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Albert Mohler
Author, Speaker, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Friday, February 24, 2006
Are Stay at Home Moms "Letting Down the Team?"
Are stay at home moms a threat to civilization? Those of you who are shocked by this question should take note of the fact that ABC's "Good Morning America" program devoted segments to this question on two successive days, featuring the arguments of Linda Hirshman, a prominent feminist thinker.
"I am saying an educated, competent adult's place is in the office," Hirshman told "Good Morning America." In other words, moms who stay at home with their children have given themselves to a calling that no educated or competent adult should desire or accept
Hirshman threw herself into the debate over motherhood last year, when she responded to a spate of media reports that indicated an amazing trend--large numbers of highly educated young women on elite college and university campuses indicated that they did not intend to pursue a career outside the home, but to give themselves to being wives and mothers.
Hirshman's response was vehement and verbose. Writing in the pages of The American Prospect, Hirshman argued that "feminism has largely failed in its goals." As she explained, "There are few women in the corridors of power, and marriage is essentially unchanged. The number of women at universities exceeds the number of men. But, more than a generation after feminism, the number of women in elite jobs just doesn't come close."
According to Hirshman's diagnosis, this problem is largely traceable to the fact that too many women are staying at home with their children. In particular, she attacked the notion that women should feel free to choose motherhood as a life calling. In attacking "choice feminism," Hirshman asserts that women who give themselves to mothering undermine the status of all women and threaten the emergence of an egalitarian civilization.
In her article in The American Prospect, Hirshman reviewed a wealth of data. Interestingly, the statistics she expects her readers to find so disappointing will be the cause of surprise and hope for those who value the family, parenthood, and the responsibility of child rearing. As she explains, the census numbers for all working mothers have fallen modestly since 1998, after having leveled off around 1990.
Concerned by these statistics, Hirshman decided to undertake some research of her own. She selected a sample of young women who had been identified as brides in the "Sunday Styles" section of The New York Times in 1996. Hirshman believed that "the brilliantly educated and accomplished brides" of her sample would be indicative of the way this generation of young women is approaching career, marriage, and motherhood.
As Hirshman relates: "At marriage, they included a vice president of client communication, a gastroenterologist, a lawyer, an editor, and a marketing executive. In 2003 and 2004, I tracked them down and called them. I interviewed about 80 percent of the 41 women who announced their weddings over three Sundays in 1996. Around 40 years old, college graduates with careers: Who was more likely than they to be reaping feminism's promise of opportunity? Imagine my shock when I found almost all the brides from the first Sunday at home with their children. Statistical anomaly? Nope. Same result for the next Sunday. And the one after that."
This section of her article is startling, to say the least. Like Hirshman, I must admit that I am surprised by her data. Nevertheless, the fact that so many talented, highly educated, and promising young women were giving themselves to motherhood is a source of genuine hope and encouragement.
Hirshman went on to describe additional findings in her research. "Ninety percent of the brides I found had had babies. Of the 30 with babies, five were still working full time. Twenty-five, or 85 percent, were not working full time. Of those not working full time, 10 were working part time but often a long way from their prior career paths. And half the married women with children were not working at all."
Beyond Hirshman's data, research indicates that far more women than men drop out of the workforce to take care of their children. In addition to this, recent research indicates that women with graduate or professional degrees are only slightly more likely to remain in the workforce after having children than women with only one year of college. "When their children are infants (under a year), 54 percent of females with graduate or professional degrees are not working full time (18 percent are working part time and 36 percent are not working at all). Even among those who have children who are not infants, 41 percent are not working full time (18 percent are working part time and 23 percent are not working at all)."
From Hirshman's perspective, it only gets worse. "This isn't only about daycare," she admits. "Half my Times brides quit before the first baby came. In interviews, at least half of them expressed a hope never to work again. None had realistic plans to work. More importantly, when they quit, they were already alienated from their work or at least not committed to a life of work."
The very fact that these women turned their back on promising careers seems virtually inconceivable to Linda Hirshman. When a female MBA expressed her lack of connection with the men at her previous workplace who got so excited about making deals, Hirshman observes all this with incredulity.
In Hirshman's view, all this simply proves that the feminist revolution was not revolutionary enough. In other words, the revolution that opened the workplace to women did nothing, in her view, to fundamentally reshape marriage and the family power structure. "Why did this happen? The answer I discovered--an answer neither feminist leaders nor women themselves want to face--is that while the public world has changed, albeit imperfectly, to accommodate women among the elite, private lives have hardly budged. The real glass ceiling is at home."
Thus, the problem of "the unreconstructed family" is the concern of Hirshman and many of her fellow feminists. Hirshman, retired as a distinguished visiting professor at Brandeis University, had previously taught academic courses on subjects such as "sexual bargaining." Infused with the ideology of radical feminism, she now argues that the entire pattern of gender relations must be revolutionized.
"Great as liberal feminism was, once it retreated to choice the movement had no language to use on the gendered ideology of the family. Feminists could not say, 'Housekeeping and child-rearing in the nuclear family is not interesting and not socially validated. Justice requires that it not be assigned to women on the basis of their gender and at the sacrifice of their access to money, power, and honor."
Clearly, what she argues that liberal feminism was unable to propose, she now intends to take up as her central argument. She clearly believes that housekeeping and child-rearing are not interesting and should not be socially validated.
In her appearance on "Good Morning America," Hirshman attacked the notion that women can feel fulfilled and validated in the calling of motherhood. As the ABC report indicates, "Hirshman says working is also a matter of feeling fulfilled. She doesn't buy into the arguments of many homemakers who say taking care of the family is the most fulfilling thing they could imagine." Hirshman's response is a demonstration of breathtaking arrogance. "I would like to see a description of their daily lives that substantiates that position," she said. "One of the things I've done working on my book is to read a lot of the diaries online, and their description of their lives does not sound particularly interesting or fulfilling for a complicated person, for a complicated, educated person."
Get that? Hirshman is telling America's moms that their work is fundamentally unimportant, uninteresting, and fundamentally unworthy of any "complicated" and "educated" person.
Women who stay at home with their children, turning their back on promising careers, "are letting down the team," she asserts. They are rejecting the very feminist ideal that the radical ideologues have adopted and they are undermining the cause of all women, in Hirshman's condescending view.
