Parental alienation involves the systematic brainwashing, poisoning and manipulation of children with the sole purpose of destroying a loving and warm relationship they once shared with a parent. My story involves this form of child abuse & exploring the bias favouring a mother in the social ecosystem around Family Law.
I have met and heard the tragic stories of many parents. PA is a function, by and large, of a custodial ex-partner, although some alienation can start while the couple is still together.
This blog is a story of experiences and observations of dysfunctional Family Law (FLAW), an arena pitting parent against parent, with children as the prize. Due to the gender bias in Family Law, that I have observed, this Blog has evolved from a focus solely on PA to one of the broader Family/Children's Rights area and the impact of Feminist mythology on Canadian Jurisprudence and the Divorce Industry.
Read The Sault Star article then my letter to the editor following it. The letter was published in the paper on Friday, October 24/08. You can view it here until it disappears.
PROBE:Group to map strategyWill strike committee to develop strategy
Posted By ELAINE DELLA-MATTIA, THE SAULT STAR
Alarming statistics that show a significant rise in youth crime in Sault Ste. Marie has Ward 3 Coun. Bryan Hayes calling for a committee to identify the problem and determine what solutions exist.
Hayes told city council Monday he was alarmed by the statistics in a council report that show 2007 youth crime increased by 28.9 per cent over the prior year.
He wants to better understand why the statistics show the trend, which at first blush, seems to be significantly higher than average for Northern Ontario municipalities.
"Youth are our future and children are our thermostat of the community," Hayes said, suggesting that the community is "not doing so well" and the problems must be identified and fixed.
Hayes admits he doesn't know whether the problem lies with how police keep their statistics or whether the problem stems from the failure of local services and resources, educational system challenges or elsewhere.
Earlier this year council was told a youth curfew would be unenforceable. Council has also declared 2008 the year of the youth in Sault Ste. Marie.
Wardmate Pat Mick noted the statistics don't indicate that 28 per cent of youth between the ages of 12 and 17 are committing crimes; the number of crimes committed are usually multiple crimes by fewer individuals.
But Ward 2 Coun. Susan Myers questioned what the city would do with its fact-finding mission and whether it would be prepared to ante up for the solutions.
"We don't need more talking heads. I'm sure there are counsellors and experts who will tell us what the problem is very quickly but I need to know whether the city will invest financially into the solution," she said.
Myers noted the attempted teen centre failed in Sault Ste. Marie and community services such as the soup kitchen now see more youth seeking assistance.
Ward 5 Coun. Frank Fata said he believes the city has serious drug trouble that contributes to the youth problem. Council approved Hayes' suggestion to establish the committee of council, which will study the issue and report back with a strategy.
October 21, 2008Dear Editor:Let me provide council with a way point for its road map on getting to the bottom of the increase of youth crime in our fair city. It might want to start with our local family court and then expand it outwardly across our vast nation.Gun crime by gangs is on the increase in our major centres across Canada. In London England gun and knife crime is on the rise despite the UK having one of the toughest gun laws in the universe.Why is youth crime increasing? Could it be related to our family courts withdrawing fathers from their children on an unprecedented scale. Most fathers end up the loser in a divorce or separation financially and emotionally. So are the children as a result. If lucky these fathers will only get to see their children 14% of the time in any given month if they are lucky. There is a nine to one ratio of females getting custody thus marginalizing fathers to the sidelines. Children do much more poorly in single parent households headed by females.Start there and work your way up. Get stats on the number of single parent households and then relate the crime increase to where the children reside. It might help.Want to know a way to resolve it. Get your MP and MPP to change the laws so that a presumption of equal and shared parenting is the norm, barring abuse, and watch our children do better. Watch the divorce rate drop and a reduction in teen pregnancies, suicide, truancy and criminal behaviour.Mike MurphyCoordinator, Sault Ste. MarieFathers-4-Justice Canada
My letter to the editor on the latest Jacobs diatribe against men.
