Kids thrown in juvenile detention for refusing to see possibly violent father

[Dervel]

This can't be right can it?

www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/29496924/family-judge-orders-kids-held-in-juvenile-center-after-refusing-to-see-father

Not sure they're comparable really. Judges are paid, Hunt's position was honorary.

Nice try though.

How can anyone NOT think this is a feminist issue?

It's about men's right to treat their children as possessions rather than people.

It's sort of glaringly obvious really.

The judge was SO mad it makes me wonder if she was fucking the guy or something. Her behaviour and attitudes are just demented, I wonder what her experiences and prejudices are, that led her to abuse her power so comprehensively.

I'd want every case she's overseen reviewed post haste - it just shows such an unerring lack of judgement to lock up 3 children for two weeks for something that ISN'T a crime.

I'd also want a detailed analysis of her bank accounts because I can only imagine someone would do something so cruel and malicious if they were being paid off by one party.

I also note that in that article it says that they've been sent there by the father & guardian ad litem - so not because the mother or children have been listened to but because Dad's decided that he'd rather send his kids to a very dodgy camp if they're refusing to see him.

Also, that transcript is horrifying - I feel like I'm reading George Orwell's 1984.
(paraphrasing)

Idiot judge: "I ordered you to have a healthy relationship with your father. You chose not to talk to your father. You defied a direct court order. It's direct contempt so I'm finding you guilty of civil contempt"

15 year old child: "I didn't do anything wrong. He was the one that - how come - I thought there was like rules when - rules for like, you know, not hitting someone"

Idiot judge: "I will say this again - you're supposed to have a high IQ which I'm doubting right now because of the way you act, you're very defiant, you have no manners, I ordered you to have a relationship with your Dad. There is no reason why you do not have a relationship with your father. Your father has never been convicted of anything. He is well liked and loved by his community, co-workers, family and colleagues. You, young man, have got it wrong"

YY Buffy - it's one thing to order someone to act in a certain way (and still absurd and abusive) but the judge actually wants them to feel differently and threatens that if she thinks it's an act and they don't actually love their father then she'll still keep them locked up. It's totally barbaric.

This is all so weird, I struggle to believe that it's real.

Is it real?

The father agreed to the children going to prison. The mother didn't. Remind me again which one is supposed to be the abusive one?

Judgement of Solomon, innit. Though Solomon was famously wise, and gave custody of the child to the parent who put its welfare before their own rights. This judge would appear to be... not quite so wise.

Apart from the first part with the judge, this is the supposedly impartial children's guardian in the legal system speaking, again - shocking. He is supposed to be caring for them:

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It seems to me that courts must be used to forcing mothers to make children behave nicely to fathers, court officials etc, or the court can claim the children are disturbed and give residency to the father.

I believe in this case, another judge already gave residency to the mother on the basis the children did not have an established residency of enough duration in Israel for the father to take them to Israel.

So there is nothing the court can do to control the kids. They can't give the kids to the father. They can't force the kids to be nice to a sheriff (even one who has a gun as the guardian points out!), see a therapist or love their dad. The kids can't be forced to do anything, and are not criminals. And that lack of power seems to be really pissing all these adults off.

And after the kids have been in detention for two weeks, they are still refusing to see the father. I think that regardless of what either of the parents did, the court situation with adults in the court behaving like that judge and guardian over five years would traumatise any child.

The younger two were four and five at the start of the divorce. All they really know of their father is them being in court, being in therapy and being interviewed by that court guardian guy.

That should work.

"Your father has never been convicted of anything."

This is taking 'innocent until proven guilty' a bit far; you saw your dad hit your mum, but since he hasn't been convicted of it in court, you have to pretend it didn't happen

The judge is certainly not fit to hold office. She comes across as seriously sociopathic and obsessed with wielding power - it's pretty scary. But the US is getting more and more overrun with individuals displaying psychotic levels of misogyny equivalent to the Islamic State headbangers.

Judgement of Solomon, innit. Though Solomon was famously wise, and gave custody of the child to the parent who put its welfare before their own rights. This judge would appear to be... not quite so wise.

How so? Solomon had to judge between a parent and someone who was lying about being a parent, not two parents. In that respect he had it easy. People have seen enough of Dr Phil to work out how parental alienation works and that it's a huge problem in child socialisation/custody/visitation. A parent becomes convinced that contact with the other parent is not in the best interests of the child and often its not simply spite, they genuinely believe it. Both parents often come to believe it over time. I am willing to bet the most common denominator, more common than a parent actually being a significantly negative force on their child enough to warrant no contact, is parental input that at best unintentionally poisons the well or at worst directly damages a childs view of the other parent.

Did the mother in this case foster parental alienation? No idea. Was the father guilty of spousal abuse? Again, haven't the foggiest. What I am absolutely sure of is none of this is the fault of the children. Whatever iteration of this scenario is true they are victims.

