You are currently browsing all posts tagged with 'Mothers'

Mothers and drinking alcohol while child is in your care??Read Info……?

  • Posted on September 1, 2010 at 3:26 am

I have two daughters a 2 1/2 yr old and a 10 month old. I babysit my niece who is also 2 1/2 yrs old. The problem is that my sister in law was drinking heavily last weekend when a family member brought my niece back to her after a birthday party, she also had 3 other males in the home with her drinking. My sister in laws father went to the home and tried to get my niece out of there and she refused to give her up so he called the police and they came and said yes she was intoxicated but she was in her own home so they could do nothing about it, she was the ONLY parent there!! She is playing it off like she is allowed to have a few drinks while she is taking care of her daughter, I think it is irresponsible and completely wrong, but I would like to know your guys feedback on this?? I am to the point that I don’t even want to watch my niece because that forces me to see my sister in law to whom I want nothing to do with at this point. I would never drink with my children in my care!!
She is a single parent 23 yrs old, that father is in the picture he keeps her mon. tues. and weds.10am to 9 pm. I keep her thurs. fridays and every other saturday. The father claims that he is trying for custody but has done nothing to get that going. This is not the first time she had done something like this, but it is the first time that everyone in the family knows about it and fears for my nieces well-being. I want to protect her so much I just dont know how to get through to my sister in law.
My niece does have a good father but for some reason seems nervous to pursue any custody, they have been separated for about 3 months. One thing that does scare me is that she has had to take her to the hospital quite a few time in the middle of the night, just two weeks ago she had to call 911 because my niece stopped breathing she a an allergic reaction. But I know of at least once she had been drinking and still had to take her to the hospital.

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Custody for recovering alcoholic mothers?

  • Posted on August 25, 2010 at 4:33 pm

My husband & I recently separated & he wants to take our 5 mo. old daughter from me. My trip to alcoholism in 2005 w/the separation from my ex & 8 year marriage. I went through treatment in 2006 & had been sober since until my relapse Feb. 8, 2008 of this year. I self-admitted myself to a treatment program & am attending AA & doing the steps unlike before. I’m very proactive in my recovery & I can say more so now than before. It took me a long time to realize this is a disease I will have 2 deal w/the rest of my life & I know I can’t do it alone. My husband is emotionally abusive & w/ a lil help from postpartum depression I slipped back. Only for a short while but he is trying to say now that I’m a bad(unfit) mother & he should have primary custody of our daughter. He hardly had anything 2 do w/her until I left & still has not taken her to 1 doctors appt. We rescheduled her shots to I could take her on my weekend. He only lets me see her 2 days each week. Any suggestions?

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What Mothers Are Finding Out About Paxil

  • Posted on January 8, 2010 at 4:28 pm

Does your son or daughter take Paxil? Has your son or daughter been hurt, injured, harmed, or even died as a result of taking Paxil? If so, it is time that you find out what mothers are starting to find out about the antidepressant drug called Paxil.


Today, mothers are finding out that Paxil was never intended to be used as an antidepressant in children under the age of eighteen years old. There are many lawsuits against the GlaxoSmithKline Company, the manufacturers of Paxil; because it is believed that they may have hidden or misrepresented vital information about the possible side effects that Paxil could have on children under the age of eighteen years old. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has never approved the use of Paxil among children and has posted several warnings that the use of Paxil could result in increased suicidal and violent thoughts, cardiac problems, respiratory problems, and other side effects such as nausea, diarrhea, dry mouth, tremors, and insomnia in children and it could have even more drastic effects on mothers-to-be. Research has proven and shown that mothers who took Paxil during their pregnancy had a higher risk of cardiac, respiratory, and other birth defects. The FDA reported that mothers who took Paxil during the first trimester (the first 12 weeks) of the pregnancy increased the risk by double of experiencing some form of birth defect or complication as a result of taking the drug.


Many doctors do not tell their patients that the use of Paxil was never recommended for children or pregnant mothers. Many doctors prescribe Paxil by using their professional judgment. Therefore, if your son or daughter is taking or has been given a prescription for Paxil by a doctor, it is a good idea to contact a Paxil lawyer to discuss the possible problems that may arise. There are Paxil lawyers available to explain the effects of Paxil on some patients and what your legal rights are in regards to the complications resulting from the use of this medication.


Many mothers are finding this information out too late. So, be wise. Investigate your child’s Paxil medication before it is too late. There are other antidepressant medications that are more effective and safer for children. Paxil is not recommended for children under the age of eighteen, so think twice before your child becomes a Paxil victim. If you have any questions, contact a Paxil Lawyer today. It is better to be safe, than sorry.

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A Mother’s Custody Injustice

  • Posted on January 8, 2010 at 8:07 am

I have never done anything like this before.  I have never been in a desperate situation where I am in a soundproof bubble, and the system doesn’t hear my cries.  They see me, but they pretend I am not there.  This is the Michigan Family Law and Friend of the Court Division.  It is our system; the one we are suppose to count on for freedom, justice, and liberty. It is my prayer that you read through to the end. Although this is my hell and my grief, this story must be heard.  Please feel free to leave comments and post the story in to your blogs and various social marketing venues. It is imperative that we use our voices; otherwise, this will continue to happen to mothers who don’t deserve it. Justice needs to prevail, I must get my daughter back, and the biased officials involved in my case need to be reprimanded. This must climb up the political ladder and reach the steps of the Supreme Court. I can not get there alone.

I am a wife and mother of four amazing children. We are an American white collar, middle-class family. I am so fortunate and thankful that we own a beautiful 2,500 square foot home that backs up to the 4th green of a prestigious golf course. I wasn’t always of this status, most people aren’t.  We start somewhere, and then gradually improve ourselves with the combination of time, effort & experiences. I consider myself ordinary. I, like most of you, have experienced meaningful relationships.  I’ve been hurt.  I’ve failed and given up on things. I’ve traveled extensively, I’ve gone to college.  I am a deep thinker, a reader, and I am gentle. I love nature and respect its wrath.  I am not religious, but am deeply spiritual. I am passionate about loving and caring for my children. I am always searching….searching for truth, for mindfulness, for authenticity. I am searching for the path that will ultimately be the “dash”….you know, that little mark on a gravestone that is between the day you were born and the day you passed….that’s the dash I am referring to.

I would ask, are you much the same? Probably. I am thankful that we can redeem ourselves throughout our lifetime; to make better decisions, to course-correct, and to leave a footprint that we can be proud of.

So, why am I writing about custody injustices?

On January 22, 2009, I lost custody of my 9 year old daughter; the oldest of four. I didn’t lose custody because of abuse, or because of illness, or because I was unwilling to care for her. I didn’t lose custody because of drugs or alcohol, or because of a lack of interest and participation in her social and educational needs. I didn’t lose custody because I couldn’t provide her with clothing, food, housing, or emotional support.  I lost her because of an incompetent court system with which accountability to a higher court or official is unlikely. Records are so tightly sealed in the Michigan Family Court System, that the likelihood of reprimand and justice is as likely as the sky turning yellow tomorrow.

I was under the disillusionment that a mother who is unfit or unwilling to parent could lose custody of a child. I never dreamed that a mother who was competent, loving, stable, and willing could lose their child.

I solely raised my daughter and was completely alone during my pregnancy. Her father and I parted ways because he had some severe addictions to overcome and I didn’t want any part of it. When I told him about the pregnancy (which was right away), he denied responsibility.  He began accusing me of being promiscuous. His parents and sister were unaware of his addictions for the most part (they knew he used drugs, but they didn’t know to what extent), and they too began to propose that the baby wasn’t his. Over the next several months, I began to look inside of myself and had to make some pretty grown-up decisions.

I finally moved back to Michigan with my family when I was 34 weeks gestation.  I felt that it was the best thing I could do for myself and my unborn child.  I would be in a safe, moral, and loving home, receiving unconditional support.  Love and support is what I needed, and I wasn’t getting it in Indiana. My unborn child’s father was still backing out of the responsibility and I came to accept that we would be alone.  I was about to embark upon “single parenthood”, a journey that would shape me in to the person I longed to be, a journey that would be so treacherous at times, it would test my endurance down to the nucleus of my being. Even so, I was ready to take it on .

I never married her father. After my daughter was born, I re-met a man I knew when I was a child and got pregnant again.  I was on birth control when this happened and was devastated to be in this situation again. I married this man 7 months later, had yet another child and we divorced when our youngest was 2. If I don’t have you disgusted by now, it gets worse. I got pregnant again with someone who became the love of my life, before our divorces were final. OUCH! If you are thinking we cheated on our ex-spouses, think again. That is not why our previous marriages dissolved, but amidst our divorces, we met and became attracted to one another. I ended up marrying for the last time, and the rest is history.

Regarding my last surprise pregnancy, in my mind then and still to this day almost 6 years later, I believe that the responsible and right action to take with regards to my situation was to carry this pregnancy full term whether it was socially accepted or not. No person or court should be given the right to impose their conviction as an absolute rule if a law has not been broken. For some unreasonable single dimensional process of thought, our society so eagerly conforms to; I was labeled as immoral (by the court), years later.  I haven’t done anything that everyone else isn’t doing.  Hello, people have sex.  Some get pregnant, others don’t.  It’s the women who get pregnant that are at a disadvantage.  Think about it…when you have a big balloon belly, the evidence that you engaged in sexual activities is plain and clear. If you are on effective birth control, nobody thinks about it.  For a man, there is no visual indication that he is engaging in sexual activities.  It is only the pregnant woman who endures the “immoral” label.  Because she’s pregnant and unwed, she must be promiscuous. That, unfortunately, is the punishment our society and system have placed on women.

By the time our daughter was 18 months old, my friendship with her father was on the mend, and for the next 7 years I considered him a best friend. I put a great deal of thought into the life my child would have without her parents getting along and being supportive of one another.  With all of my selfish might, I didn’t want to bite the bullet, but it wasn’t about me me me anymore. He stopped using drugs, and even stopped smoking.  The court verified parentage through DNA testing (ordered by the court to begin collecting child support and recover hospital costs that Medicaid initially paid). It wasn’t until she was 2 years old that he began paying child support, and his arrears neared $3,000.00.

It was in an earlier court occurrence when our daughter was 5 months old, that he would lie under oath for the first time stating that he provided for his daughter financially, and saw her regularly.  He petitioned a motion preventing me from leaving the state of Michigan with the daughter he denied was his.  At this time paternity was not established, nor was a court order for parenting time and/or support entered. That didn’t happen until she was almost 2 years old. The Judge ruled in the father’s favor and I was not to move our child’s residence out of the state of Michigan.

Over the next 8 years, life continued.  My family was complete, I found my lifelong partner, I ran my own successful company, and subscribed to an intense leadership development program.  I coordinated and hosted charitable benefits for our local Child Abuse and Neglect Council, regularly met with and mentored with my children’s school district superintendent and principals about topics such as leadership and parenting, and was invited to be a guest speaker for career days.  I am deeply involved in my children’s education and offer to volunteer at their schools.  Each week, I meet with them individually over their lunch hour.  These are our special “dates”.

It is not my intention to toot my own horn.  I just want you to be able to gauge my involvement.  While this is just from an educational standpoint, the level of involvement carries over in to every facet of their lives.

Here is where my life turned a corner:

I received notification on June 25, 2008 that the non-custodial parent petitioned the court for a change of custody. In Michigan, there are 12 factors considered in determining the “best interest of the child”. It is basically a game….whomever receives the most points wins.

I was completely blind-sided.  There was as a petition before me requesting a change of custody due to abuse and a lack of financial resources. I can’t even begin to convey my shock and disbelief at this nonsense.  Here was an erroneous testimony alleging that I abused my daughter physically, frequently cursed at her, would scream uncontrollably, and was unable to financially support extra-curricular activities such as gymnastics for her.

I was scratching my head, wondering if this was a cruel prank.

In April 2008 for the first time ever since a support order was entered, I requested that the court considers a review for child support. Because the father lives in Indiana, this complicates orders with regards to child support.  He doesn’t pay what Michigan’s standards are, although my daughter and I resided in Michigan.  He pays according to Indiana’s formulations which are considerably lower.  Our child was no longer a baby, and the cost of her daily upkeep had increased over the past 7 years.

I received a call from him days later confronting me about requesting the review. When I told him that indeed, I requested the review, it changed everything.  Our friendship turned a corner, and paybacks came in the form of a change of custody motion on June 25, 2008.

An order for mediation was entered.  This is a “service” that is provided under the umbrella of the Friend of the Court.  This mediator is not bound by family law standards and is absolved from possible lawsuits that could result from their recommendations….right, wrong, or indifferent. In other words, if your mediator is incompetent (to put it nicely), you can not file a claim against him/her as a result. They are untouchable.  How convenient.

Of the 12 factors, in a truthful and transparent world, I would be favored solely on 8 factors and we would equally share 4 factors. The only way it would be possible for us to share on 4 factors was a direct result of my conviction that my daughter and her father would need to spend more time together than what the court was ordering. A normal parent/child bond would have been impossible with one weekend per month (that was the courts order).

Unfortunately, this isn’t a truthful and transparent world.  It is a world sadly full of selfish, unaware, scathing people (and many of them are in politics).

My thoughts going in to mediation, was that she (the mediator) would instantly see that the plaintiffs testimony was far-fetched.  I had confidence that the mediator would be intelligent, would have an eye and ear for inconsistencies, and could be able to accurately decipher between truth and untruth.

Moreover, as it is a part of my way of communicating, I never thought twice about using metaphors, analogies, or directives.  Intelligent discussion about the facts regarding my relationship with both my daughter and her father were botched entirely in the written recommendation drawn by the mediator.

An example of 1 of the countless severely skewed pieces of conversation is as follows:

I was sharing with the mediator how out of my 4 children, each of them has very different personalities….same parent….4 different personalities.  I grabbed this analogy I am about to share from a motivational leadership speaker. The talk this speaker gave was titled “Buffalo’s and Butterflies”. I said to the mediator, “I have 4 children.  I can best describe them this way: 2 are butterflies….happy, bouncy, and fluttery.  I also have a mosquito….this little guy is always attached to me, either on my hip or on my lap.  Then, I have my buffalo.  She has a strong will, is hard to budge once her mind is made up, and is sometimes just plain stubborn”.

What I said and the context in which I said it was not conveyed the same way in the recommendation.  The mediator writes this on the final recommendation: “This mother refers to her child as a bull!”

That’s it.  Would you say she accurately relayed my statement?

Here is another account:

I was asked why I might be opposed to my daughter living with her father. Because there is not just a single answer to that question, one of my reasons was: “My daughter is an extremely bright child. She is getting her education from one of the top schools in the state.  The children are tested in to the school and it is a school dedicated to creative arts and academic giftedness.  My daughter is surrounded each day by cultural diversity, and higher learning.  These children are positioned to attend any university in the country.  My daughter has the potential to be a brain surgeon. In the Amish community her father lives in, the percentages of people completing grade school are numbered.  If they do graduate, they go on to work in the local trailer factories, farms, or grocers.  My daughter can be so much more than that.  Her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all worked for the family excavating business. Her education here will help to position her for a life more successful than the one I had.

This is what the mediator wrote in the recommendation: “This mother’s reason for not wanting her child to live in Indiana is because she said her daughter will grow up to be nothing more than a grocery store clerk if she lives with her dad”.                         She left out all of the other reasons I gave, such as that she has 3 younger siblings in the home….how might it change their lives to no longer have their sister with them?

Here is another:

In an attempt to defend myself from hurtful and untruthful allegations of premiscuity, I shared with the mediator that I have only had a handful of relationships, each were deeply meaningful.  I told her that at least I knew the names of people I shared my bed with, whereas my daughter’s father did not. He lost his virginity in a different country whilst in a drunken stupor.  He didn’t know the girl…not even her name. Following our daughter’s birth, he frequented the gentleman’s clubs and paid for sexual pleasures.

This is how the mediator worded it in her recommendation:                                           “The minor child’s mother said knew the names of the men she laid with”.               Nothing further was written regarding this conversation. This bit of conversation was placed in the recommendation under the moral fitness of the parents factor.  He was favored on this factor.  Also, while in court, the father’s attorney asked me: “you told the mediator that you knew the names of the men you laid with?”. Then she gave this little conniving laugh and used body language intended to intimidate. It still makes my skin crawl to this day. I said, “yes, but”…..then she interrupted and said: “It was a yes or know answer”.  I was not allowed to finish.

There are more…many, many more accounts of poor and inaccurate note taking. Most of my testimony was not reflected in the final recommendation.  It is my belief that the mediator had her mind made up within minutes of our introduction.

