Posted on 06/18/2006 8:23:09 AM PDT by buccaneer81
Protesters seek justice for dads in custody battles Sunday, June 18, 2006 Bill Bush THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
In 1953, Kris Slaughter’s father got full custody of her and her older brother after her stepfather was accused of sexually molesting a child from their neighborhood.
It was the right decision, she said, although it was almost unheard of then for a father to get custody over a mother — and it was rare for couples to get divorced in the first place.
Although her mother was accused of nothing, Slaughter didn’t see her again until adulthood.
"She never came back, except for my wedding," Slaughter, 61, said yesterday. "I really did lose out. Children need both parents."
Slaughter attended the Fathers-4-Justice rally on the Statehouse lawn yesterday to support a friend from her church who is going through a bitter childcustody battle.
His case has convinced her that the family-court system in Ohio is broken and largely slanted against fathers.
About 80 sign-carrying protesters at the rally the day before Father’s Day were about equally divided between men and women. They had many complaints: The system costs too much, takes too long, and frequently is abused on the advice of aggressive attorneys who encourage their clients to make false or exaggerated claims of child and spousal abuse to strengthen their positions in court.
In the end, they claim, courtissued visitation orders frequently are ignored with little or no punishment, and those hurt the most are children.
Almost everyone had a story — or at least their side of the story.
E. Scott, 33, of Reynoldsburg, said he lost all contact with his 13-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son when, after a long and difficult court battle, his ex-girlfriend unexpectedly left Columbus in the summer of 2000, despite having signed a shared-parenting agreement that required court approval for such a move.
Scott credits divine intervention when his brother, who stocks convenience stores with fruit juices in suburban Chicago, saw the two children walk into a store last September.
Scott said he immediately re-established his visitation rights.
He drives to Chicago once a month, and he hopes to have his kids for the second half of this summer.
"But realistically, if she decides to move again, there’s just nothing that I can do about it," he said.
Scott, who works in retail security, said the ongoing legal maneuvering between him and his ex-girlfriend contributed to him filing for bankruptcy. He said he stopped paying his child support while his kids were missing.
"I’m very disheartened by the court system," he said. "It leads me to feel that I’m second-rate, my tax dollars don’t count, my opinions don’t count, and that they don’t care."
Scott Phelps, a computersystems engineer from Gahanna, wore a Superman costume to the rally, hoping to attract attention to his cause, which he says the news media ignores.
"It gets washed away as, you know, a bunch of fathers, a bunch of deadbeat dads who don’t want to pay child support," said Phelps. "Hey, you know what? I pay $4,000 a month" in child support and alimony. "I have my kids 50 percent of the time."
He said he is upset at how much it would cost to challenge a Franklin County magistrate’s final decision on the terms of the joint custody of his two children, ages 10 and 7.
"I got a call from my lawyer yesterday," Phelps said. "He said it’s going to cost $7,000 to purchase the (trial) transcript so that I can object to that order, so I can get in front of a judge."
And the Superman costume?
"You have to be a superhero just to see your kids," he explained.
"If you’re a mom, you automatically get your kids unless somebody proves you’re a crack addict."
bbush@dispatch.com
Surprised to see the Dispatch cover it so well. There was absolutely nothing on the local TV news here yesterday.
He should have married the woman he had children with.
I hope that these fathers are aggressively pushing the stats to the judges. The prisons are filled with males who come from fatherless enviornments.
that is what I'm saying. I've seen a good friend of mine get pg by a guy and he abandoned her. Took her to court after the child was 4 years old and got visitation and joint legal custody. But it wasn't enough and he was taking her to court for every petty issue and lost. He claimed injustice against father's and how this just wasn't fair, wah, wah!! All I got to say about that is too bad cause if you wanted to be a real dad to your son than you should have loved his mother and married her. She is a great gal and he lucked out! All these men want to gripe about their rights, but the fact is they have them all and them some of they would have stuck with the mother of the children instead of dumping them for whatever reason.
I'm a conservative and believe in marriage. If people want to have kids and not do right by them by sticking with the other parent for the kids sake than I don't want to hear them complain about injustice towards them in courts. Itis injustice that these poor kids don't have their parents together from them get go or through divorce. I only care about kids and their rights, not dmb dads or dumb moms who make wrong choices for their kids by not being with each other!
My BS meter always goes off when I hear about a dad that pays no support. If she wants the money the states will go get it for her. I suspect there are usually other reasons she doesn't want any contact with the "ex".