From: Mike Murphy
Date: 2008/10/21
Subject: When violence hits home
To: mailbag@edmsun.com
Cc: mindy.jacobs@sunmedia.ca, Jeremy Swanson
Columnist Jacobs certainly has a grudge against men given the slant she gives her prose and statistics. She quotes Stats Canada but doesn't tell us if those stats are both male and female combined DV in the two provinces. It is clear, in the Statistics Canada data, that the ratio of DV is almost equal between male and female. It is also clear that many reports of rape and DV to the police are false. Did Ms. Jacobs account for this. One of the ongoing problems for men is they do not report DV in the same proportions as females for a variety of reasons and this skews the statistics. I have been attacked many times by my ex, once with a rake handle about 5.5 feet long and another with a ten pound jug of water she bounced off my head in front of our children. On many other occasions she has physically attacked and threw things at me. In addition she has attacked the children due to her emotional control and mental health problems. When she attacked me with the rake handle I defended myself so I would not be killed and she fell down due to the momentum she created when swinging it at me. I defended myself by taking advantage of the momentum when she missed me. She then said I attacked her. Is that one of the statistics you are reporting. Self defense by men being attacked? The emotional and financial abuse will help fill a book I am writing.
What perplexes me the most is why Ms. Jacobs doesn't provide more balance in her opinions. I know she is doing an opinion piece but the frequency of her male baiting and diatribe gives one the impression she harbors misandric thoughts about males. Is this appropriate? Does she think, as many feminists do, that a difference of opinion between partners is DV? Does she think if a man raises his voice in a discussion where there is a difference of opinion that he is violent or prone to violence? What trauma has she suffered at the hands of a man (men) to want her to deride us so much? If this were a man writing about females you would be stormed by radical feminist writers about how you should allow such hate to occur in your paper? They would tell you the man is clearly misogynistic.
In any event Ms. Jacobs has little creditiblity with "real men" when she so expertly selects her statistics, just as "real women" would ponder her motives as well. DV is inappropriate no matter the gender of the parties, including lesbians who, if you look, bash each other both physically and emotionally with great frequency. We are seeing divorces now occurring and are hearing very similar stories of Parental Alienation and DV. Gosh how can that be possible when it is female upon female abuse? Ms. Jacobs should take a close look at this and write it up for her "Sisters" in the feminist fraternity (whoops sorority?) to call attention to homosexual DV as well.
--
Michael Murphy
Sault Ste. Marie ON P6A 6J8
A Fathers Rights Activist from the East
I wonder how a feminist, in principle, can work for a paper that puts scantily clad "Sisters" called "Sunshine Girls" in each edition as all of those in the Sun Group do. I guess a job is a job, eh! I'm just saying that someone with her feminist principals would have more gumption to assert to her employer it is inappropriate to exploit her "Sisters" in that manner. After all haven't most men's locker rooms been "cleaned" up of these kinds of pictures because it somehow can be considered anti-female and sexist. I am not suggesting for one minute they should be eliminated, no siree! I'm just saying....
While spousal violence has declined over the years, it, nevertheless, constitutes a shocking 15% of all police-reported violent crime in Canada.
Quebec and Alberta are the worst cases, where spousal abuse accounted for 20% and 18% of violent offences in those provinces, respectively, in 2006, Statistics Canada reported recently.
If there is a silver lining here, it is that most spousal violence (61%) involves common, or minor, assaults (although any kind of assault is clearly unacceptable).
Major assaults comprise only 14% of spousal violence, followed closely by uttering threats (11%) and stalking (8%).
Spousal homicides are, thankfully, rare. Still, they represent 17% of all solved killings in Canada. And, in my mind, judges are not always treating domestic-related killings with the seriousness they deserve.
Earlier this month, an Alberta Court of Queen's Bench justice decided that the 10-year minimum sentence for second-degree murder was enough for a man who attacked his estranged wife and stabbed her boyfriend to death in 2004.
