What specialty?

[dipper]

Hi all, My ss has been in trouble at school - he was kicked out in the spring and sent to an alternative school.

Well, this fall he was back in regular public school.  About two weeks ago, he was in a class where the teacher's keys turned up missing.  They searched all the students - dont know what every happened about the keys - but ss had a knife in his shoe - blade over three inches long.

Not only was he suspended for five days, the police got him.  He now has a pretrial hearing in a couple of weeks.  

He went back to school on Wednesday of this week.  He was suspended for vandalism on Friday.  

SS had showed us his laptop - it looked fine until you cut it on and then it looked shattered.  He had told us that someone tripped him on the steps and he dropped it.  He had been scared to turn it in...but somehow it came about yesterday.  The school said he vandalized the laptop.

The principal and another school official also got ss out of class and searched him Friday.

Okay - are the searches legal?  We dont know why they searched him Friday - if its going to be routine or what....

Who can we talk to - we want ss to behave, but I was already afraid that he was labeled after last year.........

[Sunshine1]

Doesn't ANY of this have any bearing on your custody case?  I mean for God's sake he is obviously not under much parental control in her care.

The list is a mile long...

Suspended various times and for multiple offenses
Sent to an alternative school...resulting from the suspensions
Muliple absences
Burned over 20%? of his body while at a neighbors house unattended
Slapped by his mother...(not found to be abuse)
Goes back to public school and is suspended again, but now for much worse offenses.
Denials of visitations
Mother lets him run with kids in their 20's

....and I am sure I am leaving some things out, this kid needs his Dad, and needs to get out of that environment! How on earth is he still in her custody?????????????

Do you have a lawyer?  I can't believe all the things that are happening to you guys and SS.....(well yes I can, when I say the things that happen to us out loud, most of our friends can't even fathom that these things really go on).  I will be praying for your situation to get better and to bring some light at the end of this tunnel, and to bring some favor in your court situations.  Your family has been through quite enough.  It will get better, it just really sucks in the mean time.

I don't have any real expert advice on your question, but I think that if they have reasonable suspicion, they can search him. I know they can search the locker whenever they want to, but I think the Principal has to do it with a witness.

Take a look in the school's Handbook, it should be in there.  You can probably access it online. Or just call your local police dept and ask them what the rules are to searching students without the parent present.

[FIRM]

I think that you are asking the wrong questions.

Any kid that has a 3 inch blade in their shoe (whether or not a legal search) has a problem (not to mention the history that you described).

I think that you should be working with the authorities as opposed to undermining their legal ability to search your child (who apparently needs to be searched) because some one has certainly let this kid down...

With the history described, I would not trust that kid.  Period.  I would not believe that kid.  Period.  These are the consequences when they obviously have betrayed one's trust.  Therefore, that kid needs to earn trust back and not have others protecting him from himself...

One thing that you could do is to home school the child.

Another would be to get him into pyschological counseling.

Another would be to rummage his room and other whereabouts for more contraband and other problems.

We know the reasons for most children doing what your SS is doing (does not help in your case, just an understanding):

FEMINAZI FRAUD EXPOSED
OPEN LETTER, THE VAST MAJORITY OF THIS DOCUMENT WAS SUBMITTED TO THE US CONGRESS (HOUSE AND SENATE) IN SEPTEMBER OF 2000 RELATED TO THE REAUTHORIZATION OF VAWA.  

A very powerful Neo-Marxist Hate Group,[ii],[iii],[iv],[v] is attempting to deceive the Congress of the United States yet again [vi],[vii],[viii].  This organization's goals and objectives are to destroy families, marriages, and yes, even to wipe out children [ix],[x],[xi],[xii],[xiii],[xiv].  Leaders of this organization have even promoted [xv] and supported [xvi] INCEST with children.  This same ADVOCATE FOR INCEST has MOCKED THE US CONGRESS for not knowing what they had passed in dealing with this legislation which is now up for renewal [xvii].  This organization has become a powerful but seditious group seeking to destroy the Constitution [xviii],[xix].  Their leaders have proclaimed that the overwhelming majority of the US Congress are rapists [xx],[xxi],[xxii],[xxiii],[xxiv],[xxv],[xxvi],[xxvii] and that Congress is twisted for supporting marriage [xxviii].
This organization supports special legislation that is patently unconstitutional by their own admission [xxix],[xxx].  And through this organization's contempt and hatred of marriage and families, THEY SUPPORT AND PROMOTE CHILD ABUSE [xxxi],[xxxii] while perpetrating a FRAUD ON THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES AND ON THE AMERICAN PUBLIC [xxxiii],[xxxiv],[xxxv],[xxxvi],[xxxvii],[xxxviii],[xxxix],[xl],[xli],[xlii].
This organization's name is NOW, and the legislation they support is VAWAII.  And by the way, in some US Cities, SILENCE is now Domestic Violence as well [xliii].
Ask yourself, with as well supported as these simple paragraphs and statements are, how will VAWAII, supported by this seditious HATE GROUP, be used to destroy the marriages of your family, your children, or your grandchildren?  Ask yourself, will you vote for political expedience and political correctness and side with the Divorce Industry?  As NOW, and the various members of their HATE GROUP assemble over the next several weeks, will you bow to the pressure as over 5,000 marriages and their children are destroyed each day in America?  Or will you stand up and be counted as one who would make the difficult decisions necessary to look into the FRAUD of the entire Divorce Industry?  Will you be courageous enough to call for OPEN HEARINGS AND INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE INDUSTRY, THE DIVORCE INDUSTRY, AND INTO NOW??
How many more children and families will be sacrificed on the alter of political correctness and FINANCIALLY MOTIVATED FRAUD [xliv],[xlv],[xlvi],[xlvii]??  
This short piece is a SMALL SAMPLE OF OVER 1,000 CITABLE SOURCES SHOWING THAT THE ENTIRE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE INDUSTRY IS AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL FRAUD DESIGNED TO DEFRAUD THE AMERICAN TAXPAYERS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS while undermining and DESTROYING the SOCIAL FABRIC of our country and our culture.
SOLUTION:
Make VAWA TRULY about Domestic Violence and MAKE IT GENDER NEUTRAL.  It is imperative that the Federal Government, through tying it to funding, or through DIRECT PROVISION make false claims a SPECIAL CRIMINAL OFFENSE.  ANY organization that is found to encourage the use of false claims, or questionable claims, should be open to having ALL funding IMMEDIATELY suspended pending a FULL INVESTIGATION AND SPECIAL CRIMINAL PROSECUTION FOR ANYONE FOUND ENCOURAGING SUCH FALSE CLAIMS --; unless LAWLESSNESS is the ultimate GOAL of VAWA.  Certainly the Constitution is of little or no concern.
General Reno, using the DOJ has also released a "special supplement" to the VAWA act.  The composition of this group, was overwhelmingly those with a VESTED INTEREST IN MORE FEDERAL FUNDING AT THE FEDERAL GRANT TROUGH, and those with a FEMINIST AND NOW bent to their work [xlviii].  It isn't surprising with the BILLIONS at stake to continue to destroy families.  After reviewing even a FRACTION of the attached citations, it should become readily apparent that NOW and the Feminist supported DOMESTIC VIOLENCE networks consider the Congress and the Judiciary FOOLS who will do their special interest bidding.
by Bill Wood
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Harvard Professor Ruth Wisse.  '......Women's liberation, if not the most extreme then certainly the most influential neo-marxist movement in America, has done to the American home what communism did to the Russian economy, and most of the ruin is irreversible.  By defining between men and women in terms of power and competition instead of reciprocity and cooperation, the movement tore apart the most basic and fragile contract in human society, the unit from which all other social institutions draw their strength.'  
[ii] "Destroy the family," as Lenin said, "and you destroy society."  Thereby he merely repeated what Socrates had said before and what Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx put into words.  Lenin set out to do just that, hoping that a new society -- with the State as the ultimate father -- could be constructed.
[iii] "Feminism is the intellectual organization of gender hatred, just as Marxism was the intellectual organization of class hatred. Feminism's business is fashioning weapons to be used against men in society, education, politics, law and divorce court. The feminist aim is to overthrow "patriarchal tyranny." In this undertaking, the male's civil rights count for no more than those of the bourgeoisie in Soviet Russia or the Jews in National Socialist Germany."  What civil rights has wrought.  Paul Craig Roberts, July 26, 2000.  Townhall.com - Creators Syndicate.
[iv] "I feel that 'man-hating' is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them."  -- Robin Morgan, (editor of MS magazine)
[v] "The cultural institutions which embody and enforce those interlocked aberrations--for instance, law, art, religion, nation-states, the family, tribe, or commune based on father-right--these institutions are real and they must be destroyed." (Andrea Dworkin) [THIS COMMENTARY IS CLEARLY SUBVERSIVE AND DESIGNED TO UNDERMINE THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!]
[vi] N.O.W. LEGISLATIVE UPDATE -  June 12, 2000; NOW claims that VAWA is Gender Neutral and that it provides protection for men and children when a simple reading of VAWA shows that it CLEARLY EXCLUDES help for children and men.
[vii] NOW's LDEF (Legal Defense Education Fund) sponsors and helped to WRITE the VAWA legislation and therefore NOW is AWARE that the language of the bill **specifically** excludes children and is gender biased.  Yet NOW is KNOWINGLY LYING to the Congress of the United States of America and ellicits help from Congress and the Judiciary to destroy more families and children.
[viii] N.O.W. LEGISLATIVE UPDATE -  June 12, 2000
HATCH PROMISES TO BRING VAWA REAUTHORIZATION TO SENATE FLOOR VOTE
http://www.now.org/issues/legislat/06-12-2000.html#hatch_vawa "...it is important to stress that the Violence Against **WOMEN** Act [emphasis added] is gender neutral. Funds are available to support programs which assist men as well as women; if the language in the act were not gender neutral, it could not meet a Constitutionality challenge."  [Obvious "talking point" propaganda]
"And, any statistics that our opponents may cite that suggest that as many women as men are batterers are simply inaccurate and cannot be substantiated by sound scientific research."
http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm  - these "statistics" are from A PARTIAL LIST of approximately 117 studies showing that the NOW CLAIM IS YET AGAIN ANOTHER FRUAD!!!
[ix] "How will the family unit be destroyed? ... the demand alone will throw the whole ideology of the family into question, so that women can begin establishing a community of work with each other and we can fight collectively.  Women will feel freer to leave their husbands and become economically independent, either through a job or welfare." -- From Female Liberation by Roxanne Dunbar.
[x] "The nuclear family must be destroyed, and people must find better ways of living together. ... Whatever its ultimate meaning, the break-up of families now is an objectively revolutionary process. ... "Families have supported oppression by separating people into small, isolated units, unable to join together to fight for common interests. ... -- Functions of the Family, Linda Gordon, WOMEN: A Journal of Liberation, Fall, 1969.
[xi] "The Feminists -v- The Marriage License Bureau of the State of New York...All the discriminatory practices against women are patterned and rationalized by this slavery-like practice. We can't destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy marriage." -- From Sisterhood Is Powerful, Morgan (ed), 1970 p. 537.
[xii] Lenore Walker, speaking at a Laguna Beach conference, as reported in the SF Chronicle "Our research and most other studies show that wife-battering occurs in 50 percent of families throughout the nation."   The SF Chronicle comments, "Only the most crazed man-hater could believe that."
Lenore Walker, after visiting one of the early shelters for battered women, wrote "I was struck by what a beneficial alternative to the nuclear family this arrangement [communal housing and child raising] was for these women and children." (p.195) The Battered Woman