And that would help how? If they got a divorce, the same thing could happen.
I had a friend who went through this horror....good guy; former FDNY who left the job with a disability then became a lawyer.....finally got a pittbull of an attorney and it worked out...
However, divorce and child custoday are one of the few areas where I actually have a good deal of sympathy for the judges who have to deal with the situations. Courts simply are not equipped to raise children - that's what families are for. Decisions on what a child should have for dinner, when bed-time should be, when to turn off the TV, whether to spend time in scouts or soccer, and whether a screaming child is in need of comfort or discipline need to be made instantaneously and 24 hours a day. Parents are the only people with the knowledge and ability to make good decisions on such issues.
Unfortunately, the parents who wind up in family court have already decided that they can't work together to make decisions for the child's best interest, or even agree which parent will have primary responsibility for making those decisions. The judge is forced to sort out competing versions of the truth, forced to make decisions weeks or months after the actual events, and only has a few coarse tools such as custody and support payments to try to influence the situation for the welfare of the child. Government and the judiciary really have no business inserting themselves into the family arena, except for one simple fact: when we are unable to resolve our personal disputes among ourselves, we force them to do their best to sort out the situation.
Once the dispute is family court, with parents both asserting their 'rights' and the interests of the children merely an afterthought, there is no good solution. The real solution comes in the form of personal responsibility beforehand:
There are lots of dads that pay no support. They can't be collected from because they are in prison, or have no fixed address or garnishable income. Collecting child support from a member of the underclass is generally a futile proposition
And then the statistics of the underclass are used to pass draconian laws that are only used against the middle class
Oh boy, it gets worse than that.
sorry, both sides are rediculous to me. If you can't choose the right mate to have a child with so as to not end up divorcing than that is to bad IMO. I've seen screwed dads and moms by the courts and each other, heck I'm one of them. But I got over it and every else should and accept personal responsibility for your actions, not the court, and not the other parent.
***"She never came back, except for my wedding," Slaughter, 61, said yesterday. "I really did lose out. Children need both parents." ***
No you dont: If the mother took no more interest than this you didnt need her at all and were better off without her.
Why is it parents who walk away ,come back in later life and want to be part of your life. Screw em , They dont deserve a hello.
You are correct. I should have made it clear that I was referring to the broad middle class. I have seen mid-career men reduced to ramen dinners and flea market wardrobes by obscene levels of child support.
A guy I was in the Navy with returned from our ship's deployment to find his possessions in boxes on the driveway upon his return. His wife had moved her boy-friend/drug-dealer in. She got the house, car (both of which he had to continue making payments on) and most of his pay. He essentially lost all contact with his kids, since he couldn't afford a place off-base suitable for overnight visits.
I couldn't agree more. Fortunately some judges really do try to sift through all the crap, and make the best informed and most proper judgement possible.
Man, did you hit the proverbial nail on the head with that statement. The responsible Dads are going to take care of their kids, with or without a court order. The dregs aren't going to pay child support, with or without a court order. The responsible Dads get hammered by ridiculous court ordered child support payments and loose custody of their kids...mainly for one reason only....they are Dads. Unless the Mom is a crack whore the Dad almost always looses custody...even where the Mom runs off with another man...even where the Mom moves away to another town to cut off the father's ability to see his kids. Some of the most vicious folks in the world are Moms going through custody battles. I have a friend who was going through a tough divorce and the wife accused him of molesting their yougest kid. He ended up having a heart attack during the process. Luckily, he survived and the divorce proceedings are now over.
oh of course, but I think that if you spend ample amounts of time with someone before you marry them it will help you insure what kind of marriage you will have with your future spouse.
I know back in the days marriage worked just fine and our parents married after 1-3 months of knowing each other, but that is not realistic today. Waiting a good 2 years or more to really get to know someone is a better thing to do. Also, marriages don't work because they don't have God in the marriage and think of their own feelings and not other's.
Divorce, family court are the ways of the world and are evil, only evil comes out of it. And people think it should be fair? No one should trust things should go the way they should in their opinion in a famliy court. It is isn't fair to anyone regardless of mom, dad, or kid. Instead of people jumping behind father's rights or mom's rights they should jump behind kids rights and tells these moms and dads to get married/remarried to each other and work it out no matter what it takes. Easier said than done right? Not in my opinion. If more people stood up at the injustice of divorce maybe more people would stay married and we wouldn't hear all this other crap that follows the seperation of a family.
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