “the negative data on which the woozle (that children experience problems with attachment to a parent if they have too many overnights with the other parent) is based came from some of the smallest samples in the study.”
And, speaking of the study’s samples, they turn out to bear no relationship to the general population. As Dr. Linda Nielsen points out, “Most of these parents had never been married to one another (90% for infants and 60% for toddlers) and 30% of the infants’ parents had never even lived together. This means the findings should not be generalized to the general population of divorced parents.” So, in addition to everything else, the findings of the McIntosh study, even if they had validity, turn out to be useless in any but the narrowest of situations. They can’t be applied parents generally or to divorced parents or to those who’ve lived together for long.
Worse, despite the large population of children in the LSAC, McIntosh, et al simply failed to compare certain groups. For example, as Nielsen points out, “this study never compared the children who never overnighted to the children who only occasionally overnighted. That is, the study never addressed the question: Is occasional overnighting better or worse than never overnighting?” For that proposition, the study is entirely worthless, and it gets close to that status for others.
For example, the study takes as a given “that infants form a “primary” attachment to only one parent and later form a “secondary” attachment to their other parent.” To say the least, that’s a very doubtful assertion. It’s contradicted by considerable social science on the issue that Warshak, et al detail in his paper, but McIntosh and colleagues went ahead and assumed it anyway.
Still worse, McIntosh, et al decided to define “shared care” completely differently than do the rest of social scientists who study this issue. For most such scientists, “shared care” means a minimum of 35% to 40% parenting time for each parent. But inexplicably, for McIntosh and her fellow researchers, it meant as little as five nights per month with the non-resident parent, or about 16.5% of parenting time. Why they changed the definition so many social scientists work with as a matter of course remains a mystery.
Worst of all, the authors used six measures to determine whether a child was being adversely affected by overnights with dad, and four of them have never been validated as actually reflecting adverse consequences. Really, that’s what they did. So McIntosh, et al looked at “irritability, persistence (at a particular task), wheezing, and wariness/watchfulness about the mother’s whereabouts” to measure whether or not a child was stressed by overnighting with its father. The problem is that, no one else had ever used those to measure what McIntosh, et al sought to measure. They’d been validated for other purposes, but not for that. The researchers simply made them up for the purpose of evaluating the stress, or lack thereof, on children of overnights.
That alone renders the study essentially meritless. No one can say a particular type of behavior evidences stress in an infant unless the behavior has been independently shown to indicate that. But on at least one of the McIntosh group’s measures, their conclusions may in fact be the exact opposite of what they ought to be.
The idea that a child’s watchfulness, i.e. its tendency to keep an eye on its mother, indicates stress on the child’s part was invented out of whole cloth by McIntosh, et al. But watchfulness has been validated as an indicator of another type of behavior—readiness to begin talking. As Nielsen points out, watchfulness by a pre-verbal child has been shown to indicate “that the infant has more highly developed ways of communicating and is readier to begin talking.”
So, in McIntosh’s study, children with frequent overnights exhibited greater watchful behavior and to the researchers, that indicated heightened stress even though the test had never been validated for that. What that behavior did indicate was that the children with frequent overnights were in fact more advanced in their communication skills than were the children with fewer overnights. In other words, contrary to McIntosh et al’s claims, overnights, at least on that measure were beneficial to the kids. Needless to say, the researchers didn’t mention the fact and instead claimed the opposite.
Not content with claiming a single measure indicated children’s stress when it doesn’t, the researchers moved on to others. For example, wheezing. Mothers were asked a single question about whether their child wheezed more than four times a week. “The LSAC researchers had used this question as part of a scale to assess health or sleep problems,” but McIntosh, et al decided, quite without foundation that wheezing meant stress and that stress came from overnights. Indeed, at least one study, characteristically unmentioned by McIntosh, found the opposite to be true.
The same held true for two other measures—irritability and persistence at a task—the researchers used to claim that children with frequent overnights experienced greater stress than those with fewer or none.
In short, the irritability and persistence scales were not validated measures for assessing infant stress, or developmental problems, or emotional regulation difficulties.
As Nielsen points out, irritability can result from virtually anything and lack of persistence from ADHD. But none of that prevented McIntosh, et al from claiming that heightened irritability and lower persistence were indicators of stress and that stress came from overnights with dad.