Rewinding to the first day of interviewing: I wasn’t prepared for the 4 hour long bash-fest I was about to embark upon when I entered the mediators office along with my daughters father. I thought that the mediator would systematically discuss each factor with us and allow us each a turn to share our side. That is not what happened. No sooner did she explain her protocol and the bantering began.  This man had been well-rehearsed by his attorney on what to say and when to say it.  I on the other hand was not.  My attorney advised me to be honest and transparent.

It became evident nearly immediately that he had been practicing his every word.  He also knew exactly everything the mediator was going to ask.  As a matter of fact, he answered everything before it was asked, right down the line. He came up for air after 4 hours.

All I could manage was frequent protests. I could not get a word in edgewise, nor was I given the opportunity to. He was assailing blame and resentment, of which nothing had a speck of truth. The mediator wrote down everything he was saying, and it carried over in to the final recommendation. She did not and could not verify anything he was alleging, because none of it had truth.

My thoughts were literally spinning in my head.  Where did this all come from? How did he come up with it? Wait, some of these characteristics are his, not mine, but he’s blaming me? This must be a very bad dream!  He laid out pages upon pages worth of erroneous bull crap, and now, all I was left with was the hope that this mediator would see through it.

Because we weren’t even close to finishing the interview/interrogation, another time was scheduled….this time, we went in separately. I was much more comfortable with that. When I sat with the mediator, she went through each factor with me. The interview lasted about 1 1/2 hours and during that time, she jotted down some notes only a handful of times.  That alarmed me.

When my ex was being interviewed alone, it gave him the opportunity to pull more awful allegations about me out of his magical bag.  This time without my protests.

I will tell you, my feelings about him took a fast U-turn. This is a person who praised me as an individual and as a parent over the past 7 years, a person who called me on almost a daily basis just to chat, a person who I re-opened my heart back up to as a friend and opened my home up to on weekends he came to pick up our daughter but the roads were too bad to travel on, a person who called me his best friend.

I  realized that he was either a person who was wearing a facade all those years, planning all along to make this move, or it was the sudden new relationship and engagement he was in that triggered this. It is really something to witness…selfishness that is. We all have it, but for some, it goes through a sort of metamorphosis.  When you give selfishness wings, it can and will go anywhere.  It will plow down anything and everything that gets in its way and it won’t look back, because it doesn’t have a conscience.

I knew based on the final recommendation that he continued during his private interview to throw some additional fictitious details out there for the record.

In the end, the non-custodial father was in favor on all 12 factors.  The Saginaw County Friend of the Court Mediator didn’t favor me on a single one.  His testimony became the “hard evidence” needed to gain sole physical custody.

During the final court hearing, my attorney blasted holes through the plaintiff’s testimony and she devalued the mediator’s recommendation by means of witnesses and hard documentation. The school principal and teachers were witnesses, my husband, and my mother. My attorney pointed out one inconsistency after the other. She went through each factor, line-by-line and anyone with even a pea-sized brain would conclude that the allegations lacked evidence, some were even humorously ridiculous, and the recommendation made by the friend of the court mediator was void of evidence and was drawn purely from one-sided hearsay.

I lost custody of my daughter that day.  My children lost their sister.  The same leniency and generosity I afforded her dad all those years was not afforded to me (with every other weekend visits, extended summer breaks, and sharing all school breaks). The judge was a breath away from revoking my joint legal custody rights and verbalized this in the final seconds of his judgment.

It’s been 10 months since custody was lost.  Our lives have changed so much, and so has my daughters. Everything single thing that favored her father by the mediator either never existed or existed only for a moment, long enough to get it on the record. I was awarded one weekend per calendar month. I am responsible to drive to Indiana to pick her up on that Friday and we get home at around 8 pm. We have all of Saturday to reconnect, and then she’s whisked away early Sunday afternoon. I don’t get to see her at all for the remaining 2009 holidays, nor for the first half of 2010 holidays. We live 156 miles apart, and in Michigan, if parties live more than 150 miles apart, they by default are granted only 1 visit per month (over a weekend). While the judge knew I let him have every-other-weekend visits with our daughter, he did not feel impelled or kind enough to afford me the same.

She is being raised by her single father whose engagement was called off shortly after the custody was changed. His relationship fell apart completely and his fiance and her young child moved out.  My daughter who is now 10 doesn’t have a maternal influence on a daily basis, just 1 1/2 days per month.  No one to sit down with to discuss “girl things”, no mumma to play with her hair, or tuck her in snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug at night, no mumma to have “spa nights” with (this is when we get out all of our beauty goodies and do makeovers and pedicures). Daughters need their mother’s. Forty-eight hours per month is abusive and does not aid in embracing a mother/daughter bond.  It is not even close to being enough time!

If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing…..except I would have brought a voice recorder to the Mediation interview. It should be required by state law that the testimony given at mediation be audio taped.

I have learned a lesson that has perhaps hardened me, but has also been a huge eye-opener:
Transparency, truth, and integrity doesn’t always prevail. Sometimes it takes being dirty and cunning to get to the top. For me, I lost something irreplaceable and precious….but, I didn’t lose my integrity.

Nothing ever became of the request for child support review in late April 2008 that stemmed his move for custody in June 2008.  When I contacted the child support division in Indiana on numerous occasions prior to losing custody, they would tell me that they haven’t reviewed the case yet.  I called right up until the day I lost my daughter.  After the change of custody was ordered, I received a letter from their office stating that because custody has changed, there would be no need for review.

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A Michigan Mother’s Custody Injustice

  • Posted on January 8, 2010 at 3:07 am

I have never done anything like this before.  I have never been in a desperate situation where I am in a soundproof bubble, and the system doesn’t hear my cries.  They see me, but they pretend I am not there.  This is the Michigan Family Law and Friend of the Court Division.  It is our system; the one we are suppose to count on for freedom, justice, and liberty. It is my prayer that you read through to the end. Although this is my hell and my grief, this story must be heard.  Please feel free to leave comments and post the story in to your blogs and various social marketing venues. It is imperative that we use our voices; otherwise, this will continue to happen to mothers who don’t deserve it. Justice needs to prevail, I must get my daughter back, and the biased officials involved in my case need to be reprimanded. This must climb up the political ladder and reach the steps of the Supreme Court. I can not get there alone.

I am a wife and mother of four amazing children. We are an American white collar, middle-class family. I am so fortunate and thankful that we own a beautiful 2,500 square foot home that backs up to the 4th green of a prestigious golf course. I wasn’t always of this status, most people aren’t.  We start somewhere, and then gradually improve ourselves with the combination of time, effort & experiences. I consider myself ordinary. I, like most of you, have experienced meaningful relationships.  I’ve been hurt.  I’ve failed and given up on things. I’ve traveled extensively, I’ve gone to college.  I am a deep thinker, a reader, and I am gentle. I love nature and respect its wrath.  I am not religious, but am deeply spiritual. I am passionate about loving and caring for my children. I am always searching….searching for truth, for mindfulness, for authenticity. I am searching for the path that will ultimately be the “dash”….you know, that little mark on a gravestone that is between the day you were born and the day you passed….that’s the dash I am referring to.

I would ask, are you much the same? Probably. I am thankful that we can redeem ourselves throughout our lifetime; to make better decisions, to course-correct, and to leave a footprint that we can be proud of.

So, why am I writing about custody injustices?

On January 22, 2009, I lost custody of my 9 year old daughter; the oldest of four. I didn’t lose custody because of abuse, or because of illness, or because I was unwilling to care for her. I didn’t lose custody because of drugs or alcohol, or because of a lack of interest and participation in her social and educational needs. I didn’t lose custody because I couldn’t provide her with clothing, food, housing, or emotional support.  I lost her because of an incompetent court system with which accountability to a higher court or official is unlikely. Records are so tightly sealed in the Michigan Family Court System, that the likelihood of reprimand and justice is as likely as the sky turning yellow tomorrow.

I was under the disillusionment that a mother who is unfit or unwilling to parent could lose custody of a child. I never dreamed that a mother who was competent, loving, stable, and willing could lose their child.

I solely raised my daughter and was completely alone during my pregnancy. Her father and I parted ways because he had some severe addictions to overcome and I didn’t want any part of it. When I told him about the pregnancy (which was right away), he denied responsibility.  He began accusing me of being promiscuous. His parents and sister were unaware of his addictions for the most part (they knew he used drugs, but they didn’t know to what extent), and they too began to propose that the baby wasn’t his. Over the next several months, I began to look inside of myself and had to make some pretty grown-up decisions.

I finally moved back to Michigan with my family when I was 34 weeks gestation.  I felt that it was the best thing I could do for myself and my unborn child.  I would be in a safe, moral, and loving home, receiving unconditional support.  Love and support is what I needed, and I wasn’t getting it in Indiana. My unborn child’s father was still backing out of the responsibility and I came to accept that we would be alone.  I was about to embark upon “single parenthood”, a journey that would shape me in to the person I longed to be, a journey that would be so treacherous at times, it would test my endurance down to the nucleus of my being. Even so, I was ready to take it on.

I never married her father. After my daughter was born, I re-met a man I knew when I was a child and got pregnant again.  I was on birth control when this happened and was devastated to be in this situation again. I married this man 7 months later, had yet another child and we divorced when our youngest was 2. If I don’t have you disgusted by now, it gets worse. I got pregnant again with someone who became the love of my life, before our divorces were final. OUCH! If you are thinking we cheated on our ex-spouses, think again. That is not why our previous marriages dissolved. I ended up marrying for the last time, and the rest is history.

Regarding my last surprise pregnancy, in my mind then and still to this day almost 6 years later, I believe that the responsible and right action to take with regards to my situation was to carry this pregnancy full term whether it was socially accepted or not. No person or court should be given the right to impose their conviction as an absolute rule if a law has not been broken. For some unreasonable single dimensional process of thought, our society so eagerly conforms to; I was labeled as immoral by the court, years later.  I haven’t done anything that everyone else isn’t doing.  Hello, people have sex.  Some get pregnant, others don’t.  It’s the women who get pregnant that are at a disadvantage.  Think about it…when you have a big balloon belly, the evidence that you engaged in sexual activities is plain and clear. If you are on effective birth control, nobody thinks about it.  For a man, there is no visual indication that he is engaging in sexual activities.  It is only the pregnant woman who endures the “immoral” label.  Because she’s pregnant and unwed, she must be promiscuous. That, unfortunately, is the punishment our society and system have placed on women.

By the time our daughter was 18 months old, my friendship with her father was on the mend, and for the next 7 years I considered him a best friend. I put a great deal of thought into the life my child would have without her parents getting along and being supportive of one another.  With all of my selfish might, I didn’t want to bite the bullet, but it wasn’t about me me me anymore. He stopped using drugs, and even stopped smoking.  The court verified parentage through DNA testing (ordered by the court to begin collecting child support and recover hospital costs that Medicaid initially paid). It wasn’t until she was 2 years old that he began paying child support, and his arrears neared $3,000.00.

It was in an earlier court occurrence when our daughter was 5 months old, that he would lie under oath for the first time stating that he provided for his daughter financially, and saw her regularly.  He petitioned a motion preventing me from leaving the state of Michigan with the daughter he denied was his.  At this time paternity was not established, nor was a court order for parenting time and/or support entered. That didn’t happen until she was almost 2 years old. The Judge ruled in the father’s favor and I was not to move our child’s residence out of the state of Michigan.

Over the next 8 years, life continued.  My family was complete, I found my lifelong partner, I ran my own successful company, and subscribed to an intense leadership development program.  I coordinated and hosted charitable benefits for our local Child Abuse and Neglect Council, regularly met with and mentored with my children’s school district superintendent and principals about topics such as leadership and parenting, and was invited to be a guest speaker for career days.  I am deeply involved in my children’s education and offer to volunteer at their schools.  Each week, I meet with them individually over their lunch hour.  These are our special “dates”.

It is not my intention to toot my own horn.  I just want you to be able to gauge my involvement.  While this is just from an educational standpoint, the level of involvement carries over in to every facet of their lives.

Here is where my life turned a corner:

I received notification on June 25, 2008 that the non-custodial parent petitioned the court for a change of custody. In Michigan, there are 12 factors considered in determining the “best interest of the child”. It is basically a game….whomever receives the most points wins.

I was completely blind-sided.  There was as a petition before me requesting a change of custody due to abuse and a lack of financial resources. I can’t even begin to convey my shock and disbelief at this nonsense.  Here was an erroneous testimony alleging that I abused my daughter physically, frequently cursed at her, would scream uncontrollably, and was unable to financially support extra-curricular activities such as gymnastics for her.

I was scratching my head, wondering if this was a cruel prank.

In April 2008 for the first time ever since a support order was entered, I requested that the court considers a review for child support. Because the father lives in Indiana, this complicates orders with regards to child support.  He doesn’t pay what Michigan’s standards are, although my daughter and I resided in Michigan.  He pays according to Indiana’s formulations which are considerably lower.  Our child was no longer a baby, and the cost of her daily upkeep had increased over the past 7 years.

I received a call from him days later confronting me about requesting the review. When I told him that indeed, I requested the review, it changed everything.  Our friendship turned a corner, and paybacks came in the form of a change of custody motion on June 25, 2008.

An order for mediation was entered.  This is a “service” that is provided under the umbrella of the Friend of the Court.  This mediator is not bound by family law standards and is absolved from possible lawsuits that could result from their recommendations….right, wrong, or indifferent. In other words, if your mediator is incompetent (to put it nicely), you can not file a claim against him/her as a result. They are untouchable.  How convenient.

Of the 12 factors, in a truthful and transparent world, I would be favored solely on 8 factors and we would equally share 4 factors. The only way it would be possible for us to share on 4 factors was a direct result of my conviction that my daughter and her father would need to spend more time together than what the court was ordering. A normal parent/child bond would have been impossible with one weekend per month (that was the courts order).

Unfortunately, this isn’t a truthful and transparent world.  It is a world sadly full of selfish, unaware, scathing people (and many of them are in politics).

My thoughts going in to mediation, was that she (the mediator) would instantly see that the plaintiffs testimony was far-fetched.  I had confidence that the mediator would be intelligent, would have an eye and ear for inconsistencies, and could be able to accurately decipher between truth and untruth.

Moreover, as it is a part of my way of communicating, I never thought twice about using metaphors, analogies, or directives.  Intelligent discussion about the facts regarding my relationship with both my daughter and her father were botched entirely in the written recommendation drawn by the mediator.

An example of 1 of the countless severely skewed pieces of conversation is as follows:

I was sharing with the mediator how out of my 4 children, each of them has very different personalities….same parent….4 different personalities.  I grabbed this analogy I am about to share from a motivational leadership speaker. The talk this speaker gave was titled “Buffalo’s and Butterflies”. I said to the mediator, “I have 4 children.  I can best describe them this way: 2 are butterflies….happy, bouncy, and fluttery.  I also have a mosquito….this little guy is always attached to me, either on my hip or on my lap.  Then, I have my buffalo.  She has a strong will, is hard to budge once her mind is made up, and is sometimes just plain stubborn”.

What I said and the context in which I said it was not conveyed the same way in the recommendation.  The mediator writes this on the final recommendation: “This mother refers to her child as a bull!”

That’s it.  Would you say she accurately relayed my statement?

Here is another account:

I was asked why I might be opposed to my daughter living with her father. Because there is not just a single answer to that question, one of my reasons was: “My daughter is an extremely bright child. She is getting her education from one of the top schools in the state.  The children are tested in to the school and it is a school dedicated to creative arts and academic giftedness.  My daughter is surrounded each day by cultural diversity, and higher learning.  These children are positioned to attend any university in the country.  My daughter has the potential to be a brain surgeon. In the Amish community her father lives in, the percentages of people completing grade school are numbered.  If they do graduate, they go on to work in the local trailer factories, farms, or grocers.  My daughter can be so much more than that.  Her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all worked for the family excavating business. Her education here will help to position her for a life more successful than the one I had.

This is what the mediator wrote in the recommendation: “This mother’s reason for not wanting her child to live in Indiana is because she said her daughter will grow up to be nothing more than a grocery store clerk if she lives with her dad”.                         She left out all of the other reasons I gave, such as that she has 3 younger siblings in the home….how might it change their lives to no longer have their sister with them?

Here is another:

In an attempt to defend myself from hurtful and untruthful allegations of promiscuity, I shared with the mediator that I have only had a handful of relationships, each were deeply meaningful.  I told her that at least I knew the names of people I shared my bed with, whereas my daughter’s father did not. He lost his virginity in a different country whilst in a drunken stupor.  He didn’t know the girl…not even her name. Following our daughter’s birth, he frequented the gentleman’s clubs and paid for sexual pleasures.