Make no mistake--Hirshman does not want women to have any real choice in the matter. "Choice feminism" is an abysmal failure, in her view, because it validates what should never be validated--motherhood.
Her answer? "Women who want to have sex and children with men as well as good work in interesting jobs where they may occasionally wield real social power need guidance, and they need it early. Step one is simply to begin talking about flourishing. In so doing, feminism will be returning to its early, judgmental roots. This may anger some, but it should sound the alarm before the next generation winds up in the same situation. Next, feminists will have to start offering young women not choices and not utopian dreams but solutions they can enact on their own. Prying women out of their traditional roles is not going to be easy."
There is more. Hirshman argues that allowing motherhood as a choice is "bad for women individually." Hirshman is ready to tell young women that they have no inherent right to choose a status lower, in Hirshman's view, from what they should seek and demand in the public sphere.
"A good life for humans includes the classical standard of using one's capacities for speech and reason in a prudent way, the liberal requirement of having enough autonomy to direct one's own life, and the utilitarian test of doing more good than harm in the world. Measured against these time-tested standards, the expensively educated upper-class moms will be leading lesser lives."
This is stunning stuff. In Hirshman's view, a woman's choice to deploy her "capacities for speech and reason" as a mother is not prudent or acceptable. Beyond this, she seems to demonstrate an inherent dislike for children in general, and infants in particular. She accuses stay at home moms of "bearing most of the burden of the work always associated with the lowest caste." She identifies these tasks as "sweeping and cleaning bodily waste," and condemned mothers who were described in a press account as "vigilantly watching their babies for signs of excretion 24-7" as "untouchables" by choice.
The very fact that "Good Morning America" devoted two segments to Linda Hirshman and her attack on motherhood is a significant cultural development. Of course, the ABC program included voices that opposed Hirshman's arguments, but these arguments were considered newsworthy nonetheless.
Without doubt, Hirshman is speaking for a sizeable percentage of the cultural elite when she argues that "an educated, competent adult's place is in the office." In the view of so many, the office and the professional workplace are the arenas where real life is lived and important work is done. The thought that motherhood could be a higher calling than law, medicine, finance, or any number of other professions is completely beyond her comprehension. Indeed, she sees the very logic of motherhood as undermining the entire feminist project.
Thus, when she argues that stay at home moms are "letting down the team," she means to shame young women out of motherhood and back into the workplace. At the very least, she argues that mothers should have only one baby so that they can return to the workplace in short order.
The Christian response to this article must be a combination of refutation, amazement, and affirmation of motherhood. Hirshman's article and media appearances can serve to remind us all of the unspeakably high calling of motherhood and to the sacrifices that so many women make, day in and day out, to the raising of children, the nurture of the home, and the shaping of civilization itself.
I respond to Hirshman's arguments from a highly privileged position--as the son, husband, and son-in-law of women who gave and give themselves to the calling of motherhood without reservation. They, like so many millions of other dedicated mothers, are the ones who demonstrate a wisdom and dedication that goes beyond anything a man can offer in terms of motherly intuition, loving devotion, and management challenges that would daunt the boldest Fortune 500 CEO.
Nevertheless, the best refutation of Hirshman's awful argument is the happiness experienced by so many mothers and the evidence of motherly love and attention in the lives of their children.
These women are not "letting down the team." To the contrary, they are holding civilization together where civilization begins--in the home.
http://www.uexpress.com/johnleo/
04/09/2006
GAMBLING WITH AMERICA'S SWEETHEART
John Leo
Mr. Answer Man, why is it that many people don't like the idea of Katie Couric becoming the new Dan Rather? Is it because, after all those father figures, it's jarring to get the national kid sister? If we're going to bypass Dad, why can't we have a reassuring mother figure instead of turning immediately to one of the perky kids?
You have a point. Katie is almost 50, but people think of her as a kid and douse her in childlike rhetoric. Bob Schieffer of CBS said, "We're going to love Katie." Journalist Margaret Carlson compared her to Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and someone else called her a "sweetheart." It's hard to imagine Tom Brokaw saying he adores Brian Williams, or that Brian reminds him of "Winnie the Pooh." These comments probably should have been cleared with the casting director at CBS.
You're probably going to say this isn't a good question, but what is Katie's position on castration?
It seems to vary. When a man ran out on his bride-to-be, leaving her right at the altar, Katie suggested on the "Today" show that castration might be a good idea. But when the Runaway Bride of 2005 fled from her husband-to-be, Katie failed to prescribe any genital mangling at all. In her one-hour special on this gripping tale, Katie was very sweet to the fleeing fiancee. She said Ms. Runaway "hopes that when people learn her full story, they will come to see her as she sees herself, as a real person with real problems, not as a headline."
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That's touching. But tell me, why wasn't the runaway husband, also a real person with real problems, entitled to keep his real genitals?
You would have to ask Katie. My feeling is that Les Moonves, her new boss, will probably tell Katie to stop calling for people to be surgically altered.
Here's another question about double standards. When Republican senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont switched parties and became a Democrat, Katie said, "His story is a classic of American politics." He agonized, but "knew he'd made the right decision. Today, Jeffords is a man at peace with himself."
My question is this: When Colorado senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell made the opposite switch, from Democrat to Republican, was his story a classic, too, and did Katie say he was at peace with himself and knew he had made the right decision? Or did Katie not interview him because he was traveling in the wrong direction?
You got it. He wasn't on the "Today" show.
What's this about Couric arguing that people who don't approve of homosexuality were responsible for the murder of Matthew Shepard?
She deplores "a climate that some say has been established by religious zealots or Christian conservatives." Like a lot of people, Katie is fond of "climate" arguments: People who oppose hate-crime laws are responsible for the dragging murder of James Byrd in Texas; people who deride the federal government are responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing, etc. But Al Gore isn't responsible for the Unabomber, though the bomber's environmental views are almost identical to Gore's and may have come from him.
Wasn't Katie a bit miffed when the Super Bowl hoax was revealed -- you know, the one that said husbands beat up their wives when their team loses?
