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My understanding of it is that the main reason the judge gave in her decision is that the mother has cancer and the judge cannot determine how long the mother will live...
...so she has assigned the children to the father despite the evidence that the father is abusive and despite that the children have barely seen the father in a number of years. (And even despite that the children do not want to live with their father).
As PP stated, none of us knows how long we have to live.
As far as the governor, I am not sure...isn't there some kind of power in the executive branch?
The governor can't overturn a decision of a judge. He could ask CPS to look into it...but doubtful he would because that would set a bad precedent. The fact is we don't know the guy is abusive....they had a nasty divorce and for all we know she is just as at fault and a bit of a ***** as well.
This case is also local to me, but I have seen no local news coverage about it. I find that odd.
Regarding the abuse, there are multiple documented calls to domestic abuse hotlines over the last year of their marriage. I agree that we don't have both sides of the story though.
If this father wants to see his children and be in their lives, that's great. But he should move back to Durham to be with them, not expect them to uproot their entire lives and leave their mother, who has been their primary caregiver their whole lives, to move to Chicago with him after they've barely seen him for years. The mother needs to continue her medical treatment at Duke Cancer Center, which is keeping her cancer stable. Children should not be removed from her custody simply because she has cancer. Her cancer is stable at this time, and none of us knows when we are going to die.
You guys should look a little deeper into the case and get some more perspectives before running off to sign a petition. The two separated around 17 months ago and only recently completed the divorce proceedings. During that time the father still lived in Durham and only recently within the past eight months left to take a solid job with Sear's Holding in Chicago. He and the kids have had limited, but routine contact since then. Prior to his moving he was always present in his children's lives.
He decided to file for sole custody as he believes that with the mothers terminal illness and lack of employment he can provide a better life for them in Chicago. Only after he filed his petition did she respond with allegations of abuse. While there were calls for police to respond to their home for domestic disputes prior to their separation there were never any charges filed and the disputes did not involve the children.
The judge is required to weigh the pros and cons of both sides before awarding primary custody. In this case, the fact the mother has a terminal illness and is also unemployed weighed heavily on the decision as to what is in the best interests of the child. The judge relied upon existing legal precedent as well as phychiatric opinion as to which parent could provide the children the most normal and stable life. Sorry, but keeping the kids in the sole custody of their terminally ill, unemployed mother is not necessarily in their best interest.
The judge considered the fact that according to "expert" opinion children dealing with a terminally ill parent, need contact with the healthy parent to promote "normalcy". The father succesfully argued that he cannot reasonably move to Durham and easily find comparable employment, hurting his ability to support his children. He actually moved to Chicago, because he was also unemployed for a time period and it was the best offer he received. The mother argued that she cannot move to Chicago, which the judge suggested, as she cannot leave her treatment team. The judge sided on giving custody to the parent that can provide the most normal existence, on the additional pretext that when the mother does succumb to the cancer, the children will barely know their father with whom they currently have a close relationship.
Following the ruling, the mother went to the internet to rally support and easily found it among the various breat cancer groups, who rallied on nothing other than the fact that she is someone who has terminal breast cancer and they are taking her kids away. Going so far as to rail against the judge for not having children and not being married.
Suffice to say, I will not sign the petition as I do think the judge made the right choice no matter how difficult it must have been. I have no problem with anyone else who chooses to do it, but please look into things before blindly signing them.
NJGoat: A little credit, please, lol! We're a pretty smart group here. I know I did my own research. Sorry, but I get REAL itchy when someone (especially the government) starts deciding that parenting capabilities are determined by the health of the parent. That's a very slippery road.
First, if you don't want to sign the petition, then don't. You all are welcome to make up your own minds.
However, the woman is not currently "terminally" ill. Her cancer is being managed. If you think about it, we are ALL "terminally ill".
And since when does the unemployed part come into the equation? It is called being a stay-at-home parent. Geez, I have been "unemployed" for 9 years. And if all the parents in this country who were unemployed lost custody of their children, that would be a very large percentage indeed. Financial matters should not be a deciding factor in to who can provide the better life for the child.
Besides, since the father is it work all day, who is there to pick the children up from school? What happens to them when the children are sick and the father is out of vacation or sick days? What happens when there is a snow day and he still has to go to work? Who takes care of the kids then?
