Reform Family Law Now

If the System Worked, Parental Alienation Would Not be an Issue

Good parents become alienated from their children because another parent (or sometimes a third party, like CPS), targets the alienated parent in the hearts and minds of their children.  The results are devastating.  These children do not want anything to do with the targeted parent, except that in some cases, the alienation is so severe that the children want to hurt and destroy that parent.  Kids don't do that to a parent without help. 

And the targeting parent cannot do it alone either.  They may rely on extended family, a new boyfriend, girlfriend or spouse, or even friends and neighbors to produce the outcomes they seek.  But the cannot accomplish their ends without the help of the court system as well.

We need to understand this.  Absent a court system that prevents or inhibits alienating behaviors, we have a court system that enables these behaviors.  Here's what I mean:

When a court makes a decision to award primary custody to one parent or the other, by default it vests extraordinary powers in the custodial parent.  The extra time that parent has with the children, the sense that the children's "home" is with the custodial parent, the major decisions about where they go to school, live, go to church, what they eat, watch on TV, wear as clothing, etc., all comes from the custodial parent's power over them. 

In varying degrees, these parents treat their homes as "superior" to the home environment of the other parent.  This has an affect on the children.  Often the effect is immaterial and not even noticeable in a child's mind and actions.  But when the custodial parent pushes the envelope, the child is pushed as well.  If that parent asserts a sense of superiority over the other parent, the child's sense of self is integrally connected to the parent's feelings and beliefs.  Psychologically, the child has nowhere to go except to feel a strong sense of alienation from, or rejection of the other parent. 

But if the custodial parent had never been empowered in this way at the outset, or even if the parent was held accountable for his or her actions once so empowered, none of this would be possible.  Yet in a gross failure to provide the kind of resolution of cases and controversies our court system was originally designed for, family law courts routinely  side with custodial parents, and even more so when alienating behaviors are present and obvious. 

I won't digress too far into the reasons why, but the combination of (1) courts validating their own earlier decisions (to award one parent custody in the first place), (2) a lack of willingness to do the hard work of considering real evidence from the bench rather than deferring to a status quo they created, and (3) keeping funding flowing into the system by maintaining the status quo, work together to create a very nasty vortex of poor decision making in family law systems on the whole. 

While it is only fair to note, there are many, many family law judges who strive and work to create real balance in the system - but they are far outnumbered by those who don't.

The result is that some of the worst behaviors existing in our society are perpetuated, and never brought to account.  Parental alienation hurts kids - every time it occurs.  It should not be tolerated in our family law system at any level - and yet it is.  But in truth, the tolerance of wanton alienation could be easily reversed, if only the courts themselves were held to account for honoring a parent's rights. 

The only means we really have for holding the courts to account is to appeal to other courts having the authority to require the proper application of due process in the family law courts themselves.  With due process, a noncustodial parent has the opportunity to be heard and to fairly adjudicate the problems he or she brings to the court's attention.  Rather than walking in a court room facing an overwhelming presumption that the best thing to do is just to leave things as they are, the courts should be forced to allow every litigant a fair opportunity to present credible evidence of alienation, or any behavior that hs the tendency to impede a parent-child relationship - period!

But until it is recognized that all standards of due process and all individual rights are recognized even in family law, alienation will continue to be empowered.  The only way we are going to change this is by forming together and filing class actions against those judges, agencies, and other "state actors" who are persistently violating the rights of individuals and permitting the most invidious behaviors to continue. 

In the civil rights battles of the 1950's and 60's, it was only by mass resort to the federal courts that the evils of racially motivated discrimination were brought to account.  In our era, it's no different.  We must act - in unison - with one voice if we are to prevail.

 

Protest or Action?

by Andrew J Thompson

What if you picked up your history books, or in the fifth grade you had been taught about "The Boston Protest"?  Never heard of it?  But have you ever considered what the difference would have been between the Boston Tea Party and a Boston Protest? 

What if the Sons of Liberty had stood below the British ships in Boston Harbor carrying signs and yelling slogans but never boarded the ships and threw the tea in the water?  How different would our history be?  By engaging in the act of disposing of the tea, the American patriots deprived themselves of one of the colony's most loved imports and wantonly violated colonial law.  At the same time, however, they deprived their oppressors of large sums of tax revenue - money that would have been used to further oppress the colonists - and set a tone for an American perspective on life that literally stated we will "live free or die". 

Our ancestors were a people of great courage.  They banded together, stared death, imprisonment and financial ruin squarely in the face and refused to yield to a power that would take away their basic rights and freedoms in providing for their families and managing their own affairs.

It is so rare to find that kind of courage today.  In our movement, people's most fundamental rights in parenting their own children are routinely stepped on.  These rights are or should be even more precious than the rights the colonials sought to protect.   I have heard the saddest and most horrific reports of good moms and dads losing their ability to see and give love to their children at the hands of an uncaring system that largely exists to pump money into state and local treasuries.  It is a complete travesty.

But how have we responded in the past?  Typically, each one of us, including myself, spends whatever small fortune or resources we have to fight our own uphill battles and lose.  We fight these fights by the rules, pleading the laws and facts that fit the system's requirements - only to be told we are wrong - what we are doing, we're often told, only prolongs the fight and hurts the children.  Yes, that's what we're told by people who have never fed one meal to our kids, who have never put one bandage across a scrape on their knees, who rarely can remember their names, ages or sometimes even their sex, more than a few minutes after our hearings are concluded. 

And what have we done to that?  Seriously, what is our answer?  Where do we go beyond that fight we make for our own case?  For some, there is much more of an outreach to similarly aggrieved individuals.  Yet, what measurable achievements can we show for all that effort?  It's a good question, don't you think?

Reform Family Law Now was founded for a different purpose - it is an action organization.  We are here to bring class based litigation into the federal courts to force an end to funding of the practices of violating individual rights by the states, local judges and other government agencies. 

Toward that end, we have identified the first four potential classes of  plaintiffs to be represented and bring suit in federal court against the violations we face.  We're doing this to take actions that will truly reform the system. 

We want to find at least one potential class representative from each of the approximately 91 districts of the federal judicial system, in every state across America.  When we have sufficient representation for even one of the classes, and the funding is available to pursue the litigation, we will initiate the litigation that will bring an end to the funding of violations of parents' Constitutional rights in the family law system. 

And if we are told no, we will keep moving forward.  If we are told no again, we will keep moving forward.  We will continue the fight until the broken system is prevented from doing further harm to our children.  That means that the funding feeds the system must be held to account openly and publicly - and it almost certainly will require major, class victories to succeed. 

Please come join us.  Along with signing up for our updates on this page, you may also become a fan of our facebook group: Reform Family Law Now. 

In the near future, you will be hearing about events that we hope to hold across America and very soon - to garner support, and identify new people who will join our movement and self-identify as potential class members.  Our goal is to get at least one new class prospect for each potential class from every single rally that is held. 

Check back later today for a new page that identifies the classes and the particular violations of rights that we are targeting.  Stay tuned - change is about to come.  It's at our doorstep - we just need to answer the call!