Michigan Mother and Father are divorced. They have two Boys together, four and six years old.

Father picks Boys up from Mother for timesharing.

The question is: why?

Father puts Boys in the car and meets Father’s brother (Uncle) at a bowling alley with a bar.

Father then allegedly leaves Boys in the car while Father and Uncle bowl and drink … for about two days .. without feeding Boys.

When the Boys are discovered, locked in the car, sometime after midnight, Father is arrested for felony child abuse.

At that time, there are several beer cans in the car, not all empty.

Father reportedly has a criminal history of misdemeanors, including two alcohol-related crimes.

Mother plans to seek to restrict Father’s visitation rights.

Child welfare agency will investigate the incident as well.

Uncle is not charged. Legally, he has no duty to care for Boys.

April is Child Abuse Prevention Awareness month.

Read more in this Jackson [MI] Citizen Patriot article: Dad who left kids in car is arraigned.

Tennessee Mother adopts little Boy from Russia.

Boy is allegedly aggressive and psychopathic and doesn’t bond with Mother and family.

Mother claims severity of Boy’s problems was not disclosed to her by Russians, a common complaint in adoptions out of orphanages and foster care.

Mother puts seven year old Boy, alone, on a plane bound back for Russia.

Russian authorities, not happy, freeze adoptions to US and urge more federal oversight of post-adoption family adjustment.

Americans have adopted some 50,000 children from Russia over the last twenty years. Only a handful have earned the attention of Russian authorities after the children arrived in ths US.

Read more in:

1. this New York Times editorial: A Safe, Loving Home

2. this CBS Evening News article: To Russia, Without Love

3. this New York Times article: Adoption Freeze Urged After Boy Returned to Russia

4. this New York Times article: Russia Calls for Halt on US Adoptions

Many people going through divorce maintain that “it will all be better when the divorce is final”. Perhaps.

But a new study concludes that, on average, it actually takes eighteen months after the divorce is finalized for people to “get over” it and “move on”.

The interim can be very difficult for the newly divorced. For some, the scars and trauma may last forever.

Perhaps surprisingly, the final judgment is met with sadness thirty percent of the time and relief forty-three percent of the time.

Of course, whether you are the spouse who went looking for the divorce or one who got hit with it out of the blue, may affect your recovery time.

This study was sponsored by a website directed to fifty-somethings.

Read more in this Softpedia article: It Takes 17 Months and 26 Days to Get Over Divorce.

In northern Florida, some parents have been traveling to Jacksonville, in another county, to exercise or to facilitate supervised visitation.

Because Nassau County does not currently have a supervised visitation center of its own.

The gas expenses and the travel time make exercising timesharing burdensome for parents of limited means.

As a result, much allowed timesharing is not actually exercised.

So local attorneys are trying to raise the $25,000 that, together with matching funds from the Jacksonville supervised timesharing facility, could fund a local visitation center.

Supervised timesharing might be court-ordered for any number of reasons, including history of:

• domestic abuse and/or child abuse

• substance abuse

• mental illness

• threats of child abduction

Read more in this Nassau County [FL] Record article: New location could link children to parents.

California couple contracts to give four frozen embryos to a Missouri couple.

Missouri couple uses two of the frozen embryos to give birth to twin daughters early this year.

The two remaining frozen embryos are in the possession of a California fertility clinic.

In a lawsuit, the California couple now seeks return of the as yet unused two frozen embryos.

They assert that the Missouri couple is required by their contract to return the unused embryos and that the California couple is disturbed by the Missouri couple’s alleged breach of contract and recent behavior regarding the twins.

In a lawsuit of their own, the Missouri couple assert their own interest in the frozen embryos as their unborn adopted “children” and the frozen embryos’ kinship interest in their Missouri siblings.

The unusual contract between the couples reportedly provides for the Missouri offspring to have ongoing open contact with their genetic siblings, the California offspring. It also provides for the Missouri couple to furnish the California couple with ongoing reports about how the Missouri offspring are doing.

Smacking of more conventional open adoption.

Under the contract, the Missouri couple is to pay for storage of the frozen embryos for a year, after which the California couple reportedly may have them back.

The California couple requested return of the as yet unused embryos to donate to another couple.

Now the reversion provision of the contract is being challenged by the Missouri couple, and the clinic is caught in the middle of the dispute between the two couples.

Raising complex questions somewhere betwixt property ownership and child custody.

Which the parties now hope to resolve via mediation next month. Both lawsuits are stayed until the mediation.

