Oh and FFS! We should put in import ban on starving children from third world countries until all the starving children in our own are adopted.

/Salute

I gotta call bullshit on this one. There's a 15 year waiting list for people who want to adopt children here. They're having to go to China to get their kids because it's only a 5 year waiting list there.


Way too much bullshit and bogus "facts" out there about adoption in this country.

The time and expense it takes to adopt a child in this country varies a *lot* depending on your race, marital/sexual orientation status, and whether you're willing to adopt an older child from the foster system or want, as most upper middle class couples do, a 'healthy white (asian being an acceptable plan b) newborn'. I have a good friend (who is African American) and she was able to adopt an 18 month old after waiting only a year or so even as a single parent (aged 40, a homeowner, and very well paid by Perot Systems), but there is a shortage of black adoptive parents and the states are generally loath to allow adoptions across racial lines if they can possibly avoid it.

Due to a fear of litigation, as well as being massively overworked and starved for resources, Child Protective Services tends to avoid removing children from homes until there's a clear pattern of abuse (which typically means the child is several years old) and even then is unlikely to terminate parental rights entirely, making it risky for prospective adoptive couples to take one in - until those rights are terminated, and/or the adoption is finalized, you never know if they'll be returned to the birth parent(s) which can be heartbreaking and makes it even less likely that adoptive parents are willing to take the risk. The result is that the current system serves neither children nor adoptive parents well, with children over four or so years old usually ending up being raised by the state, shuttled from foster home to foster home until they can legally emancipate and/or go to prison :/.

I understand the dilemma - terminating parental rights is an extreme step that often causes grievous emotional harm to the mother in particular, but the fact is that in cases of severe abuse/neglect if they aren't removed early, not only does it mean physical and psychological damage for life to the children, it condemns them to being all but unadoptable. On the other hand, the folks who cry about 'all the adoptive parents out there begging for children' with regard to the abortion/contraception issue are somewhat disingenuous about what those 'waiting loving parents' are actually willing to accept, many going in for surrogacy (where legal) or egg donation now to ensure that they get a healthy newborn of the appropriate race.

Regards,
Nydia

You had my support till you said: terminating parental rights is an extreme step that often causes grievous emotional harm to the mother in particular

You know, men can want to be fathers too. They can also be ill equipped to be fathers, and have their parental rights terminated as well. By your statement, they just waltz through life, without a care in the world after thier rights are terminated.

Remember, not all men want to shirk the responsibility of being a father. I know, biologically it's easier for men to 'love 'em and leave 'em', but that doesn't mean that there aren't men out there in the world that want to live up to the responsibilities of being a father.

Incidentally, did you ever wonder how many fathers were contacted before thier child was put into the foster system? I know it's not 'cool and hip' to think about responsible men in the world, but they do exist, and would step up, if given the chance.....

Sorry to hijack the thread.

That's why I used the word 'in particular' - much like the word 'men' is used and meant to be inclusive, I wasn't specifically being exclusive in this case. I'm well aware that men can and do make responsible primary parents (plenty of devoted, and vocal, fathers here), although statistically, and sadly, fathers are often long gone or part of the abuse equation in these cases.

Regards,
Nydia

That's why I used the word 'in particular' - much like the word 'men' is used and meant to be inclusive, I wasn't specifically being exclusive in this case. I'm well aware that men can and do make responsible primary parents (plenty of devoted, and vocal, fathers here), although statistically, and sadly, fathers are often long gone or part of the abuse equation in these cases.

Regards,
Nydia

What? Statics show that there are more deadbeat mothers than fathers now % wise. That is a higher % of mothers that pay child support do not pay it than men. Do not use broad strokes about antiquated idea's.

Just to add fuel to the fire. been a single father since 96 and recieved not one dime from the mother. never went after her either. but thats a differant story.

Dear Chanur:

You're confounding different statistics - yes, that of women who have been court ordered to pay child support, a higher percentage of them are in default than men; however, the absolute *number* of women who are owed and not paid child support by fathers is several times that, and the number of single female parents still outnumbers that of single male parents by an order of magnitude. Because of this difference in absolute numbers, statistically, if a child is ultimately removed from a single parent home, it will be a single parent home with a female at its head.

My post, however, had nothing to do with child support, or how much fathers may love or support their children, nor with 'benign' divorce/custody situations; it was about situations where children are removed from the home due to severe and persistent abuse and termination of parental rights is contemplated. (And FYI, legal *termination* of the parental relationship is a very different thing than having *custody* partitioned or terminated - that's why they call it the noncustodial *parent*.) In such situations, CPS goes to *enormous* (many would argue counterproductive) lengths to keep the child with and under the legal custody of a family member, including formerly partial or non-custodial fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc, before terminating that relationship and releasing the child for adoption.

No offense, but you guys need to do something about the sand in your collective virtual vaginas - the words 'in particular' *only* referenced the statistical somewhat greater liklihood of a parent who is severely traumatized by termination of parental rights *in such situations* being female, and the data supports this contention both in terms of the probability of the primary nurturing parent being female, and the liklihood that the situation is more complex (the removal may be related to abuse being perpetrated on her *and* the children by a male in the house which she is unable to prevent). Do I need to pull up domestic abuse statistics (and yes, I know men are abused too) to make my point?