Gordon Fitch:  The nuclear family is a hotbed of violence and depravity.

"Feminists have long criticized marriage as a place of oppression, danger, and drudgery for women."  -- From article, "Is Marriage the Answer?" by Barbara Findlen, Ms magazine, May-June, 1995

"Only when manhood is dead--and it will perish when ravaged femininity no longer sustains it" -- (Andrea Dworkin)
"Families make possible the super-exploitation of women by training them to look upon their work outside the home as peripheral to their 'true' role. -- (Andrea Dworkin)
... No woman should have to deny herself any opportunities because of her special responsibilities to her children. ... Families will be finally destroyed only when a revolutionary social and economic organization permits people's needs for love and security to be met in ways that do not impose divisions of labor, or any external roles, at all." -- Functions of the Family, Linda Gordon, WOMEN: A Journal of Liberation, Fall, 1969.
The belief that married-couple families are superior is probably the most pervasive prejudice in the Western world. -- Judith Stacey

The little nuclear family is a paradigm that just doesn't work -- Toni Morrison
"[M]ost mother-women give up whatever ghost of a unique and human self they may have when they 'marry' and raise children." -- From Phyllis Chesler, Women and Madness, p. 294
Barbara Ehrenreich, as quoted by Stephen Chapman, from Time -- Ms. Ehrenreich extols the "long and honorable tradition of 'anti-family' thought," waxing nostalgic for those early feminists who regarded marriage as just another version of prostitution. This deeply defective institution "can hardly be the moral foundation of everything else," she argues, pining for the day when "someone invents a sustainable alternative."

Barbara Ehrenreich in Time:  Only with the occasional celebrity crime do we allow ourselves to think the nearly unthinkable: that the family may not be the ideal and perfect living arrangement after all that it can be a nest of pathology and a cradle of gruesome violence,...  Even in the ostensibly "functional," nonviolent family, where no one is killed or maimed, feelings are routinely bruised and often twisted out of shape.  There is the slap or the put-down that violates a child's shaky sense of self, the cold, distracted stare that drives a spouse to tears, the little digs and rivalries...

From Sisterhood Is Powerful, Robin Morgan (ed), 1970, p. 537:  We can't destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy marriage.

"I feel that 'man-hating' is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them."  -- Robin Morgan, (editor of MS magazine)

"I claim that rape exists any time sexual intercourse occurs when it has not been initiated by the woman, out of her own genuine affection and desire." -- - From Robin Morgan, "Theory and Practice: Pornography and Rape" in "Going to Far," 1974.

"Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women's bodies." -- Andrea Dworkin

"In every century, there are a handful of writers who help the human race to evolve. Andrea is one of them."--Gloria Steinem

"And if the professional rapist is to be separated from the average dominant heterosexual [male], it may be mainly a quantitative difference." -- Susan Griffin "Rape: The All-American Crime"

"The institution of sexual intercourse is anti-feminist" -- Ti-Grace Atkinson "Amazon Odyssey" (p. 86)

"When a woman reaches orgasm with a man she is only collaborating with the patriarchal system, eroticizing her own oppression..." -- Sheila Jeffrys

"Who cares how men feel or what they do or whether they suffer? They have had over 2000 years to dominate and made a complete hash of it. Now it is our turn. My only comment to men is, if you don't like it, bad luck - and if you get in my way I'll run you down." -- Letter to the Editor: "Women's Turn to Dominate"  -- Signed: Liberated Women, Boronia --  Herald-Sun, Melbourne, Australia - 9 February 1996
[xiii] It is well known, well understood, and widely accepted that divorce is destructive to children especially, but it also has detrimental psychological affects on women and men as well...
"In summary, 30% of the children in the present study experienced a marked decrease in their academic performance following parental separation, and this was evident three years later.  Access to both parents seemed to be the most protective factor, in that it was associated with better academic adjustment...Moreover, data revealed that noncustodial parents (mostly fathers) were very influential in their children's development...These data also support the interpretation that the more time a child spends with the noncustodial parent the better the overall adjustment of the child."

