Responding to a Higher Calling

            The American Judges Foundation reports that seventy percent of abusive fathers are the winners in custody fights. As children are handed to their molesters, protective mothers must watch helplessly—or respond to a higher calling than a judge’s order.
            Ms. Toni Schott’s oldest daughter was three-and-a-half years old when a caseworker from the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare found that the child’s scarred vagina was the result of sexual abuse. The articulate child told two therapists that her father had done it, but the judge misinterpreted a physician’s testimony and gave the father overnight visitations. A higher court refused to reopen the case to hear the physician’s offer of clarification. Less than two years later, before age three, Toni’s younger daughter contracted vaginal herpes and, like her sister, told of her father’s abuse to a Department of Health and Welfare counselor.
            After a pediatrician discovered large fissures around two-and-a-half-year-old Anne D’Angelo’s son’s rectum, he concluded that the boy had been raped many times. The child pointed to his father as the perpetrator, and a therapist on behalf of the X State Department of Children and Families supported the pediatrician’s conclusion and determined that the boy’s father was raping both him and his older brother. Nevertheless, the judge gave the father joint custody.
            Although Bonita Shain’s three-year old son reported to a Kentucky Child Protective Services’ worker about his father and his father’s friend touching his private parts, the DA did not prosecute. When four years later the boy continued to report sexual abuse, which was substantiated by CPS, and refused to see his father—an alcoholic who had threatened to murder Bonita and other family members and admitted in court to drug dealing—a judge determined that Bonita had alienated her son. Although no evidence was heard to discredit Bonita’s mothering skills, the judge ruled that both her boys be transferred to the father’s sister’s custody, allowing Bonita only three hours a week supervised visits.
            Toni, Anne and Bonita—and countless protective mothers—stand bewildered and livid against a complex legal system that refuses to help their molested children. Instead, against all corroborating evidence of sexual abuse, that system holds the mothers accountable for their children’s reporting, on the rationale that the mothers must have coached their children.
            Experts such as Louisiana attorney Richard Ducote, who has tried such cases in over forty states, say that the culprit is a bogus theory, Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), which is unsupported by any sound research and unrecognized by any medical, academic or psychological organization. Coined by Dr. Richard Gardner, a psychiatrist who believed that “pedophilia is an accepted practice by billions of people” but our society’s response to it is “excessively moralistic and punitive,” PAS successfully places violent, abusive fathers as the victims of women’s presumed vindictiveness. “If someone punches you—or rapes you—you wouldn’t want to be around that person,” says Mr. Ducote. “Yet judges routinely assume that when a child refuses to be with his or her abusive father, it is the mother who must have alienated the child—not the violent father through his abusive ways.”
            Gardner, who committed suicide on May 25, 2003, stated that “there is a certain amount of pedophilia in all of us,” and wrote that in cases of child molestation, “a mother’s hysterics…will contribute to the child’s feeling that a heinous crime has been committed.” The mother “should be helped to understand” that her child possibly “enjoyed immensely the sexual activities.” If she persisted in her insistence to keep the child from his father, Gardner recommended a change of custody to the father. For over twenty years, Gardner was hailed by fathers’ groups and widely accepted as the “guru of child custody evaluation” by many judges. His unauthenticated theory and its derivations are taught in courses geared toward attorneys and judges.
            Toni Schott’s experience of the court’s indifference toward her older daughter taught her not to count on the court for help for her younger child. She hid in Texas under an alias for four and a half years until the FBI arrested her and the girls were returned to their abuser, now living in Pennsylvania. Even though the Idaho court dropped the parental kidnapping charges after reviewing the previously ignored medical testimony, the Pennsylvania judge dismissed the ruling without a further hearing. In spite of the fact that the younger girl’s case had never been heard in court, Toni lost custody of her daughters.

