50/50 parenting should be the default position in divorce – think about it!
Divorce courts in America are destroying any chance of maintaining the children’s mental health by interfering with parenting, promoting conflict by discouraging mediation and encouraging that a divorce should be an adversarial proceeding, as well as encouraging the racketeering that goes on when judges enrich court-appointed attorneys, counselors and therapists by appointing them in an open-ended instead of limited fashion and only when necessary.
Courts are the wrong place for divorce decisions to be made as they are inherently an adversarial proceeding. We need mediation outside of the court to be the default position in any dissolution of a marriage, particularly if it involves children. We need a complete overhaul of laws related to dissolution of marriage, as well as about probate issues such as guardians for elders – another area of court abuse of families.
Judges, lawyers, and most of the court-appointed hacks knows as GALs, child representatives, and evaluators (often who make their business promoting conflict to draw out their appointment and make more money in this cottage industry) end up raping the estates of families and even taking the children’s college funds to pay for their fees.
Instead of promoting stabilization and financial security, the judges and lawyers work hard to end careers, teach children to be entitled and view parents as only deep pockets, promote parental alienation and defamation, as well as destroy the very stability necessary for a child to cope with divorce.
We need to ask Pres. Obama to make a task force on dissolution of marriage, paternity issues, and probate issues so that our country can advance socially as much as we have advanced technologically. We need to stop the court abuse of children, the elderly, and families in general.
Sign a petition to ask President Obama to appoint a task force to study divorce, child custody, family mediation, and ways to take divorce out of the courts, end court abuse, and let parents decide how to parent. Cleck here for petition.
With the dissolution of the family, the mobility that is breaking up the family, and the greed of the divorce cottage industry, we have a very big crisis in America, and around the world. We need to lead in solving this problem. Write President Obama and ask him to make this task force his priority in his second term.
The following two videos are powerful messages about the role of fathers and the need for equal parenting.
A video about promoting equal parenting and actor Baldwin’s new book about divorce and the need for equal parenting:
A powerful video talking about the “father wound” that plagues a person for life if the father is absent:
Extensive posts, links, and videos about corruption in family court and the damage to the families:
https://cookcountyjudges.wordpress.com/?s=family+court
Written by Linda Shelton
February 24, 2013 at 7:41 pm
Posted in attorney misconduct, child protective service, Child representative, Cook County Courts, Dissolution of Marriage, Divorce Cottage Industry, elder abuse and exploitation, family court, Fraud upon the court, government corruptiom, Guardian ad litem, Guardians, Parental alienation, Parenting, probate court
Tagged with absent father, absent mother, abusive courts, child abuse, child custody, child representative, court abuse, dissolution of marriage, divorce, divorce cottage industry, divorce counselor, divorce psychologist, elder abuse, family court, Family law, father's rights, father's role, GAL, Illinois families, Illinois family court, mother's rights, mothers role, parental alienation, PAS
16 Responses
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Cook County Judges 
You are making a big mistake with assuming this should be the default position. When you are beaten, strangled, and nearly shot in the head by your abuser the last thing you want is 50/50 custody. Children are terrified of their mother’s abusers and recognize psychopathic personality traits very early in their development. This is a sure way to create more abusers if you don’t restrict the involvement of violent offenders.
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Mad Scientess
February 24, 2013 at 8:47 pm
Apparently you do not understand the word default. This means that this should be the standard postition IN THE ABSENCE of evidence that there is abuse or danger. There are too many courts where giving full custody to one parent is the default position, depriving the other parent of time with their children and depriving the children of parenting from that father or mother. Do you think that courts should have a default position of giving only the mother custody and assuming all fathers are abusers? I could not agree with that position.
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Linda Shelton
February 24, 2013 at 8:51 pm
APPARENTLY YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS WHAT OUR COURTS ARE DOING CURRENTLY. GIVING CUSTODY TO ABUSERS AND PUTTING VICTIMS IN HARMS WAY. THE ARE ALSO VIOLATING THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS TO MOVE AND REMARRY, AND TO IMPROVE THEIR LIVES. You need to wake up to the REALITY of what is REALLY going on in our courts. Domestic Violence victims are being REVICTIMIZED. I think it should be 50/50 when there is no violence absolutely, but that is not what is happening right now.
