The Australian "custody sisters"

[TragicMonkey]

Well ehcks, TragicMonkey also said this:




Seems to be fairly representative of the ethics of the pro Mother side.

Even more ridiculous. I'm hardly representative of any factions views. I recognize that my ethics are rather atypical in this culture. I find it amusing that I can be used to demonize an entire side in a debate.

 

[Matthew Best]

So we should just assume that he has, that the mother acted heroically, and return the kids to Australia? Is this how critical thinking looks to you?

No, but that is how a straw man looks to me.

 

[Matthew Best]

So, we should asume the father broke the law even though it appears that he has done everything within the law and even the mother has not accused him of breaking the law? Nice.

There seems to be a danger of a fire around here with all this straw building up.

 

[TragicMonkey]

What such trouble? That kidnapping your own children is illegal and gets the police after you? No one has actually shown that there was a reason for the kidnapping. No one has shown any evidence of a bad father, or any other reason why the kids would need to be illegally removed from him.

Also, murder would have gotten the kids taken away by the Australian DCP just about instantly. Not after two years.

I meant the custody dispute. If she had murdered him before the separation there would never have been a custody dispute, and hence no kidnapping. And I presumed she would have been clever enough to vet away with it, were she calculating enough to have thought of it in the first place. But obviously she didn't so there's no need to talk about it. I'm heartily sorry I ever made what I thought was an offhand remark. I didn't guess everyone would be so upright about murder.

 

[timhau]

I just care less about law, developmental psychology, and peoples opinions on childrearing than I do about letting people chose their own path to happiness.

The only one who got to make that choice here was the mother.

 

[damoe]

I find it amusing that I can be used to demonize an entire side in a debate.

You are explicitly saying that love can justify criminal behavior. Many here are implicitly saying this in excusing the mother's behavior. It might amuse you, but its true.

 

[Matthew Best]

I didn't guess everyone would be so upright about murder.

Yeah, who could have predicted that?

 

[TragicMonkey]

The only one who got to make that choice here was the mother.

That was the case, yes. Now, however, the choice can be offered to the children. The fact that the mother got her way before doesn't, to me, mean that the father should automatically get his way now, to balance it out.

 

[ehcks]

I meant the custody dispute. If she had murdered him before the separation there would never have been a custody dispute, and hence no kidnapping.

Well, sure, in that she gets no custody and gets to live in prison for a long time.

And I presumed she would have been clever enough to vet away with it, were she calculating enough to have thought of it in the first place.

Yeah, ok. The Power of Love will protect her from the law and its investigators after she kills her husband and kidnaps her kids simply to avoid a custody case. I thought someone said this world wasn't Disney.

 

[ehcks]

That was the case, yes. Now, however, the choice can be offered to the children. The fact that the mother got her way before doesn't, to me, mean that the father should automatically get his way now, to balance it out.

Of course not, that's what the custody court case is for.

Though kidnapping and alienating the kids from the other parent will probably reduce her chance of gaining custody.

 

[TragicMonkey]

You are explicitly saying that love can justify criminal behavior. Many here are implicitly saying this in excusing the mother's behavior. It might amuse you, but its true.

I never said a thing like it. I don't believe in justification. I will do what I feel best, and I don't see the need to excuse it to others. I'm fully capable of recognizing right from wrong, and choosing either without asserting that wrong us right if I chose it.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Well, sure, in that she gets no custody and gets to live in prison for a long time.



Yeah, ok. The Power of Love will protect her from the law and its investigators after she kills her husband and kidnaps her kids simply to avoid a custody case. I thought someone said this world wasn't Disney.

Yeah, because I'm so full of sentiment. Do you really think nobody's ever gotten away with murder?

 

[joesixpack]

I just care less about law, developmental psychology, and peoples opinions on childrearing than I do about letting people chose their own path to happiness. You may call me evil and ignorant if you like, but fortunately I'm not in a position that I'm required to win approval from you.

As for murder, I never said she should have, merely that it may have been wiser if she had. If you can't see the difference between considering a possibility and advocating it, then perhaps you should stay out of philosophical discussions.

How exactly is going to prison and killing the remaining parent in the child's best interest?