This is how the mediator worded it in her recommendation:                                           “The minor child’s mother said knew the names of the men she laid with”.               Nothing further was written regarding this conversation. This bit of conversation was placed in the recommendation under the moral fitness of the parents factor.  He was favored on this factor.  Also, while in court, the father’s attorney asked me: “you told the mediator that you knew the names of the men you laid with?”. Then she gave this little conniving laugh and used body language intended to intimidate. It still makes my skin crawl to this day. I said, “yes, but”…..then she interrupted and said: “It was a yes or know answer”.  I was not allowed to finish.

There are more…many, many more accounts of poor and inaccurate note taking. Most of my testimony was not reflected in the final recommendation.  It is my belief that the mediator had her mind made up within minutes of our introduction.

Rewinding to the first day of interviewing: I wasn’t prepared for the 4 hour long bash-fest I was about to embark upon when I entered the mediators office along with my daughters father. I thought that the mediator would systematically discuss each factor with us and allow us each a turn to share our side. That is not what happened. No sooner did she explain her protocol and the bantering began.  This man had been well-rehearsed by his attorney on what to say and when to say it.  I on the other hand was not.  My attorney advised me to be honest and transparent.

It became evident nearly immediately that he had been practicing his every word.  He also knew exactly everything the mediator was going to ask.  As a matter of fact, he answered everything before it was asked, right down the line. He came up for air after 4 hours.

All I could manage was frequent protests. I could not get a word in edgewise, nor was I given the opportunity to. He was assailing blame and resentment, of which nothing had a speck of truth. The mediator wrote down everything he was saying, and it carried over in to the final recommendation. She did not and could not verify anything he was alleging, because none of it had truth.

My thoughts were literally spinning in my head.  Where did this all come from? How did he come up with it? Wait, some of these characteristics are his, not mine, but he’s blaming me? This must be a very bad dream!  He laid out pages upon pages worth of erroneous bull crap, and now, all I was left with was the hope that this mediator would see through it.

Because we weren’t even close to finishing the interview/interrogation, another time was scheduled….this time, we went in separately. I was much more comfortable with that. When I sat with the mediator, she went through each factor with me. The interview lasted about 1 1/2 hours and during that time, she jotted down some notes only a handful of times.  That alarmed me.

When my ex was being interviewed alone, it gave him the opportunity to pull more awful allegations about me out of his magical bag.  This time without my protests.

I will tell you, my feelings about him took a fast U-turn. This is a person who praised me as an individual and as a parent over the past 7 years, a person who called me on almost a daily basis just to chat, a person who I re-opened my heart back up to as a friend and opened my home up to on weekends he came to pick up our daughter but the roads were too bad to travel on, a person who called me his best friend.

I  realized that he was either a person who was wearing a facade all those years, planning all along to make this move, or it was the sudden new relationship and engagement he was in that triggered this. It is really something to witness…selfishness that is. We all have it, but for some, it goes through a sort of metamorphosis.  When you give selfishness wings, it can and will go anywhere.  It will plow down anything and everything that gets in its way and it won’t look back, because it doesn’t have a conscience.

I knew based on the final recommendation that he continued during his private interview to throw some additional fictitious details out there for the record.

In the end, the non-custodial father was in favor on all 12 factors.  The Saginaw County Friend of the Court Mediator didn’t favor me on a single one.  His testimony became the “hard evidence” needed to gain sole physical custody.

During the final court hearing, my attorney blasted holes through the plaintiff’s testimony and she devalued the mediator’s recommendation by means of witnesses and hard documentation. The school principal and teachers were witnesses, my husband, and my mother. My attorney pointed out one inconsistency after the other. She went through each factor, line-by-line and anyone with even a pea-sized brain would conclude that the allegations lacked evidence, some were even humorously ridiculous, and the recommendation made by the friend of the court mediator was void of evidence and was drawn purely from one-sided hearsay.

I lost custody of my daughter that day.  My children lost their sister.  The same leniency and generosity I afforded her dad all those years was not afforded to me (with every other weekend visits, extended summer breaks, and sharing all school breaks). The judge was a breath away from revoking my joint legal custody rights and verbalized this in the final seconds of his judgment.

It’s been 10 months since custody was lost.  Our lives have changed so much, and so has my daughters. Everything single thing that favored her father by the mediator either never existed or existed only for a moment, long enough to get it on the record. I was awarded one weekend per calendar month. I am responsible to drive to Indiana to pick her up on that Friday and we get home at around 8 pm. We have all of Saturday to reconnect, and then she’s whisked away early Sunday afternoon. I don’t get to see her at all for the remaining 2009 holidays, nor for the first half of 2010 holidays. We live 156 miles apart, and in Michigan, if parties live more than 150 miles apart, they by default are granted only 1 visit per month (over a weekend). While the judge knew I let him have every-other-weekend visits with our daughter, he did not feel impelled or kind enough to afford me the same.

She is being raised by her single father whose engagement was called off shortly after the custody was changed. His relationship fell apart completely and his fiance and her young child moved out.  My daughter who is now 10 doesn’t have a maternal influence on a daily basis, just 1 1/2 days per month.  No one to sit down with to discuss “girl things”, no mumma to play with her hair, or tuck her in snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug at night, no mumma to have “spa nights” with (this is when we get out all of our beauty goodies and do makeovers and pedicures). Daughters need their mother’s. Forty-eight hours per month is abusive and does not aid in embracing a mother/daughter bond.  It is not even close to being enough time!

If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing…..except I would have brought a voice recorder to the Mediation interview. It should be required by state law that the testimony given at mediation be audio taped.

I have learned a lesson that has perhaps hardened me, but has also been a huge eye-opener:
Transparency, truth, and integrity doesn’t always prevail. Sometimes it takes being dirty and cunning to get to the top. For me, I lost something irreplaceable and precious….but, I didn’t lose my integrity.

Nothing ever became of the request for child support review in late April 2008 that stemmed his move for custody in June 2008.  When I contacted the child support division in Indiana on numerous occasions prior to losing custody, they would tell me that they haven’t reviewed the case yet.  I called right up until the day I lost my daughter.  After the change of custody was ordered, I received a letter from their office stating that because custody has changed, there would be no need for review.

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A Curious Mother’s Day Story

  • Posted on January 6, 2010 at 4:08 pm

SALOME and HERODIAS,


A CURIOUS MOTHER’S DAY STORY©


Reprinted with permission from The Perspicacious Woman OnLine©

April, 2003 issue, Volume 3:Number 2

Publisher, The Daisy Shop, women’s couture resale

http://www.daisyshop.com

Barbara Nell


First, a disclaimer:


This article requires information about John the Baptist, whose life and works and words are holy, divinely inspired, to Christians. The sources I’ve accessed are religious, historical, literary, exegetic, and anecdotal. In order to avoid disrespect for the sacredness of the words and concepts with which Christians hold The Gospels and with which Jews hold The Torah, I’ve renamed both ‘translated redactions.’ I also use the euphemism, monotheistic god, to avoid any disrespect to any deity and religion. This is an essay designed to entertain and inform you, Dear Reader, not to cause any religious discussion or foment.


Second, a thank you:


To friend Pam and friend Vanessa, both of whom got my research juices going on Salome, whom, I believed, was trivial, too trivial even for our newsletter. It boiled down to “Who did she do the belly dance for?” I hadn’t a clue, because I didn’t think she was real. They both assured me she was a real person. I checked it out. Yup, she was real and…


…she may have danced or may not have danced. But, if she did dance, it wasn’t a belly dance that she did, nor was it a tap, the tango, or the quick step. The belly dance aspect was imagined in the late 19th century by some artistic guy, and we’ll get there, later, when it’s timely. She did perform, that much is true, and she performed for the host, her stepfather, at the instigation of the hostess, her mother, and their banquet guests.


It was an entertainment interlude, and it occurred about the 1st century AD in a castle located in area called The Galilee. She may have performed in a play about some Greek mythological character or she may have been the one non-Bedouin ( a guest) in a troop of Bedouin entertainers who did folk dances that non-Bedouins enjoyed seeing. If it was the former, the structure of the play was rigid: it was a pantomime, with stringed instrumentals to keep the story line going, mime actors of both genders, all adults, and young children acrobatics of both genders. Everyone was masked. This was a troop of professional entertainers on the payroll of biggies, not a traveling group (a type not yet invented). They were probably on the payroll of her stepfather and she had time to practice with them before the banquet.


If it was the latter, it was a dance, one with a lot of whirling and head tossing, by females in heavy blue robes with cowls, and there was a flute accompaniment. The company did not live in The Galilee, but were nomads from the desert between The Galilee and Arabia, who had come by request of the biggie. It is unlikely that Bedouin dancers were involved in this banquet, for they had to walk a fine line in their desert migrations, land that abutted both The Galilee and Arabia at that time There was bad blood between Aretas IV King of Arabia and Antipas, stepfather of Salome, Tetrarch of The Galilee, the place where the banquet and the entertainment took place and the place where Salome lived. And, Salome would not have had time to practice the whirling and head tossing before the banquet.


So, it was a Roman style play about Greek mythology that was probably performed as the intermediate event between courses or the closing event of a posh banquet. The host, her stepfather, was a Herod we’ll call Antipas, (not as high as a King) and the hostess, her mother, was named Herodias (a former Queen, divorced from her 1st husband, Phillip, a King, and now married to a mere Tetrarch, making her a Tetrarchess, I guess). These were minor players in the times’ political stage and the definition of ‘posh’ was relative to their stature…minor. The guest list contained: nobles visiting from Rome, Roman nobles stationed in The Galilee by Rome, aristocrats from The Galilee and maybe Judea, and Antipas’ Steward, Chuza. Some sources say the banquet was thrown by Herodias because it was Antipas’ birthday, an unnecessary embellishment, to my way of thinking. Most sources are silent about the reason for the banquet, so I tend to go with most when it’s a fact such as this kind.


Any banquet takes preparation, whether you’re a Queen, a Tetrarchess, or merely the wife of a mope. So, along with the timing, guest list, menu, food preparation, and seating plan, Herodias prepared for the entertainment. She had to decide that Salome’s participation in the entertainment would be the thing to do long before the banquet took place. Herodias is described as a savvy kind of gal by the benign tellers of the tale (she’s vilified by most) and Salome was her only child (by Phillip), so she probably made time to watch Salome rehearse. A lot was riding on Salome being real real good. Nothing anywhere says whether Salome wanted to be a part of the entertainment or was unwilling to be a part of the entertainment.


Herodias planned a staid, Roman affair. It could not have been a bacchanal type banquet (similar to the present Wild On’s on E!), as some sources suggest. There were stringent Roman rules about highborn women and what they can attend and do in while in attendance. Herodias was high born and from Judea. (Antipas, her second husband, was not as high born, coming from an Idumean father and possibly a Samarian mother.)


Salome was just a kid at the time of the banquet. Some sources say she was a teenager, but they have to in order for other parts of the legend to fit. (We’ll get to the other parts later.) I doubt if she was a nubile teenager. She was royalty, a Princess, in fact, with very good blood on her mother’s side, Maccabean blood, which was respected even by Rome, who, by the way, had conquered Judea (and The Galilee) long before this time and made this area a part of their Empire. Modesty and chastity were required for this type female from a Roman standpoint and a Maccabean standpoint (her bloodline was matriarchal). She had to be dutiful, respectful, and learn at her mother’s knee, an important custom amongst the Maccabean women. She was a good kid. So, she couldn’t have been a teenager and allowed to perform. It would diminish her future value in the marriage market, Roman or otherwise, and it would have been a sin. I would opine she had to be less than Nadia Comaneci’s age when she blew away the Olympic judges in 1976, but she was probably just as agile.


It’s probable that Herodias recognized her daughter’s agility long before the banquet, for kids have a tendency to display what they’re good at long before there’s a use for the tendency. It could have been a genetic throwback to the time before the Maccabees were promoted to highborn, the time when the men were just about the best guerilla fighters in Judea and found the mountainous regions around Judea excellent terrain to entice their foes into combat. She was probably proud of this tendency and tedious of this tendency (“Watch me, Momma,” once too often can be tedious.) and savvy enough to see a utilization for her own good. This also pre-supposes that Herodias might have had more contact in Salome’s upbringing than Roman highborn mothers, for Maccabean women were responsible for (both gender) children to ‘learn at their knee’ a minimum of 613 rules the monotheistic god required of adherents, or that there was a lot of contact between highborn mothers and their daughters at that time. In either case, Herodias planned the banquet and the entertainment and included her agile daughter in the entertainment, making sure Salome rehearsed and would do a good job in the acrobatic kid part of the troop…a multi-tasking woman for sure.


Protocol at posh and formal banquets where Roman mucky mucks were invited was stringent. This would have been very important to Antipas, also. He had been raised in Rome (maybe even a hostage child) and the land he administered at the time of the banquet had been bequeathed to him by Rome. Augustus (of the Cleopatra story) had handled the apportioning of Antipas’ father’s enormous estate when he, known as Herod the Great, died. Antipas was not happy with the way Poppa’s estate was apportioned, felt he had gotten the short stick amongst his four brothers. (He had.) He would have been very, very Roman at this Roman banquet in order to make nice and have this get back to Rome.


The men would have reclined on the equivalent of 1st century Barco-Loungers and ate lovely things and drank lovely wine moderately, while trading amusing stories and quips and bantering amongst each other. I’m not sure just what bantering is, but I am sure they bantered. They would have been arranged in a horseshoe U pattern. The women guests and their hostess would have sat on chairs and I couldn’t figure out where the chairs were placed, within the horseshoe in a line or outside the horseshoe in a line. But in any case, they would have sat on fancy, but hard backed, chairs in a line and would not have eaten or drunken wine, but I suggest they may have bantered. Their job was to just sit, all gussied up and smellin’ good. (They would eat and drink, later, when they got home or when the guests left, depending on your perspective.)


Salome could not have been invited. If she had been invited, she would have left her fancy, hard-backed chair vacant in order to get into costume and perform. Antipas would have noticed the empty chair and have asked someone, “Where did the kid go?” And, someone would have said, “She’s going to perform.” That would have taken the drama out of this next part of the story. Let’s agree; she was not invited to the banquet.


At the proper time, the play was performed, and the audience clapped after it was over. Antipas complimented the performers, then singled one out. Because it was Salome that was singled out, I believe she was one of the masked acrobats. It only makes sense. Antipas apparently didn’t recognize the stepdaughter he had raised since infancy as the excellent acrobat in the play. Rather, he thought her one of the professionals, for if he had recognized her, he wouldn’t have offered the gift
eward. He just would have said, “Good job, sweetie. Go get washed. You’ll catch cold.” Therefore, because he didn’t recognize her, he made a magnanimous gesture (It’s not unlikely that he was showing off for the guests, for Antipas was a doodle-head, didn’t think things through. We’ll get to that, later.), and he offered the acrobat-Salome anything she desired as a gift from him for her fine performance. This is exactly what Herodias had planned to happen. She knew her guy pretty well and she knew her little girl real well. The benign tellers were right: she was a savvy gal.


Since all sources attribute what comes next as engendered by Herodias, the acrobat-Salome had to have asked him to wait a minute and had to have gone to the chair line, where her mother and the other women were sitting, otherwise Herodias would not have been associated with what comes next. (It would have been only Salome who would have been associated with what comes next.). So, the mother and daughter had to have conferred quietly, while Antipas (and the guests) watched. Perhaps, Salome said, “Euwww,” as kids do when they hear something revolting; or perhaps, not. She was a 1st century kid and they may have been different from 21st century kids. I think not. Kids are kids. She said “Euwww.” Dutifully, she listened closely to what her mother told her and she probably repeated it back to Herodias, so that she got it right and straight. Then, she, the acrobat-Salome, came back to Antipas with the gift idea: the head of the long time prisoner John (who later became John the Baptist, but who was merely the prisoner John at this time) on a platter (which was probably not a platter, but a charger).


It’s possible that he recognized Salome at this point. It doesn’t really matter. I do know he knew he had been set up by his wife, Herodias, via this acrobat-Salome, when he heard the performance reward. And he was startled and embarrassed and in a public quandary. It’s possible he questioned the acrobat-Salome with an ‘are you kidding? kind of question, while looking in Herodias’ direction, who either shrugged her shoulders or nodded ‘yes.’ From a legal standpoint, he did not have to honor this acrobat-Salome’s request, for it wasn’t hers. It was Herodias.’ It is possible that Chuza, his Steward, jumped in at this point, for he had been financing John’s nascent ministry through his wife, Elizabeth, but it’s just as possible, he did not, for that’s not how it went down.