By now it should be clear that the pre-schooler study is essentially useless as a guide to anything, much less establishing policy on parenting time following divorce or separation. As many social scientists have pointed out since its publication, it’s simply too flawed and its data too ambiguous to make it worth much in any context. But in the three plus years since its publication, it’s been anything but the doorstop it qualifies to be. Unlike its more scrupulous fellows in the field of overnights for young children, the pre-schooler study swept the world of family law and became the Bible on the subject for judges, lawyers, custody evaluators, mediators and the like. It shouldn’t have, but it did.
And that’s a story for my next post.
LikeLike
Disturbingly, McIntosh’s claptrap not only bamboozled the Norgrove inquisition but many others.
https://nationalparentsorganization.org/blog/21719-a-woozle-goes-viral
A Woozle Goes Viral
May 18, 2014 by Robert Franklin
Despite its serious flaws that led many social scientists aware of the literature on shared parenting and overnights for very young children to dismiss McIntosh et al’s pre-schooler study as “relatively insignificant” due to the insignificance and ambiguity of its data, the thing took on a life of its own. Particularly in light of the fact that it purported to contradict existing studies that found little or no downsides to overnights with fathers, McIntosh et al’s study had, and continues to have, an impact on parenting policies far, far beyond anything warranted by what the study actually is—a work so methodologically flawed as to render it useless for much of anything save possibly a spur to future, better efforts.
But a woozle would not be a woozle if its import weren’t expanded beyond recognition in exactly that way, and the pre-schooler study in 2010 did so. Unlike the seven other studies that largely contradicted it and received little public recognition outside of academia, McIntosh, et al’s work went viral. Like everything else that goes viral, it had a lot of help from a wide range of people, not all of whom were the authors of the study. But, despite what McIntosh would now have us believe, she was an ardent proponent of claims that went far beyond what her study actually stands for.
As an aside, it would be interesting to learn the precise process by which this study went viral. How was it that a study that is utterly incompetent to guide anyone making public policy on parenting time came to do exactly that? My guess is that, because its message is to marginalize fathers in children’s lives and because that’s a message that plays well with the family law establishment, feminists and politicians eager to stay on the good side of women voters, the pre-schooler study was a seed that found fertile ground. The other seven studies were dismissed by those same interests because they contradicted their preferred narrative of the primacy of motherhood.
But whatever the exact process was, there is no doubt that the study has had an impact on public discourse, public policy and the policies of private entities that is utterly unwarranted. This came about thanks to the efforts of many disparate forces in government, academia and the mainstream news media. And among the lead proponents of the woozle—that overnights for children in the home of their “secondary” parent (all but invariably their father) are to be undertaken with caution, if at all—was Jennifer McIntosh, lead author of the pre-school study that, ever since its publication has been rightly criticized for its many flaws.
Therefore, shortly after its publication, Australian news outlets relayed its purports, or at least what they understood them to be based on their interviews with McIntosh. So the Sydney Morning Herald informed readers under the headline “Trouble Ahead for Babies of Divorce” that “The majority of babies who live alternately with their divorced parents develop long-lasting psychological problems, new research has found. Such arrangements cause enduring disorganised attachment in 60% of infants under 18 months, says clinical psychologist and family therapist, Jennifer McIntosh.” Other journalists wrote, after interviewing McIntosh, that shared care is a “developmental disaster,” and toddlers in shared care engaged in “violent behavior.”
Of course the study said no such thing and no such conclusions were in any way warranted. And I’d be surprised if McIntosh ever told anyone that shared care leads to violence in toddlers. Still, the woozle’s footprints were beginning to appear in the mainstream news media.
They appeared elsewhere and, like the footprints Pooh and friends were following, they all looked remarkably alike. So the international organization of family court professionals, the Association of Family and Conciliatory Courts (AFCC) engaged McIntosh produce a special edition of its publication devoted to shared care and overnights for the very young. What she produced was immediately derided as less a scientific inquiry than a polemic opposing fathers and their access to their children. Indeed, McIntosh solicited articles for the publication from a variety of researchers, but didn’t manage to do so from anyone who opposed her findings. In short, she “hand-picked” her experts and then made the brazen and false claim that they, in some way, represented a consensus of researchers in the field.
“Anyone in the know about attachment will agree: this is a stellar, comprehensive lineup of experts.”
It was anything but and of course the edition they produced was a one-sided effort to channel the debate on shared parenting and overnights against non-primary parents who just happen to be fathers in the vast majority of cases. In addition to only including like-minded researchers, the edition ignored research that contradicted the anti-shared overnights narrative. McIntosh concluded,
“Overnight stays away from the primary caregiver in early infancy are generally best avoided, unless of benefit to the primary caregiver.”