Yes, she did seem a bit out of sorts about that, and she wasn't even ready to concede it was a hoax. She said to author Christina Hoff Sommers: "Let's say, if one accepts your thesis, that these statistics are inflated or are used incorrectly. Aren't you worried about throwing the baby out with the bath water? So Super Bowl Sunday isn't the biggest day for men battering women, aren't you afraid that you're going to be dismissing the problem altogether if you refute that?"
This is peculiar position, but, as I said, she likes "climate" arguments. If you expose a hoax about domestic violence, you reinforce the climate that lets abuse persist.
Katie tends to go ga-ga over Hillary Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Kofi Annan, but she's snippy about Ronald Reagan, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and religious conservatives. How do you account for this?
Arguing that she shouldn't have the conventional opinions of her class and profession is like arguing that fish shouldn't have fins. In Manhattan journalism, all the fish tend to have the same fins.
But I thought the new anchor was going to be the antidote to Dan Rather. Why did they pick Katie?
CBS had no logical successor in the wings, nobody like Brian Williams. Few people think the evening network news operations have much of a future. So CBS rolled the dice and opted for a mega-celebrity to get some ratings. It's a show-biz decision. They're trying to save what's left.
http://ancpr.com/blog/archives/296
Police must pay $2.6M
Jury: Girl wrongly taken from day care
DAVID SIDERS
Record Staff Writer
Published Tuesday, Apr 4, 2006
A federal jury returned a $2.6million verdict Friday against Stockton and two members of the Police Department, siding with a father and daughter who claimed police wrongfully took the girl from day care.
Crystal Keller was 4 years old and the subject of a custody dispute when police collected her from the home of her Orangevale day-care provider in 2002. Her mother lived in Stockton.
Police did not have a warrant or proof Crystal was in danger, Crystal and her father, Dennis Keller, claimed in a trial in U.S. District Court in Sacramento. The girl's seizure violated the family's civil rights, the Kellers claimed.
Stockton City Attorney
Ren Nosky said police believed that Crystal was in danger and that waiting for a warrant could endanger her even more. He said he would ask the City Council today for permission to appeal the verdict.
"This case is far from over," he said. "We're standing behind the officers."
Keller said Crystal cried for him the day police came for her.
"It was hard, because I didn'tknow what was going on," Crystal said Monday. "I was frightened. I was terrified."
Crystal spent two years in foster care before Keller won full custody in 2004, said the family's Oakland attorney, David Beauvais.
"It's like a bad chapter you can finally write off," said Keller, a 49-year-old mechanic who now lives with his daughter in Fair Oaks.
Police Sgt. Ken Praegitzer and Detective Kathryn Henderson, the two officials named in the lawsuit, could not be reached for comment. The chief's office referred calls seeking comment to the city attorney.
The jury awarded Crystal $500,000 in compensatory damages and $1million in punitive damages; it awarded her father $100,000 in compensatory damages and $1million in punitive damages.
Beauvais called the verdict a rebuke of a department that, without warrant, seized a child who was not in danger.
Nosky said police acted in the child's best interest and called the verdict inappropriate.
Contact reporter David Siders at (209) 943-8580 or [email protected]
http://ancpr.com/blog/archives/296
Police must pay $2.6M
Jury: Girl wrongly taken from day care
DAVID SIDERS
Record Staff Writer
Published Tuesday, Apr 4, 2006
A federal jury returned a $2.6million verdict Friday against Stockton and two members of the Police Department, siding with a father and daughter who claimed police wrongfully took the girl from day care.
Crystal Keller was 4 years old and the subject of a custody dispute when police collected her from the home of her Orangevale day-care provider in 2002. Her mother lived in Stockton.
Police did not have a warrant or proof Crystal was in danger, Crystal and her father, Dennis Keller, claimed in a trial in U.S. District Court in Sacramento. The girl's seizure violated the family's civil rights, the Kellers claimed.
Stockton City Attorney
Ren Nosky said police believed that Crystal was in danger and that waiting for a warrant could endanger her even more. He said he would ask the City Council today for permission to appeal the verdict.
"This case is far from over," he said. "We're standing behind the officers."
Keller said Crystal cried for him the day police came for her.
"It was hard, because I didn'tknow what was going on," Crystal said Monday. "I was frightened. I was terrified."
Crystal spent two years in foster care before Keller won full custody in 2004, said the family's Oakland attorney, David Beauvais.
"It's like a bad chapter you can finally write off," said Keller, a 49-year-old mechanic who now lives with his daughter in Fair Oaks.
Police Sgt. Ken Praegitzer and Detective Kathryn Henderson, the two officials named in the lawsuit, could not be reached for comment. The chief's office referred calls seeking comment to the city attorney.
The jury awarded Crystal $500,000 in compensatory damages and $1million in punitive damages; it awarded her father $100,000 in compensatory damages and $1million in punitive damages.
Beauvais called the verdict a rebuke of a department that, without warrant, seized a child who was not in danger.
Nosky said police acted in the child's best interest and called the verdict inappropriate.
Contact reporter David Siders at (209) 943-8580 or [email protected]
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/phyllisschlafly/2006/03/27/191470.html
Welfare reform meets the law of unintended consequences
Mar 27, 2006
by Phyllis Schlafly
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, known as Welfare Reform, has been cheered as a stunning achievement of the Republican Congress and its Contract With America. The law helped to move millions of welfare recipients out of dependency and into productive jobs, but its unintended consequences brought many thousands of "never welfare" families into the welfare bureaucracy.
Financial incentives are often built into tax credits, reductions or bonuses to influence human behavior in home ownership, energy, water, transportation, and waste management. But sometimes the law contains incentives that were not planned, expected or desirable.
The Great Society welfare system was recognized by the 1990s as a social disaster that created fatherless children, illegitimacy and women's dependency on government. Channeling taxpayer handouts to mothers provided a powerful financial incentive for fathers to depart; they were not needed anymore.
Unfortunately, policy changes in the 1988 and 1996 welfare laws created similar financial incentives for state governments to exclude middle-class fathers from the home. The law incentivized the states to manufacture "noncustodial" (i.e., absent) fathers and to order money transfers (usually through wage garnishment) to mothers, thereby putting a large segment of the middle class under the welfare bureaucrats.
The major goal of the 1996 Welfare Reform was to reduce the budget deficit by, among other things, recovering welfare costs from absentee fathers. Without justification or public debate, the rules to accomplish this were then applied to middle-class "never welfare" families.