Everyone at the banquet knew there had been a big mad between Herodias and Antipas regarding John for a long, long time. She had wanted him killed outright for talking often and badly about her and her marriage to Antipas to everyone and anyone who would listen to him. John had labeled it incestuous and it was, kind of, but by only a technicality, the small print in a big, long contract. Herodias’ first husband, the Herod we’re calling Phillip, was Antipas’ half brother. They shared the same father, Herod The Great, but had different mothers. Phillip was still living in Judea where he was King (Rome gave him a large portion of his father’s estate, larger than Antipas..) and as long as Phillip lived, Herodias and Antipas had an incestuous marriage. As soon as he died, it would be an okay marriage. But, he hadn’t died, yet.


Although it was the gossip that bothered Herodias (A good spin doctor would have helped, but they were 2000 years down the road in development.), it was the religious twist John put on the technical incest that bothered Antipas. John attributed all the stuff that had gone wrong in The Galilee since they married (and stuff had gone wrong, for Antipas was a doodle-head) to the marriage. And, John said that the monotheistic god was angry with her, more than Antipas, because of her good Maccabean blood (a mix of Idumean and Samarian blood results in a person that the monotheistic god doesn’t expect much from), and would stay angry with her and get more so, so the anger would spill over to the whole of The Galilee, until she and Antipas split (or, I guess, until Phillip died, a factor that was out of her hands).


People listened to that kind of stuff at that time and in that place and they got real scared. A monotheistic god’s anger was a terrible thing. Famine, drought, disease, pestilence, flood, invasion, even eclipse – anything could happen when a monotheistic god was angry. While there hadn’t been famine, drought, disease, pestilence, flood, invasion, or even an eclipse in The Galilee, Antipas had lost a war, his first, with Nabatea, their neighbor in Arabia.


Herodias could have been a vulnerable position should important people have listened to John’s predictions. Luckily for her, the important people had other things on their mind. Antipas said ‘no’ to killing John and ‘yes’ to imprisoning him, believing that would shut John up. Some sources said Antipas had a feeling that John’s predictions were true; others said he had a feel for the monotheistic deity. Still others say he was merely acting like a political animal, notably, a fox. At any rate, John was not killed, but imprisoned, and he had been languishing in the prison for many years at the time of the banquet.


Now, killing a local prisoner was no big deal anywhere in the 1st century world of the Roman Empire and having a prisoner killed to reward an agile acrobat was stretching the reward idea, but… it could work. The thing is that the head on a plattercharger was the note that made it a bigger deal. This touch was a gruesome, certainly barbaric, dramatic thing and would cause a scandal and gossip all over Judea and in Rome, what Antipas did not need if he were to ever get any more land from his dead father’s estate from Rome. (And it did, for Flavius Josephus in his book, “Antiquities,” writing to and for Rome about 100 years after the event ,included the event for it was still so juicy. This, by the way, is how we know about some parts of it.) (An important question occurs to me and that is this: How and where did Herodias get this notion? Two ideas come to mind: (1) the Greek myth of Perseus and Medusa and their fight to death: Perseus won. He decapitated Medusa and waved her head around and took it a bunch of places as a talisman. It must have been awful after a time. Maybe that’s where she got it, for she was well educated. (2) A similar event took place in Rome 50 years earlier: Pemejus, a political competitor to Julius, lost his political battle, and his foes brought Julius, the winning Caesar, his head. She might have heard this gossip. Perhaps, she then pragmatically adapted decapitation to the situation at hand. Beheading was a popular type of death and an honorable type of execution for criminals and warriors amongst the Romans and the Maccabees and the Arabians. This, I discovered, from plunking around on the Internet to some very weird websites. I don’t recommend you check this out for yourself. Truthfully, I cannot imagine where she got this embellishment. One of these weird websites calls her talented.)


The doodle-head complied.


A messenger was sent to the fortress named Macharerus (now called Mukawir) in an area called The Perea (now part of Amman, Jordan) where John was imprisoned. A nameless guard cut off his head, and got a messenger to convey it to the castle somewhere in The Galilee, where the banquet guests were waiting, the males still bantering with one another, I guess, to pass the time; the females still sitting quietly on their hard chairs, smellin’ good. The acrobat-Salome probably went off somewhere to bathe and change clothes, then returned to the banquet room to stand next to her (talented) Momma or stand with the performers. The guards put the headless body somewhere, waited for further orders.


I couldn’t find out how far away the area The Parea was from The Galilee, for I couldn’t pin down exactly what city the castle was located in the area known as The Galilee, then, the area where the banquet occurred. Let’s believe it wasn’t terribly far, so the messenger conveying the head could get from there to there quick. He arrived and a kitchen servant brought a plattercharger (No one knows if it was a platter made out of silver, gold, porcelain, or stoneware. In fact, no one cared. Furthermore, it may not have been a platter, but a charger, which is larger than a plate and smaller than a platter and rested under a plate at a table service and was often of precious metal. Since it’s a Roman banquet, people took morsels of this and that from servant-held chargers, didn’t have a table service at all. They were reclining.) Another servant, a serving type, brought the head to the banquet hall and stood in front of Antipas. It’s possible he directed the servant to acrobat-Salome, who took the plattercharger and gave it to her Mother. One redactor source makes Herodias even more gruesome stating: she got a sword and stabbed the tongue. This is an embellishment that even Flavius Josephus didn’t believe, so he doesn’t mention it. What she really did with it, I don’t know. (People who thought John had a direct line to the monotheistic god requested his body and his head from Antipas, who released both parts to them. They took it to an area called Samaria, which was close to The Perea, and buried it.)


What happened after this part of the banquet took place, I don’t know. I imagine some guy yawned and said, “It’s been quite an evening. I think it’s time to get going.” And the guests all went to their lodgings. It’s probable that Antipas and Herodias had a long conversation, after the guests left. When they were alone in their private rooms, he probably opened the conversation with: “We never talk anymore, Herodias. Tell me what’s going on with you.” Salome, who had been up long past her normal bedtime, was probably overtired and went to sleep or was put to sleep immediately.


And there you have it. Salome didn’t dance, didn’t wear veils, and had a strong bond with her Mother.


To discover how the belly dance became associated with Salome, we have to veer away from her. It’s Herodias and John who carry the story line forward.


At the time of the banquet, Herodias was the 2nd wife of Antipas, and they had been married for about 10 years. (Antipas was the only father Salome had known.) Salome’s biological father was Phillip, who was King of Judea, a large land mass, much larger than the area called The Galilee, and he and Herodias were divorced when Salome was about 1 year old. Herodias had been an important wife when Phillip was first made King by Rome because of her Maccabean blood. The Maccabees had been rulers of Judea long before Phillip came on board, but through a lot of circumstances, Judea was ruled by the Herod bunch and had accepted Rome’s yoke by that time. The Maccabees were prolific (as was Herod The Great), and there was a large pool of eligible Maccabean women for rulers to marry. It was a stable region in Rome’s empire. In any event, the divorce was with Rome’s permission. Phillip was allowed to marry some one else with Rome’s permission, and I didn’t check out whom. He never asked for visitation rights.


Some sources say Antipas first met Herodias when Herodias was on a trip to Rome with Phillip petitioning Rome for something or another at the same time that Antipas was in Rome (alone) petitioning Rome, yet again, for the title of King and more land from his father’s estate, neither of which Rome never granted him in his lifetime. I don’t think it matters how they met. They met, they talked, a deal was struck.


I don’t know why Herodias left Queenship of Judea to become a Tetrarch’s wife. There are always sources that attribute lust to this sort of situation, and these sources do arise in this story, some attributing lust to Herodias, others attributing lust to Antipas. Personally, I find lust a poor reason. A Queen, one of royal blood, just doesn’t think lust. She thinks power and lineage. A tetrarch, although not as powerful as a King, doesn’t have to go far from his little castle, even as far as Judea, to satisfy a lustful thought. An unhappy Tetrarch thinks power and lineage, too. Maybe it was her Maccabean blood and her Maccabean ties that Antipas thought would help him become a King of a landmass that included Judea, which her ancestors ruled before Rome put the Herods there. Maybe she thought The Galilee plus Judea is bigger than just Judea. Maybe she thought that The Galilee plus Arabia, which abutted The Galilee, is bigger than Judea should Antipas go to war for the Arabian territory. In any event, she left Phillip before the divorce (which came through quickly) and went to Antipas’ puny area, The Galilee.


She also jumped the gun. Antipas was not yet rid of his first wife, Phasaelis, when Herodias and the baby arrived. And, he hadn’t petitioned Rome to get rid of Phasaelis and marry Herodias. Although Phasaelis was a Princess by blood and the daughter of a powerful neighbor and King, Aretas IV of Nabatea (Arabia), Antipas decided to circumvent Rome by merely ‘putting her aside,’ an ignominy. This was not nice. Phasaelis went home to Poppa (and took the kids, if there were any with her and Antipas) who bided his time a bit, then attacked The Galilee, because of the dishonor.


Troops from all of Herod the Great’s sons (half-brothers to a man) jumped in to help The Galilean troops, even Phillip (inherited family land was a big thing; a former wife was nothing) and Roman legions jumped in to help, too. But land was lost and that, by definition, means The Galileans lost the war. He never did divorce Phasaelis and she never returned to him.


Herodias stayed put and she and Antipas married (with Rome’s permission, whose attitude toward provinces was very pragmatic: the war is over; they lost; let ‘em marry; who gives a damn) and lived in a castle somewhere in The Galilee with the baby.


Antipas’ reputation went from an annoying pest to miserable in Rome’s eyes because of this double screw up (stupidly and unnecessarily dishonoring a neighbor’s daughter thereby incurring an unnecessary troop expense on Rome’s tab and loosing land to a King who was not conquered by Rome). He decided to Make It Better. Tiberius was now the Caesar and Antipas decided to build a city to honor him. He commandeered land in The Galilee and his construction people began building a city. But, Antipas and his building contractors either didn’t do their homework, or if they did, they didn’t think it through. The land upon which the city was being built was a cemetery, sacred ground to every person in the world then as well as today. There was an uprising amongst the folk that local troops could not quell. Again, Rome had to help Antipas out, for Judea wouldn’t, since they sided with the people, not Antipas. The people were quelled and the city was built. It remained uninhabited. No one would go there to live no matter how sweet the pot Antipas created (free homes, free land, tax abatement). Rome had to send troops to forcibly move families to Tiberius and to guard them so they wouldn’t move out in the dark of the night. Flavius Josephus liked this morsel a lot when he heard of it. He checked around and then comments that riff-raff were recruited to populate the city. He observes that even the riff-raff were afraid of the monotheistic god, so local holy people made a rule: the new settlers would only be defiled for 7 days, then everything would be okay.


And life went on in The Galilee.


John, during some of this, had been going about his business in The Galilee. One particular thing he did caught on amongst the folk. No one knew what to call it, so it had two different names: sprinkling and lave-ing, both of which were already accepted cleansing rites in most, if not all, religions before that time and during that time in that area and most of the known world. Water was always the cleansing agent and John

used the nearby Jordan River as the sprinkling and lave-ing site. What John did was total body immersion, a new twist, one the people liked a lot, for it made sense to them and made them feel good and purified from sins committed previously. This total body immersion always occurred after John would talk about sinning and give definitions. He would call for penitents, people who wanted to cleanse themselves. They would step forward and get in a line, so he could do them one-by-one. He had set himself up as a person who knew what the monotheistic deity expected of good folk (mostly it was to stop acting like Romans and revert to the Galilean ways, the ones prevalent before Rome took over the area). While he was in prison and after his death, other people did the immersion for him. What he had said before he was imprisoned was credible to the folk.


But then, John was imprisoned and killed years after he was imprisoned.


Very soon a very lot of other things happened in The Galilee. These events were written down and pondered and interpreted by brilliant, eloquent, and sincere men, three of whom decided that John and what he said and his immersion twist was a ceremony that would be important to incorporate as a ritual for their testimonials. They were the redactors whose words have been translated and pondered for centuries. Their decision caused his death to be discussed (and his childhood, parents, vocation, inspiration, relationships, etc. to be determined) and this is how Herodias’ name was never forgotten.


The earliest redactor, a stickler for details, had a problem with her daughter’s name, when he read Flavius Josephus, who says ‘a damsel, the daughter of Herodias, brought the head…’ in his book to Rome. This was not good enough for him. He did some easy homework, for Herodias’ royal lineage was known and available. He determined that Herodias’ daughter was named Salome. This was not good homework. Herodias was Maccabean. No Maccabee, male or female, would ever name a child for a still living person, let alone the actual name of a relative, this case, a blood aunt, who was living at the time of her daughter’s birth. But, it’s all we have, so she must remain misnamed Salome (which means ‘peace,’ a nice touch, don’t you think?) when John’s beheading is talked about and when Herodias’ progeny is included.


And this is how Salome and Herodias and John were tied together forever more. Many centuries have to pass by before the triangle comes into focus again. We have to wait for society to go from antiquity all the way to modern…at least 1,970 years or so. More specifically, we have to wait for a religion to formalize; we have to wait until John’s contributions become important and incorporated; we have to wait for churches to be invented; we have to wait for representational art to be used for something other than decorative purposes; we have to allow for the Bubonic Plague interlude when absolutely nothing happened except the death of millions; we have to wait for literacy to occur; we have to wait for Gutenberg and his printing press; we have to wait for portraiture to be invented.


Once churches were invented, representational art was applied as a method to tell the stories to the illiterate devout people. The triangle story was not as popular as other stories, so it was represented only some times. The scene chosen was most always was when the plattercharger is proffered takes place. No one character of the triangle is more important that the other. It’s the story behind the scene that’s important, and that is John’s death (but not as a martyr, I don’t think, but I may be wrong). Typical friezes and frescos from churches in the early 14th show the scene with figures that are medieval in demeanor and costume. That’s what the medieval people needed; that’s what they got. Their eyes could roam the church for something to center on, if their attention drifted from the devotions at hand.


Everything gets pretty quiet everywhere, beginning 1330, when the first Bubonic Plague episode begins and we have to wait a long time, about 150 years, for normalcy to occur.


In 1485, the beheading surfaces. Portraiture had been invented by then, and art has gone into homes of wealthy people, who ask artists to do pictures for them, often of them and their family members. One type of portraiture allowed the viewer to be a voyeur, to glimpse an intimate scene, a freeze frame, if you will, from a larger story, if the artist was good. Religious art was a popular theme. The artist selected the motif and there was a lot of symbolism to get the whole story line into the canvas. It’s Salome and the plattercharger that’s chosen, when this subject is chosen at all, and truth be told, it’s lousy, static portraiture. She’s not portrayed as a child, but she’s not portrayed as a woman, either. “Damsel,” was apparently interpreted as that twilight zone a female has between childhood and woman. I don’t know why the subject matter was chosen by the patron or the artist, who apparently just couldn’t get into ‘it.’ I guess my opinion was shared by the patrons from 500+ years back, for this theme dies out.


John and his sainthood, not his death or Herodias or Salome, become the theme of most art, and we have to wait until 1630 to find the others of the triangle depicted again.


In 1630, a blockbuster piece of art is produced (my opinion) that asks you to consider Herodias, not John. It’s my absolute favorite, by a guy named Francesco del Cairo, “Herodias with Head of John the Baptist.” It is so different from all others than came before (and after). Is she exhausted, meditative, musing, or in a trance? A closer look might surprise you. Could she possibly be holding his tongue while on the verge of stroking his hair? I believe she is. What could del Cairo have been thinking? What is he asking us to believe about Herodias? Frankly, I don’t wanna go there. No one else did either, for depictions of Herodias (and Salome) simply stop until the 1800′s and John in his sainthood continue…with one exception.


Because of a single painting of Herodias by Paul Delaroche in 1843, it’s the literary arts, the poets and authors and playwrights, who pick up the story and fiction supercedes reality. Herodias, first, and Salome, next, sans John, are the motifs for the first time. They move from real people to fictional characters.


Delaroche shows Herodias as exotic (read, non-European) (The euphemism used for most any type non-European at that time was Occidental.), regal (He did his homework.), authentically dressed (more good homework), and very, very lovely. The look on her face is open to interpretation. Has the grotesque event occurred or not yet? Is she serene or is she challenging us to question her? I don’t know who is represented in the background, for it certainly cannot be Salome. Herodias is a person in her own right. I would like to tie Delaroche’s interpretation to having viewed del Cairo (although I don’t know if this occurred, not having the resources to track the provenance of the del Cairo picture to align its location with Delaroche’s life).