But McIntosh was nowhere near finished. In an address to 1,000 members of the AFCC, she frankly misrepresented a 2004 study by Pruett as support for her pre-schooler work. But, as Nielsen explains,
Pruett did not find significant differences between the overnighting and the nonovernighting two to three year-olds.
At the same conference, she strongly suggested that her work was based on the whole of the 10,000-person cohort of the LSAC when in fact, some of her data came from as a few as 14 individuals.
By this time, McIntosh was travelling the globe, sometimes electronically, bringing her message on overnights to the world far beyond academia. She spoke to the Massachusetts Association of Guardians ad Litem, the Minnesota Bar Association, the Nuffield Foundation in London, the New Zealand Psychological Society and of course many journalists along the way. And at each step of her journey, the seeds of anti-shared parenting and anti-overnights for fathers were planted and flourished. McIntosh, et al’s pre-schooler study had its effect far and wide.
In Australia, it was used to roll back gains made by fathers in the 2006 family law reforms. It was cited as “strong evidence” for the rollback by none other than the Attorney General of the country. Nielsen described some of McIntosh’s far-reaching effects.
The study also had an impact on three influential organizations in Australia: the Australian Psychological Society, the Association for Infant Mental Health, and the National Council for Children Post Separation (2013). All three recommended or warned against overnighting for infants and shared care for other children under the age of four, citing only two empirical studies: the preschooler study and the study by Solomon and George (1999). McIntosh was the lead author of the infant overnight care paper (McIntosh, 2011c) which was the background paper for the AAIMH guidelines (AAIMH, 2011) and was lead author of the position statement paper for the Australian Psychological Society (McIntosh et al., 2009). Many of the statements in these documents were similar to statements that McIntosh made one year later in the special issue of Family Court Review — statements that other scholars criticized for misrepresenting and overreaching the research, as previously discussed (McIntosh, 2011a). The Infant Mental Health guidelines were disseminated by the Australian media (Griffin, 2011; Overington, 2011), as well as by law firms’ web sites that warned against overnighting and shared care (Magee, 2010; O’Loughlin,2011).
The pre-schooler study was used in the United Kingdom to oppose fathers’ rights to their children post-divorce and shared parenting generally. In the United States it was used to bolster opposition to shared parenting by the Maryland and Minnesota state bar associations. An Oregon legislative advisory committee used the study to oppose shared parenting. Most recently, the same was done by the committee that looked into child custody results in Nebraska. And of course numerous advocacy organizations have cited the study as opposing not only overnights for fathers, but any sort of shared parenting law.
In short, bad as it is as science, McIntosh et al’s study of overnights for very young children became a woozle for the proposition that, in her words, “Overnight stays away from the primary caregiver in early infancy are best avoided…” and that overnights for older kids are to be avoided as well as is shared parenting generally.
Some of that woozle was beyond McIntosh’s control; some of it was actively promoted by her. And now that the weakness of her work is known to all via Warshak, Nielsen and their 110 colleagues, she’s running away from it as fast as she can. But that effort, like her effort on overnights, doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
LikeLike
Jennifer McIntosh’s recent 2014 confession–‘‘cautions against any overnight care during the first three years have not been supported.’’
Talk about shutting the gate after the horse has bolted and the damage has been done.
https://nationalparentsorganization.org/blog/21691-warshak-paper-may-influence-child-custody-decisions-in-australia
Warshak Paper May Influence Child Custody Decisions in Australia
National Parents Organization
April 30, 2014 by Robert Franklin
The last redoubt of the anti-father crowd is being breached. Read about it here (Sydney Morning Herald, 4/28/14).
For decades, the data on children’s need for fathers have been building up. Over 20 years ago, prominent family sociologist David Popenoe was able to say that some 30 years of social science information demonstrated that children from all walks of life do better with two parents than with one. And the same holds true for children when their parents separate or divorce; they still do better with both of them actively involved in their lives.
Those opposed to children maintaining meaningful relationships with their fathers post-divorce have for years been fighting a rear-guard action. First they claimed that fathers don’t really care about their kids, so what’s the problem with separating the two? That fit nicely with their fictional narrative of gender relations, but science overwhelmed it. It turned out that fathers not only care deeply about their children, but find their identities in the paternal role. When that role is destroyed by a divorce court, fathers go through an emotional hell that all too often results in their suicide.