Formerly, to receive welfare benefits, recipients had to demonstrate eligibility by "need" (i.e., a test measured by income level), but the new policy omitted income eligibility requirements. Without a means test, a high-income mother with custody can use the power of the state to collect from a low-income father.
The federal government annually provides $4.2 billion in block grants to states to serve as collection agencies. States are reimbursed for 66 percent of their costs of child support enforcement activities, 80 percent of their costs for technology, and 66 percent of their costs of DNA testing for paternity.
The more cases the states can create and the more operational expenses they incur, the more federal funding states receive to expand their welfare bureaucracy. No performance standards are required to get this money and, in addition, the feds provide a bonus fund ($458 million in Fiscal 2006) for which the states compete.
In the welfare class, most absentee fathers are unemployed or working for wages so low that little or no money can be squeezed out of them. State bureaucrats discovered they could cash in on the pot of federal money by exploiting middle-class divorce and creating a whole new class of absent fathers who have good jobs and are willingly making payments to their ex-wives.
When a married couple with children is divorced, the family court typically renames the husband and wife as noncustodial and custodial parents. The more time with the children that is awarded to the custodial parent, the more money the noncustodial parent is ordered to pay and then can be reported by the state as collections that merit federal bonuses.
Federal funding thus provides powerful monetary incentives for states to maximize the number of single-parent households with high transfer payments, and to minimize equal child custody which would lessen transfer payments. Depriving or reducing children's access to one parent is thus a source of revenue for states.
These incentives drive family court discretion and skew the opinions of the vast army of lawyers, psychologists, custody evaluators, and parenting counselors who are used to rationalize the process. They hide their predetermined custody rulings under the subjective slogan "the best interest of the child."
Put another way, forcibly depriving children of access to one parent, usually the father because he usually has a higher income than the mother, is a big source of revenue to states. The more support orders that are issued, the higher they are, and the more fathers who are threatened with jail and suspension of their driver's and professional licenses for challenging the system, the better chance a state will receive more money from the federal government.
This result was accurately predicted by Leslie L. Frye, chief of Child Support for the California Department of Social Services. In testifying to the Human Resources Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee on March 20, 1997, Frye said the new regulations "encouraged states to recruit middle-class families, never dependent on public assistance and never likely to be so, into their programs in order to maximize federal child support incentives."
Of the 40 percent of U.S. children now growing up in homes without their own father, some are victims of the stereotypical "deadbeat dad." But most are victims of disastrous federal policies that provided incentives to create female-headed households, first by the Democrats' welfare system and then by the Republicans' so-called welfare reform.
Many consciences should be burdened with the realization that taxpayer money provides financial incentives to deprive millions of children of their own fathers.
Phyllis Schlafly is the President and Founder of the Eagle Forum.
Copyright © 2006 Copley News Service
http://www.glennsacks.com/the_betrayal_of.htm
Wednesday, March 1, 2006
The Betrayal of the Military Father
By Glenn Sacks
When Gary, a San Diego-based US Navy SEAL, was deployed in Afghanistan in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, he never dreamed that his service to his country would cost him his little son. Gary's son was not taken from him by a terrorist or a kidnapper. This 17-year Navy veteran with an unblemished military and civilian record was effectively stripped of his right to be a father by a California court.
Gary's story is not an unusual one. Under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, if a parent takes a child to a new state, that new state becomes the child's presumptive residence after six months. Because a normal military deployment is six months or more, if an unhappily married military spouse moves to another state while the other spouse is deployed, by the time the deployed spouse returns the child's residence has already been switched. Since courts lean heavily in favor of a child's primary caregiver when determining custody, the spouse who moved the child is virtually certain to gain custody through the divorce proceedings in that new state.
Because of the strict restrictions on travel by active military personnel, the cost of legal representation, and the financial hardships created by child support and spousal support obligations, it is very difficult for returning service personnel to fight for their parental rights in another state. Many struggle even to see their children, much less remain a meaningful part of their lives, and the bond between the children and their noncustodial parent is often broken for years, if not permanently.
Gary has not been able to see his son, who now lives abroad, in nearly nine months. When he calls he can sometimes hear the three year-old ask "when daddy come?" and "where's daddy?" in the background but he is often prevented from speaking with him.
According to nationally-known family law attorney Jeffery Leving, author of Fathers' Rights , there are three solutions to the problems facing military fathers. First, the federal Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act of 1940 needs to be amended to specifically prohibit the spouses of active duty military personnel from permanently moving children to other states without the permission either of the active duty military spouse or of a court. (The primary purpose of the Act, whose origins go back as far as the Civil War, is to protect active armed forces personnel by mandating that civil actions against them be delayed until after their return from service).
Second, California laws, which currently do little to prevent a custodial parent from moving children far away from the noncustodial parent, need to be changed to prohibit any permanent removals done against a deployed military parent's will. Third, the UCCJEA needs to be amended to state that the presumption of new residence does not apply if the children are taken in this wrongful fashion.
Gary has lost nearly $100,000 so far fighting for his son and may soon be forced to declare bankruptcy, which in turn will destroy the top secret security clearance he needs for his job. Worse yet is the emotional devastation wrought by his separation from his son and the knowledge that he may never see him again. He says:
"My love for my son cannot simply be brushed aside as the courts seem to believe it can. I can remember holding my little son's hand like it was yesterday. I can remember his cry. I hear it every time I hear another child crying."
"Sometimes I wonder what I risked my life [in Afghanistan] for. I went to fight for freedom but what freedom and what rights mean anything if a man doesn't have the right to be a father to his own child?"
http://tinyurl.com/l4nxg
Prisons ask for alternatives to jailing deadbeat parents
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Prisons officials are asking lawmakers to consider alternatives to putting deadbeat parents behind bars, where they don't earn much money and continue failing to support their children.
The 601 men and 24 women sent to prison in 2004 for not paying child support made $12 to $18 a month working prison jobs, while taxpayers paid about $63 a day for each prisoner's shelter, food, clothing and medical care.
"We strongly think each child should receive the support they are due," said Andrea Dean, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. "But we also understand there are going to be some deadbeat dads or parents for whom, if they had an opportunity, an alternative sanction other than prison would be a good option."