Anne D’Angelo fled with her children to Virginia, where she lived for five years until 1992, when the boys were captured and returned to live with their father. In a subsequent custody hearing—and in spite of the evidence collected before Anne’s hiding—the judge ruled that the father’s sexual abuse of the younger boy was “uncorroborated.”
            When Bonita Shain’s boys, ages four and seven, heard the judge’s verdict that would place them with their aunt, they begged their mother to hide them because their father had threatened to kill them if they told what he had done. In November 2002, Bonita Shain packed her car and left town with her children. 
            In these three cases, the judges applied PAS, ignoring the fact that each case of abuse was discovered or diagnosed and reported by ER physicians or child welfare professionals—not by the mothers. The physical evidence was supported by the each child pointing to his or her father as the abuser.
          Research has shown that children are reluctant to report abuse, often denying it against evidence, as they feel shame and guilt over it—if not outright fear of the abuser 1. Moreover, studies show that in 98.4 percent of the cases where very young children point to their molesters they tell the truth 2. However, in most states family court judges are not required to take certification courses in domestic violence and child abuse, nor are judges held accountable for ignoring or refusing to hear evidence. Instead, favoring the interests of the fathers—the presumed victims of the mothers’ vicious fabrications—over the safety of the children, judges employ the unsupported PAS theory or its derivations. They seek no evidence that indeed a mother has actively alienated her child as they sever this relationship.
          These past few years, across the nation, children have been encouraged to tell a trusted adult about abuse. Child-friendly websites have been established to help abused children. Mandatory reporting laws have been imposed on educational and medical institutions and their employees. Local police officers visit schools to talk to the children and encourage them to seek help from trusted adults.
          Yet, in “Small Justice,” an award-winning documentary by Boston University film professor Garland Waller, Dr. Richard Gardner suggested that a mother’s response to a child’s report of abuse should be, “I don’t believe you. I’m going to beat you for saying that. Don’t ever talk that way about your father.” Dr. Gardner added that mothers who allege sexual abuse of their children should be jailed.
          So much for asking children to report abuse. Those who report it soon learn that no one listens. A therapist at the not-for-profit North Shore Child and Family Guidance Association in Long Island, New York, who asked to remain anonymous, recently said, “I no longer see these kids. We promise them that if they tell, the abuse would stop. Instead, the opposite happens.”
          Child sexual abuse is a criminal matter, which family courts are not equipped to adjudicate. Yet, provided with broad judicial discretion, they stand powerfully protected from scrutiny—or appeal—when failing to apply standard principles of justice and constitutional rights of due process. In January 2003, in her investigative Boston Phoenix article, “Custodians Of Abuse,” Kristen Lombardi describes how, nationwide, three problems plague the system: First, criminal investigation has been replaced by evaluation provided by guardians ad litem (GAL), who are social workers, psychologists or lawyers, but not qualified forensic investigators. In many cases, GALs fail to represent their clients—the children. The GAL assigned to Bonita Shain’s son never met him. In Anne D’Angelo’s case, the GAL never spoke in court. Second, with no juries—and protected by a cloak of secrecy—family courts are bastions of extraordinary power where one person is judge, jury and executioner. Evidence of abuse is suppressed while, as in Toni, Anne and Bonita’s cases, no evidence of the mothers’ presumed role in alienation is sought. Third, bias and traditional stereotyping of women’s roles is heightened in high-conflict custody cases, where judges commonly scrutinize a mother’s parenting practices while viewing a father’s sole act of seeking custody as proof of parental commitment and skills.
          Although an Association of Family Conciliation Courts’ 1990 study shows child sexual abuse allegations are made in less than two percent of contested divorces involving child custody, that figure still represents thousands of molested children. They are protected by mothers like Toni, Anne and Bonita, who find themselves mired in years of expensive litigation in courts that show neither sympathy for them nor compassion for their children. Beyond losing custody, mothers are often stripped of their rights when the costly child support they are slapped with make it impossible for them to also pay the hourly fees of supervised visitation centers. In the process, children’s rights to fair treatment and justice as well as the preservation of the maternal-child bond are being violated.
          Toni’s daughters, now ages nine and ten, are prohibited any contact with their mother, but they also cannot have contact with any member of their maternal family.
          In hiding, Bonita Shain’s children missed holidays and birthdays with everyone they knew back home, while their father led a normal life and “went to ball games,” Bonita says. “This is not surprising since he was not asking for custody; he wanted his sister to have the children as long as they are not with me or my family.” The hope to one day restore her children’s stolen life was shattered in June 2003 when the boys were captured in Indiana and sent to live with their aunt. Fearing jail sentence, Bonita refused to sign extradition papers that would put her in the mercy of the Kentucky judge whose gavel of justice is all too familiar.
          Anne D.'s former husband was a Children's Rights Council official and now sits on a panel to "redesign divorce" in Ms. D's state with a Judge whom, Ms. D. claims, is aware of the rape evidence against Mr. D.. Furthermore, in 2002 he was appointed by that State Governor to a committee to recommend changes in laws regarding the courts' handling of custody cases.
          Says Anne D’Angelo, “I have met several mothers who lost custody to very abusive ex-husbands. Among them are a nurse, an engineer, a teacher, and an attorney. We are well educated and articulate. We are not on welfare. We are not alcoholics or drug users, and we do not have a history of physical or mental illness. We are good mothers.”
            These are good mothers whose only chance to save their children is to defy the court and run for their lives.