Apparently Heinrich Heine, a German poet of some renown, was enchanted by the picture. He wrote a poem in 1843, “Atta Troll,” which sources say is a mock epic about Herodias. I was unable to find an English translation, so I have to accept what sources say as true. What I do know is that an epic is a very long and twisted story (the Iliad and the Odyssey are epics) about fanciful adventures of a protagonist (usually heroic) in pursuit of good end. How Heine got enough ideas about Herodias, who was minor in the first place and arcane by this time, to go on and on about her pursuit of an end, good or not good, I don’t know. I guess that’s called talent. In any event, he catapults Herodias (and the triangle) back into the minds of artistic people and they make her (and the triangle) interesting enough for public contemplation.


This mock epic and Delaroche’s painting next enchanted Stephane Mallarme, another poet of some renown, a Frenchman. He got his juices flowing and wrote a poem in 1869, “Herodiade,” whose English translation I was unable to find. I have absolutely no idea what his poem says. Critics say she described sultry (for the first time). I have to believe that Mallarme associated Occidental with sultry, not an uncommon association amongst fanciful European guys. Herodias is changing to heroic (maybe if Heine’s epic shows her to be this), Occidental, and sultry (read sexy).


All this got a French artist (of some renown) all excited. Gustave Moreau pondered the triangle and centered on Salome, instead of Herodias. He figured if Herodias was sultry, then Salome was more sultry. I don’t know why, but that’s what he did. He worked and worked this theme and ended up with a bunch of pictures with her as the (undressed) focal point, a first in Salome’s depictions, and threw in John’s head to make it all understandable. They were finished in 1876. All are amazing. The very last time Salome was the chosen subject matter was in 16th century (bad) portraiture. She’s always holding the plattercharger and has a boring look on her face and is all dressed up in 16th century costume. What the hell did Heine’s mock epic and Mallarme’s poem allude to with regard to Salome? I don’t know.


Anyway, Gustave Flaubert, a French writer of some renown, apparently read Heine and Mallarme and saw the picture interpretations of Delaroche and Moreau. All inspired him to write a short story in 1877 about Herodias, which indicates excellent homework, by the way. This, I read, and in this short story, she is called a Jezebel, albeit an aging one, for the first time. Her daughter is described as resembling her mother in her youth. You can read it, too. Go to http://www.classicbookshelf.com/library/gustave_flaubert/herodias/0/. It’s now fictional open season on Herodias and by association, her daughter, Salome.


Then came Joris-Karl Huysman, who liked what Heine, Mallarme, and Flaubert wrote and liked Delaroche’s and Moreau’s pictures. He went with Salome, not Herodias, in 1884, for his essay, “Against the Grain.” The essay is really prose poetry in the style of “The Song of Solomon,” real, real sexy. The essay was labeled decadent after it was published. You can read it, too, if and when you get in the mood for 19th century decadence. Go to http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/salome1.html.


In the 19th century, certain people loved decadent stuff, especially the artistic types who felt stultified with conservative stuff and who felt they had to push the envelope of public taste. This decadent Salome idea percolated for ten years in Oscar Wilde’s mind before his play, “Salome,” was performed in 1893. An interesting touch was his collaboration with Aubrey Beardsley to do playbill artwork. Wilde was jailed it was so damn decadent.


Within a year after Wilde’s play, Beardsley came out with a folio of images of Salome. It’s racy for the bare breasts and belly button, but it’s also a curiously clunky, non-sexy posing of Salome. Why is her midriff covered? Why is she wearing high heeled shoes with bows at the ankle? What the hell is going on here? Mere titillation, nothing more. Shame on you, Beardsley.


Everything rested until 1905, when Richard Strauss, a German of music renown, chose Salome as his opera subject. His librettist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, an Austrian poet of some renown, put words to the decadent musical motifs. A costume designer, whose name I could not find, turned her eastern Byzantine and gave her a harem twist and a costume of 7 veils. A choreographer had her shimmy (belly dance). In the first performance of “Salome,’ Marie Wittich, described as an ample soprano Salome, refused to do the dance or wear the costume. A nameless ballerina accommodated the scene and this became a tradition each time the opera was performed. One critic, a word wizard, called Strauss the apostle of decadence. This made the people want to see it for themselves. Strauss’ “Salome” was performed 50 times in the first two years after it was written in opera houses all over the world.


This chronicle has ended.


PS. A beheaded John, not yet a saint, is so very popular that I had to find a depiction of John with his head on. Caravaggio was quite taken with him and did a lot of versions of John with his head on.


PS. One female artist, Fra Lippinni, an Italian woman, did work on the triangle. I am disappointed with Fra. Although she chose Salome to be focal, she dressed her modestly in Medieval costume, twirling her skirts. It’s a pretty nothing picture that says more about Lippinni and her lack of inspiration and imagination (She is technically apt, I think.) than the subject matter. I think she should have tried harder to ‘get into it.’ She was a daughter once and may have been the mother of a daughter at the time the picture was painted.

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Motherhood Messages From Mythology: a Study of Four Queens as Mothers in Indian Epics Ramayana and Mahabharata

  • Posted on January 6, 2010 at 1:07 am

Motherhood Messages from  Mythology:

A study of Four Queens as Mothers in Indian Epics Ramayana and Mahabharata

 

Parenting is generally assumed to be providing the basic necessities, with profound intensity in interest, love and concern in children particularly within the home environment. Providing physical safety, shelter, clothes, nourishment, protecting the child from dangers besides health are primary duties of a parent. Physical and mental well being of the child is as much parental concern as would be their cultivation of good habits and good values. Intellectual security, creating an environment that is conducive for mind to develop, an atmosphere of peace and justice in family are among the prerequisites of good parenting. Intellectual development, emotional security, emotional development and the list goes on…

 

But these are wishful thinking. We live in a world that would deny us even the basic rights to live, as there is no warrantee against terrorism. To live and let live is a thing of the past. The bygone millennia were far more favorable to worldly existence than the present times. What children expect of parents in dutiful bounty but a friendly co-operation. Arguments are best when completely avoided, interaction and guidance offered only when solicited, demonstrating healthy practices without coercion on the part of the other to emulate can aid in establishing a parent – child relationship that transforms a living together of two disparate individuals into peaceful coexistence. Confrontation on the other hand will usher in verbal warfare leading to universal chaos.

 

In these circumstances, it would be interesting and worthwhile to inquire into mythology and note how some of the tallest characters have behaved as parents. The two great Indian Epics The Ramayana and the Mahabharata have been treasure houses of information for anything and everything the world could ask for Happy childhood challenged by scheming villains, obedient sons ousted by cunning voices, compassionate parents beleaguered by self-seeking desperados and many more disparities lace these epics.

 

 

The Mahabharata has been rightly hailed as the national epic of India. It is the story of a great war that terminated one yuga and began another. Considered to be the longest literary piece in the world, the most erudite evidence points out that, this great epic was composed between 2500 and 3000 years ago.

 

The Mahabharata is not an arbitrary compilation of tales like the Medieval Legends. Digressions aplenty, do shed light on the main plot and in fact help in maintaining the coherence. The plot revolves around the great battle that was waged at Kurukshetra between the Pandavas, their allies on the one side and Kauravas, their allies on the other. The war proverbially termed Dharma Yudda was the culmination of a whole generation of conflict and diplomatic maneuvering that pitted first among equals against second to none. And this made it all the more devastating eliminating several clans comprising of the best of men. The Pandavas, the sons of King Pandu, won the battle but lost the war that shattered the world they knew only to ruminate the rest of their lives in the emptiness of what they had won.

 

The Ramayana is one of the most well-known stories in the world, is considered to be the earliest epic written several millennia ago. It is a narrative on an exciting adventure tale about prince, Rama, the heir to the throne, banished to the forest for fourteen years, separated from his beloved wife, Sita. He wages a war against the abductor of Sita, Ravana, the King of Lanka, rescues her and returns to Ayodhya, and takes over the reins of the kingdom, to provide what is proverbially referred to as Rama Rajya – a form of governance that hitherto remains unsurpassed and unparalleled.

 

In more ways than one, these epics can be seen as a typically pitting the good against the evil. But they are much richer than these fairy tale tribes. They encompass human knowledge in abundance, lessons for all walks of life. In this article, I intend to take lessons of parenting, particularly motherhood, – the dos and don’ts of effective parenting. I shall be taking up the cases of Four Queens, Sumithra and Kaikeyi from the Ramayana along with Gandhari and Kunti from the Mahabharata.

 

Kunti

 

In the mythologically instructed community, there is a corpus of images and models that provide the pattern to which the individual may aspire, a range of metaphoric identity.
Jerome S. Bruner, psychologist

 

Queen Kunti is easily one of the most prodigious women to be accorded much respect in the Indian tradition. Her activities were that of a very pious and loyal wife and of a person with a great deal of self-control. She has an impressive lineage there. She is the daughter of the Yadava Shurasena and can thus trace her ancestry to such mighty emperors as Puroorava, Yayati and Nahusha, rulers of perhaps India’s largest ever empires. It is the blood of such mighty emperors that runs through Kunti’s veins. And as Shurasena’s daughter, she is Vasudeva’s sister and Krishna’s maternal aunt. In the Bheel version (a tribal version popular in North India)of the epic, she is Shakti herself born as a woman, who lives her human life as the very embodiment of Shakti.

 

She espoused the principles she strongly believed in, irrespective of her position. She accompanied her husband, Pandu when he renounced the throne and left for the forest. Severe austere life devoid of the sophistication of palace did not deter her and she accepted the change in her fortune with poignant and dignified grace. On a later occasion, she joined her sons in their journey towards the forest, and even outlived an assassination attempt in the wax mansion by the Kauravas. Her word was taken seriously both for their wisdom and guidance as in the case of Draupadi marrying her five sons. This is because, without looking at them she asked her sons to share the prize they had won.

 

Despite her sufferings, she found strength in her inner wisdom that carted her sons through crises particularly in the fratricidal war for justice.

 

The negative side of Kunti as a mother is best reflected in her handling of her Kaneena (child born to a woman before marriage) son Karna In spite of all her love for Karna, she was keen to get him out of her life as soon as he was born . So she floated the basket containing the young divine baby on a river and abandoned him completely out of her memory and life.

 

Thus with Karna, Kunti chooses the easy way out. In other words, her interests always preceded karna’s. This led to her abandoning him not just after his birth but repeatedly throughout his life. In the first instance he was saved by a good natured charioteer and his wife. After the floating incident we next see Karna as a young energetic youth qualified to challenge Arjuna in the arena where the Kaurava and the Pandava princes displayed their learning. He was rejected instantly because he was not a Kshatriya. One word of acknowledgement from Kunti could have saved not just Karna but the very Kurukshetra war that erupted later. But Kunti decided to abandon him again. This time Karna fell in line with evil. Duryodhana was quick to capitalize on his strength and weakness to crown him Anga Raja – the king of the Kingdom of Anga.

 

Her own son Bheema calls Karna a charioteer and humiliates him in the most caustic terms and asks him to get hold of his whip to drive chariots. All this in Kunti’s presence, but, for her part, she chooses to remain silent only to desert him.

 

There were numerous occasions when she could have felt the pulse of pride if only she had acknowledged his birth to her. But she refuses to recognize and admit the truth about him publicly.

 

The one occasion that she chooses to meet him and confess the truth of his birth is during the war. Even then it is to obtain something from him and not carry out her duties as his mother. She gets him to promise that he would not kill the Pandavas except Arjuna. By doing so, she makes him betray the man who recognized the dignity of his caliber.

 

In Bheel Bharatha, Kunti is supposed to have dumped Karna as an infant in a rubbish heap. This is both literal and metaphorical. When we look at Karna’s deeds, we wonder if this is true. He does indeed carry out some mean unethical deeds in his life, the meanest of them all is his vigorous incitement of Dushshasana in the act of debasing Draupadi in the Court Hall of Hastinapura. Kunti’s silence even at this moment is as intriguing as her rejection of Karna when he demonstrated his greatness. It could be argued that Karna could have evolved and realized the full potentials of his being if Kunti had not deserted him. She is squarely responsible for his falling into the hands of the Kauravas, ultimately into the darkness and dirt of evil. In effect she discarded an invaluable diamond into a rubbish heap. Which is exactly what the Bheel Bharata claims; she buried him in a rubbish heap.

 

Her attitude towards Karna may be puzzling. Many scholars have stated that there are reasons for her indifference. May be, she was conscious of her honour while dealing with Karna as he was born out of marriage. But when Karna eventually died, in the war, she courageously and whole heartedly acknowledged his valour.

 

Nevertheless, Kunti has her bright side as a mother to Nakula and Sahadeva who are actually Madri’s (Pandu’s second wife) children. In fact this act resurrects her from the sin of rejecting of her own Karna. There are instances when she even exhorts her eldest born Yudhishtra to take extra care of his youngest siblings. Such was her care and concern for them that forms a perfect foil to her treatment of her own Karna.

 

In Kunti, therefore, we see a devoted and none the less inquisitive maiden, a diligent wife, who respects elders and a trustworthy source of comfort to her husband. But she prevails as the archetypal dedicated mother, constantly advising and guiding her children, and ever willing to compromise on her comforts for their well being. Women like her have led and represented the concept of Bharat Mata. As feminist philosopher Judith Butler said, “Gender is a fact rather than an arbitrary set of concepts.” And Kunti’s motherhood stands testimony to it with all its positive and negative sides complementing each other.

Gandhari

Gandhari, often referred to as the ‘model of female propriety’, also considered an incarnation of Mati,(Goddess of Intelligence) is the daughter of Subala, the king of Gandhara,(modern Kandhahar) a region in the northwestern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. A tragic character of Mahabharata, her fearless life and strong disposition is very relevant to the contemporary socio-political context. She was forced to marry, Dhritrashtra, a blind king who was much older to her. This came as a rude shock to her, violating her womanly rights. Gandhari volunteered to blindfold herself throughout her married life which is generally assumed to be an act of supreme self sacrifice. She therefore forced herself into an act of self denial of the power and pleasure of sight that her husband could never experience and relish. Underlying Gandhari’s resolve to remain blindfolded was a silent but a strong protest in opposition to the power games and of course the forced marriage, at once making her enforced blindness both physical and metaphorical. She remained blind to the power games, political manipulations, irrefutable affection for her sons even if they indulge in hatred. The animosity they entertained with their first cousins, the Pandavas, swelled into the great war of Kurukshetra. This also explains her silence when Draupadi was defiled in the court. On hind sight one can see that Gandhari was more of a victim of a society that attempted to endorse male supremacy. Her protest nevertheless was loud, clear and successful

 

As a mother, twice she manifested her affection and concern for her son Duryodhana. Once, when she tried to wrap him with an invincible aura to avert death in the war. To her shock she failed one, because he was on the side of Adharma or evil, two, because he did not obey her words completely. She had asked him to come unclothed. She would see him with her naked eyes to bestow upon him a protective ring. But he appears with a loin around his waist. This repels the power of her vision to fall on his entire body making his waist to knee weak and vulnerable. He was eventually killed by Bheema who broke his thighs. The other occasion when she displayed her wrath for the loss of her children was through a small gap in the cloth with which her eyes were blindfolded; her gaze fell on Yudhisthira’s toe. The toe was charred black reflecting the power of her vision.

 

The boon that will bestow a 100 sons, turned out to be a curse. Her sons much against her wishes perpetrated crime after crime on their cousins, insinuated by her own bother, Shakuni. She remained completely oblivious – or so she claimed –of her sons’ misadventures, as the Kauravas made several attempts to eliminate the Pandavas. She favoured peace, but never reined in her sons to establish peace, blinded by affection. She repeatedly exhorted her sons to follow dharma and make peace with the Pandavas but this was seen as a sign of weakness that was exhaled by her blindness.

 

Her enforced blindness and the lack of ‘eye contact’ with her children left them bereft of humaneness. They were insinuated by their maternal uncle , Shakuni, who was shattered by sister’s condition and held Bhishma squarely responsible for the same. His agenda of eliminating the kuru clan which he equated with Bhishma’s clan, was effected by slow poisoning his nephews into evil ways. He also harboured ambitions to the throne in Duryodhana. All this happened right under Gandhari’s nose. But she continued to remain blind. Several plans were hatched to kill the Pandavas, the attempt at drowning Bheema when they were in their early teens, the infamous wax mansion episode, the game of dice and the eventual banishment, but the perpetrators were never brought to book. She remained blind to all these as well.