Next the anti-dad crowd played the domestic violence card, but that too came a cropper after an initial period of success. Again the theory was agreeable to their narrative of how they believed things should be, but again that narrative was contradicted by how things are. Hundreds of studies over 40 years show men and women to commit domestic violence equally with women being more likely than men to initiate aggression.
So they moved on to child abuse. After all, no person who abuses children should have custody of them. The anti-father forces desperately want us to believe that men are violent in any situation in which a woman or child is present, so again, their narrative made perfect sense. If your goal is to separate fathers from children, that’s as good a way as any. But that too failed. Mothers, it seems, are far more likely to commit child abuse or neglect than fathers.
So it was on to child sexual abuse, and there they finally found something not completely at odds with scientific fact. It’s true that, when a child is sexually abused, it’s more likely that its father did the deed than its mother. The trouble though was that child sexual abuse is so rare, it didn’t really offer much of a comprehensive defense to the threat of fathers being able to see their kids.
Then there was the possibility that high-conflict parents could be used as an out. Maybe the anti-father forces could concede that, in ideal couples, equal parenting works, but that it just wasn’t feasible when the former spouses don’t get along. That looked promising. After all, how many parents are all sweetness and light when they’re getting divorced? It seemed that could be sufficient to cut fathers out of children’s lives. Just demonstrate conflict (or even initiate it) and–presto!–no more Dad. But alas, it was not to be. Equal parenting has been demonstrated to ameliorate conflict between parents, particularly, when hand-offs of children are infrequent.
What to do? The science on parents and child well-being has been altogether uncooperative with those who would deny children their fathers. At this point, the anti-dad crowd has next to nothing with which to support their anti-father bias.
That’s where Jennifer McIntosh comes in. She’s the Australian researcher who, in recent years has come up with some data (or actually some claims about her data) that anti-father folks hoped might give new life to their dying cause. McIntosh studied how very young children fared when they had overnight stays with their dads versus those who were with their mothers full-time.
Those opposed to fathers’ rights hoped that, if they could keep children from having overnights with their dads, that fait accompli could be carried over into sole maternal custody when the child grew older. It was a frail reed, but it’s what they had.
But McIntosh’s data never supported her claims for it––that children with overnights with Daddy were more irritable and fretful than those who spent all their nights with Mommy. Of course anti-father campaigners were happy to ignore what the data actually said, and McIntosh was in no hurry to disabuse them of their wrong conclusions.
Now, from the very first, scrupulous researchers in Australia, like Patrick Parkinson, and elsewhere debunked McIntosh’s claims, but that didn’t stop her and her comrades in arms from trying to convince policy-makers to adopt what amounts to a return of the Tender Years Doctrine in the Land Down Under. And for a time, politicians, judges and the press gave them a favorable hearing.
But, as they say, that was then and this is now. McIntosh’s claims have met the same fate as all the rest of the anti-father nonsense. Her work is scientifically shoddy and her data don’t support her thesis. Just three months ago, Professor Richard Warshak published a review of the literature on the well-being of infants and young children who had overnights with their fathers, and found that, not only was McIntosh’s work badly done and her data unsupportive of her claims, in fact the opposite was true. Children who spend nights with their fathers do just fine, thank you. In fact they tend to do better than those who don’t.
If the Warshak piece had been his alone, it would still be an important debunking of McIntosh, but he was far from alone. An amazing 110 colleagues from around the world signed on to his conclusions. Against that weight of scientific consensus, McIntosh needs to resign herself to the facts. And so must the anti-dad crowd.
There’s something unique about that many scientists adding their names and reputations to Warshak’s literature review. It’s as if they want to make sure to put a stop to the anti-father fervor once and for all. It’s like the villagers who gather together to drive a stake through the heart of the vampire that’s been terrorizing them for so long. It’s as if they want to make absolutely certain the thing is dead.
Now, a reputable scientist in McIntosh’s position would admit defeat and try to improve her methodology for future research. In so doing, she’d gain the respect of her colleagues. Plenty of fine scientists have been wrong about one thing or another and will be again. Everyone understands that. But, in keeping with her research methods and analytical abilities, McIntosh seems anything but a reputable scientist. Her response? Blame the messenger.
Professor Warshak was an ‘‘impassioned advocate’’ seeking to discredit her to further his own political agendas, Dr McIntosh said. She said her work had been ‘‘interpreted in a particular way by fathers’ rights groups for some time’’, and that ‘‘the conclusions in her research were only ever gender neutral, and cautionary only as to frequency of overnight care of infants in particular circumstances’’.
