PBS Follows Through on Commitment
to Air Balanced Program

September 13, 2006

The film made two overriding points. Much of the mainstream media (particularly left-leaning institutions, of which PBS is one) engages in divorce happy talk. However, from Kids & Divorce's opening moments the film powerfully depicts the way children suffer in divorce. Also, throughout the film it was clear that children want and need both parents, that they are very aggrieved when their parents don't get along, and that two-parent involvement is important after divorce.

The film also had its weaknesses. The film devoted much time to the ways in which conflict between parents is bad for children, but did not devote enough to why such conflicts exist. My belief is that much post-divorce conflict is because the playing field is not level, and mothers believe, often correctly, that if they push hard they can drive fathers out of their children's lives. The film focused too much on "can't we all just get along" generalities instead of on the need to protect both parents' right to have a relationship with their children.

Judicial discretion in divorce cases was defended in the film without pointing out the harm that excessive discretion can create. Shared Parenting was criticized as a "cookie cutter" or "one size fits all solution." However, Ned Holstein, president of Fathers & Families, refuted this in the film, pointing out that we already have a cookie cutter--sole custody to mom, dad gets every other weekend visitation.

Women's advocate Dr. Peter Jaffe said that Shared Parenting "coerces" women into co-parenting arrangements with their abusers. Psychologist Dr. Richard Warshak, who made several excellent points in the film, pointed out that Shared Parenting presumptions do not apply when there is domestic violence. However, nobody pointed out that the presumption of sole custody to mom coerces fathers to relinquish much of their fatherhood after a divorce.

The film also devoted much time to divorce education and collaborative law, particularly in the first half. Both of these can be good things, but their utility is limited without a level playing field.

However, I do not want to belabor the film's negatives. PBS spent a considerable amount of money on the film, and made an honest and effective effort to be balanced. The film had many positives, particularly in the second half. Some of them include:

1) The film provided a detailed and very positive depiction of a divorced couple practicing Shared Parenting, including an interview with the divorced couple's 16 year-old son and 12 year-old daughter. The boy emphasized the importance of having the love of both his parents.

2) The film made it clear that kids do not like seeing their other parent badmouthed or belittled. Three times the film quoted a young boy who thanked his mom for ceasing her badmouthing of the boy's father.

3) The film pointed out that it's important that each parent accommodate their children's desire for contact with the other parent. For example, we were told that when a child tells his or her mother that he or she misses dad, the mother's best response is a cheerful "OK, let's call him."

4) Los Angeles County Family Mediator Ernest Sanchez applauded a father who came into his court and stood up and repeatedly asserted that he was a father, "not a visitor" in his child's life. Sanchez also brought up the need to "equalize the playing field."

5) I expected a large focus on domestic violence and monster dads, and was pleasantly surprised to see that while this side was represented fairly, it was not given undue weight. In fact, Iverson said "domestic violence is a factor in only a small number of divorce cases," and this assertion was repeated later in the film.

6) In the final segments Dr. Richard Warshak was excellent, bringing home many of our movement's key points. He discussed the way custodial parents "use their extra time with their children" to turn them against or alienate them from the other parent. Warshak agreed with Jaffe that we must protect kids from domestic violence but also said we must protect them from the "emotional violence" of parental alienation. Surprisingly, Jaffe did (briefly) concede that there is too much alienating behavior by parents in divorces.

7) Underscoring the film's central message that kids need two parents, not two warring parties, one child caught in the middle of a divorce said "I don't want to vote."

8) The film showed a meeting of Fathers & Families where two dads briefly described how painful their separations from their children are. One of them is a quadriplegic who can't see his kids because of a domestic violence restraining order. Unfortunately, the filmmakers failed to point out or depict how absurd this is.

9) The film showed Ned Holstein lobbying at the Massachusetts capital and quoted him as saying that before you even get into the courtroom, you can tell which parent is going to win custody--"it's the parent wearing the skirt."

10) In the film Iowa state legislator Danny Carroll said something we hear all too rarely. Carroll never knew his father. However, he did not make the standard assumption that because dad wasn't there he must be at fault or have "abandoned" the family. Instead he explained that he didn't really know why his dad wasn't there, and speculated that if there had been a presumption for Shared Parenting when he was a child, perhaps he would have had his father in his life. He is one of the main legislative supporters of the Iowa shared parenting law, which the film discussed.

11) Our opponents often say that divorced couples can't co-parent, so it's best to give sole custody to mothers. In the film Dr. Isolina Ricci asserted that "most parents can co-parent" and emphasized the importance of co-parenting after a divorce.