Factors Associated with Academic Achievement in Children Following Parental Separation, L. Bisnaire, PhD; P. Firestone, PhD; D. Rynard, MA Sc American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 60(1), January, 1990
                    ********************
[THE WOMEN OF TOMORROW THAT NOW SEEKS TO DESTROY!!]  "While in most instances adolescents from recently disrupted household were more negatively affected by their parents' divorce, some findings did identify long-term effects of earlier disruption. Adolescent girls who had experienced parental divorce when they were younger than six or between six and nine years old reported becoming involved with alcohol or drugs in proportions higher than did girls from intact families. Adolescent girls whose experience of divorce occurred before they were six more frequently reported skipping school than did girls from intact families or girls whose parents divorced when they were between the ages of six and nine."

"These findings underscore the vulnerability of adolescents whose parents have divorced within the last five years. The impact of the marital disruption was most pronounced among girls, who skipped school more frequently, reported more depress ehavior, and described social support in more negative terms than did boys from recently disrupted homes."

The Effects of Marital Disruption on Adolescents: Time as a Dynamic A. Frost, PhD; B. Pakiz, EdM, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 60(4), October, 1990
                    ********************
[MORE FEMALE NOW VICTIMS]  "Among teenage and adult populations of females, parental divorce has been associated with lower self-esteem, precocious sexual activity, greater delinquent-like behavior, and more difficulty establishing gratifying, lasting adult heterosexual relationships. It is especially intriguing to note that, in these studies, the parental divorce typically occurred years before any difficulties were observed..

"At the time of the marital separation, when (as is typical) father leaves the family home and becomes progressively less involved with his children over the ensuing years, it appears that young girls experience the emotional loss of father egocentrically as a rejection of them. While more common among preschool and early elementary school girls, we have observed this phenomenon clinically in later elementary school and young adolescent children. Here the continued lack of involvement is experienced as an ongoing rejection by him. Many girls attribute this rejection to their not being pretty enough, affectionate enough, athletic enough, or smart enough to please father and engage him in regular, frequent contacts".

"Finally, girls whose parents divorce may grow up without the day to day experience of interacting with a man who is attentive, caring and loving.  The continuous sense of being valued and loved as a female seems an especially key element in the development of the conviction that one is indeed femininely lovable. Without this regular source of nourishment, a girl's sense of being valued as a female does not seem to thrive."

Long-Term Effects of Divorce on Children: A Developmental Vulnerability Model Neil Kalter, Ph.D., University of Michigan, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 57(4), October, 1987
                    ********************
"Because divorce is a process, not an isolated event, the effects of the divorce may be cumulative and early intervention would therefore be beneficial.

The continued involvement of the non- custodial parent in the child's life appears crucial in preventing an intense sense of loss in the child.... The importance of the relationship with the non-custodial parent may also have implications for the legal issues of custodial arrangements and visitation.  The results of this study indicate that arrangements where both parents are equally involved with the child are optimal. When this type of arrangement is not possible, the child's continued relationship with the
non-custodial parent remains essential."

Young Adult Children of Divorced Parents: Depression and the Perception of Loss, Rebecca L. Drill, Ph.D., Harvard University. Journal of Divorce, V. 10, #1/2, Fall/Winter 1986
                    ********************
"The impact of parental divorce and subsequent father absence in the wake of this event has long been thought to affect children quite negatively.  For instance, parental divorce and father loss has been associated with difficulties in school adjustment (e.g. Felner, Ginter, Boike, & Cowen), Social Adjustment (e.g. Fry & Grover) and personal adjustment (e.g. Covell & Turnbull)...
                    ********************
"The results of the present study suggest that father loss through divorce is associated with diminished self-concepts in children...at least for this sample of children from the midwestern United States."

Children's Self Concepts: Are They Affected by Parental Divorce and Remarriage Thomas S. Parish, Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 1987, V 2, #4, 559-562

