The Australian "custody sisters"

[WildCat]

What I see is people witnessing histrionic displays of emotion and having their critical thinking overwhelmed by their own emotional reaction to that display. I'd be willing to bet that most of those who oppose the children's return to their father don't actually have children themselves and have very little contact with children outside of short stints of babysitting for a niece or nephew.

I don't even have children, I just saw how ugly divorces affected my friends while growing up. And none of them were taken to a foreign country for over 2 years by one parent and denied visitation with the other.

I'm just flabbergasted that people side with the mother, particularly given what Australia's own courts found.

So the girls threw a temper tantrum at the airport, boo hoo. They'll get over it, and the father gets a chance to mend the wounds. The kids will be fine, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if they decide they want to stay in Italy after all when all is said and done.

 

[ehcks]

I've already answered that question in this thread.

ETA - although we do not know that the mother did this "by force" do we? Did she drag them kicking and screaming away from him, as has been done to her? In any case, I DID answer the question when put to me. Nobody seems willing to answer the converse. I even asked first, too.

You answered it by questioning if that's what actually happened, even though that it happened is one of the few facts we have.

 

[TragicMonkey]

You can not absolve kidnapping by treating your hostages nicely.

Absolution? Are you sure this isn't being treated as a religious matter?

If you love someone, laws do not matter to you. I'd break the law for my mom. I'd lie, cheat, steal, murder, and genocide for her.

 

[WildCat]

Really? Your certain the kids were unhappy with their mother? I think people here want very much for the kids to have been unhappy with their mother because she's the villain. But life isn't Disney. You can be happy with bad people and unhappy with good. Thats why I would let the kids decide rather than rule on the merits of which parent followed the rules the most.

Like Ma Barker and her boys, that was one happy close-knit family. And that's good.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I don't understand why people blame the mother for using the kids as pawns but assume the father isn't doing the same thing. She just grabbed them first. Does that automatically mean he's only capable of unselfish love, and she's incapable of it? Maybe they're both jerks, but she was just faster out the starting gate.

 

[joesixpack]

I don't assert that it must be the best course of action, just as I do not assert that it must not be the best course of action. I assert that it might be.

And I ask you very simply - what will you say if, in the fullness of time, it turns out that ripping these children away from their mother by force was the wrong thing to do? What if it turns out that they have been horribly traumatised, and will now live out a life of abject misery until they are of age and can escape?

You seem dead set on not answering that question, for some reason.

I'm dead set on not answering exceptionally stupid questions, but I'll answer it for you if you insist. If it later comes to pass that in a couple of years the older girls express anger about being reunited with their father I'll think that one of two things is the reason, the first being that the mother was too stupid to take her chances with the Italian legal system and demonstrate the father's unfitness as a parent OR that two years of constant vilification of the father has resulted in alienating the daughters from a father who's only crime was to insist that the law be obeyed and who's only mistake was to have children with a woman who would do such a thing. It's unfathomable why anyone would defend the actions of a woman who would do something lie this to her children. The fact that people here are incapable of seeing kidnapping and parental alienation as a crime against the children demonstrates a total lack of critical thought.

No. But then some kids cry and beg and plead when they're being sexually abused too, does that mean their abuser should just ignore it and carry on?

I must have missed the part where it was demonstrated that the father was sexually abusing the children. Please post a link and I'll eat my words

That's nice. My question was, what if this is not one of those times?

Please demonstrate for me that it isn't.

 

[Seismosaurus]

You answered it by questioning if that's what actually happened, even though that it happened is one of the few facts we have.

No, I didn't.

What I said is that it would be a very sad thing. To elaborate, I'd want to know how it happened, and why, and what could be done to stop it from happening again.

And I note, yet another person who flatly refuses to answer the question. I've asked it quite a few times now.

 

[WildCat]

And I ask you very simply - what will you say if, in the fullness of time, it turns out that ripping these children away from their mother by force was the wrong thing to do?

And what would you say, in the fullness of time, the kids had been left with mama and it turns out that was the wrong thing to do?

See how speculation works? Anyone can do it. That's why no one is answering your question, you'll have to first demonstrate that there's any evidence at all that they're better off with their mother. Indeed, the Australian courts had nothing good to say about mama. And we know nothing at all about the father.

So if you have some special insight into this case that the courts in either country haven't heard you should share it, otherwise your purely speculative question can be dismissed for the evidence-free speculation it is.

 

[joesixpack]

I don't understand why people blame the mother for using the kids as pawns but assume the father isn't doing the same thing. She just grabbed them first. Does that automatically mean he's only capable of unselfish love, and she's incapable of it? Maybe they're both jerks, but she was just faster out the starting gate.

Maybe but probably not. One of the parents committed a crime, the other did not. Until I see evidence to the contrary I'll have to assume that only one of them has demonstrated any fitness as a parent.

 

[ehcks]

Absolution? Are you sure this isn't being treated as a religious matter?