12) In closing, Hofstra Law Professor Andrew Schepard accurately described the problems in divorce and family law as a "public health problem," and Warshak emphasized the need for post-divorce parenting plans which do not have a "secondary parent."

In summation, we've come a long way in a year. We never asked PBS to pull or cease airing Breaking the Silence. Instead we asserted that there is another side to these issues which merits an airing. We succeeded. Last fall on PBS dads were portrayed as evil, scheming abusers. This week dads were portrayed as an important and valued part of their children's lives. Thanks again to all who participated.

Where to See the New PBS Film

KCET in Los Angeles, California (9/14)
KERA in Dallas, Texas (9/17/06)
Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) (9/14)
KQED in the Bay Area/San Francisco (9/15/06, 9/16/06, 9/17/06)
KTSC in Denver/Rocky Mountains (9/28/06)
KLRN in San Antonio, Texas (9/14/06, 9/17/06, 9/19/06)
WGBH in Boston (9/12/06, 9/15/06, 9/17/06)
KUHT in Houston, Texas (9/16, 9/17)
KNME in Albuquerque, New Mexico (9/17/06)
WNET in New York City (10/25/06, 10/26/06)
WXXI in Rochester, New York (9/15)
CET in Cincinnati (9/16, 9/17, 9/18)
KAKM in Anchorage, Alaska (9/23)
KLVX in Las Vegas, Nevada (9/15)
GTE in Toledo, Ohio (9/14/06, 9/18/06)
WTIU in Bloomington, Indiana (9/14)
New Hampshire Public Television (9/21/2006)
Alabama Public Television, (9/15/06, 9/19/06, 9/21/06)
KLRU in Austin, Texas (9/15/06, 9/16/06)
Louisiana Public Broadcasting (9/14/06, 9/15/06)
Wisconsin Public Television (9/14/06)
KUED in Salt Lake City (9/14/06, 9/16/06, 9/18/06)
WPSU in Central Pennsylvania (9/16/06, 9/18/06)
KTWU in Topeka, Kansas (9/15/06, 9/17/06)
MPTV in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (9/16/06, 9/17/06)
Iowa Public Television (9/14/06)
KTNW in Washington state (9/15/06, 9/17/06)
Kentucky Educational Television (9/14/06, 9/16/06, 9/17/06, 9/18/06)
KACV in Amarillo, Texas (9/14/06, 9/15/06, 9/18/06, 9/20/06)
NMU in Michigan (9/14/06, 9/18/06)
WTVP in central Illinois (9/17/06, 9/18/06)
KEDT in Corpus Christi, Texas (9/14/06)
WNED in Buffalo, New York (9/24/06)
Vermont Public Television (9/15)
KNPB in Reno, Nevada (9/14)

The Myth of the Good Divorce

Psychology professor Gordon E. Finley recently wrote an interesting review of Elizabeth Marquardt's  Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce for PsycCRITIQUES, a publication of the American Psychological Association. Marquardt's book powerfully depicts the way even civil divorces can shatter a child's world and force a boy or a girl to grow up long before their time.

Unfortunately, due to copyright restrictions, the piece is not available on the Internet. However, I've quoted a few sections of it below. Finley writes:

"Marquardt's uniquely outstanding contribution is her new look at the inherent structure of the post-divorce family--from the point of view of the child of divorce--wherefrom she argues that it is structurally impossible to have a 'good' divorce. Central to her argument is the thesis that although marriage structurally constitutes one world and it is the parents' job to reconcile differences and make one unified sense of their joint world, divorce inherently creates two worlds and, most critically, makes it the child's inherently impossible job to unify, reconcile, and make sense of the increasingly divergent worlds of the child's father and mother. To borrow the vocabulary of the STEP Parent Training Program, in marriage, it is the parents who 'own' the problem of creating a unified whole, whereas in divorce, it is the child who 'owns' the problem of reconciling the increasingly diverging worlds of his or her mother and father. As Marquardt writes,

"'Our [divorced] parents were related to one another not through a structure that emphasized their unity--marriage--but rather through one that emphasized their difference and opposition: divorce. Unlike the banner of marriage announcing their unity to the world, the banner of divorce announced to everyone, including us, that the differences between them were larger than anything they might share in common. Even if they did not feel starkly opposed to one another the structure of divorce nevertheless made them seem that way to us.'"

Finley continues:

"...the obsession with parental 'conflict' in the divorce literature really is a red herring designed to deflect attention from the true problems of divorce. In Marquardt's view, divorce does little or nothing to dispel conflict between parents (in fact, she argues that two thirds of divorces come from low-conflict families), but what divorce does for children is to create a very high level of conflict within the child. Marquardt's insight can be described as 'conflict shifting.' In marriage, the conflict is between parents. By contrast, in divorce the conflict is shifted to within the child. The parents have relinquished the job of reconciling their conflicting and increasingly divergent worlds and foisted that job on their children."

