News: Parental Alienation Costs Mother Custody
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And it’s about frigging time!
I’d like to see more of these cases whereby a parent who engages in such behavior suffers serious consequences for their actions. My only hope is that it doesn’t take 10-years for someone to take action!
Link: Mom Loses Custody for Alienating Dad (from the Toronto Star)
In a stunning and unusual family law decision, a Toronto judge has stripped a mother of custody of her three children after the woman spent more than a decade trying to alienate them from their father.
Stunning indeed. Based on the information in the rest of the article, the campaign of chaos and terror this woman perpetrated on the persistent father was very familiar. Many who read this blog have experienced similar situations, though few of those I “know” are 10-years into such an effort. I’m sorry for this man that it took 10-years of hell but - his persistence paid off. This man was given sole custody!
McWatt stipulated that [the mother] is to have no access to the children except in conjunction with counseling, including a special intensive therapy program for children affected by “parental alienation syndrome.” The mother must bear the costs.
Oh, look out! They used the term “syndrome” and I’m sure that the rad-fems of the world will be screaming their lungs out to see this “travesty of justice” overturned for poor mom! I’m sure that they’ll claim that she was doing what she thought was best for the children, too. Has hell frozen over? Not only is she ordered to attend the counseling, she has the sole responsibility for the costs associated with same. I had to check the calendar to make sure it wasn’t April Fool’s Day!
Pray for that therapist. I’m certain that the malicious mother’s first efforts in counseling will be to bad-mouth the father and try to win him/her over to mom’s side. They almost always do that. A person who engages in a 10-year effort is not easily changed and I’d bet a lot of money that her efforts continue through this intensive therapy.
Harold Niman, the father’s lawyer, said the decision serves as a wake-up call to parents who, “for bitterness, anger or whatever reason,” decide to use their children to punish their former partners.
Parents who have had to endure efforts to be alienated from the children that they love and care about should only be so lucky. Spread the word, maybe the world will start to sit up and take notice.
“Having said that, there are some people – and I think some of them are suffering from personality disorders – who will not respond to therapy and will not respond to directions from judges.”
You don’t say!
The article is worth the full read. The efforts this malicious mother had undertaken will be of no surprise to many who read this blog. They certainly weren’t to me. What is a surprise is that a father was awarded SOLE CUSTODY of his three children as a result of mom just choosing not to change her ways after being afforded many opportunities. (The latter comment also did not come as a surprise.) I wonder if she’ll be ordered to pay child support? If so, I wonder if she’ll actually pay it?
You want to read heartbreaking stories - check out the submissions that people made for our Parental Alienation Awareness Campaign in 2008. That was a small sample of the stories we received over the course of a few weeks. Maybe this is just the beginning of the kind of hope we need in order to see situations like this addressed more swiftly, with real and meaningful severe consequences.
January 25th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Be sure and read the comments at the end of the article on the Toronto Star website. While some of them are just plain dumb (some of the dumbest are the shrieking femi-nazis; others are from PAS’ed Dads who are thrilled to see one go their direction); several of them are additional quoted text from the judge’s decision itself. Some add detail into the specific activities that this Mother had been doing to her children. One that was particularly enlightening was how the Mother had created an over-dependence upon herself, to the extent of infantilizing the children (in one report, the examining psychiatrist speaks of how the nine-year-old behaves more like a 5-year-old).
Note, too, that the Father’s most powerful weapons were getting DECENT mental health professionals in to examine the kiddos (not the under-educated, biased idiots that seem to populate the CPS and Social ‘Services’ realm that most of us are more familiar with); and finally finding a competent attorney who was truly an advocate for the client, and not just one more shark, happy to bleed the bottom line out from under Dad (a rare find!). Also note that the Father had to fight his guts out, just to get the right to allow the children to be examined by the Psychiatrist without the mother present. For quite a while, she was controlling the entire evaluation process, too (sound familiar, anyone?).
The real travesty is that now there are three kids whose lives have been knocked topsy-turvy one more time. Ten years is too long. Those children are likely scarred for life, no matter what happens next. The Mom deserves far more punishment than merely losing her kids.
January 25th, 2009 at 10:40 am
I did see the comments. And really, it just shows the type of insanity fathers (and the truly good women who care about what is right in the aftermath of a divorce) are up against. Organizations like NOW are ferocious in their campaigns of misinformation and their desire to marginalize fathers, criminalize men and boys, and create this fictional utopian society where the perpetual victim (women, as defined by the rad-fems) are able to make everything right with the world.
Funny thing is, the more strides they make, the worse the world gets. I wonder if everyone is paying attention to that reality.
Too bad for all of the children. Too bad for the fathers. Too bad for the women in their lives who truly love them and wish to see the madness end.
January 25th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Yep. The first and foremost question that ought to LEAP off the page in the very first sentence is: why is this such a “stunning and unusual decision” ????
God speed the day when such decisions are neither stunning nor unusual.
January 25th, 2009 at 11:15 am
This really does amount to a very small “blip” on the proverbial radar screen. Most people don’t have the financial resources that these people had to wage a fight for what was right for about 10-years or so.
What we can do is spread this type of news far and wide and do what we can when we can do it to elicit the necessary and long-overdue change in the system that will be truly more considerate of what is most beneficial and healthful for kids in the aftermath of divorce. Unfortunately, it’s hard to shut down a multi-BILLION dollar gravy train.
Of all the comments I read (and I read them all) - my favorite was the woman who wrote about “being careful what you wish for” - that she anticipated that this father didn’t know how to go about clothing the kids, feeding the kids, arranging school transportation and doctor visits (et al)… it’s scary how some women think in this world. It’s amazing how some of them believe that these most basic situations that really require little more than effective planning and preparation are elevated to “amazing achievement” status for moms and something that dads are somehow completely incapable of handling. Too funny and too sad all at the same time.