About 2.5 percent of inmates admitted to prisons in 2004 were felony child support cases.
Prisons officials want lawmakers to consider work release or other programs that would allow nonviolent child support violators to work under supervision. They say those options could help alleviate crowding and save taxpayers the $23,000 each prisoner costs annually.
Some officials in charge of collecting child support payments say they go through many options before cases are even prosecuted.
The Franklin County Child Support Enforcement Agency tries punishments such as suspending drivers' licenses, withholding money from paychecks and seizing bank accounts before filing charges, agency head Anthony Bond said.
"We've exhausted every possible administrative and judicial remedy before we do this," he said.
Kim Newsom Bridges, director of the Ohio Child Support Directors Association, which represents all 88 counties, said members would be willing to consider any new option that encourages parents to pay up.
"In most circumstances, the county agency and the court have already been through many steps with the obligor and they have failed to comply," she said. "We are not throwing people in prison on the first try."
In Franklin County, there were 51,000 cases with child support court orders, Bond said. Of those, 706 were sent to the prosecutor and 46 were prosecuted.
Failure to pay child support is a fifth-degree felony, punishable by six to 12 months in prison. Repeat offenses rise to fourth-degree felonies, which carry sentences of up to 18 months.
About two-thirds of the child-support prisoners from 1991 to 2004 were white -- compared to half of the overall prison population -- and about 60 percent had a high school diploma or the equivalent, according to prisons statistics. The average violator was a 37-year-old man.
Prisoners say they didn't pay child support because they were unemployed or working part-time, had a job that paid minimum wage or had a second family and couldn't afford both, according to state documents. Nearly half had full-time jobs before going to prison, statistics show.
About $2 billion in child support was collected in Ohio during the fiscal year that ended June 30, with another $600 million that went uncollected. The state has about 1 million child support cases, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
Doug Missman, chief probation officer for Delaware County Common Pleas Court, said his county has work release and other programs, although not all counties can offer them because such programs are costly.
"It seems silly to be spending money to lock up people so the state pays for them and they can't pay the people they owe," Missman said.
___
Information from: The Columbus Dispatch, http://www.dispatch.com
"It seems silly to be spending money to lock up people so the state pays for them and they can't pay the people they owe," Missman said.
GOOD NEWS
Dear ACFC Reader,
This letter contains good news from Washington, DC for all shared parenting advocates.
Congratulations and Thanks to the over 1,000 readers who responded to our action alert on the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) on January 4, 2006.
On January 4, 2006 ACFC asked you to contact the President and White House with your concerns regarding this bill. Over 1,000 of you responded with email, faxes and phone calls. We are pleased to report that although the President signed the legislation, his proposed 2007 budget contains NO FUNDING for the new programs authorized by the Act. Additionally, funding for existing programs has been reduced.
This development has raised serious concerns for those in the DV sector, see how advocates for VAWA are responding to this news by clicking here : http://tinyurl.com/buf25
As many of you are well aware, making false allegations of abuse during divorce and custody procedings has become common practice. Domestic violence special interests represent some of our strongest opposition when it comes to getting shared parenting bills passed in state legislators. Perhaps the tide is turning. As you know ACFC has worked with many of our friends and allies to 'lift the veil' on the domestic violence industry.
Again, Congratulations and Thanks to all of you who responded to the call for action on this matter. When we take united action positive outcomes result. We also thank all of you who support our efforts through your giving. Please take a moment and click here to make a contribution so we can continue these types of activity.
NEW AFFILIATE COMING ABOARD
ACFC welcomes the Equal Justice Foundation (EJF) from Colorado. EJF is led by Dr. Charles Corry, a long time activist for fathers and shared parenting. EJF maintains an excellent website at http://www.ejfi.org/ on issues related to domestic violence.
Affiliating from West Virgina is M.A.D. of WV. M.A.D. is an acronym for Men Against Discrimination, the organization is headed by Tim Fittro and is guiding a shared parenting bill based on a presumption of equal time for fit parents through the state legislature. Tim can be reached at 304 295-0053, or visit their website at http://www.madmenunitedwv.org/.
Affiliating from New Hampshire is DADD. This organization is led by long time advocate and activist Paul Clements. Paul was one of the first people in the nation to see and alert us to the disastrous PBS so called documentary, "Breaking the Silence." DADD stands for Dads Against Divorce Discrimination. Paul can be reached at [email protected]
The North Dakota Family Violence Coalition is also known as the Families Civil Liberties Union. While the name may raise a few eyebrows, this organization is dedicated to seeing shared parenting adopted as law in North Dakota. Mitch Sanderson is their point of contact, his number is 701 331-0410.
NEW AFFILIATES STARTING
Jack Wildey, a tireless professional and shared parenting advocate from Indianapolis, is forming an ACFC affiliate there. Jack would like to hear from you if you are interested in family law reform in Indiana. His numbers are 317 823-1726 or 317 523-2623. I have met Jack on several recent trips through Indiana and he is dedicated to fostering changes in Indiana family law.
ACFC is well underway to acheiving its goal of having an organized, independent and active affiliate in each state by the end of this year.
For those of you in Florida interested in starting a Florida affiliate, I will be in Southern Florida from February 24 until March 1 and want to talk with you. Please call the ACFC office and leave your contact information (including email address) or reply to this email and put "Florida Meeting" in the subject line with your contact information. There will be a meeting for interested individuals in the Tampa and Miami areas during that time.
Several significant announcements will be coming soon, stay tuned. Together, we are making progress.
Mike McCormick, Exec. Dir.
ACFC
ACFC Washington Office 1718 M St. NW. #187 Washington, DC 20036
Telephone: 800-978-3237 Email: [email protected]
Equal Custody Time Debate
Des Moines, February 15, 2006 - A divorce is never an easy process, and if children are involved, it can become downright ugly between father and mother. According to the 2002 U.S. census, 72-percent of the time child custody was awarded to the wife, 9-percent to the husband, and 16-percent to both parents. Now, a bill currently in the Iowa house is intended to smooth out the process by promoting joint physical care.