                    ********************
NOW PROMOTES the destruction of marriages as noted above in footnotes [ix] through [xiv].
[xiv] *N* *O* *W* Action Alert -- October 20, 1999 -- Fathers' Rights Bill Advances in the House.  This Action alert explains that the Father's Rights legislation before Congress is "bad for women and children" because it will "promote marriage" and "disseminat[e] information about the advantages of marriage", "promote successful parenting" and "disseminat[e] information about good parenting practices", and "help fathers and their families ... leave ... welfare".  A plain reading of the Action Alert [put link here] shows that when read in full context NOW will do ANYTHING to destroy marriages, families, and even children.
[xv] From "Woman Hating"by Andrea Dworkin, Penguin Books, 1974 p. 189, Chapter entitled "Androgyny, Androgyny F&$%@ng and Community"
Incest
    "The parent-child relationship is primarily erotic because all human relationships are primarily erotic. The incest taboo is a particularized form of repression, one which functions as the bulwark of all the other repressions. The incest taboo ensures that however free we become, we never become genuinely free. The incest taboo, because it denies us essential
fulfillment with the parents whom we love with our primary energy, forces us to internalize those parents and constantly seek them, or seek to negate them, in the minds, bodies and hearts of other humans who are not our parents and never will be.
   "The incest taboo does the worst work of the culture: it teaches us the mechanisms of repressing and internalizing erotic feeling-it forces us to develop those mechanisms in the first place; it forces us to particularize sexual feeling, so that it congeals into a need for a particular sexual "object"; it demands that we place the nuclear family above the human family.  The destruction of the incest taboo is essential to the development of cooperative human community based on free-flow of natural and androgynous eroticism.
The Family
   "For if we grant that the sexual drive is at birth diffuse and undifferentiated from the total personality (Freud's polymorphous perversity") and ... becomes differentiated only in response to the incest taboo; and that... the incest taboo is now necessarily only in order to preserve the family; and if we did away with the family we would in effect be doing away with repressions that mould sexuality into specific formations.  Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectics of Sex
   "The incest taboo can be destroyed only by destroying the nuclear family as the primary institution of the culture. The nuclear family is the school of values in a sexist, sexually repressed society... The alternative to the nuclear family at the moment is the extended family or the tribe. The growth of tribe is part of the process of destroying particularized roles and
fixed erotic identity. As people develop fluid androgynous identity, they will also develop the forms of community appropriate to it. We cannot really imagine what those forms will be."
[xvi] "In every century, there are a handful of writers who help the human race to evolve. Andrea is one of them." -- Gloria Steinem
[xvii] U. S. News, page 12, John Leo.  January 24, 2000 -- "The Violence Against Women Act slipped into law in 1994 without most members of Congress quite knowing what they were passing. We have Andrea Dworkin's word on this. Dworkin is surely a contender for the North American title of most overwrought, man-hating feminist. She told the New Republic at the time that the only possible explanation for the bill's popularity in the Senate was the 'senators don't understand the meaning of the legislation that they pass.' In plain English, she seemed to mean that Congress was naively institutionalizing the radical view of domestic violence as antifemale terrorism by a relentless oppressor class — men.
[xviii] A NOW Legislative Alert dated June 12, 2000 FRAUDULENTLY states:  ". . . the Violence Against Women Act is gender neutral.  Funds are available to support programs which assist men as well as women. . . ." and then says ". . .if the language in the act were not gender neutral, it could not meet a constitutionality challenge."
[xix] NOW LDEF to Rep. Nancy L. Johnson, October 4, 1999, gender based language is unconstitutional when it ". . . tie the federal benefits available under the act to gender . . . violate the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment. . . ."
"Further, to the extent that Act targets certain grants  to state programs offering gender-specific benefits, it would operate to encourage states to violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.  As recently set out by the U.S. Supreme Court in Saenz v. Roe, 119 S. Ct. 1518 (1999), Congress cannot authorize states to accomplish indirectly what Congress itself is constitutionally prohibited from doing."
The VAWAII act specifically states in part "Ineligible activities" include "projects that focus on "children or men."
[xx] "All men are rapists and that's all they are" -- Marilyn French Author, "The Women's Room" (quoted again in People Magazine)  "All men are rapists and that's all they are ..." --Feminist Marilyn French, People Magazine (Percent of reported rape or near-rape incidents = .07% [The FBI's Uniform Crime Report lists for the year 1996])
[xxi] "[Rape] is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which ALL MEN KEEP ALL WOMEN IN A STATE OF FEAR" [emphasis added] -- Susan Brownmiller (Against Our Will p. 6)
[xxii] "Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice. Rape, originally defined as abduction, became marriage by capture. Marriage meant the taking was to extend in time, to be not only use of but possession of, or ownership." -- Andrea Dworkin.  
Also, see footnotes [ix] through [xiv] related to the Feminist Position on marriage and its destruction.
[xxiii] "...[A]ll heterosexual intercourse is rape because women, as a group, are not strong enough to give meaningful consent" -- Catherine MacKinnon, "Professing Feminism:  Cautionary Tales From The Strange World of Women's Studies"
[xxiv] "Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women's bodies." -- Andrea Dworkin
[xxv] As cited in Andrea Dworkin's "Right-Wing Women"  "...I submit that any sexual intercourse between a free man and a human being he owns or controls is rape." -- Alice Walker in "Embracing the Dark and the Light," Essence, July 1982.
[xxvi] "Compare victims' reports of rape with women's reports of sex. They look a lot alike....[T]he major distinction between intercourse (normal) and rape (abnormal) is that the normal happens so often that one cannot get anyone to see anything wrong with it." Catherine MacKinnon, quoted in Christina Hoff Sommers, "Hard-Line Feminists Guilty of Ms.-Representation," Wall Street Journal, November 7, 1991.
[xxvii] "One can know everything and still be unable to accept the fact that sex and murder are fused in the male consciousness, so that the one without the imminent possibly of the other is unthinkable and impossible." Andrea Dworkin, Letters from a War Zone, p. 21..
[xxviii] Patricia Ireland of NOW has referred to the Congress of the United States of America as "twisted" for supporting such notions as marriage and family in a publication titled "Father's Count Act will hurt Women and Kids", January 28, 2000, by Patricia Ireland
[xxix] A NOW Legislative Alert dated June 12, 2000 FRAUDULENTLY states:  ". . . the Violence Against Women Act is gender neutral.  Funds are available to support programs which assist men as well as women. . . ." and then says ". . .if the language in the act were not gender neutral, it could not meet a constitutionality challenge."
[xxx] NOW LDEF to Rep. Nancy L. Johnson, October 4, 1999, gender based language is unconstitutional when it ". . . tie the federal benefits available under the act to gender . . . violate the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment. . . ."
"Further, to the extent that Act targets certain grants  to state programs offering gender-specific benefits, it would operate to encourage states to violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.  As recently set out by the U.S. Supreme Court in Saenz v. Roe, 119 S. Ct. 1518 (1999), Congress cannot authorize states to accomplish indirectly what Congress itself is constitutionally prohibited from doing."
[xxxi] Absent fathers, which NOW STRINGENTLY SUPPORTS, is EASILY documented as one of the most devastating trends in our culture today.  Just a few of the abstracts about the destructive nature of absent fathers can be seen here;
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AND HERE IS THE OUTCOME OF THE FEMINIST AGENDA ~~~!!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Child Maltreatment 1997: Reports from the States to the National Child Abuse and neglect data system, put out by the US DHHS  "Section 7.2 --  DCDC data reveal that 184,152 perpetrators (62.3%) were female, and 111,473 (37.7%)  were male."

From the "Executive Summary" The Advisory Board put forth 26 recommendations for solving child abuse problems.  Rec. 23 reads:  "State and local agencies should design prevention programs for men.  Programs should integrate services on child abuse and domestic violence and address the need for interagency training.   Specific strategies must reach men and alert women to the potential role of men in abuse."  THERE IS NO RECOMMENDATION REGARDING WOMEN.
                    ********************
[DESTRUCTION OF GIRLS] Clinical Observations on Interferences of Early Father Absence in the Achievement of Femininity by R. Lohr, C. g, A. Mendell and B. Riemer, Clinical Social Work Journal, V. 17, #4, Winter, 1989
"In an earlier study by Kalter and Rembar at [Children's Psychiatric Hospital, University of Michigan], a sample of 144 child and adolescent patients, whose parents had divorced, presented [for evaluation and treatment] with three most commonly occurring problems:

63% Subjective psychological problem (defined as anxiety, sadness, pronounced moodiness, phobias, and depression)
56% Poor grades or grades substantially below ability and/or recent past performance
43% Aggression toward parents

Important features of the subgroup of 32 latency aged girls were in the same order:

69% indicating subjective psychological distress
47% academic problems
41% aggression toward parents.
[Note:  These same destructive traits are likely to be carried over into adulthood and perpetuated yet again on their own children.  Hence the cycle of destruction continues as noted in the *extremely* high rates of female perpetrated child abuse.]
                    ********************
[Excerpt from US House of Representatives written testimony of Richard Weiss and William Wood re: HR1488.  Hearing held March 16, 2000]

It is finally becoming widely understood that father-absence is one of the most destructive forces to children in our society --; fatherless homes account for 63% of youth suicides, 90% of all homeless and runaway children,[51] 85% of all children exhibiting behavioral disorders,[52] 80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger,[53] 71% of all high school dropouts,[54] 75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers,[55] 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions,[56] and 85% of prison youths.[57]

Contrast this with 37.9% of fathers have no access/visitation rights[58].  Non-compliance with court ordered visitation by custodial mothers prevents 77% of non-custodial fathers from being able to "visit" their children[59].  Non-compliance with court ordered visitation is three times the problem of non-compliance with court ordered child support and impacts the children of divorce even more.  40% of custodial mother SELF-REPORTS indicate they interfered with the father's visitation to "punish" them,[60] ~50% see no value in the father's involvement with the child,[61] and many use the children to retaliate against the father for their own ongoing personal problems.[62]

The court system does not enforce orders for "visitation" but jails for non-compliance with a "child" support order.  This is a clear indication that the whole DIVORCE INDUSTRY is about money and children are just the "poker chips" in this high stakes "game".  Their destruction is just "collateral damage" for the marriage hating special interests pushing their junk data.