If you love someone, laws do not matter to you. I'd break the law for my mom. I'd lie, cheat, steal, murder, and genocide for her.

Absolve was a better word for "make of for," and as for to whom, I mean me.

Perhaps I don't make the same kinds of personal relationships you do, or other people in general. I've always been able to simply forget and not care about people I move away from. I don't get friends that last beyond the close proximity forced upon me by coincidence. I don't even think about my father very much, because he lives in another state. I even like the guy, when I'm visiting. Perhaps I should see a psychiatrist about this.

But as for now, I get a nice outside view. I don't care about the people. I see two legal guardians of multiple minors. They were given legal joint custody after their divorce, as they waited for their custody court case. One of them decided to skip that and kidnap the kids and indoctrinate them against the other guardian. The other wants to solve this by law.

Because I don't give any weight to their non-legal circumstances, all I see is that one broke the law and thus should lose custody; unless they can prove the other parent was actually abusive. In court. Where this should have all ended two years ago.

 

[Matthew Best]

So the girls threw a temper tantrum at the airport, boo hoo. They'll get over it, and the father gets a chance to mend the wounds.

Or re-open them, of course.

 

[WildCat]

I don't understand why people blame the mother for using the kids as pawns but assume the father isn't doing the same thing. She just grabbed them first. Does that automatically mean he's only capable of unselfish love, and she's incapable of it? Maybe they're both jerks, but she was just faster out the starting gate.

So you're now claiming it was a pre-emptive kidnapping?

Evidence? Of course you don't have any, you're just making [feces] up now because you have no actual argument.

 

[joesixpack]

I'm just flabbergasted that people side with the mother, particularly given what Australia's own courts found.

It defies comprehension that anyone would support leaving the children with the mother in light of what the Australian court found in their decision.

ETA; From katy-did's quote of the ruling judge's decision;

The very public nature of the campaign has been very disturbing. I am satisfied that they have definitely not been shielded from the dispute and have clearly, I find, been significantly influenced in their views and their conduct by their mother and other members of her family. Examples of extremely inappropriate and sometimes bizarre things said to and in the presence of the children can be found in statements made by the maternal great-grandmother that were recorded by police in the immediate aftermath of the children being found after being hidden by her. Unashamedly, she was recorded saying to one of the children “How exciting. Who’s going to play you in the movie? They will have to find a good little dark-haired actress to play you when they make the movie.” She also said to the police, in the presence of the children, “everyone is on their side except their father .......He doesn’t love them. He just owns them. They’re chattels.” She then went on to say “... because he is a liar – please tell me you’re not Italian – because he is a liar, and all Italians are bloody liars...”.

The fact that the youngest child could go from stating in May last year that she wanted to go home to Italy to her home in the Tuscan countryside to now asserting that “Italy’s a scary place. I don’t feel comfortable” and writing that she would stab herself if she was sent back to Italy, when she has not been back to Italy in the meantime, causes me to conclude that she has probably been subjected to considerable influence by persons close to her. That could have been her mother, or her older sisters, or other members of her extended maternal family. It does not really matter who. Having regard to the sorts of things the maternal great-grandmother was saying to and in the presence of the children, even in the company of police, I am satisfied that little restraint in respect of these matters is likely to have been demonstrated around these children and that this has impacted upon them in significant ways.

 

[WildCat]

Or re-open them, of course.

The mother is the only parent we know for certain opened wounds.

 

[ehcks]

No, I didn't.

I'd feel awful. IF that is what has happened here. Which we don't know.

So. About that thing you didn't do.

 

[joesixpack]

Can someone explain to me why kidnapping and alienating a child from one of his/her parents is NOT child abuse?

 

[Dr. Keith]

Can someone explain to me why kidnapping and alienating a child from one of his/her parents is NOT child abuse?

She really loved them and they cried when they were taken away? That seems to be the sum total.

 

[Dr. Keith]

I don't understand why people blame the mother for using the kids as pawns but assume the father isn't doing the same thing. She just grabbed them first. Does that automatically mean he's only capable of unselfish love, and she's incapable of it? Maybe they're both jerks, but she was just faster out the starting gate.

One has actually done it while the other hasn't. At least not yet.

We try to treat people according to their actions, usually.

 

[WildCat]

Can someone explain to me why kidnapping and alienating a child from one of his/her parents is NOT child abuse?

I doubt you'll get a rational answer, hell one of the mother's supporters here would even justify her committing genocide to keep the father from seeing his kids.

 

[joesixpack]

She really loved them and they cried when they were taken away? That seems to be the sum total.

No, if she really loved them she would not have poisoned them against their father. I know you're playing devils advocate here but I can't let that claim go by even when meant sarcastically.

In the state of Washington (and I assume most other states), badmouthing the other parent is illegal, and for good reason. It is abusive to the child. Any parent who does it is placing their own anger above the emotional needs of their child.