Sequel to A Mother's Pain - The Trained Bully

I received several written and oral responses to the former article, "A Mother's Pain," which was published in the Nh Bar News on March 13, 2009. The record was about a syndrome that I have seen as a lawyer over many years of practice. The syndrome: A Mother's Pain is where the mother of her male children is worked out of her boys' lives straight through pervasive influences where our Court ideas is ill qualified to address the issues. I asked the responders if I could quote them, without attribution. Some of the responses which I received were very poignant. All of the written responses, with one exception, were from mothers and lawyers, one was from a father.

I realize that the field of my concern is clouded with extreme emotion and several of the stories elicited were quite emotional in content. On the father's side the issues raised were equally emotional. In fact an record appeared in the online edition of the Portsmouth Herald on Friday, March 27, 2009, entitled: "Father knows bitterness." A second record by Lily Robertson appeared a week later entitled "Who will speak for the fathers?" The writer in the second record poses an important request after saying that the custody determinations are usually left up to the Gal (guardian ad litem), here is what she wrote: "Here's what it takes to become a guardian ad litem: 0 and 44 hours of seminars. Would you trust your child's time to come to person with those qualifications?"

Kingston

This writer, in reserve of the fathers having equal or residential custodial rights, goes over the top with emotion and quotes Dr. Larry S. Milner in a paper entitled "The History of Infanticide" as saying that "...infanticide is usually committed by the mother." Obviously I wasn't writing about paranoia or crazed population about to murder their child or children. Her articles are so filled with extreme and dire gloom and doom for the house unit and the children that she leaves one with the impression that mothers are to be scorned by the courts, and she done her paper with this profound wit: "When it comes to child custody cases, we may as well be keeping them in Salem, Mass.,... In 1692."

In my legal taste of many years I have not identified any mother or father bent on infanticide if they didn't get custody or the time they requested, nor have any of my clients ridden off on a broomstick. Any way the intensity of the rather extreme positions taken in defense of fathers is someone else indication of the emotion that pervades child custody cases.

One lawyer who is wholly dedicated to house law wrote to me: "It is our house courts who listen to underpaid and sometimes barely trying Gals who make the decisions. The law is not wrong as it requires the courts to deal with the issue of maturity. The reality is that they don't. The kid is 14, why bother, he's mature... It can be appealed but mom hasn't the money."

The Nh supreme Court has ruled that custody is an issue to be decided on a case by case basis and that an analysis must be done. An example of the Court missing the issues entirely: read the notion in Larue v. (Larue) Bedard, 156 N.H. 378 (2007). The court decided an important custody issue curious modification of a visitation program on contract grounds, dismissing the trial court's efforts to make a estimation on original custody standards used by house courts and house lawyers in such cases. See in Re Georgakilas, 157 N.H. 662 (2008). When dealing with a parenting plan that said the parties would have "equal or practically equal" residential responsibility, our supreme Court said that: "in interpreting the meaning of a separation decree we present the decree de novo, Sommers v. Sommers, 143 N.H. 686, 692 (1999). We consider the intent of the parties as expressed in the language of the stipulation." I always am left to wonder why is it significant for us who labor in the house law field to negotiate language in a stipulation which we lawyers understand and our client understand, but which is often interpreted to mean something dissimilar by an appellate court who doesn't know the parties or the full circumstances as to why words were used to reflect the parties' insight of a custody arrangement. The Court simply dismisses such efforts with a "We know best attitude (those are my words). It seems that what the parties or their lawyers notion they had done is dissimilar from what the Justices notion was meant.

In The Matter of Huff, 2008-326 (N.H. 3-5-2009). The supreme Court performed an analysis where one parent, the father in this case, was incarcerated, but a fit parent, and the court powerful between an "unfit incarcerated father" and a "fit incarcerated father." The court said that the right of parents to raise and care for their children is a underlying liberty interest protected by Part I, record 2 of the New Hampshire Constitution. Similarly, the United States supreme Court has recognized that the "Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects the underlying right of parents to make decisions about the care, custody and control of their children." Troxell v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 66 (2000). In Nelson & Horsely, 149 N.H., at 548, our court said: "Parents have a natural entitlement to the exclusive... Administration of their children."

The legislature has also set out unavoidable rules for parents despite their "exclusive parental rights," namely Rsa 461-A, Parental possession and Responsibilities. The legislature in section 2, Statement of Purpose, recognizes that children do best when both parents are in their lives to the extent feasible after the parents have separated and divorced. Section 6 sets out factors to be considered, field to the best interests of the child. The statute refers to the court throughout, meaning the house Court or the trial court.

It has been my taste that when folks have representation the parental issues organize from negotiation and often mediation, very often with input from a Gal, other advisor types and sometimes the trial court. Yet on request for retrial the ensue is sometimes given new meaning to all concerned. Parenting of children should not be fought out in an adversarial system, with mechanical rules set by the legislature or by an Appellate Court.