While rightly commending Marquardt for most of her book, Finley also calls her on her misguided rejection of shared physical custody. Finley writes:

"[Marquardt] does not believe that post-divorce cookie-cutter formulas--such as equal shared physical custody--can address the needs of children. Her position here, however, is odd in that she ignores the fact that a worse post-divorce cookie-cutter formula already exists. This is where one parent, usually the mother, is given almost all physical custody. Sole mother physical custody has been documented to have worse outcomes, in general, for children than shared physical custody. She also fails to recognize that shared physical custody is an anti-divorce tool and--above all--what of the children's right not to be disenfranchised from either parent?"

Finley can be reached at adoptaowl@aol.com. 
 

Hunger-Striking Father John Murtari Interviewed from Jail

I've written recently about John Murtari, a loving father to his 13 year-old son Domenic, who refused food and water after his incarceration on July 31 for a questionable child support arrearage. Murtari subsequently received a feeding tube. I've read John's e-newsletter for the past several years, and while at times I've disagreed with his tactics, I do respect his courage, courteous manner and fighting spirit.

Murtari recently did a radio interview from jail. To hear the interview and read a recent newspaper article about John, click here.

Many of you have written to me urging me to launch a campaign based on a couple of current events. Below are my views of them.

One of the proposed campaigns is in opposition to AB 2781, a California Child Support bill. California fathers' rights activist William L. Spence has distributed emails on this. Spence writes:

"AB 2781 (Leno) Child Support Collectors has passed the Legislature and will reach Governor Schwarzenegger's desk by the end of the week. It provides that, beginning in 2010, all child support orders include language establishing a judgment in favor of any private collector the obligee may choose to contract with, by which the obligation may be increased to cover the collector's fee, by up to 33.3...% of any arrearage and up to 50% of the total fee (which thus may be as high as 66.6%). To the best of my knowledge this is the first time a law has enabled a private contract to directly obligate a non-party. It seems to me especially dangerous that this extraordinary power is being granted in the context of circumstances that tend to arise as a result of serious financial hardship, and in which mischief---the vindictiveness of ex-intimate partners---is unfortunately all too common. It is, moreover, alternatively possible for warranted collection fees to be recovered through a tort action, or perhaps a new cause modeled on that by which litigation-related attorney fees are customarily handled."

Spence is calling for the Governor to veto AB 2781.

I'm not sure what Spence means about "may be as high as 66%." However, Spence makes several good points. Like Spence, I hate to see any more debt or burden placed upon California child support obligors, because they are already very overburdened. In my co-authored column Some Progress for California Fathers, but Still a Long Way to Go (Pasadena Star-News & Affiliated Papers, Daily Breeze [Los Angeles], 6/18/06) I wrote:

"In 1992 the California legislature dramatically increased the financial burdens shouldered by fathers. Many child support orders doubled and tripled overnight, quickly placing California among the five states with the highest child support guidelines.

"The legacy of this legislation is a permanent underclass of fathers buried alive under crushing debts. According to an Urban Institute study of California child support, the average arrears owed is $3,000 higher than the median annual earnings of employed child support debtors. Those in the poorest category have a child support debt amounting to their full net income for seven and a half years."

Spence is also correct in his concern that the law "has enabled a private contract to directly obligate a non-party." I investigated AB 2781 as the subject for a possible column back in April, and this was one of the first issues I raised with one of Leno's staffers. She was stumped by it, too. Apparently the California legislature has found some way around this, and Spence is correct to be concerned about its implications.

On the other hand, there are many positive aspects of this bill which also merit consideration. Noncustodial fathers are treated horribly by private collection companies--many conclude that it's worse to deal with them than with the state enforcement agencies, which is saying a lot. AB 2781 represents the first time California has reined in these private child support collection agencies, addressed their abusive tactics and brought them under government oversight. Noncustodial fathers will benefit from these protections.

In addition, custodial mothers are often the victims of predatory private child support collection agencies, and this bill will help them, also. While custodial mothers are not my primary constituency, I certainly support anything that makes life easier for them as long as it doesn't harm children of divorce and/or their fathers.

In addition, some of AB 2781's provisions about obligating noncustodial fathers aren't as unfair as they may seem. When a noncustodial father doesn't pay his child support obligation, under current law the custodial mother must pay the full cost of the private agency's collection actions. It's not unreasonable to spread that burden out between both the custodial and noncustodial parents.