He originally received a lighter sentence, after the trial judge accepted his argument that he was provoked into a rage when he found his estranged wife in bed with her boyfriend. His original sentence? Nearly nine years for manslaughter.
Absurd defence
Fortunately, the Alberta Court of Appeal realized how absurd the killer's defence was and convicted him of second-degree murder instead.
He and his wife had been separated for months and he lied to get into her building, the appeal court noted. Arguing he was somehow provoked into slashing her in the face and stabbing her boyfriend 37 times was ridiculous.
He was just another angry, jealous guy getting back at his former partner because their relationship had ended.
Unfortunately, when he headed back to court for sentencing on the second-degree murder conviction, Court of Queen's Bench Justice Lawrie Smith ignored the Crown's request for a 20-year sentence before parole eligibility.
While the murder was "brutal and shocking," the killer isn't an ongoing danger to the community, Smith said.
True, he's unlikely to murder anyone else. How many killers go on to kill again? That's not the point. What's significant here is that he accomplished what he apparently set out to do in cold, calculating fashion -- disfigure his ex-wife and kill her new lover.
If this horrifying case of domestic violence doesn't cry out for a sentence far above the minimum 10-year term, I don't know what does.
There have been numerous cases over the years, in fact, where perps in domestic violence-related killings have been treated comparatively lightly despite the well known dynamics of family violence.
Public awareness
Yes, the rates of spousal homicides have been declining over the past three decades and that has much to do with greater education and public awareness. Family violence was once shrugged off, laughed at and swept under the carpet.
All the more reason for a serious crackdown on people convicted of spousal killings or other related murders sparked by rage and jealousy.
Domestic homicide is unlike any other crime because of its murderous entanglement of sexuality and emotion.
As part of their justice reforms, the Harper Conservatives should raise the minimum sentence for second-degree murder to 20 years for spousal-related killings. No mercy for these thugs.
Your columnist, Mindy Jacobs is at it again. Of course, this is October, "Domestic Violence Month," and every card carrying radical feminist with access to the public feels obligated to add her bit to the castigation of men. Please note the first line of her diatribe: "15% of all police-reported violent crime..." and how she morphs into an assumption that every police report is an incident of actual violence,"spousal abuse accounted for 20% and 18% of violent offences". Any lawyer will tell you that false reports are commonly used to enhance the woman's case in a majority of divorce and custody cases. Furthermore, men aren't conditioned to think of a marital disagreement as a "crime", and thus fail to report it to police. The truth is, men are victimized by domestic violence in equal numbers.
Moreover, Jacobs is referring to "spousal abuse", and thereby ignoring the DOUBLED rate of violence against women BY women in lesbian relationships.
The feminist agenda is anti-male, not anti-violence. The stereotypical methodology, exemplified by Jacobs, is to hang their ideological claims on one isolated instance. Even then, she doesn't tell us if the man in question was angered by a false accusation prior to catching his wife in an adulterous act, even more so by the injustice heaped on him by the courts. Sure,he was angry, but did the boyfriend attack him first? Was the injury to the wife incidental to the fight between the two men? No matter, Jacobs obvious intention was to turn this into a show-case for her anti-male ranting. Next, we expect she'll be calling for life inprisonment for a slap on the face
"Der Schwesterschaft Uber Alles"
Paul Clements
Gaffney, SC, USA
Senior Contributing Editor: IN SEARCH OF FATHERHOOD
As part of their justice reforms, the Harper Conservatives should raise the minimum sentence for second-degree murder to 20 years for spousal-related killings. No mercy for these thugs.
I just wish that when you write these articles, and use terms such as "Thugs", that this pertains to both genders. If not, could you please start doing so.
If and when, you and the rest of your colleagues start doing so, is when you will see these issues few and far between.
Did it ever occur to you that she wanted to get caught in bed, I know my ex wanted to. Fortunately enough I had the restraint.
You poke at a lion in a cage with a stick. Do you honestly think that the lion is going to sit there and watch you when the cage door gets open.