Now you see where I am headed with this writing. I do not believe that house law matters in general and child placement, parenting and custody matters in singular are favorable to be adjudicated as if the children are chattels (e.g., on contract grounds as cited earlier). So what can we do? We could deal with these sensitive issues in an entirely dissimilar format and forum if we legitimately had the best interests of the children and the parents in mind. Mortal combat in an adversarial proceeding hardly furthers and nurtures the parents desire to work together in the parenting of their children. We, and I mean the lawyers and judges, and the professionals who assist, either as specialist witnesses or Gals should know better. But the easy way out is to say we cannot as a community afford to organize such a forum and layout a format to deal with one of the most significant issues of our day, while paying lip service as to how our children will organize and hence how our community will develop.

Years ago I went to a Ymca camp in Kingston and in the mess hall there was a saying: "Young man you are now becoming what you are to be." Even as kids we understood that phrase, yet all the king's men do not seem to be able to realize how significant these issues are to our time to come generations. Are we to raise trained bullies, bitter mothers, bitter fathers, and kids who feel abandoned or manipulated by the ideas or by a parent, or can we do something about it?

To by comparison the ensue of what we do with to our children in divorce, I want to share some examples of responses to my former article:

The first responder told me that "The pain I feel is unbearable at times. It bewilders me how I can legitimately have given birth to all of my children and still feel so much hardship and deep sadness I can mother them from the time they were infants and be there straight through the toddler stage right up straight through adolescence. I have devoted my whole life to the raising of my kids. I breast fed everybody for one year. I never left their side for their first six years. Rather than watching television we were surface every day discovering God's great playground." "My occupation was my children. I am very proud of the power that I put into raising my family. I did not want them to be fathers or husbands like their father. I can only hope that I made a discrepancy in their lives. Now they are told that I abandoned them. It is all a sophisticated manipulation by their own father. God, I miss them. I can only hope that something good comes from your article. Maybe a mother who suffers as I do every singular day won't feel so alone or isolated. What this ideas does is so unforgivable in my eyes. I can only hope for impel for the other mothers who undergo this pain. It is a very lonely place to be in my shoes. Sometimes I think to myself 'what am I doing here?'"

"Sometimes I think that I cannot take it any longer or that I will never win. He will continue to direct his poison at me straight through my children using them as his weapons because he knows that it hurts me so badly. I never knew how painful being a mother could be. If I did I might have notion twice."

"Good luck with your article. I hope that it will help so many moms out there who feel the sense of hopelessness that I often feel. My children have been my world. Every singular morning when I wake up, I roll over and look at the picture of all of them, with smiles on their faces in my loving arms. Then I pinch myself and remember that was then and this is now."

From someone else reader: "It is terrible what some women have to go straight through and no matter how hard you struggle to gain control of your own life and that of your children's to fetch their well being, you are locked into a cycle of suffering. In my case and for the sake of my children, I hope that I can break the cycle."

From someone else mother: "I have had the modern pleasure of reading your insightful criticism on the Trained Bully. You suggested that rarely can anything be done about this psychologically damaging behavior and modeling--which leads me to believe that occasionally something can."

"I am potentially concerned in being the poster child for your quest to bring attention to this egregious behavior. Unlike the women in your typical divorce, I am neither powerless nor depressive, but I am nonetheless suffering at the hands of brainwashing subsequent to an acrimonious marital split." This responder tells how after the separation her husband attempted to have her pay for their son's college expenses. When he failed to accomplish that he then needed to exact revenge on her straight through "the only weapon at his disposal-our son." She continues on: "My son with whom I have always had a extraordinary relationship, has suddenly decided not only not to visit me, but not to talk to me. My lawyer says there is nothing the State of Nh will do. I am joint custodian. I am legally allowed joint medical decision making. I am a medical physician and I think my son is screaming for counseling, yet the corporeal custodian dismisses my maternal, my custodial, my medical notion and refuses. I only pray that when he eventually moves out of the brainwashing environment, the profound damage can be undone."

This mother then asked several questions along with either I expect to address this field further, which I do. She asks a perturbing question, namely, "Is there any avenue straight through which these victims (the mother and the children) can seek counseling?" She concludes her letter to me with this: "I would love to help champion this cause if your record foreshadows any intent to affect convert in this horrific and harmful phenomenon."

