Court overturns father's grounding of 12-year-old

This girl and her mother will probably try to sue the judge if/when she gets abducted and raped by some pedophile she meets online.

Not at all. They will sue the custodial father for failure to provider reasonable protection against such contact.

It would really hurt but he should have told the judge “I wash my hands of this. You are responsible for her now. I decline all further visitation and custody”

can't do that in this day and age. dear old dad would still get shafted and be forced to pay to raise the child, without getting to have any say in how she was raised.

But that’s not what happened. The girl ran off to live with her mother, and while the father apparently didn’t do anything to stop/reverse that, he then tried to continue controlling her life in ways that conflicted with what her mother wanted. She wanted to go on the school trip, the father said no due to her recent misbehavior, she ran off to her mother’s, the mother wanted her to go on the trip, the school required either BOTH parents’ written permission or a court order, the father refused to give his permission even though he was allowing her to live with her mother, so the mother arranged for a court proceeding to be initiated.

At least in the US, it’s pretty rare for a court to allow divorced parents to exercise that much control over a child’s ordinary activities, even while the child is living with the other parent. There are often long-term stipulations about religious participation and training, travel out of state or out of country, and things like that, but not about most things. Generally it’s each parent’s rules apply when the child is with that parent. Seems like this father wanted to have his cake and eat it too: the girl was being a PITA, and he’d just as soon not have her around, but he still wanted to control her day-to-day activities. Maybe the mother wanted 3 days of peace and quiet with the girl off on the trip!

There are cultural phenomena that are taking placing in America right now that Obama won’t be able to counter. It’s everywhere, and it can’t be ignored.

Obama can't do a damned thing in a situation like this and what makes you think that he doesn't welcome this kind of family breakdown?

Obama is NOT pro-America.

Unless there is a good reason to change your mind , then a parent should stick to their decisions. To not do so confuses kids or lets them know that if they throw a big enough fit they can get their way. He told her no. She ran to momma. Momma tried to get around him. The school needed his permission. His answer was still no. They took him to court. He will have to still pay child support but I can’t blame him for standing up for his principles. I wouldn’t take her back either. Doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love her but that she isn’t going to play him.

I don’t see the point in “grounding” her, while letting her change residences (apparently permanently) because she’s dissatisfied with the rules at his house. Well, as I said before, I’m sure there’s a long sordid history with these parents’ battling over their child custody issues for TEN YEARS, and the court probably wasn’t too interested in showing respect for the parental authority of parents who’ve been acting like obnoxious adolescents towards each other and the court for 10 years. If I was a family court judge, I swear I’d end up awarding the kids custody of the parents a lot of the time.

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