Start looking at the reality of things Mindy and report the whole story.
Should her husband had gotten a "Life Sentence"?, you're damn right he should have, along with every other person that commits the same crime regardless of gender.
These problems will never go away until people like yourself and others, start writing the whole story out.
We just had an issue here in London court where the judge found both parties guilty of domestic violence. Care to see which side got written about.
“The job of a father is this : to help his children develop, to teach them to express and master their emotions; to avoid physiological distress, to provide a context for their experiences; to help them persevere, reach their goals and take on responsibilities; and to instil the roles of citizen, partner and parent. In short, it is to fill their bellies with bread, their brains with wisdom and their hearts with love and courage.” Camil Bouchard, “On Father’s Ground” 2002.
Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?" ~ George Bernard Shaw ~ also quoted by Robert F. Kennedy, US Senator and Presidential Candidate assassinated in 1968.
Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length. ~ Robert Frost
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. - Mahatma Gandhi
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Some Gems on relationships
Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right, and the other is a husband.
The motto of this Father's Rights Activist
"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again ... and who, at the worst, if he fails at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." Theodore Roosevelt,
Facts on violence in Canada Domestic and Otherwise
Family violence in Canada: A statistical profile, 2009.
Of the nearly 19 million Canadians who had a current or former spouse in 2009, 6.2% or 1.2 million reported they had been victimized physically or sexually by their partner or spouse during the five years prior to the survey. This proportion was stable from 2004 (6.6%), the last time the victimization survey was conducted, and down from 1999 (7.4%).
A similar proportion of men and women reported experiencing spousal violence during the five years prior to the survey. Among men, 6.0% or about 585,000, encountered spousal violence during this period, compared with 6.4% or 601,000 women.
Keep in mind what you see in the paper is what is reported to police. The numbers above from Stats Canada are those based on surveys which are more comprehensive.
Total 611, men 465, women 146 Rate of homicides with firearms has increased 24% since 2002. Handgun use on increase (gangs don't register their weapons) Women victims 24% - lowest proportion ever Men Victims 76% Both the rate of females killed (0.87 per 100,000 population), as well as the proportion (24%), were the lowest since 1961 62 spousal homicides - no change from 2007 Lowest rate in 40 years 45 women 17 (27.4%)men
Many DV homicides of men are not classified as such and this number is higher than 27.4%.
In 2009 based on a million couples it can fairly be said 999,998 wives do not kill their husbands and 999,995 husbands do not kill their wives. (See Pg. 15 chart modified from the rate per 100,000.)
In 2009, 49 women and 15 men were killed by a current or former spouse (excludes one same-sex spousal victim).
Total homicides 610, Men 450. Gang related 20.3 percent. 69.1 % of firearm related deaths involved handguns Women 160, In 2009 it represented the second lowest proportion (26%) of female homicide victims since data were first collected. The rate of female victims has generally been declining since the late 1960s.
I am Politically active and right of centre on most issues with the odd exception such as legalization of "Mary Jane".
I advocate on changes to Family Law - an incredibly dysfunctional arena where parents are pitted against one another and children are the victims.
My picture will sometimes show me as a younger man simply because I like them.
American Coalition for Fathers & Children Petition
A quote by a well known Canadian Jurist
The Honorable Justice John Gomery of Canada stated, “Hatred is not an emotion that comes naturally to a child. It has to be taught. A parent who would teach a child to hate the other parent represents a grave and persistent danger to the mental and emotional health of that child.”
(The above quote arises from PSM vs. AJC, a decision rendered by Mr. Justice John Gomery on February 15 1991 (SCM 500-12-184613895), and confirmed by the unanimous judgment of the Court of Appeal on June 14 1991, the trial judge was confronted by a case involving four children caught up in a heated custody battle between their parents whereby the children became "catastrophically" alienated from their mother.) A good paper on PAS for lawyers by a lawyer, Anne-France Goldwater (Avocate), and excerpts from the above trial are located here.
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