My conclusion? I have mixed emotions about AB 2781. I won't be heartbroken if Governor Schwarzenegger signs it, but I won't be unhappy with a veto, either.

The full bill can be seen at AB 2781.

The other campaign many readers have urged me to launch is against a new Ford commercial. We've done campaigns against TV commercials before--in 2004 our Campaign Against Anti-Father Verizon Commercial was covered by over 300 media outlets, including CNN, Fox News, ABC, NBC, CBS and several hundred newspapers. The commercial, which can be viewed here, portrayed an idiot father bumbling to try to help his daughter with her homework as his wife barked at him to "go wash the dog." A few weeks after our campaign was launched Verizon informed us that the ad would no longer be aired. I explained my reasons for doing the campaign in my column Why I Launched the Campaign Against Verizon's Anti-Father Ad (Pasadena Star-News & Affiliated Papers, 11/18/04).

The new Ford ad, which can be seen here, is described by Slate as follows:

"A family drives through some gorgeous hills and along a pretty coastline, making picturesque stops at a roadside farm stand and a beach. 'The Ford Freestyle crossover,' says the voiceover. 'More than 500 miles on a tank of gas.' Then the SUV pulls to a stop in front of a housing complex, where the dad gets out with his luggage. 'Thanks for inviting me this weekend,' he says to the mom. He hugs his kids, they say their goodbyes ('See you next week'), and the SUV drives off...

"The ad begins with ho-hum familiarity. The stock shots of the smiling family; the artfully filmed vehicle; the announcer's cheerful pitch about fuel efficiency. We're waiting for the lease/buy figures to pop up on screen when...BAM! With no warning, we find ourselves in the grip of a stern domestic drama. The music goes quiet. Dad gazes wistfully at mom, thanking her for this time with his kids. Mom looks back with wet eyes, barely able to muster a reply. The camera pulls out and we see Dad standing alone, with his sad little duffel bag, in front of what one reader termed the 'Recent Divorce Condo Complex.'"

One reader wrote "The bottom line is that it makes the fact that Dad gets the kids every other weekend OK and he should be grateful for anything else that he gets that is parceled out according to the mother's wishes. It treats as normal the fact that the father is a second class parent."

Perhaps, but I can't help but wonder how Ford could have made a divorced dad commercial without angering many in the fathers' rights movement.

If the ad had portrayed a shared parenting arrangement instead of an every other weekend dad, our side would complain that Ford is papering over the oppression of divorced dads by pretending that shared parenting is standard.

If Ford had made a commercial where it was the mother who was left behind, our side would be angry because it shows a victimized woman when, in this context, it's usually men who are victimized.

If the dad hadn't appeared cheerful and "grateful," our side would say that Ford is portraying divorced dads as angry, bitter men.

Some are angered that dad was dropped off in front of the sad 'Recent Divorce Condo Complex,' but if he had been dropped off at a big house then we'd accuse Ford of perpetuating the rich divorced dad/Porsche/trophy wife stereotype.

I can't see how Ford could have approached this much better than they did. And when television doesn't show divorced dads or pretends they don't exist, we complain that our culture makes divorced dads invisible.

My conclusion? I'm not crazy about the commercial, but I don't see it as something that merits launching a protest.

One of my readers sent me an interesting letter about the ad:

"Personally, I thought the ad was bold and innovative. It portrays a post-divorce husband and wife who are working together to provide a normal life for their children. 

"Ford's ad suggests that divorce, while difficult for all concerned, doesn't need to mean an end to co-parenting. By his presence, the ad suggests that although divorced, he is still important enough in his kids lives for his ex-wife to overcome whatever rancor she no doubt felt towards him, and invite him along. You want shared-parenting? Sometimes that's what shared-parenting looks like.

"She COULD have invited 'the new daddy,' you know..."

He makes some good points.

Apparently dad-bashing child support hardliner Dean Winnie of the 30th Circuit Court Family Division in Ingham County in Michigan is full of love for me. According to a Dads of Michigan member, at a recent lunch meeting he blasted me for being a "moron reporter" who felt sorry for "deadbeat dads." Read a short account of the lunch meeting here.

Winnie is a supporter of Michigan Attorney General Michael Cox, who has taken numerous punitive measures against noncustodial fathers. I've criticized Cox on many occasions. In early 2004 Cox launched a billboard campaign which featured a large pair of handcuffs, and boasted of jail time for fathers struggling with child support obligations. We did two His Side with Glenn Sacks shows on it--to listen, go to Michigan Fathers Under Siege (3/7/04) and Showdown in Motown: Michigan Dads vs. Leader of ACES (4/18/04).