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Author Talia Carner's first novel, PUPPET CHILD, paved the way to her launching The Protective Parent Act. Please check www.TaliaCarner.com

Crossing The Street

There were several influences and inspiration to my writing the novel Jerusalem Maiden. Here I recount odd friendships that have haunted me over the years and which opened a window into the world of religious girls’ and their limited choices.
This story appeared in the eZine 614 (May 2011).

 

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            I had been playing hop-scotch for an hour with Deena, a sixteen-year-old Orthodox girl who lived across the street from my grandmother in central Tel-Aviv. The summer heat scorched the sidewalk and baked the asphalt in the street. Deena shook her calf-length skirt to cool her stockinged legs and tried in vain to blow into the top of her neck-to-wrist blouse. A year younger than she, I drank water from the faucet in the yard and splashed water on my prepubescent exposed midriff above my short shorts.
            My friend cupped water near her mouth, and asked, “Will you come to my wedding?”
            Even though I assumed she meant light years away, the notion of marriage had never crossed my mind. “You’re getting married? Seriously?”
            She shrugged, her eyes downcast. “Tuesday.”
           
            From the entrance to the wedding hall, I could see hundreds of bearded men in the Hassidi garb of black hats and long, belted coats. An usher blocked my way and directed me to the women’s hall, where the ceiling was lower and the harsh fluorescent lights made the panels on the wall look like Formica. Holding glasses of orange and grape juice, women in long modest dresses and head covers eyed my white-and-red mini suit with disapproval. I pushed my way through a cloud of fruity and sour smells and hordes of children running about until I reached a throne chair.
            There was Deena, crying.
            She didn’t just weep. She wailed aloud, her words garbled by the cotton handkerchiefs with which her mother and another woman dabbed her face. “Shhhhhh, Shhhhhh,” they repeated, but their tones suggested they were ready stuff a handkerchief into her mouth.
            I was about to approach her, when a woman yanked my arm. “Where do you think you’re going?” She tossed a glance at my exposed legs. “Don’t contaminate the bride.”
            I gulped and took a step back. There was something else strange about Deena I couldn’t pinpoint from under the veil pulled back over her head, until it dawned on me: She was wearing a wig. Her a thick black braid had been cut, never again to present a temptation to men.
            I watched with horror as more women surrounded Deena, speaking to her in Yiddish, their tones ranging from comfort to indignation. Her hysterical crying continued unabated. Finally, they pulled her to her feet. From the main hall, the men’s singing crescendoed as if preparing for the messiah’s arrival. I could just decipher the line calling for the bride and the groom. “Yavo’u ha’chatan ve ha’kala.”
            Carried by the wave of women, I was herded through a narrow passage into the back of the main hall. Moments later, squeezed against a wall, I managed to climb a chair.
            The field of chanting and dancing black hats parted like the Red Sea.
            There walked a gangly, tall teenage boy, led by two men, all three dressed in satin black coats and hard-rimmed black hats. Unlike the men’s chest-length, untrimmed beards, the boy’s meager, curly facial hair had barely begun to sprout. His Adam’s apple bobbed behind a sheet of skin in his long neck, and his eyes were wide with fear.
            The men’s chanting was suddenly disrupted by Deena’s screams. “No! No! No! I don’t want to!”
            I turned to see her mother and another ample-bosomed woman, each twice Deena’s size, propping the veiled bride on both sides like bookends, forcing her down the aisle.
            Her crying continued throughout the ceremony. The rabbi stopped twice and ordered someone to give the bride red wine to calm her nerves.
            Horrified, I ran to the bathroom and threw up.
           
