Marriage and Child Well-being

The latest issue of the Future of Children Journal, you can download the entire issue or a two page executive summary. Mounting social science evidence about changes in marriage and childbearing during the latter part of the twentieth century shows these changes are not in the best interests of children. From the report:

• In 1970, 12% of families with children were headed by a single parent. By 2003 that figure had doubled, to 26%. Roughly half of all children born today are expected to live apart from a parent before they reach 18.
• The decline in two-parent families since 1960 has been closely linked with a rise in child poverty, primarily because poverty rates are far higher in single-mother families than in two-parent families.
• The post-1960 changes in marriage and family formation also appear to be depriving children of such documented benefits of marriage as better physical and emotional health and greater socioeconomic attainment.

Ohio Mom Barred from Smoking Near Her Children

The Ohio Fifth District Court of Appeals ruled a parent’s smoking habit is a factor domestic relations courts may consider in determining the best interests of children because it might affect their health and safety.

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Court Grants Equal Rights to Same-Sex Parents

The California Supreme Court ruled Monday, August 22, that lesbian and gay partners who plan and family and raise a child together should be considered legal parents after a breakup, with the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexual parents.

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Genetic Testing Informs About 4% of Fathers that a Child They are Raising Isn’t Theirs

British researchers say that about 4% of fathers, about 1 in 25 families, are raising children who are not theirs. The implications of the study are huge because such revelations often lead to divorce and increased mental health problems for both the man and woman involved, including the threat of violence for men. They say the problem will only grow more serious as genetic testing is used for more purposes.

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Virginia has started to subpoena cellphone companies to track down some of the state’s worst offenders for non-payment of child support. The plan has already yielded impressive results. The director of child support enforcement in Virginia says he has seen about a 20% success rate in obtaining information such as addresses and phone numbers from the companies.

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What Happens to the Kids When Gay Couples Split?

In this article two questions are at issue: What makes a person a parent? Is it biology, existing legal standards, or whether that person acts like a parent? In this case a homosexual couple with seven-year-old twins decided to split up and the breadwinner of the couple refused to pay child support because, she argued, “I’m not the children’s father.”

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Seattle Courthouse Shooting

An advocate for fathers’ rights in family court, who had protested for over 15 years over the unfairness of the child support he was ordered to pay, was shot Tuesday, June 21, outside the federal courthouse in Seattle. Perry Manley claimed that child support was a form of involuntary servitude in which a man is forced to work to support a child he is not responsible for raising. He was dressed in camouflage and carried a backpack strapped across his chest while he held a grenade that was later determined to be inactive. The three articles below will fill you in on the details:

• Seattle courthouse shooting strikes chord for activist
• Man killed at court was upset over child support
• Fatal standoff spotlights issue of child support

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Visitation for a Non-Amish Dad
A ruling by an Iowa district court judge says an Amish woman can retain custody of her 14-month-old daughter, but the girl’s non-Amish father must be allowed visitation rights. The case pitted Amish cultural demands against a father’s right to see his daughter and made public an affair between a 67-year-old businessman and his 30-year-old Amish employee.

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The Fathers/ Crusade

The NYT  Magazine last Sunday featured a lengthy article on fathers’ rights groups in the United States who advocate for a new standard in child custody. They want 50-50 joint physical custody and a standard that values parental rights as highly as the child’s best interest.

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Standards and Guidelines for Supervised Visitation Practice

 The Supervised Visitation Network, the agency that created the guidelines, is a multi-national non-profit membership organization that consists of a network of agencies and individuals who are interested in assuring that children can have conflict-free access to parents with whom they do not reside. See also FAQs for Parents, for Professionals 27 page document that can be downloaded in a printer friendly version.

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Troxel Redux

Another look at the Troxel decision and the State of Washington’s struggle to craft a state law that passes the state’s constitutional requirements for visitation for grandparents who are denied access to their grandchildren.

