UPDATES IN MICHIGAN FAMILY LAW

Two-Parent Adoptions | Couple Challenges Michigan Law

A lesbian couple from Oakland County urged a federal judge Wednesday, August 29th, to allow them to jointly adopt three children despite a Michigan law that prevents unmarried couples from doing so. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette filed a motion to dismiss the suit because Michigan does not allow unmarried people to jointly adopt children.

 U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman delayed his ruling by 10 days, suggesting that the couple amend their lawsuit to launch a frontal assault on the legal barrier that prevents them from jointly adopting -- Michigan's constitutional amendment that prohibits same-sex couples from marrying.

The parents involved are April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse.  DeBoer is a neonatal nurse and Rowse is an emergency room nurse. They have been together for 10 years. Rowse adopted two boys who were abandoned by their mothers, and DeBoer adopted a girl whose mother surrendered her.

Court Battle over Twitter Subpoena

First they came for the email account content, then the Facebook content, and now lawyers are after Twitter content. The question becomes "Who owns the Tweets?" Although this case doesn't involve family law issues, the prospect remains that the decision could impact family law cases.

Twitter says that its users own their tweets, and all that personal information. The court says Twitter does, and should hand them over when subpoenaed. This week Twitter has filed an appeal to New York Supreme Court, the second time it's filed a motion in this case.

Bottom line: Twitter says that it makes it clear in its terms of services that users own their content and they have "a right to fight invalid government requests," i.e. subpoenas.

HPV Education | Michelle Whitlock Advocates for Protection

Today I re-discovered a powerful advocate for protection of our children against HPV. As my long-time readers know, I have written extensively about HPV, its prevalence, and how parents can protect their children.

Michelle Whitlock is the author of the recently published book How I Lost My Uterus and Found My Voice.

Michelle is a motivated activist for one of the biggest challenges to parents and their beloved children. I wrote about her in 2008 in this post: HPV | Changing teenagers' futures in a heartbeat
Michelle unknowingly contracted one of the strains of HPV that causes cervical cancer. Surgery for the cancer was not successful, and Michelle was informed that she would need a hysterectomy. She took a proactive stance and consulted with doctors who harvested some of her eggs. Today, she and her husband are the lucky parents of a child born by surrogacy. Michelle's new book tells her story and also educates young women and men about the danger of HPV and how to avoid contracting it.

Other posts on this blog about HPV, the issues, the need for education of teenagers and their parents may be found here.

See an interview with Michelle below.

 

Walking on Eggshells? Divorcing a Narcissist

Going through a divorce? Married or cohabiting and miserable? Or are you a family lawyer whose client, during the divorce process, is walking on eggshells, just trying to keep the equilbrium . . . trying to manage . . . trying to avoid emotional, psychological and financial abuse that is so harmful to himself or herself or the children?

Here's a link to an interesting test to determine how bad things really are. It's a short online test that takes about 3 to 5 minutes to complete. It may provide the impetus for you (or for your client) to get some counseling to begin to develop some techniques and coping skills to help her (usually, but not always her) deal with a narcissist. Walking on Eggshells

Kids, Cars, Heatstroke & Death | A Warning for Parents

KidsAndCars.org reported last week that in the six-day period from Aug. 2 to 7 eight children from 5 months to 4 years old died of heat stroke in vehicles in four states: Arkansas, Tennessee, Florida and New Mexico.

Janette Fennell, president of KidsAndCars.org, a national nonprofit child safety organization working to prevent injuries and deaths of children in and around motor vehicles, spoke Wednesday, Aug. 22, at a press conference sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo.  The event focused on programs to prevent child heatstroke deaths and injuries in hot cars and to urge parents and caregivers to think, "Where's baby? Look before you lock."

Just Wait Until Your Mother Gets Home!

That dreaded threat: "Just wait until your dad gets home" is different in many American households today, as recognized by a cover on the New Yorker Magazine May 12, 2012, [See left, click on link to access archives of the New Yorker] The statistics are really interesting.

According to Alex Williams, writing for the New York Times, in the last decade the number of men who have left the work force entirely to raise children has more than doubled, to 176,000. His information source is recent United States census data. Williams says that when one includes men who maintain freelance or part-time jobs but serve as the primary caretaker of children under 15 while their wife works, there are around 626,000 acting as the primary caretakers of children. You can access the Census reports here.

Just Wait Until Your Mother Gets Home, Aug. 10, 2012, New York Times, by Alex Williams may be read here.

Screening Prospective Adoptive, Foster, And Kinship Placements | Standard of Care

In a recently published law review article, Professor Daniel Pollack explains the need for more clear standards regarding risk assessment and careful screening of prospective adoptive, foster and kinship placements for children to avoid some of the tragedies that have occurred.

Professor Pollack states:

"The lack of a clear legal “standard of care” for the evaluation and screening of prospective adoptive, foster, and kinship applicants directly undermines the child placement process, the physical and emotional development of children placed in adoptive and foster homes, and the adjudication of legal issues arising when children are harmed. Often, it is only when a lawsuit is filed that society is forced to take a hard look at its legal expectations, and it is then compelled to acknowledge that there may be a very real distinction between child welfare’s “best practice” standard and the legal standard of care.

Cell Phones | Lost & Found

A friend called the other day, sad that she'd lost her cell phone. That reminded me of an entertaining blog post in the NY Times last week: Where Is David Pogue’s iPhone?  Pogue lost his iPhone on an Amtrack train. Demonstrating the power of social media, David sent out a Tweet. Demonstrating that New Yorkers do sometimes engage in random acts of kindness, lo and behold, a massive Twitter campaign located David Pogue's iPhone.

Today, David Pogue explains how to set up your iPhone (mind you, you've encrypted it so that no one can read your data), so that you can actually find it. All you need is a free iCloud account and some techie capability. You may read How to Make Your Lost Phone Findable online at the New York Times.

Reporting Child Abuse and Neglect | Persons Who are Required to Report

One of the most discouraging part of a family practice is to see how often a parent will call protective services or do something that precipitates a call to protective services simply to try to get an advantage in a child custody dispute. I often see this behavior during child custody proceedings or when a parent is trying to relocate to another community or state.

What many parents do not seem to realize is this: protective services is wise to you. If there is a pending child custody dispute, a complaint by one parent that the other parent is "sexually molesting" a child will be regarded with scepticism. But what is a parent to do when he or she suspects that something really damaging is happening to a child? How can a parent encourage a protective services worker to take seriously a complaint?