            A year before, when I had entered high school, I chose to commute to a French school instead of walking two blocks to the local high school.
            On the first day, I was surprised to see Leah at the bus stop. Tall, blue-eyed, with pretty strawberry-blonde hair, Leah was the daughter of a wealthy family that owned Israel’s largest sweets-and-chocolate company. They were modern Orthodox; Leah’s father and younger brother dressed in European clothes and only wore skullcaps. Although she lived just a block away from me, on the same double tree-lined boulevard, we had never talked. Leah attended an all-girls religious school and never mixed with our neighborhood youth. Whenever she left the house, her mother watched her from their second-floor balcony. Leah seemed to be surrounded as much by her religious upbringing as by her family’s money.
            Now, hidden from her mother’s view by the trees, Leah gushed as if she’d known me for years. “Are you too going to Alliance Française? I’m so happy! It will be wonderful to have a friend so close!”
            She did not stop chattering throughout the forty-five minute ride, during recess, and on the drive back. She was giddy with excitement at having convinced her parents to let her attend a secular school and anxious to befriend my secular girlfriends. Could I invite them over as soon as we returned from school this afternoon? Hanging out in my room, she asked me to teach her how to tease her hair and listened ceaselessly to “forbidden music”—the Top Ten recorded on my suitcase-size Grundig reel-to-reel player.
            On our fourth day of school, when I came by her house in the morning, her mother stood on the balcony. “Leah will be transferred back to her school,” she announced.
            Leah stood behind her, silent, her eyes swollen and her nose red.
            The following Saturday morning, I saw her in the boulevard with a group of religious girls after synagogue services. Dressed in their Shabbat best, they sat on a bench and kissed their prayer books. Leah did not return my wave.
            She rarely acknowledged me in the ensuing years, even as I traded my Alliance Française uniform for a military uniform. On Friday nights, when I teetered on high heels in a pencil dress next to my boyfriend on our way to a party, I sometimes caught a glimpse of her watching me from the lonely darkness of her balcony, unlit throughout the Shabbat. Her longing to join me was palpable through the less than thirty feet separating us.
            However, eventually she must have won another battle with her parents: a religious girl who was not obligated to serve in the army, at age eighteen she left for the Hebrew University in Jerusalem to live away from home.
            The reason for their capitulation became apparent when I arrived at the university after serving two-year in Israel Defense Force. Beautiful Leah was beginning her third year. She had already dated the heir to the country’s largest hotel chain. When he broke the relationship, she dated another heir.
            Alas, by the end of her final year, she was not engaged to an heir. Then, within days of graduation, she married a particularly swarthy and hairy young man from a wealthy Jerusalemite Sepharadi family, a match I guessed her Ashkenazi family viewed as a compromise on the grandest scale. Still a student, I was dating a close friend of that Sepharadi family and attended a couple of their china-and-gold laden Shabbat dinners. Polite and demure, Leah never acknowledged our acquaintance. And when someone at the table made the connection, asking about our growing up on the same boulevard where both our parents still lived, she brushed it off. 
            Watching her, I recalled Deena at her wedding and wondered about the painful struggles Leah was covering behind her patrician demeanor. There was no sign of the animated girl who chattered on the bus to school, buoyant by the prospects of starting a new life. Her desire to break away from her parents’ control merely eight years before was still vivid in my mind, and I ached at the realization of how little freedom she had gained in the intervening years.
            Several years later, a mother of two boys, Leah walked into a hotel owned by her former boyfriend’s family. She paid for a room and locked the door.
            Her body was found the following day by the cleaning crew.

            These two friendships with religious girls pressed into a life with few choices framed my perception of my grandmother’s life ninety years ago. In her youth, the absence of electricity under the backward Ottoman rule meant that no news or outside influences reached the insular Jewish community, helping it to further isolate its girls. An elite society of scholars, the ultra-Orthodox community viewed the dancing and singing simpleton Hassids with derision. Instead, they prepared themselves for the messiah’s arrival through austerity, suffering and diligent studying, while assigning twelve- to fourteen-year-old girls the responsibility of supporting the Talmudic and biblical scholars through marriage. Teenage girls were thus burdened with the daunting task of saving the world’s Jewry.
            What if my feisty and artistically talented grandmother had bolted to follow her heart instead? What if Deena had run away, or Leah taken more time to find her way? While writing my grandmother’s fictional alternate life as a Jerusalem Maiden, I also commemorated later-day Deena and Leah who couldn’t or wouldn’t break away.            
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Author Talia Carner lives in New York. Her novel, JERUSALEM MAIDEN, about a young woman's struggle between her passion and faith, was published in June 2011 by HarperCollins. www.TaliaCarner.com