Many of you may be familiar with ThePsychoExWife.com. The blog has been a resource to many finding themselves in a custody battle with a combative and likely mentally ill ex-spouse or significant other. While some of you, like me, may have qualms about the term used to describe PEW in public (even if it's befitting after reading their story), the judge in their custody case has dictated that not only does the website need to be taken down, but the father can no longer talk about his children at all in any "public media" unless it's "to wish them happy birthday or about a significant school event." The entire ruling can be read here.
This judge's decision is a violation of the father's First Amendment rights, and it could have a chilling effect on blogs such as mine, online support groups for divorcing dads and stepmoms, and other key resources for the equal parenting movement. Please take some time today to visit Save ThePsychoExWife.com to find out more and learn what you can do to help.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
Father's Day and the Ode to Stepfathers
Hello faithful Belles! I apologize that I've been MIA for a while; it has been a busy few weeks at Tara. But not to worry, I have plenty to report from the Step/Mom Twilight Zone.
You may recall in my last post how I lamented my experience of walking through the store aisles to find nary a stepmother card for Mother's Day. So you might imagine my surprise to find myself in the card aisles a few weeks before Father's Day to find not one Father's Day card for stepfathers, but an assortment of cards. And not just an assortment of cards but an entire popped-out subsection for stepfathers.
I almost had a fainting spell right there on aisle 16 of Wal-Mart.
Let me again reemphasize that I have no issue with people praising the virtues and hard work of stepfathers. My own Ashley was once a stepfather, and I know he did a phenomenal job as one. Yes, stepparents should be honored for their contributions to children's lives.
So WHY can't the same be done for stepmothers?
To make matters worse, my Facebook newsfeed read like a feminist, anti-dad rant on Father's Day. Deadbeat dads blah blah blah, happy father's day to all the REAL daddies, blah blah blah........do you ever see any of this on Mother's Day? I'll answer that for you....no. On Mother's Day, it is a love fest over the beauties of motherhood, the sacred womb that bore you into this world and the never ending sacrifices these tireless women make.
Of course I'm not anti-mom. There are many wonderful, amazing mothers who do an outstanding job as a parent. I agree that motherhood is an extremely challenging undertaking for any woman.
But, there are many not-so-great mothers out there. There are women who abuse drugs, who abuse their children, who walk out one day and never come back. There are women who are so filled with hate toward their children's fathers that they do everything in their power to destroy that sacred bond between the children and their father, a scary phenomenon called parental alienation that I will go into further detail about in another post.
But you rarely, if ever, hear about these mothers on Mother's Day. All you hear is the good. So why do we not do the same on Father's Day? And more importantly, is the whole praise and worship of stepfathers on Father's Day because we are truly honoring these men who sacrifice all for children who are not their own, or are we praising these stepfathers because it is a sneaky way to lift up these mother's current partners while spewing hate at these children's fathers?
You may recall in my last post how I lamented my experience of walking through the store aisles to find nary a stepmother card for Mother's Day. So you might imagine my surprise to find myself in the card aisles a few weeks before Father's Day to find not one Father's Day card for stepfathers, but an assortment of cards. And not just an assortment of cards but an entire popped-out subsection for stepfathers.
I almost had a fainting spell right there on aisle 16 of Wal-Mart.
Let me again reemphasize that I have no issue with people praising the virtues and hard work of stepfathers. My own Ashley was once a stepfather, and I know he did a phenomenal job as one. Yes, stepparents should be honored for their contributions to children's lives.
So WHY can't the same be done for stepmothers?
To make matters worse, my Facebook newsfeed read like a feminist, anti-dad rant on Father's Day. Deadbeat dads blah blah blah, happy father's day to all the REAL daddies, blah blah blah........do you ever see any of this on Mother's Day? I'll answer that for you....no. On Mother's Day, it is a love fest over the beauties of motherhood, the sacred womb that bore you into this world and the never ending sacrifices these tireless women make.
Of course I'm not anti-mom. There are many wonderful, amazing mothers who do an outstanding job as a parent. I agree that motherhood is an extremely challenging undertaking for any woman.
But, there are many not-so-great mothers out there. There are women who abuse drugs, who abuse their children, who walk out one day and never come back. There are women who are so filled with hate toward their children's fathers that they do everything in their power to destroy that sacred bond between the children and their father, a scary phenomenon called parental alienation that I will go into further detail about in another post.
But you rarely, if ever, hear about these mothers on Mother's Day. All you hear is the good. So why do we not do the same on Father's Day? And more importantly, is the whole praise and worship of stepfathers on Father's Day because we are truly honoring these men who sacrifice all for children who are not their own, or are we praising these stepfathers because it is a sneaky way to lift up these mother's current partners while spewing hate at these children's fathers?
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