WAKE UP!!
http://nowayoutbutone.com/
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Mad Scientess
February 24, 2013 at 8:58 pm
You apparently haven’t read this blog. I am fighting hard on this blog and in courts to help parents, both women and men, who have lost custody in divorce to abusers including men who physically abuse and women who brainwash the kids with lies causing parental alienation. YOU NEED TO WAKE UP and NOT CRITICIZE THOSE WHO ARE HELPING YOU TRY TO REFORM THE COURT SYSTEM! Equal parenting is a constitutional right in my book and I will advocate for it. Courts are not just giving kids to abusers, they are primarily taking the kids aware from whoever they think can pay the most to feed their cottage industry. Read this blog and you will see the truth about how the courts are corrupt.
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Linda Shelton
February 24, 2013 at 9:20 pm
I have been reading your blogs and writings for more than eight months now Dr. Shelton. You are painfully unaware of what is truly happening with respect to domestic violence and to victims of domestic violence in our biased court system. Your argument about who can pay for the cottage industry is entirely too superficial. By leaving the domestic violence issue for the reader to infer you do the millions of women who are victims of horrendous violence and ongoing abuse a great disservice, and ignore the rampant corruption in our family courts with your painfully myopic blog.
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Mad Scientess
February 24, 2013 at 9:26 pm
Incidentally Dr. Shelton, you will find I have signed your petition despite your failure to bring attention to the plight of domestic violence victims permanently tethered to their abusers by this 50/50 system you so vehemently defend.
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Mad Scientess
February 24, 2013 at 9:29 pm
The Truth speaks for itself even if the World is too stupid to believe what it says!-Born to do battle, drafted at birth.a.k.a.Warrior Breed!-Michael E McKinzy Sr-02-24-2013
Michael E. McKinzy,Sr., Born to do battle!
________________________________
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0menow
February 24, 2013 at 9:43 pm
Perhaps it was your choice of celebrities that you chose to support your position:
“In the shocking tape – suspiciously leaked to a showbusiness website – a raging Baldwin (the star of The Aviator and The Departed) brands his daughter a “rude, thoughtless little pig”.
“You don’t have the brains or the decency as a human,” he spits.
“I don’t care that you’re 12 years old, or 11 years old, or that you’re a child, or that your mother is a thoughtless pain in the ass who doesn’t care what you do as far as I am concerned.
“Once again, I have made an ass of myself trying to get to a phone. You have humiliated me for the last time with this phone.”
But it was his sign-off to the two minute 12 second tirade – his threat to fly from his home in New York to Los Angeles to “straighten out” his daughter – that prompted Basinger to act.
In an exclusive interview with the Mail, Kim’s father, Don Basinger, said: “The problem is that violence and anger are part of Alec Baldwin’s make-up. He can’t control his temper and you can’t tell what someone like that is going to do.”
http://www.crushable.com/2007/04/30/entertainment/more-background-about-alec-baldwin-kim-basinger-and-little-ireland-it-aint-pretty/
Hmm, I have the feeling Kim Basinger knows what I mean.
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Mad Scientess
February 24, 2013 at 9:44 pm
Clearly Mad Scientess, you are very one sided against men. Domestic violence is horrible and I am helping a number of women AND men who lost custody of children to their abuser. I don’t believe I do anyone a disservice. I try to present both sides. There are men who have also been abused. PAS is abused, but is also a real diagnosis that the courts are ignoring in some cases. The bottom line is that the courts are corrupt from head to toe, the lawyers and judges have no interest in the truth and the system treats everyone as a profit center and a bag of potatoes.
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Linda Shelton
February 24, 2013 at 10:08 pm
Glad you signed it. Thanks!
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Linda Shelton
February 24, 2013 at 10:08 pm
Isn’t it quite clear from nearly all reputable psychologists that PAS was a farce? I think that has been pretty well established. I’m afraid your position with PAS and Mr. Baldwin make your intentions perfectly clear to just about everyone.
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Mad Scientess
February 24, 2013 at 10:14 pm
I’m not taking sides in the Baldwin-Basinger fight. I don’t have the facts and haven’t talked to them or their kids. Maybe Baldwin is an ass who lost his temper inappropriately and Basinger is an angel and wonderful mom. However, maybe his daughter has been brainwashed into being entitled and thinking of her father as a deep pocket and perhaps she said someting extremely inappropriate to him? Who really knows? Do you know what his daughter said to him? Do you have a recording of the entire conversation and all his previous conversations with his daughter? It appears that their fight has been going on a long time. I am sure there is a lot of bad stuff on both sides by this point. I think it is very important to remember that both sides have an agenda.