"I made a promise when I was going through custody battle - 'Lord, if you help me get custody of Katie, I'll help other dads.'"Dick Woods got custody of his daughter - and 20 years later, has made good on his end of that promise. As director of Fathers for Equal Rights he's leading the charge at the capitol to give more teeth to a 2004 joint legal custody law that promotes children spending equal time living with both parents. "If a parent has shared equally in care of child before separation, why whould they not have it after?"
"There are some cases where a mother or father is not a good parent, in that case it's warranted to choose, but how do you choose between two perfectly good parents?"Tom Rial is going through a divorce, right now his son is spending equal time between him and his wife. Tom is hopeful the legislature will consider this amended joint physical care bill. It would establish a legal presumption at the beginning of the custody process that 50-50, joint physical care is in the best interest of the child - so if a parent didn't want to share the child 50-50, he or she would have to prove in court that the other parent is unfit or not good for the child.
Divorced parents like Tom Rial say making 50-50 joint physical care the precedent in divorce court would save thousands in legal costs - and take away some of the angry personal attacks during custody battles. "We have to press our case, to prove the other parent's bad - or I'm better, that's not the way to go about it. Particularily when you have two adequate parents who care for and love their child."
If the bill becomes law - it's authors hope it would help parents who have been divorced in the past make their case for equal physical custody. Tomorrow, lobbyists and supporters will meet with of the judiciary and law enforcement committees, to try to get the bill to the house floor.
Betty Friedan, Philosopher Of Modern-day Feminism, Dies
By Elaine Woo, Times Staff Writer
Betty Friedan, the visionary, combative feminist who launched a social revolution with her provocative 1963 book, "The Feminine Mystique," died Saturday, which was her 85th birthday.
Friedan died of congestive heart failure at her home in Washington, D.C., family members told the Associated Press.
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Her bestselling book identified "the problem that has no name," the unhappiness of post-World War II American women unfulfilled by traditional notions of female domesticity.
Melding sociology and humanistic psychology, the book became the cornerstone of one of the last century's most profound movements, unleashing the first full flowering of American feminism since the 1800s.
It gave Friedan, an obscure suburban New York housewife and freelance writer, the mantle to meet with popes and heads of state and to lead an international movement that would shake up marriage and the workplace, politics and education.
She founded the National Organization for Women in 1966, making it the first new feminist organization in a half century. She also was among the founders of the National Women's Political Caucus and the group that became the National Abortion Rights Action League.
"I never set out to write a book to change women's lives, to change history," said Friedan, who always kept a sense of wonder about her place in history as the mother of the contemporary women's movement.
"It's like, 'Who, me?' Yes, me. I did it. And I'm not that different from other women. . . . Maybe my power and glory was that I could speak my truth as a woman and it was the truth of every woman."
Friedan's affinity with mainstream values was the foundation of her authority. Her emphatic belief that women should have equal rights--but not at the expense of alienating men--distinguished her from many feminist leaders who emerged later.
"She found that love between unequals can never succeed," Gloria Steinem once said, "and she has undertaken the immense job of bringing up the status of women so love can succeed."
Her more moderate brand of feminism, combined with her often irascible nature, led to ruptures with other movement leaders, such as Steinem and the late Bella Abzug. Some feminists eventually denounced her as a reactionary.
By the 1980s, feminism had ceased being her primary focus, and she spent her last decades focused on issues of aging, families, work and public policy.
Friedan did not conform to conventional notions of feminine beauty or decorum. She was short (5'2") and stocky, with a hawk-like nose, large, deep-set eyes, and a gravelly voice that no one could call timid. She was loud, fast-talking, impatient and abrasive. Her rudeness was especially perplexing when she directed it at other women. "I could be," she acknowledged in later years, "a bad-tempered bitch."
She remained formidable in her old age. Even as she was approaching 80 and enjoying her role as doting grandmother of nine, she could demolish interviewers who asked what she considered inane questions.
Yet she always bore a trace of the little girl from Peoria, Ill., at times giddy, vulnerable and stuck on appearances. Peoria, she once observed, was the source of all her hang-ups.
Friedan was born Bettye Goldstein on Feb. 4, 1921, the year after American women won the right to vote. She was the oldest of three children of Harry Goldstein, a Russian Jewish jewelry store owner, and the former Miriam Horwitz.
Although a sickly child who suffered from asthma and vision problems, Betty (who later dropped the "e" from the end of her first name) was precocious and skipped a year of school. In high school, she was valedictorian but her braininess, she said, made her feel "like a freak."
Anti-Semitism barred her father, a successful businessman, from joining the country club and other elite Peoria circles, and it kept Betty and her sister out of high school sororities. "When you're a Jewish girl who grows up on the right side of the tracks in the Midwest, you're marginal. You're in, but you're not," she said, "and you grow up an observer."
Her mother was an unhappy housewife whose disposition and health dramatically improved when her husband's health faltered and she took over management of the jewelry business. In a 1976 book, "It Changed My Life", Friedan said her mother's discontent gave her an early glimpse of the perils of the malaise she would later call the "feminine mystique."
Envious of her mother's social grace and her sister's beauty, Friedan did not feel at home until she arrived at Smith College in the late 1930s. A contemporary of Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush, who attended Smith at about the same time, she became editor of the campus newspaper and quickly established a reputation for brilliance. She finished summa cum laude in psychology in 1942 and entered graduate studies at UC Berkeley.
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NEW YORK (AP) -- Isiah Thomas reacted with indignation Wednesday over a former team executive's federal sexual harassment lawsuit, which accuses the New York Knicks president of unwanted advances, discrimination and "demeaning and repulsive behavior.
Players were quick to support Thomas at a Wednesday morning shootaround.
"I know Isiah and I know he's an honorable man," Stephon Marbury said. "I know that he's a guy filled with a lot of character, so I think everyone here is on his side."
The lawsuit also alleges that Thomas told Browne Sanders he was pushing for more Sunday home games at noon so he could steer opposing players to clubs where he had connections on Saturday nights, hoping they would be sluggish the next day.
"These fabricated and outrageous charges come from an individual whom MSG fired because of an inability to fulfill professional responsibilities and who is now seeking a financial windfall," Madison Square Garden attorney Ron Green said in a statement.
The Knicks would not comment further.