[51] U.S. D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census
[52] Center for Disease Control
[53] Criminal Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26, 1978
[54] National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools
[55] Rainbows for all God`s Children
[56] U.S. Dept. of Justice, Special Report, Sept 1988
[57] Fulton Co. Georgia jail populations, Texas Dept. of Corrections 1992
[58] p.6, col.II, para. 6, lines 4 & 5, Census Bureau P-60, #173, Sept 1991
[59] Visitational Interference - A National Study, Ms. J Annette Vanini, M.S.W. and Edward Nichols, M.S.W. (September 1992)
[60] p. 449, col. II, lines 3-6, (citing Fulton) Frequency of visitation by Divorced Fathers; Differences in Reports by Fathers and Mothers. Sanford Braver et al, Am. J. of Orthopsychiatry, 1991.
[61] Surviving the Breakup, Joan Kelly & Judith Wallerstein, p. 125
[62] Journal of Marriage & the Family, Vol. 51, p. 1015, Seltzer, Shaeffer & Charing, November 1989
                    ********************
1) BEHAVIORAL DISORDERS/ RUNAWAYS/ HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUTS/CHEMICAL ABUSERS/SUICIDES

85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes (Source: Center for Disease Control)
90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes (Source: U.S. D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census)
71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes (Source: National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools.)
75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes (Source: Rainbows for all God's Children.)
63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (Source: U.S. D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census)
RE: Youth Suicide and Divorce/ Single parent Homes:
"In a study of 146 adolescent friends of 26 adolescent suicide victims, teens living in single-parent families are not only more likely to commit suicide but also more likely to suffer from psychological disorders, when compared to teens living in intact families."  Source: David A. Brent, (et. al.) "Post-traumatic Stress Disorders in Peers of Adolescent Suicide Victims: Predisposing Factors and Phenomenology." Journal of the AMerican Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 34 (1995): 209-215.

"Fatherless children are at dramatically greater risk of suicide." Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics, Survey on Child Health, Washington, D.C., 1993.

"Three out of four teenage suicides occur in households where a parent has been absent."  Source: Jean Beth Eshtain, "Family Matters: The Plight of America's Children." The Christian Century (July 1993): 14-21.

"A family structure index - a composite index based on the annual rate of children involved in divorce and the percentage of families with children present that are female-headed - is a strong predictor of suicide among young adult and adolescent white males." Source: Patricia L. McCall and Kenneth C. Land, "Trends in White Male Adolescent, Young-Adult, and Elderly Suicide: Are Ther Common Underlying Structural Factors?" Social Science Research 23 (1994): 57-81

2) JUVENILE DELINQUENCY/ CRIME/ GANGS

80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes (Source: Criminal Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26, 1978)
70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes (Source: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Special Report, Sept 1988)
85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherless home (Source: Fulton Co. Georgia jail populations, Texas Dept. of Corrections 1992)
California has the nation's highest juvenile incarceration rate and the nation's highest juvenile unemployment rate. Vincent Schiraldi, Executive Director, Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, "What Hallinan's Victory Means," San Francisco Chronicle (12/28/95).
These statistics translate to mean that children from a fatherless home are:

5 times more likely to commit suicide.
32 times more likely to run away.
20 times more likely to have behavioral disorders.
14 times more likely to commit rape
9 times more likely to drop out of high school.
10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances.
9 times more likely to end up in a state-operated institution.
20 times more likely to end up in prison.
Juveniles have become the driving force behind the nation's alarming increases in violent crime, with juvenile arrests for murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault growing sharply in the past decade as pistols and drugs became more available, and expected to continue at the same alarming rate during the next decade. "Justice Dept. Issues Scary Report on Juvenile Crime," San Francisco Chronicle (9/8/95).
"Crime Wave Forecast With Teenager Boom," San Francisco Chronicle (2/15/95).
Criminal behavior experts and social scientists are finding intriguing evidence that the epidemic of youth violence and gangs is related to the breakdown of the two-parent family.
"New Evidence That Quayle Was Right: Young Offenders Tell What Went Wrong at Home," San Francisco Chronicle
(12/9/94).
3) TEENAGE PREGNANCY

"Daughters of single parents are 53% more likely to marry as teenagers, 164% more likely to have a premarital birth, and 92% more likely to dissolve their own marriages.  All these intergenerational consequences of single motherhood increase the likelihood of chronic welfare dependency."  Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, Atlantic Monthly (April 1993).
Daughters of single parents are 2.1 times more likely to have children during their teenage years than are daughters from intact families.  The Good Family Man, David Blankenhorn.
71% of teenage pregnancies are to children of single parents. U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services.
4) CHILD ABUSE

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states that there were more than 1,000,000 documented child abuse cases in 1990. In 1983, it found that 60% of perpetrators were women with sole custody. Shared parenting can significantly reduce the stress associated with sole custody, and reduce the isolation of children in abusive situations by allowing both parents' to
monitor the children's health and welfare and to protect them.
5) POVERTY

"The National Fatherhood Institute reports that 18 million children live in single-parent homes. Nearly 75% of American children living in single-parent families will experience poverty before they turn 11. Only 20% in two-parent families will experience poverty."
Melinda Sacks, "Fatherhood in the 90's: Kids of absent fathers more "at risk"," San Jose Mercury News (10/29/95).
"The feminization of poverty is linked to the feminization of custody, as well as linked to lower earnings for women. Greater opportunity for education and jobs through shared parenting can help break the cycle." David Levy, Ed., The Best Parent is Both Parents (1993).
6) KIDNAPPING

Family abductions were 163,200 compared to non-family abductions of 200-300.  The parental abductions were attributed to the parents' disenchantment with the legal system. David Levy, Ed., The Best Parent is Both Parents (1993), citing a report from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice (May 1990).

                    ********************
Ninety percent of divorced fathers have less than full custody of their children." Jonathan M. Honeycutt, Ph.D.(c), M.P.A., M.A., I.P.C. Director of Research, Clinical & Consulting Psychotherapist, National Institute for Divorce Research, Panama City, Florida.

                    ********************
The State of Fatherhood
37.9% of fathers have no access/visitation rights. (Source: p.6, col.II, para. 6, lines 4 & 5, Census Bureau P-60, #173, Sept 1991.)
"40% of mothers reported that they had interfered with the non-custodial father's visitation on at least one occasion, to punish the ex-spouse." (Source: p. 449, col. II, lines 3-6, (citing Fulton) Frequency of visitation by Divorced Fathers; Differences in Reports by Fathers and Mothers.  Sanford Braver et al, Am. J. of Orthopsychiatry, 1991.)
"Overall, approximately 50% of mothers "see no value in the father`s continued contact with his children...." (Source: Surviving the Breakup, Joan Kelly & Judith Wallerstein, p. 125)
Only 11% of mothers value their husband's input when it comes to handling problems with their kids. Teachers & doctors rated 45%, and close friends & relatives rated %16.(Source: EDK Associates survey of 500 women for Redbook Magazine. Redbook, November 1994, p. 36)
"The former spouse (mother) was the greatest obstacle to having more frequent contact with the children." (Source: Increasing our understanding of fathers who have infrequent contact with their children, James Dudley, Family Relations, Vol. 4, p. 281, July 1991.)
"A clear majority (70%) of fathers felt that they had too little time with their children." (Source: Visitation and the Noncustodial Father, Mary Ann Kock & Carol Lowery, Journal of Divorce, Vol. 8, No. 2, p. 54, Winter 1984.)
"Very few of the children were satisfied with the amount of contact with their fathers, after divorce." (Source: Visitation and the
Noncustodial Father, Koch & Lowery, Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, Vol. 8, No. 2, p. 50, Winter 1984.)
"Feelings of anger towards their former spouses hindered effective involvement on the part of fathers; angry mothers would sometimes sabotage father's efforts to visit their children." (Source: Ahrons and Miller, Am. Journal of Orthopsychiatry, Vol. 63. p. 442, July `93.)
"Mothers may prevent visits to retaliate against fathers for problems in their marital or post-marital relationship." (Source: Seltzer, Shaeffer & Charing, Journal of Marriage & the Family, Vol. 51, p. 1015, November 1989.)
In a study: "Visitational Interference - A National Study" by Ms. J Annette Vanini, M.S.W. and Edward Nichols, M.S.W., it was found that 77% of non-custodial fathers are NOT able to "visit" their children, as ordered by the court, as a result of "visitation interference" perpetuated by the custodial parent. In other words, non-compliance with court ordered visitation is three times the problem of non-compliance with court ordered child support and impacts the children of divorce even more.Originally published Sept. 1992

