My version of David Letterman's Top 10 list...hope you like it

[tracylee]

10. If you birth it, you have the right to neglect it.
9. Fathers, (aka: sperm donors) you cannot protect your kids, but you have to pay her weekly to support her habit.
8. Your kids will lie for you if you ask them to.
7. CPS will investigate a complaint of your drug use.  All you have to do is lie when they ask about it and they'll pat you on the hand and apologize for bothering you.
6. The guardian ad lidem, appointed by the court, will recommend your kids be with their father and you are only allowed supervised visitation, unless you enter drug rehab, but it's as worthless as the paper it's written on.
5. You can perjure yourself in court and never suffer any repercussions.
4. The people you confess your drug use to, and the person you do drugs with for 2 1/2 years can testify against you and the judge will not hear a word they say.
3. You can be told to enter drug rehab, but you don't really have to, just sign up and you'll be allowed unsupervised visitation with your kids.
2. Your child can witness you with a "glass tube with stinky brown stuff" in it, but that's not submissible in court.
And the number one reason why mothers can use drugs and get away with it:
1. You can fail a drug screen in court, AFTER you commit perjury and state you've never done any illegal drugs, have your kids taken away from you temporarily, NOT enter rehab like it was recommended you do, then cry a lot during the final custody hearing and the judge will feel so sorry for you that he will ORDER you into rehab and allow you unsupervised visitation with your kids.  THEN, if you are really lucky, the father may even have to pay your $5,000.00 attorney fees for what he put you through.
So, mothers of the world, UNITE!  Smoke it, snort it or shoot it up, the system will work to save you, not your kids.
Note of caution to fathers:  Do not try this yourself, you would end up in jail and never be allowed visitation with your kids again!

Tracy Eldridge

[grafxgrl]

I can only hope that this hasnt come from your personal experience with a sig-others ex-wife.

I am fearing similar treatment by the courts as my DH and I approach our custody trial. - and for far less blatant 'parenting errors' (for lack of better term) than the drug use you infer to.

I hope somewhere in you there is still a crumb of faith in justice and fairness.

g

[jilly]

Justice? Fairness? In the FamilyCourt System???  :7
That was a joke right??  Justice, Fairness and Family Court System are three terms that should never be used in the same sentence. There is no such animal!

[Peanutsdad]

g,


I really hope you do NOT have such notions of fair or just concerning family court.

Family court is all about what can be proven. OR, who has the most compelling hearsay . LOL


Family court is neither just, nor fair. It is only concerned with getting your case off the docket in the most expeditious manner possible.

Unless there is very compelling evidense, ( and sometimes even if there is), custody will remain with who has it.


We see time after time after time,, kids left with an addict parent, an abusive parent, a mentally ill parent. It IS slowly changing,, but the norm is still unbelievably skewed.


I will be done doing what I do when the day comes that accross this country,, 50/50 placement is the norm,, WITH the exceptions being in the event of abuse, addicts or untreated mental illness.

In other words, I dont see me being finished for a long long time.

[Bolivar OH]

LOL --  i love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I posted your list at .divorcesource.com

Under:
Message Centers

   Custody – Visatation

==================================

Message Centers
- Bankruptcy
- Child Removal
- Children
- Cohabitation
- Support
- Custody -Visitation     ****************************
- Domestic Abuse
- Father's
- Financial
- General Divorce
- Grandparent's
- Mediation
- Military Divorce
- Mother's
- Parenting
- Pensions
- Property
- Pro Se
- Recovery
- Religion
- Saving Marriage
- Separation
- Starting Over
- Step-Family
- Taxes

[grafxgrl]

i agree - i am just feeling like after this experience i wont have any faith in justice in the world and mankind - and hoping she has more faith than I in the world...We've been doing this for 6 years - I know about the UNjustice system... :)

m

[tracylee]