Angry fathers protest over visitation rights
13/01/2006 - 13:08:26 Protesters attempted to hand Christmas presents to the Minister for Justice Michael McDowell today, to highlight the number of fathers prevented from seeing their children over the holidays. Pictured is Francis Kelly from the Unmarried Fathers of Ireland group at the Justice Department.
Protesters attempted to hand Christmas presents to the Minister for Justice Michael McDowell today, to highlight the number of fathers prevented from seeing their children over the holidays.
A group of men gathered outside the minister's office in Dublin with wrapped gifts and teddy bears, urging Mr McDowell to change the law which they claim discriminates against fathers.
Some of the fathers had been unable to give their children the presents because of custody battles, they said.
The Unmarried Fathers of Ireland want to see changes in the law and the family courts so men are treated more equally.
"We want to give our presents and we want to give our love," the group's spokesman Ray Kelly said.
Mr Kelly said many unmarried and separated fathers were unable to see their children over Christmas because the courts and legislation prevented them getting custody or visitation rights.
"We're asking for radical change," he said.
Mr Kelly said the group wanted rights given to unmarried and separated fathers and to the children at the centre of these conflicts.
He said they wanted to see the Irish Constitution and European law enacted in the area of father's rights.
"We also want judges trained in the area of family law, specifically trained so they understand the difficulties, problems and emotions," he said.
One of the protesters, Francis Kelly, who was able to see his two daughters on Chistmas Day, said the problems the men faced were the result of a failure to update the law.
"It's outdated laws, going back years," he said.
Another father said he had been unable to see his four children properly or regularly over the past two years.
"I had a letter from my son, with a list of presents he wanted, and I had no way of putting them into his hands," he said.
He said the father wasn't specifically mentioned in the Irish Constitution and didn't exist in the eyes of the law.
The protesters gathered on the steps of the Department of Justice holding placards which read 'When is a father not a father - When he's Irish', and 'Help put the father back into Father Christmas'.
Mr McDowell was out of the country and the men were unable to hand the presents over.
But Mr Kelly said an official in the department had said they would try to set up a meeting for the men with the minister.
© Thomas Crosbie Media, 2006.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_1_56/ai_112493430
Rediscovering the family. - The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke With Surprising Solutions That Will Change Our Children's Futures - Book Review
National Review, Jan 26, 2004 by Allan Carlson
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The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke (With Surprising Solutions That Will Change Our Children's Futures)
by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi
(Basic, 272 pp., $26)
This book is a fine example of post-feminist angst. On one hand, the authors remain firmly bound to "the best part of the feminist movement--the rock-solid belief that women who want to work should have every opportunity to do so." On the other hand, they document how this feminist economic project has produced widespread disaster for American families, children ... and women as well.
Harvard bankruptcy-law professor Elizabeth Warren and her daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi report that the feminists' coveted "two-breadwinner family" has, in practice, brought the "dance of financial ruin." Back in 1981, a mere 69,000 women had their names on bankruptcy petitions; by 2001, over 500,000 women did. Bearing a child has now become "the single best predictor that a woman will end up in financial collapse." Married couples with children are more than twice as likely to file for bankruptcy as their childless counterparts. Women entering "the feminist dream"--a fresh no-fault divorce, custody of the children, ample child support, a good middle-class job, a nice home--face even greater odds of disaster. More than one of every six such mothers will file for bankruptcy in the current decade; among newly single mothers who attended college, the rate is higher still.
Two-breadwinner families, it turns out, are simply awash in debt. In 1981, savings made up 11 percent of average personal income, and credit-card debt 4 percent. By 2000, savings were minus 1 percent and credit-card debt a sobering 12 percent. Overall, inflation-adjusted credit-card debt rose from $10 billion in 1968 to a staggering $600 billion in 2000. Nearly half of American households are near the line where turning to bankruptcy makes good economic sense.
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How did this happen? Warren and Tyagi argue persuasively that mass "over-consumption" is not the problem. Americans actually spend proportionately less these days on items such as food and clothing than they did in the 1960s. Instead, the authors point to the unintended consequences of sending 20 million American mothers to work. Rather than gaining more disposable household income, families saw real wages for men decline: the predictable result of more laborers pursuing the same number of jobs. Day-care bills and higher marginal taxes combined with the costs of a second car and swollen restaurant bills to absorb a good share of the mothers' new income. The higher nominal incomes of two-earner families also led to a fresh "bidding war" for nice homes in good suburban school districts, sending mortgage costs soaring.
Most important, the oft-derided stay-at-home mother proved to have been the true "safety net" in American life. When her husband suddenly lost his job or became seriously ill, the homemaker was there to find employment and protect the family living standard. Or when a child or elderly parent suddenly needed special care, the homemaker was again available to serve, without any loss in family income. Contemporary two-income households have already built their budgets around their full potential earning power. When the unexpected strikes--a layoff, a debilitating illness, a divorce--financial disaster looms.
At times, Warren and Tyagi become almost rhapsodic in praise of the old-fashioned homemaker. "A stay-at-home mother served as the family's ultimate insurance against unemployment and disability," they write. "When mothers joined the workforce, the family gave up something of considerable (although unrecognized) economic value: an extra skilled and dedicated adult, available to pitch in to help save the family during times of emergency." The authors could have also cited the vital productive role played by the mother-at-home: the maternal nursing, the child care, the home maintenance, the gardening, canning, and sewing, the home-cooked meals; all clear economic gain for the family provided on a tax-free basis, and mostly lost when the mother went to work.
But Warren and Tyagi refuse to go that far, unwilling to let go of the last shreds of the feminist myth. They acknowledge that the family-wage regime of the 1940-65 era had protected family income and security by maintaining separate wage scales for men and women. They even write that "the policy was widely viewed as a normal feature of almost every 'family friendly' workplace," resting on the premise that "men needed these higher wages to support a family at home." Still, they dismiss the scheme as unfair, insisting that the "battle for full equality must continue." Repeatedly, their argument leads to the logical conclusion that mothers should return home; and repeatedly, they turn to the non sequitur: "Are you kidding?"
