One of the law firms with which I work had a case Wednesday which emphasizes
the gender-bias against fathers of which so many fathers complain. The mother
and father were in a long-term committed relationship, had been living together
for 10 years and had two children ages 5 and 7.
The mom told the dad that she got a night job. Dad worked all day, came home
and as soon as he got home, the mom left for work. Dad then played with the
kids, fed them dinner, bathed them, read them bedtime stories, put them to bed,
got them up in the morning, fed them breakfast, etc. Mom would come home from
work just as dad had to go to work and the mom would go to sleep.
After a few months, the dad became suspicious because the mom wasn't
exhibiting any affection and always needed to get money from him, yet never
contributed any money toward the bills. So, one night the dad followed the mom
to work. She didn't go to work, she went to some guy's trailer and spent the
entire night. After 3-days of the same thing, it became clear that the mom never
had a job and this is what she had been doing all along. The dad finally
confronted her. During the confrontation the dad had a stress-related asthma
attack and ended up in the hospital. When the ambulance took the dad to the
hospital, the mom took all the possessions of any value out of their house,
grabbed the kids and moved into the trailer with her boyfriend and totally cut
the dad off from the kids. The dad came to our firm.
We filed an emergency motion for custody. The judge denied our motion stating
there was no emergency, we would have to wait the standard 3-6 months for a
custody hearing to be scheduled. The judge gave the mom temporary custody, 60%
of the dad's take-home pay for child support and gave the dad
every-other-weekend visitation.
The mom continued to deny all visitation. After the 2nd visitation denial, we
filed a Rule to Show Cause. The soonest date we could get was 2 months away. A
week before the Rule to Show Cause hearing, her attorney called and said that if
we dropped the Rule, the mom would start complying fully, and even give the dad
Wednesday night visitation. While we opposed using a parent's relationship with
his or her children as a bargaining chip for anything, the dad was so desperate
to see his children that he insisted. Visitation went fine from then on.
At the custody hearing, the judge ruled that it would be disruptive to move
the children again. (If its so disruptive, why leave the children with someone
who has already demonstrated zero regard for the disruptive impact on the
children?)
Moreover, the judge said this case was basically a "he said/she
said" situation. The dad testified that the mom had deceived him regarding
her and her fidelity and the mom testified that the dad knew about her affair
and was "okay with it." The judge said that he found the mom's
testimony to be more credible. (Yeah, right. Why then did she feel compelled to
steal everything and move on the day, pursuant to the dad's testimony, that the
mom's despicable behavior was discovered?)
Pursuant to statute, in determining custody, the courts shall consider the
propensity of the parent to encourage an ongoing and continuous relationship
with the other parent. The utterly fails as custodial parent under this
criteria.
Now the big question: How many fathers would get sole legal and sole physical
custody if he slept all day instead of watching the kids, had sex all night with
another woman, didn't participate at all in feeding, bathing, clothing or
shopping for the kids and didn't contribute anything financially for the kids or
the household?
Here we have a fit, loving father who has lost all legal and physical rights
to his children due to our government rewarding and thereby encouraging immoral,
despicable, irresponsible behavior by women and ignoring the irrefutable
mountain of evidence that depriving children of their fathers places children in
one of the highest risk categories possible. This they do stating it "is in
the best interests of the children."
This was just one of hundreds of similar cases occurring throughout the
Commonwealth every week. How much longer is the Legislature going to allow the
courts to strip children of their fit, loving fathers in this manner? There is
no more cruel injustice than that which is done under color of law. Nothing is
more cruel than stealing a citizen's children, except perhaps doing so and then
jeopardizing the children's future's, too.