January 25th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Hooray, this is great news! I sent copy as I could to every member of the Justice for Children organization, Houston, D.C., Phoenix, and Michigan because they patently reject Parental Alienation and are sexist. They destroyed me and my daughter now 23 and still cannot pick up a telephone to speak with me.
Judge Mc Watt should be celebrated for her courage. I agree with other that this travesty was allowed far too long!!!!
We should be sending a copy of this story to every family court judge in the land.
January 25th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
“God speed the day when such decisions are neither stunning nor unusual.”
I think we’d see more of them if it weren’t so expensive to wage this fight in the courts. Every time I appear in court vs my ex, it’s a minimum of $3,000, including cross-continental travel. I have a family to look after now, and they need my love, time, attention, and money more than the voracious legal system does.
Sole custody to either parent is de facto PAS. There’s no way around the erosion that happens to a relationship from the continual absence of one parent.
Then you heap on this the games that parents (usually mothers) play because they are either (a) incapable of imagining that fathers can do the jobs that mothers do, or (b) are very threatened by fathers doing a mothers job because so many women’s identities are anchored by their motherhood status. If someone else can do as good or better a job, what does that say about said woman? Or both (a) and (b) simultaneously.
Since the liberals who set this whole system up are enamored of experimentation, let’s try awarding custody to men for a decade or so–if he’s willing and able–and see what happens. I suspect that for one that there will be many many fewer divorces and much fewer kids caught in the meat grinder. Two, expect the welfare rolls (and gummint influence) to shrink as kids would actually be awarded to the parent that can actually support them. How can one beat this two-fer!?
January 25th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Fortunately for this father, the precedent had already been set in Canada in 2006 when a Hamilton, Ontario father won custody of his 5 year old twin boys. This is the only article I can find about it quickly.
http://canadacourtwatch.com/judges/Lafreniere_Cheryl/2006June17-FirstFathersDayLivingInDadsHouse.pdf
January 26th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Yea for the father. I am going to court on 2-13 to get sole custody of my now 15 year old daughter. The ex lost her relationship with another female and now is fighting to enforce a parenting agreement that she has rarily ever abided by in over 4 years. The daughter was always second fiddle.
January 27th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Yay! I can’t imagine the legal fees…we’ve pretty much given up.
February 3rd, 2009 at 7:53 pm
I was very happy that this judge took a stand on this issue. My current husband went through this wil his ex and the children- the judge still gave her custody of the children- even though we provided she was harming the children - she even went as far as calling Social Services and the scholl- got the kids to say their dad hits them and abused them. In the end - he was found not to have done all the horrid things the ex claimed- yet she still got the kids and she still mess with their heads. So good on this judge for final kicking some ass!
February 5th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
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February 7th, 2009 at 2:56 am
I am soo happy for this Father. All dads, don’t lose sight of the possibility of gaining custody of your children. My spouse has three and he has sole custody. I’m sure you have heard all the tricks, but the one that finally lost her custody was the accusation of abuse, by my spouse who had not seen her in years except in court. Well she decided to take haven in a shelter, for months with no phone calls, no visitation shows, and overall dissapearance. When she finally returned to the surface she decided to write a letter to her three children stating “Our new life together will be so beautiful, for this is what God wants” Talk about alarms going off! In 2005, She no longer has visits without a court ordered monitor, four hours a month, paid by her. It has been over three years since the order and has not seen the children in 8 months. The kids are so much better, they do not have the burden of making her happy in her bitter feminist world. There is hope keep all evidence, letters, e-mails, messages, document everything.
March 29th, 2009 at 11:01 am
As a then 40 yr old father on Salt Spring Island, B.C. eight years ago, I lost my twelve year old daughter Emily to parental alienation. My ex-wife waged a tireless campaign by claiming to both my daughter and the neighbours and my co-workers that I was a amle prostitute, a wanted felon and a serial killer of women. My daughter became terrified of me, once ran screaming into the school principal’s office to ‘escape’ and eventually cut off all contact with me and the aunts, uncles, grandparents etc. My ex-wife continued (and continues to this day) to be angry and aggressive; my new wife and I eventually moved 500 km away to the B.C. Interior just to avoid the craziness. All in all, a very traumatic experience that still cause me sleepless nights. The clowns from the Ministry of Children and Families, driven by feminist ideology, thought the concept of PAS was simply misogynistic. I wish I had helpful advice to all the Dads (and Moms!) suffering out there, but this ordeal nearly ruined us financially and we lost in the end. NOT a happy ending….. Paul
August 12th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
once again i am sadden by the many accounts of mainly fathers not getting good legal help just to give them a half of a chance to be with their kids. i have made a pact to myself…during the next many years i am going to continue to help my current husband obtain full custody of his 2 boys and also i am going to enroll in a series of law studies that will ultimately allow me to defend fathers in their never ending fight. i never knew why a lawyer needed to get rich off of poor helpless fathers that are already in a bad emotional situation. i also make a pact that if and when i complete the very extensive law program necessary, i will be a fathers rights lawyer and try to do everything i can to make the mothers pay for the fees because the fathers wouldnt be going to court if it wasnt for the mother alienating against them or interfering in some way.
FATHERS…i understand it is rather difficult to continue on with the fight….and there will be many times that you will find yourself asking if you are doing the right thing or not….if at first you dont succede…try try again. over the last 10 years i have learned that the judge says no only because how the paperwork was written…so look up other peoples files that best describe your situation…that should help. copy, paste and edit a little.
only one percent of fathers actually file 4 or more things with the courts after divorce. be a man…dont give up…help make that one percent a bigger number…file alot of times….ask questions….eventually the judge will get tired of seeing you and realize something is up.