That judge has gone off the reservation, and needs a reality check. I would likely have been sympathetic to the father too, except for the fact that at this point his overriding goal should have been to have ensured none of his children set so much as a tippy toe in juvenile detention. I can conjure no sane reason to have allowed this set of events to occur. I believe in this case his only motivation is to make the mother suffer through the suffering of the children.

These kids have been brave in the extreme, I hope for a rapid resolution and their safe return home.

As to wether this is a feminist issue or not I shall leave to more informed heads than mine, but I figured in posting it you guys would be as outraged as I was.

DadWasHere My DF believed my DM alienated me from him. She never said one negative word about him, and always encouraged me to reply to his letters. But I could see what an unpleasant character he was from a fairly early age. I remember feeling quite confused that she wouldn't agree with me. A lot of abusive/neglectful parents just don't see their children as having their own minds - why would they, they're just belongings after all! So no matter how old their children get, no matter how much shitty behaviour they witness, it's always the mothers fault for alienating them early on.

It must be just me who has a smidgen of sympathy for the father, if the judges statement is true and the mother has alienated her children. It's similar to the case where the mother absconded for a week after custody had been given to the father. A quick look on these forums will also show women are not always the good guys.

Having said that, the judge's remedy is not going to have a positive effect on the father child bond. Counselling is a more appropriate solution.

Zippey I would imagine it is just you, yes!

Did you miss the part about him hitting the mother in front of his children?

Or the part about him agreeing that the children should go to jail?

DawWasHere because the dad could have acted to avoid the children going to prison, but instead he left straight away on business for a fortnight.

The mum didn't want them to go to prison.

That was what she meant. The judge said, shall I incarcerate these children t least until September. The mum said please don't. The dad said OK and he was the one who had the power to stop it and he didn't and just left. The mum was not allowed to visit or anything, or anyone else on her side. And the dad didn't obviously, as he had flown back to Israel.

That is what that post is about.

Have you read the court transcript it is horrifying.

The judge is incredibly spiteful. She wants to scare and upset the children. She says she is going to lock them up until age 18, the youngest is 9. She asks them how they will feel having to go to the bathroom (toilet) in front of other people. She says they will be prevented from talking to each other when inside.

Have you read it. I don't know why you are defending her Dad.

I thought parental alienation had been debunked as a "thing". That yes some parents say mean stuff but actually children aren't stupid, and further that most times when children didn't want to see a parent they had their own (genuine) reasons?

I mean yes obviously some parents will manage to turn their children but that it wasn't a widespread common "thing" that it got painted as in the 80s or whenever it was.

"People have seen enough of Dr Phil to work out how parental alienation works and that it's a huge problem in child socialisation/custody/visitation"

Actually I don't believe it is a huge problem at all.

I think it's a tiny, tiny problem that has been blown out of all proportion by men who as Gatorade says, are simply incapable of seeing their own behaviour the way their kids do - because they're always right, the fact that their kids think they are wrong, is not evidence that they might be wrong, or that their kids are actual people with their own opinions, it's evidence that mother is a malevolent bitch who shouldn't be allowed to have custody of her children.

Parental alienation rings all misogynists' bells because it chimes with their fear that their abuse of women and children will be noticed and rewarded with the attitudes from their children that they deserve, rather than the attitudes to which they feel they're entitled - the attitudes due to the pater familias. They invented Medea as the most extreme version of a woman who, because she has control of their children, can use them to hurt a man. She's the embodiment of why women can't be trusted with their own children and this nonsense about the so-called widespread problem of parental alienation, is just an updated modern version of that deep discomfort men have about women's care and control of children.

The media have taken it up enthusiastically and promoted it as a serious, huge problem for the same reason they take up and pretend any problem, however unusual, which women might cause men, such as false rape allegations, false DV allegations, denying contact with children unreasonably - is a huge, enormous, out of control problem - because we live in a woman-hating society and people are much more comfortable with the idea that it's more likely that a woman is a malevolent, wicked, dangerous bitch, than that a man might be an entitled abuser.

That's why Dr Phil has so much about it. That's why judges are so antsy about it. Not because it's a serious problem, but because any challenge to men's right to be abusive to women and kids and still have their kids adore them, is felt to be an outrageous attack upon their human rights.

And of course this guy is abusive FGS.

He's thinks it's OK to have his kids sent to prison for not loving him the way he feels he deserves and then instead of pleading with the judge to put his children's interests first, he went off on a business trip.

If you don't think that's abusive, you're probably not doing parenting right.

Imagine a woman posting on Mumsnet: "I don't think my children love me, so I've grounded them/ taken away screen time/ sent them to the naughty step/ insert sanction here until they do".

There would be a litany of why she is a fucking terrible mother who doesn't know the first thing about parenting and yet even after this guy gets on a plane for his business trip, we still bend over backwards to give him the benefit of the doubt.

What is Dr Phil?

Is it like um, that bloke who's like jerry springer? jeremy kyle? That's my guess.