I sincerely hope that my writing about these issues will affect convert as to how we, as a society, deal with such issues. In my former record published in the Nh Bar News on March 13th, I indicated that the pattern of behavior described is probably not exclusive to mothers of boys. I received a very detailed letter from a boy's father who wrote to me saying: "You do nothing to mention the persistent abuse and gender bias by the house court in primarily awarding mothers' sole legal and original corporeal custody of the minor child...... I was given joint legal and corporeal custody, but deprived of my underlying constitutional right to be complex in my son's education by a legally incompetent and bigoted Marital Master, Judge and Guardian ad litem. In my case, race and gender-motivated bias were the sole factors that ultimately decided the case. It resulted in an unlawful court-ordered racial segregation in education and denial of equal educational opportunity that adversely affected my son educationally and emotionally after languishing the substandard Haverhill (Ma) public school ideas for two years while I engaged in a protracted battle. What happened to the best interest of the child? It seems that I was the only one concerned in seeing that the statutory requirement was being met."

This father had gathered statistical evidence to prove his feelings about the inferiority of the public school ideas being challenged and filed an request for retrial to the Nh supreme Court on several federal statutory and constitutional grounds, along with the issue of court-ordered Racial Segregation in education (violation of Title Iv of the Civil possession Act of 1964 and 20 U.S.C. 1703 Denial of Equal education Opportunity). The supreme Court declined his request for retrial and he felt abused by the legal system.

I also had the opportunity to present the opinions of several members of the Nh Bar on the issues raised in my article. One attorney volunteered that, "We should make population take a test and get a license to have children...but of procedure we can't." "Ugly and tragic cases. And if the parents do not have -K to fight the battle how do they win."

Another practitioner wrote: "I do not subscribe to the religious doctrine that parents or courts can't make a teenager do anything. Of procedure they can! Since when did turning 15 give anything the right to rule the world and define their own destiny regardless of their best interest." This attorney went on to opine: "The biggest qoute with the existing statute is that the Courts appear to by comparison the modification statute about 'mature minors' as Not requiring there to be a 'best interest' determination. I think that is wholly against the weight of the case law (as well as coarse sense) actually, but there are courts that are buying that interpretation." This lawyer also says that: "teenagers are easy to manipulate, they can get great grades, be popular, respected by teachers, excel in sports, and yet not be emotionally ready to make "adult decisions which have chronic affects.".... They simply cannot realize how those decisions will affect them for the rest of their lives."

I think that notion points us in the right direction. Suppose one parent does not believe in counseling or fails to emphasize the compulsion to respect and carry out a valid court order. The courts have the means to mandate such compliancy by imposing unavoidable penalties on the recalcitrant or errant parent. I do not like such remedies however, as my taste tells me that the house Courts and the Trial Courts before them, are inappropriate forums to decree the compelling and often life-changing issues for families. I believe that this is such a pervading psycho-social qoute of troubled children and troubled parents that significant exertion must be made by our ideas to bring about change. The ideas of advocacy where each side has 15 minutes for a paid advocate, either it be an attorney or a paid specialist to rail against the other parent must be seen as an archaic and irrelevant means to decree such deep-seated and important issues. The adversarial ideas is no place for families, but we relegate them to a very poorly-functioning ideas where these life-altering decisions are brought to light in a few minutes, before an over-worked judicial officer, usually after waiting weeks and months to be heard. As one attorney wrote to me: "The courts do not want to hear these cases, they are way too difficult to hear and decide."

Finally, one other attorney most aptly wrote about alienation: "When it occurs, it hurts kids, Especially the kids that firmly stand and shout that they Hate the other parent. In reality, they are hurting inside terribly. And it does affect them and their relationships with others the rest of their lives."

Have I opened a "Pandora's Box?" I think it is unavoidable that the legislature's exertion to address these issues in Rsa 461 A, by setting up guidelines for Parental possession and Responsibilities for parents in the stages of separation or divorce, is a good step. All of us who manage the lives of these parents, and hence their children, either as trusted counselors, Gals, judges or masters need to be aware that we are shaping a generation to come. We all hear the questions asked: why are kids today dropping out of school by the thousands, why are kids today so disrespectful to the older generations, why are so many kids on drugs or alcohol? Let us wake up. Over half, or more than half, of all marriages in this state wind up in the house Courts. Those with children less than eighteen years of age have the lives of those minor children managed in some part by our adversarial system. As a community our intentions need to be more thoughtfully vetted by our legal, judicial, legislative and psychological communities so as to organize a framework in which we can more effectively deal with how we parent our young children and deal with the deeply rooted and legal and psycho-social issues that our ideas and community has created. It is said that we live in a nuclear age and an age of fear of terrorism. Terrorism has no place in our house adjudicative system, although historically the stronger the adversary the more "successful" the lawyer has been notion to be. How many times has a prospective client said to you, "I heard that you are a pit bull and that is why I premium you." What was your response? Think about it. Are we a big part of the problem? I know the ideas is. With these thoughts in mind, I hope to continue this dialog with both a child psychiatrist and a psychologist and with the input of attorneys, house practitioners, Gals, and those in the court system.

Where do we go to make it so that the parents can be entitled to the Administration of their children and, when they do not or cannot manage effectively, how shall we aid them to cope?

Sequel to A Mother's Pain - The Trained Bully