An “impassioned advocate?” Hmm. My correspondence with Warshak hasn’t left me with that impression, but what if he were? Is it really inappropriate to display a level of passion where children’s welfare is concerned? Many, myself included, would argue that anyone who doesn’t get a bit excited when they see public policy damaging children by the millions every year is a bit callous. That’s particularly true in light of the fact that people like McIntosh have been doing their best to keep fathers from children for decades now, knowing full well the damage they were doing. Again, I can’t speak for Warshak. But passionate? You bet we are.
But here’s the nut of the matter, Dr. McIntosh: if you don’t want to be discredited, do better work. If you want to do research, use proper methodology, analyze your data logically and draw only the conclusions that are appropriate to your findings. Above all, don’t begin with a firm idea of where you want to end up. Don’t do research with an ideological bias. Dr. Warshak didn’t discredit you, he and 110 others did, and don’t pretend otherwise. Actually, you alone discredited yourself; they just pointed it out.
As to her claim that her work is “gender neutral,” she’s both correct and too clever by half. McIntosh was of course careful enough to not use the terms “mother” or “father” when discussing overnights. “Custodial parent” and “non-custodial parent” are more accurate and of course gender neutral. But what everyone knows is that the parent with primary custody is all but invariably the mother. So when McIntosh talks about overnights with the “non-custodial parent,” we all know whom she means. Discouraging overnights with the non-custodial parent equals discouraging overnights with fathers, Dr. McIntosh. You know it, I know it. We all do.
But far more important than the likes of Jennifer McIntosh is the effect the demise of her rather desperate bid to plug the hole in the dike separating fathers from children is having on family policy in Australia. It seems the Warshak paper is having an effect, and a salutary one.
Some key organisations, such as the Australian Association for Infant Mental Health are revising their policies regarding overnight care of infants, as are many of the Family Relationship Centres (FRCs) offering the compulsory mediation required prior to Family Court proceedings.
‘‘Given the new positions papers that have recently been published we will be reviewing the literature that we give to parents to help them make the best decisions they can for their children,’’ said Matt Stubbs, the acting clinical services director of Interrelate family centres.
One of the experts who endorsed the consensus paper, foundation director of the Australian Institute of Studies, Don Edgar, said he was ‘‘disturbed’’ that research findings were used against fathers’ access to, and visiting rights with, young children.
‘‘Those who endorsed Warshak’s careful review paper are not ideologists for men; they simply object to the misinterpretation of data and its misuse in family law policy,’’ he said. ‘‘Children need consistent contact to form bonds with fathers and other carers, not just mothers, and lack of early contact denies children both the right to dual parenting and to ongoing child support from their fathers.’’
The expert paper concluded infants commonly develop attachment relationships with more than one caregiver and that in normal circumstances children are likely to do better if they have some overnight contact with both parents.
It said depriving young children the opportunity to stay overnight with their fathers could compromise the development of father-child relationships…
There are signs the new consensus paper could affect current policies. Diana Bryant, the Chief Justice of the Family Court, said she expected her court’s personnel, including judges, family consultants and experts to be familiar with current research, including recent developments regarding overnight care.
Well, there’s a first for everything. In country after country, perhaps the single most shocking thing about family courts is that their judges are utterly ignorant of the science of child well-being and post-divorce parental care. Every custody case in the English-speaking world turns on “the best interests of the child,” and yet no judge receives training in what that consists of. The result is an overwhelming bias in favour of maternal custody and against joint custody. Those of course have been shown for decades to be antithetical to the best interests of children, but judges continue on their merry way telling anyone who will listen how they only want what’s best for kids.
So if Bryant is telling the truth, it’ll be a whole new world in the family courts of Australia. I won’t hold my breath, but just in case, someone needs to send her Dr. Edward Kruk’s latest book, The Equal Parent Presumption. It’s got it all. No one who reads it can ever again engage in the fantasy that children don’t need their fathers or that family courts act in their interests.
Meanwhile, to her credit, even Jennifer McIntosh may be getting with the program.
McIntosh has recently co-authored a two-part paper soon to be published in the Family Court Review –
‘‘Parental separation and overnight care of young children: Consensus through Theoretical and Empirical Integration’’ – which examines the current research evidence and acknowledges that ‘‘cautions against any overnight care during the first three years have not been supported’’.
As I said, there’s a first for everything.
LikeLike
Pingback: Conference Held At Westminster Highlights The Dangers of Shared Parenting For Babies and Toddlers | Researching Reform