                    ********************
(http://millennium.fortunecity.com/sweetvalley/206/vac/ncd9802.pdf) concerning a U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Study indicating that women are the main perpetrators of abuse of children 77% of the time that the child protection agencies investigate.  The DHHS 1996 Child Maltreatment Study (the source of the above statistics) http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/stats/ncands96/index.htm. The DHHS 1995 Child Maltreatment Study. http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/stats/ncands/index.htm

The US's NIS-3 study, expanded data sources to include untrained people (e.g. sheriff's offices), but still indicate the patterns of maltreatment for various types of parents. The report indicates that natural parents account for some 78% of child maltreatment and, of that 46% of the time the natural father was involved and 75% of the time the natural mother was involved (sometimes both were involved). It also notes that natural mothers tend to inflict more fatal (78% of the time, too low to measure for natural fathers), serious (81% vs. 43%) and moderate (72% vs 48%) abuse on the child than do natural fathers. You can see this from these NIS tables from Chapter 6 in PDF format (http://millennium.fortunecity.com/sweetvalley/206/vac/nis3t6.pdf). For those with the desire for more information we have the entire Chapter 6 in PDF format (http://millennium.fortunecity.com/sweetvalley/206/vac/nisc6.pdf). We would recommend that you look at attaining the entire report from DHHS if this information is relevant to you.

NIS-3, Table 6-4 shows that 1,500 children were fatally abused in 1993--1,200 by natural parents, and 78% by females.   Since the data for the percent of non-natural parents [read: step-fathers and live-in boyfriends] who fatally abused their chilidren is missing, the assumption is made that the percent of perpetrators of fatal abuse by non-natural fathers is an average of Table 6-3 (90%, 97%, 74%, 82%, or 86%).  28 million children are now growing up in fatherless households, where the rate of fatal child abuse is 0.017 per 1,000 children, so 476 children were fatally abused in mother-only households in 1993.  2.8 million children are now growing up in father-only households where the rate of fatal abuse is .005 per 1,000 children, so 14 children were fatally abused in father-only households in 1993.

US Office of Technology Assessment,Howard Dubowitz, through a health program to evaluate child abuse, dated May 1987, entitled "Child Maltreatment in the US" ...concludes that 2.3% of sexual abuse of girls was by biological fathers versus 17% by stepfathers

                    ********************
Single Mother Households (SMH) are the most dangerous living arrangement to Children.

In Single Mother Households, 422 children are fatally abused each year.
In Single Father Households, 25 children are fatally abused each year.
In Dual Parent Families, 16 children are fatally abused each year.

430 children are killed by firearm accidents each year.  Of 430 children killed by firearms, 322 are killed in Single Mother
Households. Single Mother Households account for 70% of fatal child abuse and accidental firearm deaths.

Source: Donna Shalala, "National Child Abuse Prevention Month" and "Child Maltreatment 1994: Reports from the States to the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect". Patrick Fagan, Heritage Foundation, "THE CHILD ABUSE CRISIS: THE DISINTEGRATION OF MARRIAGE, FAMILY, AND THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY", Rick Thomas, "The Dirty Little Secret: Abuse in Foster Care"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Heritage Foundation report "The Child Abuse Crisis: The Disintegration of Marriage, Family, and the American Community," May 15, 1997 notes that: "[due to] ... the disintegration of family and community ... America's infants and young chilren, about 2,000 of whom -- 6 per day -- die each year," and provides the following estimate:

Total Children Killed Per Year    2,000
Killed by Mothers                     1,100        55.0%
Killed by Stepfathers                   250        12.5%
Killed by Live-In Boyfriends          513        25.7%
Killed by Biological Fathers         137          6.9%
Killed by being in SMH              1863        93.2% (55%+12.5+25.7)

This study demonstrates that the least dangerous place for a child is with the father by a margin of over 14 to 1 ( 2000 / 137 = 14.5985 ). Directly or indirectly, the stepfathers and live-in boyfriends are associated with the mother's household and therefore a child is conversely 14 times more likely to be killed in the mother's care. Excluding Stepfathers and Live-in boyfriends, mothers are 8 times as likely to kill a child than the biological father ( 1100 / 137 = 8.0291 ).
                     ********************
Many apologists for maternal abuse/neglect claim "opportunity" as a justification for the higher maternal-abuse figures, and with some justification.  For instance, a study of inner city child abuse (Lansing) published in a major journal in 1984 indicated that approximately 50% of the confirmed child abuse/neglect was committed by single parent mothers.

"Opportunity" is somewhat offset by the "you just wait until your father gets home" pressure for a father to punish children for an infraction committed under the mother's supervision.

The "opportunity" excuse fades further in a 10-year study of confirmed parental child abuse/neglect in a state that awards over 40% "visitation" time to separated noncustodial parents (usually fathers).  In that state, prior to the state-wide guideline, 64% of confirmed child abuse was committed by mothers, 36% by fathers.  Following implementation of the "visitation" guideline, the gap has widened and now stands at 69%-70% mothers, 30%-31% fathers.  [by this study, CHILDREN ARE SAFER WITH THEIR FATHERS when considering the OPPORUNITY EXCUSE!!]
[xxxii] Cutting Off Children's Noses to Spite Men's Faces -- By Armin Brott - Knight-Ridder
The National Organization for Women (NOW) has finally done it. By vehemently opposing a piece of legislation that promotes marriage, successful parenting, and keeping families off welfare, the radical women's group has clearly demonstrated that it has outlived its usefulness and that it's doing more harm to women and children than good.

At issue is the Fatherhood Counts Act of 1999, which would give $150 million in grants over five years to public and private organizations that will provide poor under- and unemployed fathers with parenting and
marital-skills training, special visitation centers, classes on money management, help improving their credit records, and job training so they can meet child support obligations. As a result, the bill would enable millions of low-income parents and their children to get off welfare and could potentially save Federal and state governments billions in social services expenditures.

Sounds like something women's groups would support. After all, wouldn't most women want men to take some parenting and relationship-skills classes?  And wouldn't it be good for women if men could get decent jobs, support their families, and spend more time with their kids? Well, apparently that's not good enough for NOW, which last week fired off an "Action Alert," warning its members that the Act is "bad for women and children" and urging them to lobby against it.

What's so objectionable about Fatherhood Counts? In written testimony submitted to Congress, NOW's Legal Defense and Education Fund claimed that the Act is unconstitutional because it ties "federal benefits available under the Act to gender (i.e., 'fatherhood')." Who are they kidding?  Where are NOW's constitutional objections to the billions of dollars (including over $1  million to NOW itself) that women's groups receive under the Violence Against Women Act? And where are the objections to the millions of dollars that fund federal, state, and local Commissions on the Status of Women?  Commissions on the Status of Men do not exist.

