This is why I care...

Today I read about a friend's custody fight that ended in a miserable lack of anything closely resembling justice and realized that my years of sedentary standing by were done.  I've had enough.  I've been saying for years...actually for the past seven years...that I was going to figure out a way to get my voice heard and maybe...possibly...someday...be a catalyst for real changes in the family court system. 

I'm a writer...I'm a blogger.  I feel like I can express myself best via the written word.  And there just isn't enough places for father's to tell their painful stories of being legally pushed out of their children's lives.

And so I started Your Father's Fight.  I called it that so that if ever a child or product of divorce were to happen upon this website they might wonder if their own absent father didn't try this hard to find them, see them, parent them, nurture them, love them.  They might wonder what kind of legal system would advocate an absent father in the life of a child.

I am not an advocate of "dead beat dads."  I am not an advocate of abusers...emotional, physical or otherwise.  I am not here to tell mothers they should give up their children.  What I am here to say is that a child has a right to both parents...and both parents have a right to love and spend time with and share in the life of that child.

My qualifications to speak out on this are simply that I am a child product of divorce.  I have a brother and five sisters and all of them are also products or children of divorce.  I have three parents.  I have a mother and a stepfather and a father.  And I'm finally at a point in my life where I'm not angry, harboring resentment or feeling guilty about loving each and every one of them. 

I am a wife.  More specifically, I am a second wife to a man who was married to someone else for 13 years. 

I am a mother.  I have a beautiful little girl who has enriched my life in ways I never imagined.

I am a stepmother.

I have a stepdaughter who lives with me and her father.  I have two additional stepchildren who live with their mother.  I have personally written the checks out that resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and court costs to help my husband fight for his right to see his children.

I have been called every name in the book by the ex-wife.  I have had my stepchildren call me every name in the book courtesy of the ex-wife.  I now enjoy a truce...and mostly peaceful existence with this same ex-wife.

I have watched my husband sob out his heartache at the court rulings that refuse to give him access to his children and demand that he pay more child support while simultaneously taking away visitation.

I have watched his children bound into his arms during visitation and sob out their heartache that they can't see him more often and I have seen these same children refuse to visit him on the few days per month the courts ruled were sufficient for him because now, suddenly, they are supposed to be afraid of their father.

I have been investigated (as has my husband) by child protective services based on lies and false accusations.  And I have had child protective services clear our records with a shake of their head and a muttered, "So many children who are really in trouble.  Why am I the lackey for bitter exes?"

I have an enormous network of friends...men and women...who have had similar experiences and who all agree that something should be done...but all feel powerless to actually do anything about it.

This is a blog that I hope opens the minds of people worldwide to stop and think about the real victims of the current flow of family court bias...  It's not the mother, and it's not the father...it's ALWAYS the child.