 

Gandhari is a powerful character and therefore a role model. Her positive attributes, have often gone unnoticed. Her unconditional love for Kunti is reflected in Dhuryodhana’s unconditional acceptance with Karna though the relationship between the two (Kunti and Karna) remained obscure to them. This is a trait straight from Gandhari’s book. Her love for Draupadi, even though her sons could not win her, was silently registered and best exhibited when she allowed her to curse the Kuru clan. Her silence endorsed the power of women. Her sons failed to understand this silence. They deceived themselves into believing that their mother vouched for their actions. Her blindness now blinded the others.

 

Gandhari was much respected and admired quite deservedly so by all, including the Pandavas. She was endowed with a tough spirit and rationality, that even King Dhritarashtra solicited her sound advice. She never missed an opportunity to urge him to restrain the activities of Duryodhana. She has also insisted that he reinstate the Pandavas. But, never really voiced it out to her sons herself. Her motherliness was best exhibited when she stood for justice and refused to bless the Kauravas before the Kurukshetra war and remained strong and steadfast in her anti-war cum pro-justice position. She sat with the king listening to Sanjaya’s narration of the war. An advocate of peace she was indeed very saddened by the tragic consequence of the war.

 

In the present context, Gandhari’s motherhood can be described as a precursor to the marvels of the modern day natal sciences. Her dedication to duty, family, spouse and dharma, though not necessarily in that order is unparallelled. Her life is an exemplary case for the need for women to be rational and steadfast in their perception and performance of the many roles they play through their lives. A heavy demand indeed, in this cut – throat competitive world.

Kaikeyi

Kaikeyi, in the R?m?yana, was the second of King Da?aratha’s three wives and a queen of Ayodhy?. She was the daughter of the mighty Ashwapati, a long-term ally of Ayodhya. Her marriage to Dasaratha was settled only after the latter promised her father that her son would become the heir apparent to the throne of Ayodhya. Dasaratha little hesitated to this as kauslya, his first wife was issueless. But even Kaikeyi could not beget a son, and eventually Dasaratha married Sumitra, the princess of Magadha, another kingdom with strong political ties to Ayodhya.

 

Kaikeyi has intrigued all scholars, both through her character as a person and as a mother. Therefore it is worth examining her character. A peep into her childhood provides a strong clue to her motives behind her insistence on the banishment of Rama from Ayodhya to the forest for fourteen years. As a young girl she was the only sister to seven brothers. She had no maternal influence in her early childhood as her father had estranged his wife over a trifling issue. Ashwapati could understand the language of the birds. This boon, however had strings attached to it. He was refrained from revealing the contents of their conversation, failing which he would have to lose his life. Once, when the King and his Queen were in the palace gardens, Ashwapati happened to overhear the conversation of a pair of swans. His focus on overhearing the birds betrayed caution, and he laughed aloud. His wife persisted on knowing the reason for his sudden laughter. He feared that he would somehow reveal the idea in some unguarded moment. Hence he felt that Kaikeyi’s mother threatened the happiness of his family and he unjustly banished her from the palace. Kaikeyi never saw her mother again. Having been raised by her wet nurse, Manthara, in the absence of a mother at such a young age, allied with her father’s treatment of her mother chiseled a deep impression on the young mind. She developed a extreme distrust for all men. Her mother’s subsequent exile coupled with Manthara’s constant fuelling of negative impulses harboured a sense of insecurity in her. This is clearly revealed in her disposition as the secondary consort to Dasaratha. She soon realized the depth of Dasaratha’s love and affection for his Queen and Empress, Kausalya. The reason for his marrying her was chiefly to produce the much awaited heir. Manthara’s scheming ideas were of great help to her, particularly to win over the king. This cunningness was aptly rewarded when she earned two boons from him at a very critical juncture.

 

Kaikeyi’s boons turned out to be Kausalya’s bane.

 

Years later, plans were laid to crown Rama, the son of Kausalya, the heir apparent, as King. A true human being that she is when left to herself, Kaikeyi was genuinely delighted . However, Manthara ensured that Kaikeyi fell a prey to her scheming ways. Her own son Bharatha, on hearing about his mother’s evil desires, refused to budge to her demands. Not only did he refuse kingship, he even went to the extent of recalling Rama back to Ayodhya. He agreed to return only after his elder brother parted with his footwear which will govern the empire. This handed out a tight slap on the face to Kaikeyi and Manthara.

 

When we analyse Kaikeyi’s mindset, we realize that much of it stems from her childhood insecurity and total distrust of men in general and husbands in particular. Her mother’s experience at the hands of her father, has engraved deeply in her mind that very often her natural good self gets clouded by these negative motives. Her character as a person and as a mother is greatly influenced by the happenings of her younger days.

 

It is not just for Bharatha that she claims the throne. It is also for her own pride and security as the Queen Mother winning over Kausalya as Dasaratha’s favourite, that her claim seem complete and valid. Her ego is further punctured when she succeeds in neither. Bharatha refuses the throne while Dasaratha, dies exactly six days after Rama’s departure to the forest. Furthermore, Bharatha never addressed her as “Mother” again. Kaikeyi was said to have died a broken-hearted woman in total seclusion, estranged from her son, his wife Mandavi and their two sons, her only grandchildren. She had to blame only herself and perhaps fate for both these events.

 

As a mother, she could have been true but for Manthara’s influence. Her delight on hearing abour Rama’s coronation was spontaneous and genuine. Valmiki describes it as a delight a mother would feel for a happy occurrence to her own son. Such was her affection for Rama. But once triggered, her outpours knew no bounds. She not only demanded the kingdom for her son, but wanted Rama to be banished from the kingdom, to ensure safety for her son. This is not the Kaikeyi who reacted so positively just a little while before. She must have been the very embodiment of humane feelings. But circumstances, fate and Manthara never allowed her to be her own self. Her association with Manthara was far too deep and so was the sway the latter had on her, that it became impossible to disentangle the relationship. A weak childhood rendered a weak mindset that eventually succumbed to Mantahara’s exploitation of her weakness.

 

Sumithra

 

Sumitra, the third queen of king Dashratha, hailed from the ancient kingdom of Kashi. The wisest of the all the wives of Dasaratha, she was the first to realize that Rama was the incarnation of Lord Narayana.

 

In the Puthra Kameshti Yaga, that was performed to beget children, both Kausalya and Kaikeyi offered their second portion of the Kheer to Sumitra.She produced two sons, Lakshmana was born out of the portion given to her by Kausalya while, Shatrughana was born out of the portion given to her by Kaikeyi.

 

Her affection for children is vividly described in the Balakanda of Valmiki’s Ramayana. All the four young princes would choose to remain in Sumitra’s proximity in all their waking hours. Rama and Bharatha would insist on sleeping only on her lap and when they wake up, would persistently cry until they see her. ” Sumitra, here is your son, he does not sleep without your lap, see how red his eyes have become due to his incessant crying.” Kausalya and Kaikeyi would often rush to her with these words. The children would return to switch off mode as soon as she takes them in her arms. Such was the intimacy this Queen and the princes enjoyed.

 

Her relationship with the other queens was equally pleasant. It is believed that she would have prevailed over Kaikeyi when Rama was exiled, if she were given a chance. It is perhaps for this reason that Rama, in one version of Ramayana, sends Lakshmana to get her permission and blessings, since, her favouring Rama would have forced Kaikeyi to change her mind and decision that would make Rama go back on his word to his father.

 

When Lakshma insisted that he would accompany Rama to the forest, he was worried if his mother would not appreciate the idea. But contrary to everyone’s expectations, she tells Lakshmana, ” O son, being far from me, don’t ever think that you are far away from your parents, Sita will be your mother and Rama will be your father because the elder brother is just like a father and do not regret being far away from Ayodhya because Ayodhya is at the very place where Rama resides. You don’t have any business in Ayodhya in the absence of Rama.”

 

Further, she said: ” In this world, only that woman is fit to be called a mother whose son is the devotee of Raghunath, otherwise it would have been better if she were incapable of giving birth to a son”.

 

Her respect for Kaikeyi hardly changed , despite the fact that she was responsible for Rama’s exile. On he other hand she tells Lakshman, ” O son! Only your misfortune is responsible for sending Rama into exile and there is no other reason and you must consider it as your good fortune that you would be getting an opportunity to serve Rama and Sita while in exile.”

 

Sumitra goes a step further. She also envies her own son, considering it his good fortune to remain in the propinquity of Rama and bemoans her own misfortune that she has to remain far away from him. Her next piece of advice was with respect to Lakshmana seeking to serve Rama with his thoughts, words and deeds. She also warned Lakshmana not to act in a manner that could offend Rama.

 

With these words of wisdom she let Lakshmana accompany Rama and Sita to the forest.

During the war with Lanka, when she came to know that Lakshmana was injured, by the ‘Shakti- Bana’ quite unlike any other mother, the first thought that flashed across her mind was about the safety of Rama and not her son. She was more concerned about the fact that Rama was alone. Besides she was also aware of Rama’s love for his younger sibling and hence could understand the pain and suffering he had to endure in his absence. She even asked her second son Shatrughuna to serve Rama in his hour of need.

 

This is the hallmark of Sumitra as a mother. Fully aware that her older son may not survive, she was willing to spare her other son to serve Rama. Such selfless mothers are hard to come by in this wild wicked world.

 

She, never once grieved about her son’s separation. Conversely, she was envious of him in that he could be in close proximity of Rama.

 

Much of her positive attitude rubbed into her children’s temperament.
Lakshmana absorbed these exceptional qualities and quite akin to her personality had an unfailing love for his brother.

 

Towards the end of Rama’s life, Sage Dhurvasa comes to meet Rama. Earlier Rama had told Lakshmana that he should not be disturbed, no matter who comes to meet him. If he is, then Lakshmana would have to end his existence. It is at this juncture that the sage known for his vicious curses, arrived. Lakshmana falls into a serious dilemma. He explains to the sage in a very polite manner the instructions of his brother. To which the sage replies, that if he is not permitted to meet Rama, then the entire clan of Rama would be annihilated. Lakshmana did not wink a moment to decide. He went in and informed his brother of the Sage’s arrival, took his blessings and left for the river Sarayu to complete his mission on earth. Such was his devotion to his brother. He would rather end his existence than allow Rama’s descendents to be annihilated. His priorities cannot be defined any more clearly than this. . ‘Like mother like son’ in the truest spirit of the saying.

 

‘Blessed was the mother’ and ‘blessed was the son’, acclaims Tulsidas, in his description of Sumitra. Her unbounded love and affection for Rama is unparalleled in any mythology. The poet further eulogises this great character, when he says, “Only such type of mothers who is like Sumitra is worthy of being called a mother and a child having taken birth from the womb of such a mother is worthy of being called a son. Salutations to such a mother like Sumitra”.

 

When we look objectively at these women of great substance, we could easily decipher their strength and short comings. While Kunti exercised disparity among her own children, Gandhari, was blind to her own children’s evil ways, While kaikeyi was possessive, Sumithra found ecstasy in sharing. We can also see that their personalities rub into their children’s activities. Karna parted ways with good when he found recognition in evil. Duryodhana was blind to evil just as his mother was blinded by affection. Bharatha refused to respect his mother just as she refused to respect the king and honour is decision. Whereas Sumithra’s show of unlimited and unmitigated affection was perfectly imbibed by Lakshmana who was equally impeccable in his love and service to his brother.

 

The message from these women is loud and clear. Attitudes are engineered into the child’s mind even if they are not articulated. And the mother is that supreme personality whose influence on the child never ends. She influences eternity.

 

References:

 

Justice Sen, Sisir Kumar ICS: Quest for the origin of Bharata Samhita and the Mahabharata Story (Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, 1995).

 

Dandekar, R.N. (ed): The Mahabharata Revisited (Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 1990).

 

Sirca, D.C. (ed): The Bharata War and Puranic Genealogies
(Calcutta University, 1969).

 

Matilal, B.K. (ed): Moral Dilemmas in Mahabharata (Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1989)
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Sri Aurobindo: On the Mahabharata (Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1991)

 

Katz, R.C. Arjuna in the Mahabharata (Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1989)
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Ukthankar,V.S. S: On the Meaning of the Mahabharata (Asiatic Society of Bombay, 1957).
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Narang, S.P. (ed): Modern Evaluation of the Mahabharata (Prof. R.K. Sharma felicitation volume), Nag Publishers, Delhi, 1995.

 

Sharma, Arvind Essays on the Mahabharata (E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1991)

 

Subramanian, M.V. ICS: The Mahabharata Story: Vyasa and Variations
(Higginbothams, Madras, 1967).

 

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Ganesan,A.K. IRAS: Valmiki’s Ramayana and Vyasa’s Mahabharata: joint and comparative study (Higginbothams, Madras, 1981).

 

Sullivan, B.M.: Seer of the Fifth Veda (Motilal Banarsidass, 1999, originally from Leiden 1990 as Krsna Dvaipayana Vyasa^×a new interpretation).

 

Thakur, M.M.: Thus Spake Bhishma (Motilal Banarsidass, 1992)

 

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay: Krishna Charitra
(English translation by Pradip Bhattacharya from the M.P. Birla Foundation, Calcutta, 1991)

 

Hiltebeitel,A. The Cult of Draupadi, 2 vols., (University of Chicago Press)

 

Hiltebeitel, A.: Rethinking India’s oral and classical epics: Draupadi among Rajputs, Muslims and Dalits (University of Chicago Press, 1999).

 

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Hiltebeitel, A.: The ritual of battle:Krishna in the Mahabharata (Cornell Univ Press, 1976).

 

Goldman, R.P.: Gods, priests and warriors: the Bhrgus of the Mahabharata
(Columbia Univ. Press, 1977)

 

Sutton, Nicholas: Religious Doctrines in the Mahabharata
(Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 2000)

 

 

 

Padma Sri P. Lal (ed): Vyasa’s Mahabharata: Creative Insights, 2 vols (Writers Workshop, Calcutta, 1992, 1985)

 

Bhattacharya, Pradip: A Long Critique on the Mahabharata TV Film Script
Writers Workshop, Calcutta (1991)

 

Pradip Bhattacharya: A Long Critique on Shivaji’s Sawant’s Mrityunjay: the Death of Karna

 

Tharoor, Shashi. The Great Indian Novel (Penguin)

 

Kanti De, Kanak: Three Mahabharata Verse Plays

 

Deshpande, Shashi: The Stone Woman and other stories (Writers Workshop, Calcutta, 2000)

 

Nandakumar, Prema. The Mahabharata – An English Version Based on Selected Verses: Chakravarthi V. Narasimhan; Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 41, U.A. Bungalow Road, Jawahar Nagar, Delhi-110007.

 

http://www.aishveryaanidhi.com/inner/theatre_activity_2005.htm

 

http://www.hinduonnet.com/2001/04/10/stories/1310017b.htm

 

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A Mother’s Custody Injustice

  • Posted on January 6, 2010 at 12:07 am

I have never done anything like this before.  I have never been in a desperate situation where I am in a soundproof bubble, and the system doesn’t hear my cries.  They see me, but they pretend I am not there.  This is the Michigan Family Law and Friend of the Court Division.  It is our system; the one we are suppose to count on for freedom, justice, and liberty. It is my prayer that you read through to the end. Although this is my hell and my grief, this story must be heard.  Please feel free to leave comments and post the story in to your blogs and various social marketing venues. It is imperative that we use our voices; otherwise, this will continue to happen to mothers who don’t deserve it. Justice needs to prevail, I must get my daughter back, and the biased officials involved in my case need to be reprimanded. This must climb up the political ladder and reach the steps of the Supreme Court. I can not get there alone.

I am a wife and mother of four amazing children. We are an American white collar, middle-class family. I am so fortunate and thankful that we own a beautiful 2,500 square foot home that backs up to the 4th green of a prestigious golf course. I wasn’t always of this status, most people aren’t.  We start somewhere, and then gradually improve ourselves with the combination of time, effort & experiences. I consider myself ordinary. I, like most of you, have experienced meaningful relationships.  I’ve been hurt.  I’ve failed and given up on things. I’ve traveled extensively, I’ve gone to college.  I am a deep thinker, a reader, and I am gentle. I love nature and respect its wrath.  I am not religious, but am deeply spiritual. I am passionate about loving and caring for my children. I am always searching….searching for truth, for mindfulness, for authenticity. I am searching for the path that will ultimately be the “dash”….you know, that little mark on a gravestone that is between the day you were born and the day you passed….that’s the dash I am referring to.

I would ask, are you much the same? Probably. I am thankful that we can redeem ourselves throughout our lifetime; to make better decisions, to course-correct, and to leave a footprint that we can be proud of.

So, why am I writing about custody injustices?