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Leaving the Street: Young Fathers Move from Hustling to Legitimate Work

The Fathers at Work is an initiative designed to help low-income, noncustodial fathers secure a living-wage job, increase their involvement with their children and manage their child support obligations. It was launched in 2001 at six sites across the country in response to society’s increasing demand that poor, noncustodial fathers take responsibility for the financial well-being of their children. At the same time, recent studies have provided insight into the factors that make it difficult for low-income, noncustodial fathers to provide for their children. Research has largely dispelled the notion that they are uncaring, deadbeat dads.

This report from Public Private evaluates the program and makes recommendations for the program’s improvement. 50 page pdf file.

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Help for Grandparents Raising Grandchildren

AARP has a tidy web page for grandparents who are raising their grandchildren. It includes tax tips, information about the Earned Income Tax Credit, and other breaks for grandparents in this role. Includes a list of states that offer their own earned income tax credit and other AARP resources.

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Fathering Court

An innovative Missouri court for deadbeat dads is playing a key role in getting participants into addiction treatment as well as compelling fathers to take responsibility for their children. The program currently has 135 participants and has collected more than $1 million in child-support payments since its inception in 1998. Louisiana operates two courts based on the fathering court model.

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Michigan Fathers Seek Joint Custody Norm

In a state class-action suit Michigan fathers are suing the state to force courts to presume that joint custody is in a child’s best interest at the outset of a divorce.

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Lawyer Who Fought Pledge Assails Courts on Child Custody

Michael A Newdow became famous this year for arguing his own case before the Supreme Court in a challenge to the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in schools. His new target is family law and the way it handles child custody. He challenges the best interests of the child standard saying that it is “a meaningless standard which you can’t fight. Which is best for children, to teach them to be generous or to teach them to be stingy? To spend time on Shakespeare or on baseball? Which is better? We don’t know,” he said. Newdow is a lawyer and an ER physician. Interesting, iconoclastic look at child custody from a non-custodial parent.

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American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers Resources Online

The web site of the AAML contains links to a number of downloadable publications you may find of interest personally as well as professionally. In addition to the links on the home page, you will find useful information at the Publications  page and the children's section of the Articles links too. Here are some of the pieces I liked:

	Children’s Bill of Rights
	Stepping Back from Anger
	Making Marriage Last: A Guide to preventing Divorce (print in portrait mode)
	The (Second Hand) Smoking Gun (Articles section, Children)
	Children’s Rights in Relocation (Articles section, Children)

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Child Support Fact Sheet

The National Center for Children in Poverty presents statistics and information on State Policies, Demographics, and Economic Conditions in the form of fact sheets. State Policy on Child Support includes paternity establishment, child support orders, child support collection, TANF, Policies Toward Noncustodial Parents.

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Child Support Cash is kept by States

The spending reauthorization of TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) gives states the option to keep the billions of dollars in child support they collect annually on behalf of welfare recipients or pass the money along to the custodial parent, 90% of whom are female. If states keep the money, they use it to reimburse themselves for the cash assistance they extend those same families as straight welfare payments.

Only one state, Wisconsin, passes long all the money it collects on behalf of single parents on public assistance without withholding other government benefits. A study of the impact of the Wisconsin child support system found that:

	Wisconsin mothers were more likely to establish paternity when they received more child support,
	Non-custodial parents were more likely to pay child support when the money went to the families, and
	Mothers and fathers had fewer conflicts over child support payments when the payments went to the custodial parent.

The study also found that the new program had no negative effect on the state’s revenue, since the drop in revenue from lost child support collections was offset when women who received regular child support payments went off welfare.

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The Center for Divorce Education (CDE)

CDE provides educational videos and booklets for agencies involved in classes for divorcing/separating parents. CDE’s Parenting Wisely program has been previously featured on Brevity. The program has been designated as an exemplary program by OJJDP and a model program by CSAP. After the Storm: Resolving Post-Separation Conflict is a training tool for high conflict parents. The video is a self-help program which comes with companion publications. These programs and more are available at the CDE web site.