Sincerely,
Nydia

It sends to be a sensitive subject for the fathers that do care about their children, and do pay their child support, because we tend to be lumped into those statistics you like to throw about.

Missed a child support payment? You are automatically a 'deadbeat dad', with no worth, other than what money you can provide for the Custodial Parent. Never mind all the life enriching lessons fathers can teach to their children. Money is the only thing that talks.

Domestic violence statistics? You realize that a good 40% of those statistics are false? Used by a woman to have the father removed from the residence, without any actual violence taking place? In some states, simply closing a door too loudly is considered Domestic Violence. All a woman has to say is she is she is 'afraid' and the man is led from the house, in handcuffs. Due process, my ass.

Also, you reference that the majority of single parents are women. Speaking for myself, I was not an abuser and for 10 years of my son's life, I was there for him to rely on. I changed diapers, made formula, stayed home with him when he was sick, helped him with homework, took him to parks, ect. Yet for all that, I get to see my son every other weekend, and 2 weeks out of the year because that's what's considered 'regular visitation' for a male NCP in the state of GA. Why? Do mammary glands make a better parent?

Nydia, while I clean the sand out of my virtual vagina, would you please pull your head out of said sand? Your 'statistics' are perpetuated by an industry designed to make men into second class citizens in the lives of their children, with very few exceptions.

It's very easy to quote statistics that aren't relevant to you Nydia. You should expect to get a reaction from the fathers on this board when a woman with no parental experience makes generalizations based solely on statistics (that for decades have been fudged to the benefit of women).

Yes there are deadbeat dads. There are deadbeat mothers too. Making hasty generalizations about a subject you have no direct experience with is going to raise the ire of those with direct life experience that shows your generalizations to be false in many of our direct cases.

Would you care to define 'direct experience'? Neither one of you has, just for the sake of discussion, squeezed a squalling human being out of your own bodies either, but I don't hold it against you, either directly or by insinuation, despite your fulminating reaction to a word which carried no hidden perjorative undertones whatsoever. And while we're on the subject of 'direct experience', what do you know about any parenting I may have done outside of that done for biological or adoptive offspring?

Also speaking to the subject of direct experience, I'm willing to guess that the 'vast experience' (save for within your own relationship(s)) you are citing is also anecdotal - statistics involve populations, not individuals, and by the way, I haven't seen you cite any peer reviewed data, either :).

My own anecdotal personal sampling has involved caring for two close friends (and their children) who left abusive relationships with multiple children in tow for a life of crushing poverty (child support was not paid in either case), my being actively involved in the rescue/removal of three other acquaintences from same, and the *proportion* of single fathers to single mothers within my circle of friends/acquaintences being 1:9 ( I do have a few friends who have more or less amicable joint custody arrangements as well, of course).

The great irony of this, and your whole overreactive tangent, is that when I was speaking of the termination of parental rights involved in movement of children from foster care into formal adoption I *did* have a specific case in mind: namely that of the lone male in my 'single parent' sample, who adopted two severely abused children (7 and 6 at the time he took them in) from the foster care system. Despite the mother being clearly unfit (she was drug addicted and kept endangering the children, the boy had permanent hearing loss due to untreated ear infections and physical abuse, the girl had been sexually abused by one or more of the woman's 'boyfriends'), CPS was very reluctant to permanently terminate her parental rights, and when they finally did, the woman was distraught and attempted suicide.

In other words, this was a 'bad mommy, good daddy' scenario, but the bad mommy was still gravely aggrieved at the permanent loss of parental rights, as *parents, who are statistically more often female in these situations*, frequently are.

I'm 24 hours past deadline for a grant application budget, but if you're still chafing, I'll dig you up some statistics on the various issues you've concocted which had nothing to do with my original premise, which was that CPS is generally too slow to 1) remove and 2) terminate parental rights so that children can be released for adoption early enough that it might do them some good.

Regards,
Nydia

Been the single father for my now 17 year old son the last 4 years. Received nary a cent and omg if I was 3 days late with a child support payment when she had him she threatened to call the police and make a false statement in regards to my behavior.

I don't buy the large numbers cited about fathers. Sorry actually being a parent and attending support groups through the years > second/third hand evidence.

The courts are heavily weighted against the father from the get go. Right that ship and we'll talk about leveling the playing field elsewhere.

And while I didn't squeeze a squalling child from my body, neither did my X. She had to have a caesarean, after which she was unable to care for herself, nor the baby. Guess who it fell on?

And while I don't disregard your firsthand accounts on the situations you describe, once again I put to you: Why weren't the children who were neglected given to their biological father? The system in play (The one who were so loathe to remove themn from their incompetent mother) certainly had no issues in removing the biological father?

After all, all men are 'uncaring, sex-craving brutes', amiright?