To say that the mother's input is less worthwhile because she does not work outside of the home devalues all the time and attention she lavished on the children.
Both her cancer diagnosis and her "unemployment" (SAHM) predate the divorce. She is the primary caregiver of these children and always has been. The father moved away to a different city 10 months ago, and before that he lived in another city for another 4 months. He is the one who chose to move away from his children. The children have a stable life in Durham with a large support network of friends here. The mother is treated at Duke Cancer Center and her cancer is currently stable. I just don't agree with a ruling that the children should be taken from their mother primarily because of her cancer diagnosis. The father should come back to Durham and get to know his children, not uproot them. It's the right way to do it.
NJGoat: A little credit, please, lol! We're a pretty smart group here. I know I did my own research. Sorry, but I get REAL itchy when someone (especially the government) starts deciding that parenting capabilities are determined by the health of the parent. That's a very slippery road.
I know, there are many people in this forum that I enjoy having conversations with and find many posters to be very intelligent even though we may not always agree, I did not mean to offend with my statement.
I was more or less replying to some posters who quickly jumped on the bandwagon calling the dad an abuser and a deadbeat, which really doesn't seem to be the case. As a dad I guess it touches a nerve with me as like it or not, men's rights in regards to their children are often seen as secondary.
As for the decision, the judge affirmed and many lawyers supported her position as reported in pieces in the NY Times, that the health of the parent as well their ability to support their family financially are two of the primary factors in determining custody. This is not the first case where a parents helath negatively impacted their ability to gain full custody, it's just been noticed because of the social media attention paid to it.
First, if you don't want to sign the petition, then don't. You all are welcome to make up your own minds.
However, the woman is not currently "terminally" ill. Her cancer is being managed. If you think about it, we are ALL "terminally ill".
And since when does the unemployed part come into the equation? It is called being a stay-at-home parent. Geez, I have been "unemployed" for 9 years. And if all the parents in this country who were unemployed lost custody of their children, that would be a very large percentage indeed. Financial matters should not be a deciding factor in to who can provide the better life for the child.
Besides, since the father is it work all day, who is there to pick the children up from school? What happens to them when the children are sick and the father is out of vacation or sick days? What happens when there is a snow day and he still has to go to work? Who takes care of the kids then?
To say that the mother's input is less worthwhile because she does not work outside of the home devalues all the time and attention she lavished on the children.
We all may be terminally ill in the sense we can die at any time, but not all of us are undergoing continual treatment for an aggressive cancer that has already metasticized to our bones. As for the employment situation, that is always a factor in these decisions as it directly impacts a persons ability to support the children. Many SAHM's who get divorced find themselves forced to return to work in order to provide. Like it or not, the ability to financially provide weighs heavily on the courts decisions as part of their goal is keeping people off reliance on public assistance in these matters.
The answer to the last part would be daycare or an inhome childcare provider. Services that are utilized by the majority of people with young children when parents have to work.
Both her cancer diagnosis and her "unemployment" (SAHM) predate the divorce. She is the primary caregiver of these children and always has been. The father moved away to a different city 10 months ago, and before that he lived in another city for another 4 months. He is the one who chose to move away from his children. The children have a stable life in Durham with a large support network of friends here. The mother is treated at Duke Cancer Center and her cancer is currently stable. I just don't agree with a ruling that the children should be taken from their mother primarily because of her cancer diagnosis. The father should come back to Durham and get to know his children, not uproot them. It's the right way to do it.
I agree with that to an extent and it is probably the one controversial piece of the ruling. The judge determined that both parties should be in their children's lives in part because of psychologist opinions that the children needed the healthy parent in their life, arguably moreso than they needed the ill one to retain "normalcy". Ideally they would live in the same area, however, they do not.
The judge then had to weigh the choice of which parent faced the greater burden on moving. The judge determined that it was far more difficult for the father to find a comparable job in Durham to support the family than it was for the mother to seek care for her cancer at another facility.
Agree or disagree, that was the logic. I can't personally imagine making the choice to do what the father did and move away. Regardless of how much I might hate my ex if I was to divorce, I would still see the importance of her being in her children's lives. Of course, none of us know the real details and the father may also have very valid reasons why he is doing what he is doing.
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