Read more in this St. Louis [MO] Post Dispatch article: Couples wrangle over frozen embryos’ fate and this St. Louis [MO] article: Suits over embryos halted

Government creates and funds child welfare agencies to protect children who are abandoned, abused or neglected by their parents (or legal guardians).

When a child welfare agency acts on a child’s behalf, it commences what is called a juvenile dependency action in juvenile court. Strangers and extended family members with which the court places children are eligible for free and low cost government services and may be eligible for government stipends.

That is a different type of process and a different court than family court here in Florida (and many other states) or probate court in Illinois (and some other states), where child custody proceedings between parents (for the most part) are heard.

In Illinois, however, some are accusing the child welfare agency there of directing low-risk poor and overextended families to commence child custody proceedings in probate court themselves, rather than the agency initiating dependency proceedings in juvenile court.

Costing the family money it can’t afford and sacrificing benefits and stipends they could definitely use in caring for the children they take in.

But saving the government money and reducing child welfare case workers’ caseloads. Because social workers do not help or supervise children in family or probate courts.

Child welfare workers are alleged to have intimidated poor people into starting private proceedings in probate court in Illinois by worrying them that their relatives would be placed with strangers … or in institutions.

Read more in this Chicago Tribune article: Is DCFS diverting cases to save costs?

It took Son’s Mother’s death and six years of wrangling in Brazilian courts after Mother abducted Son, for Father to be able to see Son and to bring Son home to the US last December.

Grandparents were right there alongside Stepfather as he maneuvered for years to deny Father any contact with Son and to block Father from regaining custody of Son and returning Son to his native New Jersey.

Since Son’s return just several months ago, Grandparents have repeatedly sought access to Son. Now Grandparents are complaining that Father has denied them access to Son for … a whole month.

It is not clear what the legal basis for their position is, if any.

Father reportedly wants therapists to supervise any contact between Grandparents and Son, at least during Son’s adjustment period.

Not getting their way, Grandparents showed up in New Jersey and filed an emergency proceeding for visitation. The Court would not entertain the matter on an emergency basis, of course, but did set a future hearing.

Read more in this Associated Press article: New dispute over boy brought to NJ from Brazil and this AOL News article: Grandmother Fights for Visitation in Goldman Case.

Husband and Wife are going through nasty divorce.

And Husband is being prosecuted for numerous white collar crimes.

Husband owes Wife $10,000 in alimony.

And financial disclosure in their divorce.

Minnesota trial court holds Husband in contempt of court … and orders Husband to jail.

After three nights of incarceration, Husband promises the Court he will make full disclosure and has already made almost all required payments to Wife.

Court releases Husband from confinement on “furlough”, under threat of doing more time should he not keep up with his payments to Wife and not live up to his promise to make fair disclosure.

Incarceration is a highly effective, but little resorted to, remedy for noncompliance with Florida’s mandatory disclosure requirements and discovery process.

Read more in this Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune article: Hecker glad to be freed.

A local West Palm Beach Husband and Wife are under arrest on charges of child torture and cruelty, caging of a child and child neglect of the Wife’s three children, one of whom is also Husband’s. The children are 5, 9 and 10.

The eldest fled to a neighbor’s home after being “kicked out” after a beating, and the neighbor called the authorities.

The children reported that Husband and Wife beat them repeatedly with cables, belts and sticks, and also choked them until they became motionless. On at least one occasion, the youngest believed that the oldest was dead.

Upon medical examination, the children were found to have injuries consistent with their accounts.

The Court has ordered that Husband and Wife have no contact with the children, who are now in child protective custody.

April is national Child Abuse Prevention Awareness Month.

Read more in

• this WPBF 25 TV news article: Couple Faces Charges In Beating Of Children and

• this Palm Beach Post article: West Palm Beach couple charged with child torture, neglect and

• this WPTV 5 news article: Arrests made in brutal child abuse case

Of course, not every state can be first. And some are bound to be a bit slower than others.

But South Carolina wins the grand prize.

They are getting ready to rollout a centralized computer system for child support enforcement and tracking statewide – and beyond.

And it comes only twenty-two years late under federal requirements.

Still, the advantage of waiting so long is that South Carolina’s system will be the absolute latest, greatest.

The disadvantages include huge penalties to the federal government. As in $72 million so far – and another $10 million soon enough.

The new system will interface with other states’ systems to follow movements of people with child support obligations and new hires registered in state employee tracking systems.

Once finally implemented, more custodial parents should be receiving more child support money, much faster.

Read more in this Spartanburg [SC] Herald-Journal article: History of the Spartanburg Herald-Journal.