On January 22, 2009, I lost custody of my 9 year old daughter; the oldest of four. I didn’t lose custody because of abuse, or because of illness, or because I was unwilling to care for her. I didn’t lose custody because of drugs or alcohol, or because of a lack of interest and participation in her social and educational needs. I didn’t lose custody because I couldn’t provide her with clothing, food, housing, or emotional support.  I lost her because of an incompetent court system with which accountability to a higher court or official is unlikely. Records are so tightly sealed in the Michigan Family Court System, that the likelihood of reprimand and justice is as likely as the sky turning yellow tomorrow.

I was under the disillusionment that a mother who is unfit or unwilling to parent could lose custody of a child. I never dreamed that a mother who was competent, loving, stable, and willing could lose their child.

I solely raised my daughter and was completely alone during my pregnancy. Her father and I parted ways because he had some severe addictions to overcome and I didn’t want any part of it. When I told him about the pregnancy (which was right away), he denied responsibility.  He began accusing me of being promiscuous. His parents and sister were unaware of his addictions for the most part (they knew he used drugs, but they didn’t know to what extent), and they too began to propose that the baby wasn’t his. Over the next several months, I began to look inside of myself and had to make some pretty grown-up decisions.

I finally moved back to Michigan with my family when I was 34 weeks gestation.  I felt that it was the best thing I could do for myself and my unborn child.  I would be in a safe, moral, and loving home, receiving unconditional support.  Love and support is what I needed, and I wasn’t getting it in Indiana. My unborn child’s father was still backing out of the responsibility and I came to accept that we would be alone.  I was about to embark upon “single parenthood”, a journey that would shape me in to the person I longed to be, a journey that would be so treacherous at times, it would test my endurance down to the nucleus of my being. Even so, I was ready to take it on .

I never married her father. After my daughter was born, I re-met a man I knew when I was a child and got pregnant again.  I was on birth control when this happened and was devastated to be in this situation again. I married this man 7 months later, had yet another child and we divorced when our youngest was 2. If I don’t have you disgusted by now, it gets worse. I got pregnant again with someone who became the love of my life, before our divorces were final. OUCH! If you are thinking we cheated on our ex-spouses, think again. That is not why our previous marriages dissolved, but amidst our divorces, we met and became attracted to one another. I ended up marrying for the last time, and the rest is history.

Regarding my last surprise pregnancy, in my mind then and still to this day almost 6 years later, I believe that the responsible and right action to take with regards to my situation was to carry this pregnancy full term whether it was socially accepted or not. No person or court should be given the right to impose their conviction as an absolute rule if a law has not been broken. For some unreasonable single dimensional process of thought, our society so eagerly conforms to; I was labeled as immoral (by the court), years later.  I haven’t done anything that everyone else isn’t doing.  Hello, people have sex.  Some get pregnant, others don’t.  It’s the women who get pregnant that are at a disadvantage.  Think about it…when you have a big balloon belly, the evidence that you engaged in sexual activities is plain and clear. If you are on effective birth control, nobody thinks about it.  For a man, there is no visual indication that he is engaging in sexual activities.  It is only the pregnant woman who endures the “immoral” label.  Because she’s pregnant and unwed, she must be promiscuous. That, unfortunately, is the punishment our society and system have placed on women.

By the time our daughter was 18 months old, my friendship with her father was on the mend, and for the next 7 years I considered him a best friend. I put a great deal of thought into the life my child would have without her parents getting along and being supportive of one another.  With all of my selfish might, I didn’t want to bite the bullet, but it wasn’t about me me me anymore. He stopped using drugs, and even stopped smoking.  The court verified parentage through DNA testing (ordered by the court to begin collecting child support and recover hospital costs that Medicaid initially paid). It wasn’t until she was 2 years old that he began paying child support, and his arrears neared $3,000.00.

It was in an earlier court occurrence when our daughter was 5 months old, that he would lie under oath for the first time stating that he provided for his daughter financially, and saw her regularly.  He petitioned a motion preventing me from leaving the state of Michigan with the daughter he denied was his.  At this time paternity was not established, nor was a court order for parenting time and/or support entered. That didn’t happen until she was almost 2 years old. The Judge ruled in the father’s favor and I was not to move our child’s residence out of the state of Michigan.

Over the next 8 years, life continued.  My family was complete, I found my lifelong partner, I ran my own successful company, and subscribed to an intense leadership development program.  I coordinated and hosted charitable benefits for our local Child Abuse and Neglect Council, regularly met with and mentored with my children’s school district superintendent and principals about topics such as leadership and parenting, and was invited to be a guest speaker for career days.  I am deeply involved in my children’s education and offer to volunteer at their schools.  Each week, I meet with them individually over their lunch hour.  These are our special “dates”.

It is not my intention to toot my own horn.  I just want you to be able to gauge my involvement.  While this is just from an educational standpoint, the level of involvement carries over in to every facet of their lives.

Here is where my life turned a corner:

I received notification on June 25, 2008 that the non-custodial parent petitioned the court for a change of custody. In Michigan, there are 12 factors considered in determining the “best interest of the child”. It is basically a game….whomever receives the most points wins.

I was completely blind-sided.  There was as a petition before me requesting a change of custody due to abuse and a lack of financial resources. I can’t even begin to convey my shock and disbelief at this nonsense.  Here was an erroneous testimony alleging that I abused my daughter physically, frequently cursed at her, would scream uncontrollably, and was unable to financially support extra-curricular activities such as gymnastics for her.

I was scratching my head, wondering if this was a cruel prank.

In April 2008 for the first time ever since a support order was entered, I requested that the court considers a review for child support. Because the father lives in Indiana, this complicates orders with regards to child support.  He doesn’t pay what Michigan’s standards are, although my daughter and I resided in Michigan.  He pays according to Indiana’s formulations which are considerably lower.  Our child was no longer a baby, and the cost of her daily upkeep had increased over the past 7 years.

I received a call from him days later confronting me about requesting the review. When I told him that indeed, I requested the review, it changed everything.  Our friendship turned a corner, and paybacks came in the form of a change of custody motion on June 25, 2008.

An order for mediation was entered.  This is a “service” that is provided under the umbrella of the Friend of the Court.  This mediator is not bound by family law standards and is absolved from possible lawsuits that could result from their recommendations….right, wrong, or indifferent. In other words, if your mediator is incompetent (to put it nicely), you can not file a claim against him/her as a result. They are untouchable.  How convenient.

Of the 12 factors, in a truthful and transparent world, I would be favored solely on 8 factors and we would equally share 4 factors. The only way it would be possible for us to share on 4 factors was a direct result of my conviction that my daughter and her father would need to spend more time together than what the court was ordering. A normal parent/child bond would have been impossible with one weekend per month (that was the courts order).

Unfortunately, this isn’t a truthful and transparent world.  It is a world sadly full of selfish, unaware, scathing people (and many of them are in politics).

My thoughts going in to mediation, was that she (the mediator) would instantly see that the plaintiffs testimony was far-fetched.  I had confidence that the mediator would be intelligent, would have an eye and ear for inconsistencies, and could be able to accurately decipher between truth and untruth.

Moreover, as it is a part of my way of communicating, I never thought twice about using metaphors, analogies, or directives.  Intelligent discussion about the facts regarding my relationship with both my daughter and her father were botched entirely in the written recommendation drawn by the mediator.

An example of 1 of the countless severely skewed pieces of conversation is as follows:

I was sharing with the mediator how out of my 4 children, each of them has very different personalities….same parent….4 different personalities.  I grabbed this analogy I am about to share from a motivational leadership speaker. The talk this speaker gave was titled “Buffalo’s and Butterflies”. I said to the mediator, “I have 4 children.  I can best describe them this way: 2 are butterflies….happy, bouncy, and fluttery.  I also have a mosquito….this little guy is always attached to me, either on my hip or on my lap.  Then, I have my buffalo.  She has a strong will, is hard to budge once her mind is made up, and is sometimes just plain stubborn”.

What I said and the context in which I said it was not conveyed the same way in the recommendation.  The mediator writes this on the final recommendation: “This mother refers to her child as a bull!”

That’s it.  Would you say she accurately relayed my statement?

Here is another account:

I was asked why I might be opposed to my daughter living with her father. Because there is not just a single answer to that question, one of my reasons was: “My daughter is an extremely bright child. She is getting her education from one of the top schools in the state.  The children are tested in to the school and it is a school dedicated to creative arts and academic giftedness.  My daughter is surrounded each day by cultural diversity, and higher learning.  These children are positioned to attend any university in the country.  My daughter has the potential to be a brain surgeon. In the Amish community her father lives in, the percentages of people completing grade school are numbered.  If they do graduate, they go on to work in the local trailer factories, farms, or grocers.  My daughter can be so much more than that.  Her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all worked for the family excavating business. Her education here will help to position her for a life more successful than the one I had.

This is what the mediator wrote in the recommendation: “This mother’s reason for not wanting her child to live in Indiana is because she said her daughter will grow up to be nothing more than a grocery store clerk if she lives with her dad”.                         She left out all of the other reasons I gave, such as that she has 3 younger siblings in the home….how might it change their lives to no longer have their sister with them?

Here is another:

In an attempt to defend myself from hurtful and untruthful allegations of premiscuity, I shared with the mediator that I have only had a handful of relationships, each were deeply meaningful.  I told her that at least I knew the names of people I shared my bed with, whereas my daughter’s father did not. He lost his virginity in a different country whilst in a drunken stupor.  He didn’t know the girl…not even her name. Following our daughter’s birth, he frequented the gentleman’s clubs and paid for sexual pleasures.

This is how the mediator worded it in her recommendation:                                           “The minor child’s mother said knew the names of the men she laid with”.               Nothing further was written regarding this conversation. This bit of conversation was placed in the recommendation under the moral fitness of the parents factor.  He was favored on this factor.  Also, while in court, the father’s attorney asked me: “you told the mediator that you knew the names of the men you laid with?”. Then she gave this little conniving laugh and used body language intended to intimidate. It still makes my skin crawl to this day. I said, “yes, but”…..then she interrupted and said: “It was a yes or know answer”.  I was not allowed to finish.

There are more…many, many more accounts of poor and inaccurate note taking. Most of my testimony was not reflected in the final recommendation.  It is my belief that the mediator had her mind made up within minutes of our introduction.

Rewinding to the first day of interviewing: I wasn’t prepared for the 4 hour long bash-fest I was about to embark upon when I entered the mediators office along with my daughters father. I thought that the mediator would systematically discuss each factor with us and allow us each a turn to share our side. That is not what happened. No sooner did she explain her protocol and the bantering began.  This man had been well-rehearsed by his attorney on what to say and when to say it.  I on the other hand was not.  My attorney advised me to be honest and transparent.

It became evident nearly immediately that he had been practicing his every word.  He also knew exactly everything the mediator was going to ask.  As a matter of fact, he answered everything before it was asked, right down the line. He came up for air after 4 hours.

All I could manage was frequent protests. I could not get a word in edgewise, nor was I given the opportunity to. He was assailing blame and resentment, of which nothing had a speck of truth. The mediator wrote down everything he was saying, and it carried over in to the final recommendation. She did not and could not verify anything he was alleging, because none of it had truth.

My thoughts were literally spinning in my head.  Where did this all come from? How did he come up with it? Wait, some of these characteristics are his, not mine, but he’s blaming me? This must be a very bad dream!  He laid out pages upon pages worth of erroneous bull crap, and now, all I was left with was the hope that this mediator would see through it.

Because we weren’t even close to finishing the interview/interrogation, another time was scheduled….this time, we went in separately. I was much more comfortable with that. When I sat with the mediator, she went through each factor with me. The interview lasted about 1 1/2 hours and during that time, she jotted down some notes only a handful of times.  That alarmed me.

When my ex was being interviewed alone, it gave him the opportunity to pull more awful allegations about me out of his magical bag.  This time without my protests.

I will tell you, my feelings about him took a fast U-turn. This is a person who praised me as an individual and as a parent over the past 7 years, a person who called me on almost a daily basis just to chat, a person who I re-opened my heart back up to as a friend and opened my home up to on weekends he came to pick up our daughter but the roads were too bad to travel on, a person who called me his best friend.

I  realized that he was either a person who was wearing a facade all those years, planning all along to make this move, or it was the sudden new relationship and engagement he was in that triggered this. It is really something to witness…selfishness that is. We all have it, but for some, it goes through a sort of metamorphosis.  When you give selfishness wings, it can and will go anywhere.  It will plow down anything and everything that gets in its way and it won’t look back, because it doesn’t have a conscience.

I knew based on the final recommendation that he continued during his private interview to throw some additional fictitious details out there for the record.

In the end, the non-custodial father was in favor on all 12 factors.  The Saginaw County Friend of the Court Mediator didn’t favor me on a single one.  His testimony became the “hard evidence” needed to gain sole physical custody.

During the final court hearing, my attorney blasted holes through the plaintiff’s testimony and she devalued the mediator’s recommendation by means of witnesses and hard documentation. The school principal and teachers were witnesses, my husband, and my mother. My attorney pointed out one inconsistency after the other. She went through each factor, line-by-line and anyone with even a pea-sized brain would conclude that the allegations lacked evidence, some were even humorously ridiculous, and the recommendation made by the friend of the court mediator was void of evidence and was drawn purely from one-sided hearsay.

I lost custody of my daughter that day.  My children lost their sister.  The same leniency and generosity I afforded her dad all those years was not afforded to me (with every other weekend visits, extended summer breaks, and sharing all school breaks). The judge was a breath away from revoking my joint legal custody rights and verbalized this in the final seconds of his judgment.

It’s been 10 months since custody was lost.  Our lives have changed so much, and so has my daughters. Everything single thing that favored her father by the mediator either never existed or existed only for a moment, long enough to get it on the record. I was awarded one weekend per calendar month. I am responsible to drive to Indiana to pick her up on that Friday and we get home at around 8 pm. We have all of Saturday to reconnect, and then she’s whisked away early Sunday afternoon. I don’t get to see her at all for the remaining 2009 holidays, nor for the first half of 2010 holidays. We live 156 miles apart, and in Michigan, if parties live more than 150 miles apart, they by default are granted only 1 visit per month (over a weekend). While the judge knew I let him have every-other-weekend visits with our daughter, he did not feel impelled or kind enough to afford me the same.

She is being raised by her single father whose engagement was called off shortly after the custody was changed. His relationship fell apart completely and his fiance and her young child moved out.  My daughter who is now 10 doesn’t have a maternal influence on a daily basis, just 1 1/2 days per month.  No one to sit down with to discuss “girl things”, no mumma to play with her hair, or tuck her in snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug at night, no mumma to have “spa nights” with (this is when we get out all of our beauty goodies and do makeovers and pedicures). Daughters need their mother’s. Forty-eight hours per month is abusive and does not aid in embracing a mother/daughter bond.  It is not even close to being enough time!

If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing…..except I would have brought a voice recorder to the Mediation interview. It should be required by state law that the testimony given at mediation be audio taped.

I have learned a lesson that has perhaps hardened me, but has also been a huge eye-opener:
Transparency, truth, and integrity doesn’t always prevail. Sometimes it takes being dirty and cunning to get to the top. For me, I lost something irreplaceable and precious….but, I didn’t lose my integrity.

Nothing ever became of the request for child support review in late April 2008 that stemmed his move for custody in June 2008.  When I contacted the child support division in Indiana on numerous occasions prior to losing custody, they would tell me that they haven’t reviewed the case yet.  I called right up until the day I lost my daughter.  After the change of custody was ordered, I received a letter from their office stating that because custody has changed, there would be no need for review.

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A Michigan Mother’s Custody Injustice

  • Posted on January 5, 2010 at 4:07 pm

I have never done anything like this before.  I have never been in a desperate situation where I am in a soundproof bubble, and the system doesn’t hear my cries.  They see me, but they pretend I am not there.  This is the Michigan Family Law and Friend of the Court Division.  It is our system; the one we are suppose to count on for freedom, justice, and liberty. It is my prayer that you read through to the end. Although this is my hell and my grief, this story must be heard.  Please feel free to leave comments and post the story in to your blogs and various social marketing venues. It is imperative that we use our voices; otherwise, this will continue to happen to mothers who don’t deserve it. Justice needs to prevail, I must get my daughter back, and the biased officials involved in my case need to be reprimanded. This must climb up the political ladder and reach the steps of the Supreme Court. I can not get there alone.