That fall Cox announced an even more misguided and asinine billboard campaign--a contest wherein children would draw billboard designs critical of noncustodial fathers who have allegedly not paid child support. Fox News quoted me on the subject as follows:

"Custodial mothers are encouraged to coach their children to make designs critical of noncustodial parents behind on child support. And it doesn't take much imagination to figure out which noncustodial father many mothers will be encouraging their children to denounce."

I and others launched a Campaign to Help Michigan Activists Defeat Anti-Father Billboard Contest, and the Michigan activists did an excellent job protesting Cox's campaign. Cox pulled the contest in response to the protests. To listen to my radio call to action on the issue, click here To read it, click here.

I did two His Side with Glenn Sacks shows on the issue--see Michigan's Top Cop Tells Kids: Denounce Your Daddy (10/3/04) and Fathers Targeted by Cox Speak Out (10/10/04).

There were two more good articles about the North Dakota Shared Parenting Initiative last week--Wendy McElroy's North Dakota Debates Shared Parenting Law (Fox News, 8/29/06) and Dave Usher's Trust Parents, Not the System (Men's News Daily, 8/22/06).

Both authors question the legality and propriety of state and federal officials openly campaigning against the Initiative. The campaigning is also revealing as to how the government bureaucracies gain from the sole custody norm. Usher writes that, for these officials, "the only thing that matters is maximizing federal income to the state, even if it means senselessly destroying the lives of children and, indeed, fatherhood itself...[HHS Executive Director Carol Olson] cares only about maximizing federal revenues, pretending that decreases in state expenditures [and correspondingly federal entitlements] somehow represent a 'loss' to the state."

To learn more about the events in North Dakota, see ACFC's North Dakota Shared Parenting Battle Heats Up.

Our AlterNet debate over reproductive rights last month drew so many reader comments that AlterNet Associate Editor Laura Barcella wrote a whole separate piece--Birth Control and 'Men's Rights'--on the controversy. Family law attorney Jeff Leving and I had squared off against feminist columnist Kai Ma--our column was Respect a Man's Choice, Too, Ma's was The Difference Between a Womb and a Wallet. Our column was the 3rd most read on AlterNet that week.

Barcella's article doesn't give much space or chance to our side of the issue, and she dismisses many of our side's viewpoints as "tired anti-feminist ideas," etc. She also put men's rights in quotation marks. However, I do try to be positive when I can, so, to Barcella's credit, while she misspelled my co-author Jeff Leving's name all three times, she did manage to spell mine correctly two out of three times...

The Associated Press story Police: De Queen woman slaps self, tells cops that husband did it sounds like something out of my email box:

"DE QUEEN, Ark. Police at De Queen say a woman slapped herself several times in an effort to fake injuries from domestic abuse after she had stabbed her husband. But the effort didn't prevent police from arresting Dorris J- Holcombe on a charge of second-degree domestic battery.

"The 41-year-old Holcombe pleaded not guilty to the charge in Sevier (suh-VEER') County Circuit Court. Her 38-year-old husband Gary said his wife beat herself in the face after he called police to report she had stabbed him on August Tenth.

"Deputy Cameron Petross said Gary Holcombe suffered a minor cut in his chest. A police report filed in the case said the couple's landlord saw Dorris Holcombe slapping herself.

"Police said that, while in the back of the patrol car following her arrest, Dorris Holcombe started hitting her head on the restraining cage, causing a small cut near her right eye."

If it weren't for the witness, and had the woman behaved herself in the patrol car, the scam probably would have worked...

Obviously I'm a frequent critic of the National Organization for Women. A few examples include: NOW at 40: Group's Opposition to Shared Parenting Contradicts Its Goal of Gender Equality (New York Daily News, 7/27/06); Alito and the Rights of Men (Los Angeles Times, 11/1/05); HB 5267 Will Help Michigan's Children of Divorce (Lansing State Journal, 5/28/06); California NOW Takes Stand Against Working Mothers (Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 2/23/04); New California Move-Away Law Hurts Children of Divorce (Long Beach Press Telegram, 10/18/03); Fathers Bear the Brunt of Gender Bias in Family Courts (Insight magazine, 8/19/02); and Why Are There so Many Women in the Fathers' Movement? (Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 6/21/02).

However, though NOW is often wrong, it doesn't mean that they're always wrong, and it certainly doesn't mean they're responsible for every damn thing which is wrong in the world of gender relations. NOW is often scapegoated, and is the target of incessant stupid criticism from both men's activists and conservatives. On His Side with Glenn Sacks I once explained:

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