Would the children have chose to have a dead father? As you have said, you have no ethics (other than the obvious one of allowing teen aged girls to chose what parent they wish to live with, which is actually an ethical choice on your part) so why do you care what happens here? Did you just want to stop the girls from crying. Is your position based on anything other than your unformed idealist musings?

I think not.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Of course not, that's what the custody court case is for.

Though kidnapping and alienating the kids from the other parent will probably reduce her chance of gaining custody.

Agreed. She's not been very smart about this.

 

[joesixpack]

There seems to be a danger of a fire around here with all this straw building up.

Well I can tell you one thing we won't have to worry about, there's really no danger of you presenting a coherent and principled opinion, just sniping from the sidelines.

 

[TragicMonkey]

How exactly is going to prison and killing the remaining parent in the child's best interest?

Would the children have chose to have a dead father? As you have said, you have no ethics (other than the obvious one of allowing teen aged girls to chose what parent they wish to live with, which is actually an ethical choice on your part) so why do you care what happens here? Did you just want to stop the girls from crying. Is your position based on anything other than your unformed idealist musings?

I think not.

I think you make a number of assumptions here. That murder is always found out, that there can only be two platforms for decisions, legal vs "emotional", that my position is otherwise than I've repeatedly stated, that my beliefs must necessarily entail added on cultural baggage that they don't simply because you can't imagine someone thinking differently than yourself.

But I can see this is pointless, I cannot explain my position better than I already have, and too many people are now invested in attacking my ethics (which I cannot explain to a completely hostile and, I fear, very hidebound traditional audience) rather than my position. Which is bring constantly mischaracterized.

 

[ponderingturtle]

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.

You love your strawmen a lot I can tell. If the father was like this why is he not taking advantage of the felonies she committed and getting her locked up as she deserves?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

So you're only concerned because the girls cried at the airport. The facts in the case be damned, you just don't like seeing kids cry.

Can you give me some rationale other than their tears why they should be left with a demonstrably unfit parent?

To say "the girls cried at the airport" grotesquely understates the trauma they experienced. By trivializing what happened to them, by comparing it to children who cry when they don't get ice cream, you reveal more about yourself than you may realize. Indeed, your comments throughout this thread are telling. I can see that you are wound up, all but choking with rage, and it's not pretty.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

The court's written judgment setting out the reasons for returning the kids to Italy is online here. An interesting read - the judge is very critical both of the public campaign waged by the mother's family, and of the way he believes their views have influenced the children:

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.

Interesting.

So much of the discussion here, as well as the court's decision, is framed around a perception of the mother. She's a kidnapper, she's a villain, etc., so anything done to wrest her children away is by definition in their best interest.

I don't accept that glib syllogism. I'm quite willing to consider that the mother and her family may have handled this situation badly. But the way to counter that is not to pour gasoline on the fire, unleashing the police with instructions to use whatever force is necessary. We might see that as the administration of the law. For the kids, it was a physical assault and a vivid confirmation of their worst fears. If the mother indoctrinated the kids, the police ended up validating the doctrine: fear your father, fear his power to control your lives, fear the agents who do his bidding.

It cannot have been the only option available. If the court felt that the mother and her family had used the powers of persuasion to manipulate the kids, perhaps they should have made a civilized effort at counter-persuasion. Perhaps this father could have flown to Australia to re-unite with his children in a mediated environment where everyone felt safe.

Almost anything would have been better than what they ended up doing.

 

[smartcooky]

I don't see where all this BS about her being an unfit mother comes from when we don''t even know either the family or personal circumstances of these people.

Scenario:
Two separate families have similar circumstances; the parents are separated and the father has custody of all the daughters. Recently, the oldest daughters in each family have finally confided to their mothers that her fathers been sexually abusing them for many years, and are now turning their interests towards the next oldest daughters.

In Family "A" both the mother and the oldest daughter are afraid that the pattern will continue with the younger daughter, so they formulate a and execute a plan to get all the daughters away from the father and to safety in another country.

In Family "B". the mother tells the daughter she is a liar, and she carries on in denial of what she can see has been happening right in front of her for many years.

Who's the unfit mother now, A or B?

Now I'm not saying that this is what is happening with THIS family, but it is one of a number of possible scenarios that fits the picture, especially with the two oldest daughters being the most upset about having to go back to their father.