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Linda Shelton
February 24, 2013 at 10:15 pm
You clearly are one sided. I have personally seen Parental Alienation as an accurate diagnosis and also as baloney that was made up to manipulate the court. PAS is not a farce. I prefer not to use the word syndrome. I agree with some experts that this is not a mental illness, but a relationship problem. A balanced news article is written about it here. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/parental-alienation-is-no_n_1904310.html Gardner who invented the term PAS – was very one-sided in the beginning against women and suggesting that men should get custody and women lose custody who brainwash their kids. Judges and lawyers who abuse it by letting people make up a diagnosis of PAS as well as who ignore it and give custody to an abuser who then uses PAS techniques to brainwash the children against their mother are the problem, along with the hacks who call themselves psychologists or psychiatrists and let PAS be abused, misdiagnosed or ignored when present are to blame. I am a physician, pediatrics, neonatology, and psychiatry. I don’t think you are or have experience with those who have developed true parental alienation due to the inappropriate behavior of one side of the family. You also like to selectively quote things. You said nothing about Basinger being a “prima donna” with “12 contempt of court” charges pending for interfering with visitation of Baldwin and a “court-order” to undergo a psychological exam. It appears to me that both Baldwin with his inappropriate outbursts and Basinger with her defaming Baldwin and being a “prima donna” that other actresses and actors have difficulty interacting with have problems and that the daughter is suffering from both of their inappropriate behaviors. It is likely that both parents are using known methods that induce Parental Alienation to try to influence their daughter against the other parent. Hopefully, the child is old enough to figure it out herself and will ignore both of their lies.
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Linda Shelton
February 24, 2013 at 10:31 pm
Your comments Dr. Shelton are entirely nonplussing. You accuse me of the very things you then proceed to do yourself. The issue is not who was right or wrong or what the details are, but that it is clear that there is very likely some history of violence based on the number of altercations Mr. Baldwin has had with people besides Ms. Basinger alone. His behavior in public should alert you as a physician to some pretty serious anger issues.
The fact that you state you are a physician and yet proceed to cite PAS which has been so thoroughly discredited is disturbing, and likely more a part of the problem than of any solution. And please do not profess to be better educated, because you are not, academically or otherwise.
On and on you go about my alleged bias without once acknowledging the disproportionate nature of domestic violence that even you can not ignore. Domestic violence is, and always has been, predominately male perpetrated. Hence, the original leaning of the court, before everyone was so rampantly corrupted by a few dollars.
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Mad Scientess
February 24, 2013 at 11:56 pm
Mad Scientess – your comments make it clear that you are very anti men in divorce proceedings and want to assume the man is at fault and an abuser – also wishing that this would be the court’s default position. I cannot agree. There is something known as parental aliention. Yes there is a controversy about it being a syndrome, but there is no question that there are relationship issues called parental alienation and all experts agree on that. You focus on Baldwin and ignore the pathology displayed by Basinger. It takes two to tango! Both have pathology – that’s clear. I suspect both are using techniques of parental alienation. You clearly cannot have a rational discussion due to your bias. I consider defamation and verbal abuse to be domestic violence also. Basinger also has anger issues that come out as verbal abuse. In that regard women are as bad if not worse than men so it evens out with the physical violence. There are many women who are physically violent, but somehow the men are automatically blamed. That is NOT fair. The fact is that both parents are needed and have unique abilities to parent that the children should have access to. Yes if there is a danger of physical violence, then the person should be protected, but I also believe that the danger of defamation of character, false accusations of physical violence, and neglect of verbal abuse are issues that need attention. I will simply pray that your eyes open to these facts. If you want to read more about parental alienation, Wikipedia has a nice article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_alienation We need a task force to investigate how courts deal with divorce and find a way to take divorce out of courts which are inherently promoting adversarial actions (conflict). Divorce should be done in a mediated and rational fashion, reducing emotion, recognizing both verbal and physical abuse and considering the wishes and needs of the child as well as the mental health of BOTH parents.
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Linda Shelton
February 25, 2013 at 11:28 am
Social Security Title IV-D
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Chris
May 30, 2014 at 11:50 am