Dear Fandros:

I didn't set out to discuss more or less 'benign' divorce/custody cases (and FYI, in California and several other states now, the court has to be given compelling cause as to why it should *not* always award joint custody in divorce cases, on the issue of fairness), but with regard to the support group issue, I'd submit that *all* of us tend to self-segregate into tribe-sized groups, and filter information, based on our own sympathies and in ways that tend to confirm our own biases (fathers' rights groups are going to tend to focus on injustices done to *them* by the system, and vice versa for such support groups catering to women, and in divorce there's frequently a whole lot of not only bias, but aggression taken out on the ex-spouse via custody wrangling that has little to do with what is best for the children). This board, for example, is a case in point - we hardly represent a random cross-section of the population (Fild and I are the only regular female posters, and we're both, shall we say, somewhat out in the 3rd sigma on the bell curve of female temperment) and the topics and consensus opinions we reach reflect the board gestalt.

Statistics, on the other hand, are simply *data*; aggregations of pooled information which enable us, if the sampling/experimentation is done properly, to be able to draw conclusions about what is actually happening in a population as a whole (in other words, there's a difference between 'heresay' (second or third hand anecdotal evidence) and things like census records or compiled data on court findings, child support agreement abrogation rates, hospital and prison records, etc). You can choose to 'not buy' those things (and it's always a good idea to be skeptical of both methods and sources), but that doesn't make them any less statements of fact (to use a gruesome and potentially inflammatory statistic I know off the top of my head via published record, the eleven women killed by their husbands in direct domestic violence events in Laredo the year I moved there (2002) are still dead, whereas no men were killed in domestic violence in the city that year). I do agree with you, however, that in most of the red states there is still a bias towards granting the mother a larger proportion of custody in benign custody cases, on the assumption that 'children belong with their mothers', and that the burden of proof is frequently on the father to show that he is the more fit parent.

That having been said, I'm a bit confused about your 'levelling the playing field elsewhere' statement. Surely you're not advocating that we apply a 'level playing field' to situations where there is documented abuse? Or was this some sort of veiled statement about economic, occupational and other equality issues with regard to women?

Regards,
Nydia

Dear Sixee:

In the situation in question, if I recall correctly, there were two fathers for the two children, one long gone, one implicated in abuse of the daughter - but it's been about fifteen years now so my memory may be hazy. I can only presume that if there was any value in pursuing the girl's biological father Texas CPS would have done it - and I do know that it was over three years from the time Joel and his then wife made the decision to adopt the two children (they'd been keeping them in foster care for a year or so before that)before the adoption was final, much of that time spent with various court appeals by the mother.

I'd written a lengthy reply to you full on the 'uncaring, sex-craving brute' thing (although I will say that my own relationships with men have for the most part been quite good and there's nothing wrong with a little sex-craving brute every once in a while ;) ) but rather than bore everyone with a bunch of tales of anecdotal woe involving my friends and loved ones and how the issue is not one of sex, or caring, but *control*, I'll just say this:

I'm really glad that you guys are loving fathers and care about your children - and while I don't know your individual situation in detail, that you may have gotten the short end of the stick in your divorce. Unfortunately, domestic abuse is *still* something that is overwhelmingly perpetrated on women and children by men (and I mean the real broken bones/teeth, sexual abuse, and severe psychological domination that I've encountered far too often, not the petty and underhanded leverage games that are sometimes played during divorce by those who have no idea what real abuse looks like), and that some of the worst situations at all from the CPS (and the children's) standpoint are where that sort of abuse is going on, the abusee defends the abuser or denies the abuse (making her (or him), as it should be, an accessory), and they're forced to remove the children and terminate parental rights.

Regards,
Nydia

Neither one of you has, just for the sake of discussion, squeezed a squalling human being out of your own bodies either, but I don't hold it against you,

Please tell me you did not just go there!!!!! is that what your going to try and establish as a base line for parentalism?? well yea you are correct I didnt deal with the pain from 8 hours of labor. instead I have been dealing with the emotional pain that comes from the abandonment by a parent. sex irregardless! you have your sample of RL examples to draw from as do I wich resemble the mirror opposite. sorry if you actually somehow swang around to some sort of "sane" point of view but i couldnt get past that assinine statement. wich is way way way not the Nydia i'm used to.


P.S. Nydia i'm fully aware you did not intend to open this can of worms, but now that it's open. lets eat!

It's very easy to quote statistics that aren't relevant to you Nydia.




It is also very easy, obviously, for people to read things through their own filters and apply meanings other than simply what is on the page. I have been trying to figure out what folks are getting all miffed about, since what was written is not what they apparently are replying to; at least, not unless they are somehow spinning words to meet their own agenda. /gasp.....political operatives in our midst!!! :eek:

I can only presume that if there was any value in pursuing the girl's biological father Texas CPS would have done it -

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, then. I hold no faith in any system that overwhelmingly sides with the mother being the Custodial Parent rather than 50/50 or (gasp!) the father being the Custodial Parent. Children need both parents in their lives, provided neither is a danger to them.

Just a quick chime into Nydia's comments about expense. My friends adopted a child from a friend of a firend who didnt want the baby after birth. One would think that wouldnt cost much. $55,000 was the price tag. Thankfully my friend worked for GEICO which actually has some pretty amazing adoption benefits and rich in-laws.