This dogged attachment to a failed ideology distorts their analysis in other ways. They claim that "no one really knows" why working wives are 40 percent more likely to divorce than their stay-at-home counterparts. In fact, Gary Becker won a Nobel Prize in economics for explaining why: A married couple in which both spouses work outside the home has sacrificed the specialization of labor (i.e., breadwinner and homemaker) that gives real economic gain to their marital bond. Elsewhere, Warren and Tyagi simply assume that high levels of divorce are a given, rather than recognizing this as a consequence of the misguided "no-fault divorce" revolution of the late 1960s. The authors argue that "no one saw [this new situation] coming," a statement belied by even a casual look at Phyllis Schlafly's written work from the 1970s. The authors also ignore the role played by federal social engineering in securing this change, from the last-minute addition of the word "sex" to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (which destroyed the "family wage" regime) to the creation of massive federal tax subsidies for non-parental day care in the early 1970s.
Most of the policy ideas proposed in The Two-Income Trap also fall wide of the mark and well short of the "surprising solutions" promised in the book's subtitle. To solve the suburban "bidding war" for homes, they would institute vouchers within public-school districts, although this would do little to solve public education's deeper problems. To shelter two-income families from excessive debt, the authors turn to a fairly conventional liberal agenda that includes "publicly funded, universal pre-school," more government-subsidized day care, and strict new regulation of the credit and banking industries.
Curiously, though, Warren and Tyagi sometimes hint at an alternative, far less statist approach. They admit, for example, that "even now, a generation after the Women's Revolution, the surest way for a woman to regain her financial footing after a divorce is to find a [new] husband--and to do it quickly." Alas, it turns out that a woman still needs a man! And, near the end of the book, they do finally acknowledge that keeping one parent full-time at home "isn't a bad solution" to the problems they outline. Moreover, the book does offer unexpectedly fresh discussions of "deadbeat dads" (it turns out there aren't very many of them) and the credit-card industry (where the current business strategy is to get financially troubled families "to borrow [still] more money"). So I welcome this book as a flawed but hopeful product. Reason seems to be making a comeback, even among the feminists.
Mr. Carlson is president of the Howard Center and a fellow at the Family Research Council. His latest book is The "American Way": Family and Community in the Shaping of the American Identity (ISI).
COPYRIGHT 2004 National Review, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
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Men can do something about balancing work and family. But it'll
take courage and solidarity, writes Sushi Das.
Courage is an extremely attractive quality in a man. Throughout the ages men have had their mettle tested fighting battles, lifting oppression and changing the course of history. Now it's time for them to face a new test of their courage - one that's closer to home and involves the struggle to balance careers and families.
Confronted by a crushing imbalance in work/family life, caused by inflexible employers and lily-livered governments, will men stand up and defend their hearth and home as so many have done before them?
Melbourne academic Leslie Cannold on this page last Thursday ("In search of the gorgeous Aussie bloke") argued that employers made it difficult for men to modify their work patterns to spend more time with their families. Managers, she said, were good at sending signals that men who put their families first were not serious about their careers and would be struck off the "A-list". This is true.
Take the case of the Bracks Government's "rising star", workaholic Tim Holding, 32, recently promoted to the police portfolio just five years into his parliamentary career. He admits he works up to 15 hours a day and barely has time for anything else. "There's probably not a lot of work/life balance here," he told The Age. The young politician, once married but now single, said: "I have a lifestyle that suits being a member of Parliament. I don't have a young family or anything like that, so I can just throw myself into the job." The implication is that this is how hard you have to work to make it to the top.
Instead of flouting that he has no balance in his life, Holding, as an MP and a role model, should be trying to do something about it.
There is strong evidence that men are not doing enough. A 1999 study of 1000 Australian fathers by the Department of Family and Community Services found 68 per cent felt they had insufficient time with their children, and 53 per cent felt their work and family life interfered with each other. But researchers have also noted that men seldom take leave for child care even when it's available. Go figure.
Without solidarity men can't resist the macho work culture and they leave themselves open to exploitation.
No doubt there are changes that individual men can make towards a fairer work/family balance without waiting for employers to lead the way. Smashing the macho work culture of their own making is one of them. But here men are showing little courage, shying away from making changes that are within their grasp.
For example, men don't have to get to work earlier than the start of their shift to impress the boss. They don't need to stay late, after their work is done, just because it makes them look committed. Many men know deep down that they neglect their families simply because they prefer the challenges and companionship at work.
Men subject each other to subtle pressures that reinforce the ethos that long hours are what you do if you're a real man. When a man leaves the office at the end of his shift, throwaway lines from male colleagues such as "oh, working part-time today, are you?" or "taking an early cut, huh?" invoke guilt, and perpetuate the idea that slaving away at the office is the only way to get ahead.
Men who are senior enough to negotiate individual work contracts should include provisions for a sensible work/life balance. Employers who say they are keen to promote family-friendly workplaces should be held to account through these contracts.
Male managers who are asked by their bosses to increase productivity, which inevitably means longer hours for the men junior to them, should resist the pressure on behalf of their colleagues.
Men who are in a union also have an avenue to demand changes in the workplace to accommodate their families. Every man should ask himself, are the hours that I am working fair to my family? Am I necessarily productive after 10 hours on the job?
Without solidarity men can't resist the macho work culture and they leave themselves open to exploitation. Attitudinal changes towards work/family balance have to start in the hearts of educated men in senior positions - the men who are already on the A-list. Until this happens, men will be doing what women have done for a long time: policing their own oppression.
Leslie Cannold argues that men have been "wrongly excluded from discussions about Australia's low fertility" (and hence discussions about work/family balance). But excluded by whom? Let's admit it, men themselves have failed to engage in these debates because they have up until now viewed these concerns as women's issues.
Angst about work/family balance is now so intense that the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission is embarking on a project to examine family responsibilities and paid work. A discussion paper will be released soon, calling for submissions from individuals and organisations. Those men who are genuinely fed up with today's work/family balance are being presented with an opportunity to be heard. There is no excuse to remain silent.
In time, employers and governments will have to stop basing their decisions on the backward-looking model of man-as-breadwinner and woman-as-child-rearer, and move towards a new model where men and women are seen as workers and parents.
In the meantime, men hold the key to changing their own mindset - a move they have to make because they have no other choice. Now is the time for courage. Australian men should demand what they know is right for them, their partners, their children and their children yet to come. It's time to be a man.
Sushi Das is an Age journalist.
[email protected]