Would you believe me if I told you that this was exactly our experience.  In Indiana, Superior Court II, under the honorable Judge Thomas Busch.  Our attorney said he had never seen a judge go against the guardian ad lidum's reccomendations.  BUT, he sure did!  She will regain custody of the girls on September 27th if her councelor or the guardian write a letter stating that the "children are safe with mom".  If they decide that it is not safe and by some snowball in hells chance that the court says they can come and live with us, they will have already started school and would have to be uprooted from Indiana to Georgia and have to go through some major life changes.  The kids are in the custody of my husbands mother, since she lives in Indiana also.  So, bless her heart, she is having to deal with the moms apparent cockiness about the situation and I told her she had better tell the mom that if it weren't for grandma, CPS would have intervened a long time ago and since we live out of state, the kids would have been placed in state care until we could have gotten there, but then we would have had to cut through all the bureaucratic red tape just to get them out of foster care, if that had actually happened.  Do we have faith in the "justice system"?  No.  Not anymore.  This was an open and shut, iron clad case that we lost.  WE LOST!!!!!!!!  Where was the justice in that.  What will happen when the next time comes along?  There will be a next time, meth addicts statistically only have a 6% recovery rate.  She will have learned to hide it much better this time.  What about the girls?  Why didn't they matter in all of this.  The mother turns on the walrus tears in court and the sympathy is so thick in the court you could choke.  You know as well as I do, that if this had been my husband, there wouldn't have been a continuance, or a slap on the hand.  If he had lied on the stand and failed HIS drug screen there wouldn't be any amount of tears that would have allowed him to keep his girls.  Maybe I am lucky because I too am a mother and I know now that I can get away with just about anything.  All I have to do is cry.  So, in answer to your question, I have no faith.   Not even a crumb.  We weren't the big losers in all of this, the girls were.  They deserved better and the court system failed them.  I can only hope that nothing happens to either one of them, because at that stage of the game pointing fingers and pushing blame won't amount to a hill of beans.  Thanks for your reply and your concern.  This was and is a very real situation....unfortunately.

[tracylee]

Thank you for the compliment.  I have sent it to the editor of the paper in Indiana (where all of this took place) and they won't call me back.  I have sent it in twice.  As soon as all the final hearings are over....if that's even a true statement...when you are dealing with meth addicts, you never know when the end is.  I plan to go on a one woman crusade to expose the court system in Indiana and start naming names and pointing fingers.  We have already used the tipster line in that county and turned in all of the people that she was using with and buying from.  My tears have turned to anger and I intend to fight back.  As new things develop, I will keep everyone informed.  Thanks for the replies and talk to you soon.

[tracylee]

Just thought I would see if you had any insight into what the heck happened in this situation.  The mother lost custody temporarily on April 26th due to failing her drug screen in court for meth, THC and xanax.  They set another hearing for permanent custody on June 1st and of course by then, she had hired an attorney.  He was able to get the hearing continued due to lack of prep time and the judge ordered that my husbands summer visitation commence over that next 7 weeks and the final hearing was to be July 16th.  My husband, his mother, his ex's mother and his ex's best friend (and the person she had done meth with for 2 and a half years) testified against her as well as the guardian ad lidum, who never let up on his decision that the kids be with the father.  The only people she had on her behalf was hersel, her friend (whom our lawyer discredited on the stand), her employer and the principal of the girls' school (who was none the wiser as the mother puts on a good show).  But, we still LOST!?!?  During the 2 1/2 months from the time she lost custody until the hearing on the 16th, she had not entered a drug rehab program, nor did she ever admit to having a problem with drugs.  It wasn't until the judge ORDERED her into rehab at the final hearing that she finally did it.  Now she is in a program (still not admitting to having a problem with meth) and can possibly get the girls back (they are living with grandma) when the GAL or her counselor say its "safe to be with mom".  Is any of this making any sense to you?  It sure doesn't to us.  If you have any thoughts, I would surely appreciate some input.  I want you to know also, my husband had some arrearage in his child support, that was the only thing they had on him.  The judge never said he was a bad father....he even commended him for bringing the mothers drug problem to light.  I've got court papers that prove that!  Does this all seem ludicrous to anyone else but us?  Please.....any thoughts or advice is more than welcome.  Thank you for your time.

[Lawmoe]

Was this part of a Child Protection hearing or a custody hearing in family court? The standards that are applied are very different.  In a Child Protection hearing, the statute requires that  the county attempt to reunite the child with the parent that had custody.

That requirement is not part of family court statutes. As a result, filing for custody in family court would likely yield a different result.

It would seem as if the evidence was favorable to your side.  I cannot guess why the Judge would have found to the contrary.  I assume that some reasons for that decision appear in the Court Order.