Noonan’s study found that high levels of verbal conflict and the presence of physical conflict between parents were related to the personality function of children, regardless of custody type (joint, sole or intact.) She found that children from families with high verbal and high physical conflict tended to be less alert, less responsible, less motivated, and less likeable. They also had greater learning difficulties, greater defiance, greater tension, and were more withdrawn. The custody types investigated were joint custody (20 families), sole custody (20 families), and intact families (20 families.)

Noonan also found that high levels of discussion conflict had no impact on the children’s personality functioning.

Conflict was measured as reported by the mothers.

Discussion conflict was defined as the use of rational discussion, argument, and reasoning in settling conflicts with the former spouse.

Verbal conflict was defined as the level of parental yelling, insulting, sulking, and stomping out of the room.

Physical conflict measured the presence of parental hitting, pushing, and throwing objects.

Noonan also found there to be a significant difference in activity level of the children in her study in relation to custody type with the sole-custody children being less active than the joint-custody children. She posited the possibility that sole custody children were less active due to depression relating to a substantial absence of one parent from their life.

The Children’s Rights Council will have its’ 1999 National Conference in Washington D.C. from September 22^nd to the 26^th. Topics to be covered at the CRC conference are:

*The Growing Joint Custody Trend

*Mediation and Parent Education

*Parental Alienation Syndrome

*The Effect of Family Structure on Crime, Drugs, and School Performance

*Welfare Reform and its Effect on Children

*Access/Visitation Grants and How to Apply for Funds

Time passed, he became an icon for the fighting of communism, idolized by many as a defender of democracy, god and capitalism. Campaign donations pored in and he easily won re-election. To criticize him was to criticize America itself, he was Mr. America and the ardent communist fighter.

The day came that he had a confrontation with the Secretary of the Army and he began hearings in an attempt to expose communists in the army. He attacked man after man but was running into stiff resistance. The president backed the army. The media was emboldened and began to portray him in negative ways. His plan had backfired, but still he pressed on, making wild accusations. Then an attorney uttered the sentences that broke him:

"Until this moment Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.

Senator Joseph McCarthy was a broken man and would never again play a leading roll in the Senate. He became a constant drunk and would die less than three years later, having never successfully achieved the conviction of even one communist for a crime.

McCarthy’s recipe was simple: make wild accusations of government corruption that will play on peoples’ fears and you become an unassailable defender of America (at least to the part of the population that has the fears.)

The American Coalition for Fathers and Children (ACFC) has a document on its web site (at http://www.acfc.org/study/hrd9239.pdf) that says 66% of mothers who don’t receive the child support ordered them do not receive it because the father is unable to pay the amount ordered.

ACFC reports that "this is the original study – this finding was so "incorrect" that the GAO went back and took this information out of the presently available version of the report."

My curiosity got the better of me and I ordered a copy of the report from GAO last month. When I received it, the line that had said "father unable to pay" read, "father refused to pay."

It just could be that somebody didn’t like the report and decided it had to be changed, it is possible that the GAO did the study, had the report printed, somebody didn’t like it, (perhaps for a political reason) and ordered another printing with the revised wording.

Or, maybe the child-support lobby bribed a high-ranking official at the GAO after seeing the original version and had it reprinted, thus ensuring a continuance of government business for as long as the true facts can be hidden.

Of course, the simple explanation is that an error was made in the first printing and was corrected later.

I have to say that I like much of the message that ACFC stands for but I would like to see them prove what they say before they say it. Wild accusations without merit catch up with you sooner or later and I would like to see ACFC around for a long time with a lot of credibility. Or maybe I should say I would like to see them not needed anymore, but I don’t expect that to happen for a long time yet.

The Herald Palladium published a different story, which appeared in the paper on Super Bowl Sunday. The article was written by Tony Perry of the Los Angeles Times and said the story got started when women’s advocacy groups distorted the findings of a study. According to Mr. Perry the incident occurred just before the 1993 Super Bowl.

The complete story of how this occurred, as well as other exaggerations or outright untruths about domestic violence are outlined in chapter nine of the book Who Stole Feminism? by Christina Hoff Sommers.

It is the Sense of Congress that—

1. for purposes of determining child custody, it is in the best interest of children to have a presumption that children shall have their main physical residence with their primary caretaker parent unless that parent is unfit.

The Senate version (S51) does not contain the same wording.

The divorce reform component of the father’s movement knows that much work is needed to reverse the anti-father policies of the divorce courts. Fathers are slowly coming to be seen as more than anonymous cash donors but much more remains to be done. Too many judges do not yet understand children’s father-hunger. Too many judges do not hear the child’s cry that time with Dad is a higher priority than money from Dad. The divorce reform effort of the fathers movement has accomplished much in its efforts to reduce the barriers placed between father and child by the law’s prejudice and demand for winner-loser dichotomies. Until every child’s physical and emotional needs for the father receive the same respect as the child’s financial needs, the work of divorce reform will continue.

Children are born with two parents. Children want, love, and need two parents. In all but the vanishingly small number of pathological cases, the courts should strive to maximize the involvement of both parents. If distance or other factors prevent a substantially equal relationship with both parents, the preference should go to that parent who shows the greater willingness and ability to cooperate and nurture the other parent's relationship with the child. That's what being a caretaker is all about."

Congressional Testimony of

Ronald K. Henry, Esq.