NOW complains that the bill allows states to suspend (but not cancel) child support arrearages if the father "is unemployed, underemployed, or having difficulty in paying child support obligations." Fatherhood Counts doesn't protect rich men who don't pay child support. It offers help only to men who've been on welfare or received food stamps in the past 24 months-fathers who are simply incapable of paying. Wouldn't women and children be better off if these men learned some marketable skills so they could go to work instead of to jail?

NOW also claims that by promoting marriage, the Act doesn't protect women who are the victims of domestic violence. In truth, the bill has extensive provisions that do exactly that.  And NOW worries that the Act could give money to fathers' rights groups. So what? If women's groups get money to help battered women, shouldn't fathers' groups get money to work with disenfranchised fathers?

Children-the people who need the most help-are the biggest victims of NOW's ill-conceived positions. It's common and irrefutable knowledge that kids who have a father in their lives are less likely to smoke or abuse drugs or alcohol, less likely to become teen parents or get involved in crime, and far more likely to finish high school and go to college.

So why deny millions of children the chance to reestablish relationships with their fathers and experience the benefits that having a father around provides? And why deny poor mothers a long-overdue chance to improve their lives? It's painfully simple: although Fatherhood Counts benefits women and children, it benefits men too.

NOW once helped empower millions of women. But today it has become so consumed by hate that it would rather harm our children (and their mothers) than back anything that might make life a little easier for men. It's like a twisted version of Gore Vidal's observation that, "It's not enough that I succeed. My friends must fail."

One really has to wonder why anyone pays any attention to NOW anymore.  The group has only a few thousand members, according to the Washington Post, and Ms. magazine's circulation is insignificant compared to the more popular women's magazines. Clearly, women, many of whom consider themselves
feminists, have begun to distance themselves from NOW's intellectual dishonesty and harmful rhetoric. Isn't it time that the media, Congress, and the rest of us did the same? The future of America's children may depend on it.

Armin Brott's most recent book is Throwaway Dads: The Myths and Barriers That Keep Men From Being the Fathers They Want to Be. E-mail him at [email protected].
[xxxiii] "A NOW LDEF staff attorney has been appointed to the American Bar Association Custody Executive Committee.  From that vantage point, we [NOW] successfully opposed a proposed A.B.A. model statute that would PERMIT [emphasis added] judges to impose joint custody over a parent's opposition."  -- A NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, November 16, 1988.
"....when the non-custodial parent is perceived as "lost," the young adult is more depressed. When a divorce occurs, the perception of the non-custodial father has been shown to change in a negative direction, while the perception of the mother (whether custodon-custodial) remains relatively stable. "
"It is ironic, and of some interest, that we have subjected joint custody to a level and intensity of scrutiny that was never directed toward the traditional post-divorce arrangement (sole legal and physical custody to the mother and two weekends each month of visiting to the father.)  Developmental and relationship theory should have alerted the mental health field to the potential immediate and long range consequences for the child of only seeing a parent four days each month. And yet until recently, there was no particular challenge to this traditional post-divorce parenting arrangement, despite growing evidence that such post-divorce relationships were not sufficiently nurturing or stabilizing for many children and parents."

"There is some evidence that in our well-meaning efforts to save children in the immediate post-separation period from anxiety, confusion, and the normative divorce-engendered conflict, we have set the stage in the longer run for the more ominous symptoms of anger, depression, and a deep sense of loss by depriving the child of the opportunity to maintain a full relationship with each parent."

Examining Resistance to Joint Custody, Monograph by Joan Kelly, Ph.D. (associate of Judith Wallerstein, Ph.D) From the 1991 Book Joint Custody and Shared Parenting, second edition, Guilford Press, 1991.
[xxxiv] Lenore Walker, speaking at a Laguna Beach conference, as reported in the SF Chronicle "Our research and most other studies show that wife-battering occurs in 50 percent of families throughout the nation."   The SF Chronicle comments, "Only the most crazed man-hater could believe that."
Lenore Walker, after visiting one of the early shelters for battered women, wrote "I was struck by what a beneficial alternative to the nuclear family this arrangement [communal housing and child raising] was for these women and children." (p.195) The Battered Woman
[xxxv] Lesbians and Domestic Violence - From HHS web site.
By definition, Lesbian relationships do NOT have men involved.  So then, are we to believe the lying PROPAGANDA from NOW about Domestic Violence being ONLY a male on female issue??
These studies are [or were] POSTED on the US Department of Health and Human services PSC (Program Support Center) web site.  http://library.psc.gov/library/women_and_violence.html#lesbians
Bailey GR. "Treatment of domestic violence in gay and lesbian relationships." Journal of Psychological Practice 2 (2): 1-8, 1996.
Bernhard LK. "Physical and sexual violence experienced by lesbian and heterosexual women." Violence Against Women 6 (1): 68-79, 2000.
Burke LK, Follingstad DR. "Violence in lesbian and gay relationships: Theory, prevalence, and correlational factors." Clinical Psychology Review 19 (5): 487-512, 1999.
Coleman VE. "Lesbian battering: The relationship between personality and the perpetration of violence." Violence and Victims 9 (2): 139-152, 1994.
Farley N. "A survey of factors contributing to gay and lesbian domestic violence." In: Renzetti CM, Miley CH, ed. Violence in Gay and Lesbian Domestic Partnerships: 35-42. New York: Harrington Park Press/Haworth Press, Inc., 1996.
Fortunata B. "Lesbian experience of domestic violence." Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences & Engineering 60 (2-B): 0872, 1999.
Hanson B. "The violence we face as lesbians and gay men: The landscape both outside and inside our communities." Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services 4 (2): 95-113, 1996.
Istar A. "Couple assessment: Identifying and intervening in domestic violence in lesbian relationships." In: Renzetti CM, Miley CH, ed. Violence in Gay and Lesbian Domestic Partnerships: 93-160. New York: Harrington Park Press/Haworth Press, Inc., 1996.
Klinger RL, Stein TS. "Impact of violence, childhood sexual abuse, and domestic violence and abuse on lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men." In: Cabaj RP, Stein TS, ed. Textbook of Homosexuality and Mental Health: 801-818.  Washington DC: American Psychiatric Press, Inc., 1996.
Lockhart LL, White BW, Causby V. "Letting out the secret: Violence in lesbian relationships." Journal of Interpersonal Violence 9 (4): 469-492, 1994.
Margolies L, Leeder E. "Violence at the door: Treatment of lesbian batterers." Violence Against Women 1 (2): 139-157, 1995.
Marrujo B, Kreger M. "Definition of roles in abusive lesbian relationships." In: Renzetti CM, Miley CH, ed. Violence in Gay and Lesbian Domestic Partnerships: 23-33. New York: Harrington Park Press/Haworth Press, Inc., 1996.
Mendez JM. "Serving gays and lesbians of color who are survivors of domestic violence." In: Renzetti CM, Miley CH, ed. Violence in Gay and Lesbian Domestic Partnerships: 53-59. New York: Harrington Park Press/Haworth Press, Inc., 1996.
Renzetti CM. "The poverty of services for battered lesbians." In: Renzetti CM, Miley CH, ed. Violence in Gay and Lesbian Domestic Partnerships: 61-68.  New York: Harrington Park Press/Haworth Press, Inc., 1996.
Renzetti CM. "Violence and abuse in lesbian relationships: Theoretical and empirical issues." In: Bergen R, ed. Issues in Intimate Violence: 117-127.  Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 1998.
Renzetti CM, Miley CH, Dandeneau C. "Violence in gay and lesbian domestic partnerships." Sex Roles 36 (5-6): 431-432, 1997.
Renzetti CM. "Violence in lesbian and gay relationships." In: O'Tolle L, Schiffman JR, ed. Gender Violence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives: 285-293.  New York: New York University Press, 1997.
Scherzer T. "Domestic violence in lesbian relationships: Findings of the Lesbian Relationships Research Project." In: Ponticilli C, ed. Gateways to Improving Lesbian Health and Health Care: Opening Doors: 29-47. New York:  Harrington Park Press/ The Haworth Press, Inc., 1998.
Sloan L, Edmond T. "Shifting the focus: Recognizing the needs of lesbian and gay survivors of sexual violence." Journal of Gay and Lesbian Social Services 5 (4): 33-52, 1996.
Stahly GB, Lie GY. "Women and violence: A comparison of lesbian and heterosexual battering relationships." In: Chrisler JC, Hemstreet AH, ed. Variations on a Theme: Diversity and the Psychology of Women: 51-78.  Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995.
Taylor J, Chandler T, Cross EJ. "Lesbians talk violent relationships." Women's Studies International Forum 19 (3): 345-346, 1996.
Waldron CM. "Lesbians of color and the domestic violence movement." In: Renzetti CM, Miley CH, ed. Violence in Gay and Lesbian Domestic Partnerships: 43-51. New York: Harrington Park Press/Haworth Press, Inc., 1996.
VAWA, as a GENDER BIASED BILL is TAXPAYER FRAUD!!!  Not to mention that it is patently unconstitutional...  Let's SAVE the taxpayers 4 BILLION dollars while having a FULL IN DEPTH INVESTIGATION INTO VAWA *AND* NOW!!!
[xxxvi] " ...eighty percent of those polled said they had actually handled a case where they believed there was false accusation of abuse, as in disputes over custody of children, for instance."[News Release, from The Dilenschneider Group Inc., representing the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers),  Three First National Place, 70 West Madison Street, Chicago, IL 60602, 11/91.]
This was over 10 years ago, and under VAWA and RADICAL PROSECUTORIAL ACTION, as well as the high stakes child support scam, this number is surely nearer 100% today.
[xxxvii] An epidemic of lies, Backlash Magazine, August 1999, Dennis Austin
The use of false allegations in divorce is rapidly becoming an epidemic which is spreading throughout the world. According to the National Shared Parenting Association (Saskatchewan Chapter), in Canada a Children's Aid Society study showed that of 1200 complaints of abuse, 900 involved custody disputes. Of those 900 allegations, two thirds (600) were found to be false.
Millions of false allegations
In Armin A. Brott's article A system out of control: The epidemic of false allegations of child abuse, he states, "In California, for example, the Victim/Witness program will pay directly to a licensed therapist up to $10,000 per child for counseling - as long as the child was alleged to have been abused. An additional $10,000 is available to counsel the child's mother. The only catch: to get their therapy paid for, the child victim and her mother must see a therapist from an approved list. Guess who directs the mother to a therapist who would be best for her and her child? CPS, of course."
These CPS workers often ask leading questions which can distort the children's memories. In their reports to the court, they often ignore evidences that would clear the accused, such as lie detector tests and outside therapist evaluations and rely solely on the child's evaluations which have been skewed by the CPS and the therapists that they recommend.
In a report disseminated by the Nationa

