+Father’s Lives Matter: Segment Two
©Copyright 2021, Jonathan Goldin
Thousands of custody battles take place per year in our country and what tiny percentage are handled in a way that is not destructive to the mental health of the child? Both In the
short run and the long run. Maybe for a lifetime.
And the courts operate under the absurd assumption that “the best interests of the child” as the only standard. What about the “best interests” of the family or of each parent?
Fundamentally how can breaking up the family even more, on top of the divorce, be mentally and emotionally healthy for anyone?
The child never actually appears in court to offer testimony or to demonstrate to the judge and attorneys that she is actually healthy and well taken care of. By both parents.
On my first day before the Judge I brought a framed photo of my daughter, but my attorney told
me I couldn’t take that into the courtroom. I was trying To make the point that here’s a court battle over a person Who never appears, as though it were a custody battle
Over the family dog or cat.
Courts should start from the assumption that the child needs Both parents equally. That taking away parental rights by the State, without a really high standard of due process, is unfair
And primitive.
The only exception for equal custody, should be a case where one parent Is unfit by reason of addiction or criminal justice issues or other serious dysfunctions—or doesn’t want equal custody.
Family court should operate as a supportive social agency for families already distressed by a pending divorce.
In general, a place of mediation and understanding rather than litigation and conflict.
Encouraging or forcing a child to choose between parents
at a young and vulnerable age, is by definition cruel and unusual punishment. Creating guilt and resentment and maladjustment
that can last a lifetime.
The only way forward is for fathers and mothers, screwed by the family courts, and there are thousands of us, who’ve missed out on years of our child’s life, who’ve suffered the pain of being scapegoated, lied about, ignored, and erased from the child’s consciousness, stand up to the courts and the state legislatures and in unison yell loudly without shame or embarrassment, FATHERS LIVES MATTER!
FATHERS LIVES MATTER, on this channel, will introduce you to divorced fathers who got screwed by a corrupt system, and my own story: as a divorced father of a daughter still a teen, now in college.
A tragic and painful story in which perjury was the coin of the realm.