I am a wife and mother of four amazing children. We are an American white collar, middle-class family. I am so fortunate and thankful that we own a beautiful 2,500 square foot home that backs up to the 4th green of a prestigious golf course. I wasn’t always of this status, most people aren’t.  We start somewhere, and then gradually improve ourselves with the combination of time, effort & experiences. I consider myself ordinary. I, like most of you, have experienced meaningful relationships.  I’ve been hurt.  I’ve failed and given up on things. I’ve traveled extensively, I’ve gone to college.  I am a deep thinker, a reader, and I am gentle. I love nature and respect its wrath.  I am not religious, but am deeply spiritual. I am passionate about loving and caring for my children. I am always searching….searching for truth, for mindfulness, for authenticity. I am searching for the path that will ultimately be the “dash”….you know, that little mark on a gravestone that is between the day you were born and the day you passed….that’s the dash I am referring to.

I would ask, are you much the same? Probably. I am thankful that we can redeem ourselves throughout our lifetime; to make better decisions, to course-correct, and to leave a footprint that we can be proud of.

So, why am I writing about custody injustices?

On January 22, 2009, I lost custody of my 9 year old daughter; the oldest of four. I didn’t lose custody because of abuse, or because of illness, or because I was unwilling to care for her. I didn’t lose custody because of drugs or alcohol, or because of a lack of interest and participation in her social and educational needs. I didn’t lose custody because I couldn’t provide her with clothing, food, housing, or emotional support.  I lost her because of an incompetent court system with which accountability to a higher court or official is unlikely. Records are so tightly sealed in the Michigan Family Court System, that the likelihood of reprimand and justice is as likely as the sky turning yellow tomorrow.

I was under the disillusionment that a mother who is unfit or unwilling to parent could lose custody of a child. I never dreamed that a mother who was competent, loving, stable, and willing could lose their child.

I solely raised my daughter and was completely alone during my pregnancy. Her father and I parted ways because he had some severe addictions to overcome and I didn’t want any part of it. When I told him about the pregnancy (which was right away), he denied responsibility.  He began accusing me of being promiscuous. His parents and sister were unaware of his addictions for the most part (they knew he used drugs, but they didn’t know to what extent), and they too began to propose that the baby wasn’t his. Over the next several months, I began to look inside of myself and had to make some pretty grown-up decisions.

I finally moved back to Michigan with my family when I was 34 weeks gestation.  I felt that it was the best thing I could do for myself and my unborn child.  I would be in a safe, moral, and loving home, receiving unconditional support.  Love and support is what I needed, and I wasn’t getting it in Indiana. My unborn child’s father was still backing out of the responsibility and I came to accept that we would be alone.  I was about to embark upon “single parenthood”, a journey that would shape me in to the person I longed to be, a journey that would be so treacherous at times, it would test my endurance down to the nucleus of my being. Even so, I was ready to take it on.

I never married her father. After my daughter was born, I re-met a man I knew when I was a child and got pregnant again.  I was on birth control when this happened and was devastated to be in this situation again. I married this man 7 months later, had yet another child and we divorced when our youngest was 2. If I don’t have you disgusted by now, it gets worse. I got pregnant again with someone who became the love of my life, before our divorces were final. OUCH! If you are thinking we cheated on our ex-spouses, think again. That is not why our previous marriages dissolved. I ended up marrying for the last time, and the rest is history.

Regarding my last surprise pregnancy, in my mind then and still to this day almost 6 years later, I believe that the responsible and right action to take with regards to my situation was to carry this pregnancy full term whether it was socially accepted or not. No person or court should be given the right to impose their conviction as an absolute rule if a law has not been broken. For some unreasonable single dimensional process of thought, our society so eagerly conforms to; I was labeled as immoral by the court, years later.  I haven’t done anything that everyone else isn’t doing.  Hello, people have sex.  Some get pregnant, others don’t.  It’s the women who get pregnant that are at a disadvantage.  Think about it…when you have a big balloon belly, the evidence that you engaged in sexual activities is plain and clear. If you are on effective birth control, nobody thinks about it.  For a man, there is no visual indication that he is engaging in sexual activities.  It is only the pregnant woman who endures the “immoral” label.  Because she’s pregnant and unwed, she must be promiscuous. That, unfortunately, is the punishment our society and system have placed on women.

By the time our daughter was 18 months old, my friendship with her father was on the mend, and for the next 7 years I considered him a best friend. I put a great deal of thought into the life my child would have without her parents getting along and being supportive of one another.  With all of my selfish might, I didn’t want to bite the bullet, but it wasn’t about me me me anymore. He stopped using drugs, and even stopped smoking.  The court verified parentage through DNA testing (ordered by the court to begin collecting child support and recover hospital costs that Medicaid initially paid). It wasn’t until she was 2 years old that he began paying child support, and his arrears neared $3,000.00.

It was in an earlier court occurrence when our daughter was 5 months old, that he would lie under oath for the first time stating that he provided for his daughter financially, and saw her regularly.  He petitioned a motion preventing me from leaving the state of Michigan with the daughter he denied was his.  At this time paternity was not established, nor was a court order for parenting time and/or support entered. That didn’t happen until she was almost 2 years old. The Judge ruled in the father’s favor and I was not to move our child’s residence out of the state of Michigan.

Over the next 8 years, life continued.  My family was complete, I found my lifelong partner, I ran my own successful company, and subscribed to an intense leadership development program.  I coordinated and hosted charitable benefits for our local Child Abuse and Neglect Council, regularly met with and mentored with my children’s school district superintendent and principals about topics such as leadership and parenting, and was invited to be a guest speaker for career days.  I am deeply involved in my children’s education and offer to volunteer at their schools.  Each week, I meet with them individually over their lunch hour.  These are our special “dates”.

It is not my intention to toot my own horn.  I just want you to be able to gauge my involvement.  While this is just from an educational standpoint, the level of involvement carries over in to every facet of their lives.

Here is where my life turned a corner:

I received notification on June 25, 2008 that the non-custodial parent petitioned the court for a change of custody. In Michigan, there are 12 factors considered in determining the “best interest of the child”. It is basically a game….whomever receives the most points wins.

I was completely blind-sided.  There was as a petition before me requesting a change of custody due to abuse and a lack of financial resources. I can’t even begin to convey my shock and disbelief at this nonsense.  Here was an erroneous testimony alleging that I abused my daughter physically, frequently cursed at her, would scream uncontrollably, and was unable to financially support extra-curricular activities such as gymnastics for her.

I was scratching my head, wondering if this was a cruel prank.

In April 2008 for the first time ever since a support order was entered, I requested that the court considers a review for child support. Because the father lives in Indiana, this complicates orders with regards to child support.  He doesn’t pay what Michigan’s standards are, although my daughter and I resided in Michigan.  He pays according to Indiana’s formulations which are considerably lower.  Our child was no longer a baby, and the cost of her daily upkeep had increased over the past 7 years.

I received a call from him days later confronting me about requesting the review. When I told him that indeed, I requested the review, it changed everything.  Our friendship turned a corner, and paybacks came in the form of a change of custody motion on June 25, 2008.

An order for mediation was entered.  This is a “service” that is provided under the umbrella of the Friend of the Court.  This mediator is not bound by family law standards and is absolved from possible lawsuits that could result from their recommendations….right, wrong, or indifferent. In other words, if your mediator is incompetent (to put it nicely), you can not file a claim against him/her as a result. They are untouchable.  How convenient.

Of the 12 factors, in a truthful and transparent world, I would be favored solely on 8 factors and we would equally share 4 factors. The only way it would be possible for us to share on 4 factors was a direct result of my conviction that my daughter and her father would need to spend more time together than what the court was ordering. A normal parent/child bond would have been impossible with one weekend per month (that was the courts order).

Unfortunately, this isn’t a truthful and transparent world.  It is a world sadly full of selfish, unaware, scathing people (and many of them are in politics).

My thoughts going in to mediation, was that she (the mediator) would instantly see that the plaintiffs testimony was far-fetched.  I had confidence that the mediator would be intelligent, would have an eye and ear for inconsistencies, and could be able to accurately decipher between truth and untruth.

Moreover, as it is a part of my way of communicating, I never thought twice about using metaphors, analogies, or directives.  Intelligent discussion about the facts regarding my relationship with both my daughter and her father were botched entirely in the written recommendation drawn by the mediator.

An example of 1 of the countless severely skewed pieces of conversation is as follows:

I was sharing with the mediator how out of my 4 children, each of them has very different personalities….same parent….4 different personalities.  I grabbed this analogy I am about to share from a motivational leadership speaker. The talk this speaker gave was titled “Buffalo’s and Butterflies”. I said to the mediator, “I have 4 children.  I can best describe them this way: 2 are butterflies….happy, bouncy, and fluttery.  I also have a mosquito….this little guy is always attached to me, either on my hip or on my lap.  Then, I have my buffalo.  She has a strong will, is hard to budge once her mind is made up, and is sometimes just plain stubborn”.

What I said and the context in which I said it was not conveyed the same way in the recommendation.  The mediator writes this on the final recommendation: “This mother refers to her child as a bull!”

That’s it.  Would you say she accurately relayed my statement?

Here is another account:

I was asked why I might be opposed to my daughter living with her father. Because there is not just a single answer to that question, one of my reasons was: “My daughter is an extremely bright child. She is getting her education from one of the top schools in the state.  The children are tested in to the school and it is a school dedicated to creative arts and academic giftedness.  My daughter is surrounded each day by cultural diversity, and higher learning.  These children are positioned to attend any university in the country.  My daughter has the potential to be a brain surgeon. In the Amish community her father lives in, the percentages of people completing grade school are numbered.  If they do graduate, they go on to work in the local trailer factories, farms, or grocers.  My daughter can be so much more than that.  Her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all worked for the family excavating business. Her education here will help to position her for a life more successful than the one I had.

This is what the mediator wrote in the recommendation: “This mother’s reason for not wanting her child to live in Indiana is because she said her daughter will grow up to be nothing more than a grocery store clerk if she lives with her dad”.                         She left out all of the other reasons I gave, such as that she has 3 younger siblings in the home….how might it change their lives to no longer have their sister with them?

Here is another:

In an attempt to defend myself from hurtful and untruthful allegations of promiscuity, I shared with the mediator that I have only had a handful of relationships, each were deeply meaningful.  I told her that at least I knew the names of people I shared my bed with, whereas my daughter’s father did not. He lost his virginity in a different country whilst in a drunken stupor.  He didn’t know the girl…not even her name. Following our daughter’s birth, he frequented the gentleman’s clubs and paid for sexual pleasures.

This is how the mediator worded it in her recommendation:                                           “The minor child’s mother said knew the names of the men she laid with”.               Nothing further was written regarding this conversation. This bit of conversation was placed in the recommendation under the moral fitness of the parents factor.  He was favored on this factor.  Also, while in court, the father’s attorney asked me: “you told the mediator that you knew the names of the men you laid with?”. Then she gave this little conniving laugh and used body language intended to intimidate. It still makes my skin crawl to this day. I said, “yes, but”…..then she interrupted and said: “It was a yes or know answer”.  I was not allowed to finish.

There are more…many, many more accounts of poor and inaccurate note taking. Most of my testimony was not reflected in the final recommendation.  It is my belief that the mediator had her mind made up within minutes of our introduction.

Rewinding to the first day of interviewing: I wasn’t prepared for the 4 hour long bash-fest I was about to embark upon when I entered the mediators office along with my daughters father. I thought that the mediator would systematically discuss each factor with us and allow us each a turn to share our side. That is not what happened. No sooner did she explain her protocol and the bantering began.  This man had been well-rehearsed by his attorney on what to say and when to say it.  I on the other hand was not.  My attorney advised me to be honest and transparent.

It became evident nearly immediately that he had been practicing his every word.  He also knew exactly everything the mediator was going to ask.  As a matter of fact, he answered everything before it was asked, right down the line. He came up for air after 4 hours.

All I could manage was frequent protests. I could not get a word in edgewise, nor was I given the opportunity to. He was assailing blame and resentment, of which nothing had a speck of truth. The mediator wrote down everything he was saying, and it carried over in to the final recommendation. She did not and could not verify anything he was alleging, because none of it had truth.

My thoughts were literally spinning in my head.  Where did this all come from? How did he come up with it? Wait, some of these characteristics are his, not mine, but he’s blaming me? This must be a very bad dream!  He laid out pages upon pages worth of erroneous bull crap, and now, all I was left with was the hope that this mediator would see through it.

Because we weren’t even close to finishing the interview/interrogation, another time was scheduled….this time, we went in separately. I was much more comfortable with that. When I sat with the mediator, she went through each factor with me. The interview lasted about 1 1/2 hours and during that time, she jotted down some notes only a handful of times.  That alarmed me.

When my ex was being interviewed alone, it gave him the opportunity to pull more awful allegations about me out of his magical bag.  This time without my protests.

I will tell you, my feelings about him took a fast U-turn. This is a person who praised me as an individual and as a parent over the past 7 years, a person who called me on almost a daily basis just to chat, a person who I re-opened my heart back up to as a friend and opened my home up to on weekends he came to pick up our daughter but the roads were too bad to travel on, a person who called me his best friend.

I  realized that he was either a person who was wearing a facade all those years, planning all along to make this move, or it was the sudden new relationship and engagement he was in that triggered this. It is really something to witness…selfishness that is. We all have it, but for some, it goes through a sort of metamorphosis.  When you give selfishness wings, it can and will go anywhere.  It will plow down anything and everything that gets in its way and it won’t look back, because it doesn’t have a conscience.

I knew based on the final recommendation that he continued during his private interview to throw some additional fictitious details out there for the record.

In the end, the non-custodial father was in favor on all 12 factors.  The Saginaw County Friend of the Court Mediator didn’t favor me on a single one.  His testimony became the “hard evidence” needed to gain sole physical custody.

During the final court hearing, my attorney blasted holes through the plaintiff’s testimony and she devalued the mediator’s recommendation by means of witnesses and hard documentation. The school principal and teachers were witnesses, my husband, and my mother. My attorney pointed out one inconsistency after the other. She went through each factor, line-by-line and anyone with even a pea-sized brain would conclude that the allegations lacked evidence, some were even humorously ridiculous, and the recommendation made by the friend of the court mediator was void of evidence and was drawn purely from one-sided hearsay.

I lost custody of my daughter that day.  My children lost their sister.  The same leniency and generosity I afforded her dad all those years was not afforded to me (with every other weekend visits, extended summer breaks, and sharing all school breaks). The judge was a breath away from revoking my joint legal custody rights and verbalized this in the final seconds of his judgment.

It’s been 10 months since custody was lost.  Our lives have changed so much, and so has my daughters. Everything single thing that favored her father by the mediator either never existed or existed only for a moment, long enough to get it on the record. I was awarded one weekend per calendar month. I am responsible to drive to Indiana to pick her up on that Friday and we get home at around 8 pm. We have all of Saturday to reconnect, and then she’s whisked away early Sunday afternoon. I don’t get to see her at all for the remaining 2009 holidays, nor for the first half of 2010 holidays. We live 156 miles apart, and in Michigan, if parties live more than 150 miles apart, they by default are granted only 1 visit per month (over a weekend). While the judge knew I let him have every-other-weekend visits with our daughter, he did not feel impelled or kind enough to afford me the same.

She is being raised by her single father whose engagement was called off shortly after the custody was changed. His relationship fell apart completely and his fiance and her young child moved out.  My daughter who is now 10 doesn’t have a maternal influence on a daily basis, just 1 1/2 days per month.  No one to sit down with to discuss “girl things”, no mumma to play with her hair, or tuck her in snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug at night, no mumma to have “spa nights” with (this is when we get out all of our beauty goodies and do makeovers and pedicures). Daughters need their mother’s. Forty-eight hours per month is abusive and does not aid in embracing a mother/daughter bond.  It is not even close to being enough time!

If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing…..except I would have brought a voice recorder to the Mediation interview. It should be required by state law that the testimony given at mediation be audio taped.

I have learned a lesson that has perhaps hardened me, but has also been a huge eye-opener:
Transparency, truth, and integrity doesn’t always prevail. Sometimes it takes being dirty and cunning to get to the top. For me, I lost something irreplaceable and precious….but, I didn’t lose my integrity.

Nothing ever became of the request for child support review in late April 2008 that stemmed his move for custody in June 2008.  When I contacted the child support division in Indiana on numerous occasions prior to losing custody, they would tell me that they haven’t reviewed the case yet.  I called right up until the day I lost my daughter.  After the change of custody was ordered, I received a letter from their office stating that because custody has changed, there would be no need for review.

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Does M.A.D.D. (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) protest at funerals?

  • Posted on January 2, 2010 at 10:06 am

My friend’s mother insisted they were going to protest at her daughter’s funeral. The daughter drove drunk and now the cousins want to take action to make sure people do not make the choice to drive drunk. However, they’re not sure if they should get involved with M.A.D.D. activities because of the “rumor.” Help?

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