[MixedBag]

School counselors, the principal, and juvenile officers in the police department (and he probably has a probation officer by now from the knife incident.)

You don't say how old he is....

And what was he doing with a lap top??  Was it his or the schools?

Sounds a bit irresponsible too on the school's part to let a student walk around with a laptop, period......not sure our school would allow that or does that.

Searches are probably legal.  You probably gave permission on one of those forms you sign at the beginning of each year.

Could be that he is "labeled" -- not really your concern because you need to work with authorities on the here and now.

Remember that it takes tons of "I'm sorries" to overcome a wrong, not just one....so it will take tons of time to overcome whatever happened last year and what's happening now.  It can't be fixed over night and there's no set period of time anyone can give you.

[dipper]

We do have a lawyer - but he is the one that delayed the hearing this past week.  He said that with the new developments, teachers need to be subpoenad - in all honesty, we didnt want the case continued.  The lawyer simply had not prepared and wanted more time.  Now its near Christmas before this gets in court.  And the way things are going, ss will be in real trouble by then.

BM slapping ss - well, that is to be decided during the custody trial as to abuse or not.  We will have a different judge from the one that sent ss back with her that day.

The day of the slapping, she cursed dh repeatedly in front of their sons.  Her friends have made comments about beating dh up in front of yss.  And last weekend, her brother was talking about beating dh up in front of both children.  Not to mention she called dh a sorry-*ss today  and went on and on about how she has to pay for everything for ss.....

She seems to forget that dh pays all health and dental insurance, 75% copays, bought ss school supplies, and pays cs.  But then again, she is the saint who devotes her entire life to her son......

Oh..and she is trying to make ss lie about he got his burns.....she does not want anyone to pay these bills excepts for dh.

If the truth were to come completely out in court, she would be lucky to receive any visitation rights because ss is a pawn to her.  Nothing more.

Thank you for the support

[dipper]

We agree he needs help - he has conduct disorder.  However, he lives with his mother and she refuses counseling or medication.  WE got him into counseling, she said he didnt need it and didnt have to go.  He is with us from Friday evenings to Sunday - no counseling can be arranged during that time.

What we want to know is why did they search him Friday....was there a reason or will this be routinely done?  The main thing we want legal advice for is this - if he gets into too much mess before court, who knows what will happen to him.  

SS has no discipline and by example is taught to lie, treat people like crap, disobey authority, etc. through his mother.  We want a chance and we already know the psychologist to take him to around here.  

But, if he is in a boys home come december, we wont have that chance...

Thank you

[dipper]

He is 14 - and has not went to court yet over the knife.

He is labeled, and I realize that even if we get custody, his file will follow him to our schools.

The laptop - they call them ibooks, and the school issues one to each child as long as they pay an insurance fee.  BM was telling dh today that 'we' may have to pay for the damaged ibook.  She paid insurance, so unless its not covered because they think its vandalized - well, its not our problem anyway.  DH's cs goes to school fees - and as she likes to repeat that she is the primary custodian - she is responsible.  

She wont let dh go to any Shriner's visits, stating that only she can go because she is primary custodian.....pure bull...we have proof in writing from Shriners'.......

ughh.....Yes, unfortunately so much of what is cannot be undone easily......

thank you

[Sherry1]

been diagnosed with Conduct Disorder.. then you cannot or anyone cannot change him.  He will just bring this havoc into your home, destroy you, your family, your husband, and he will break everything in your home, lie constantly to your face and you will become legally responsible for everything he does.

[dipper]

I understand your point.  I was actually the person to point out that he may have conduct disorder.  Certainly his parents didnt see there was a problem at all.  It was only after an incident last year in our home - one that I could have led to an arrest - that I demanded counseling.  The counselor agreed about conduct disorder, but for insurance purposes she reported adjustment disorder with a disturbance in conduct.  She did not want to label him.

I now work in the school system - and I have met a true conduct disorder.  My ss is not as extreme as this child.  This other child is so filled with hatred, uncaring, and meanness.  That is not my ss.  

I do believe there is hope.  Otherwise, lets lock anyone up that is diagnosed with it - counseling and drugs would help.  Also, supervision and discipline would make a difference.  SS may not have true conduct disorder - his may be more a problem of his home life.  He didnt have enough counseling to dig too deeply.  Maybe someone was worried about what would be found.....