I recently engaged with a prominent child abuse prevention organization seeking their support on two legislative bills in the upcoming session. The bills are:

  • Add a rebuttable presumption of equal parenting to the best interest of the child statute.
  • Add the definition of parental alienation to the Colorado Children’s Code on Abuse and Neglect.

Our first meeting was about a month ago and seemed to go very well. Then as I followed up to schedule our next meeting, they passed citing they didn’t have the capacity. Suspecting that was a BS excuse, I pressed for a brief phone call so I could understand why so I could improve my advocacy impact.  I’m grateful to the lead policy person having that conversation with me and for his candor.  In short, his objections were:

  • rebuttable presumption of equal parenting enabled the abuser instead of protecting children,
  • the consensus in policy circles has moved away from parental alienation,
  • false allegations of child abuse are rare in contested custody.

Here is my email reply to him. I removed his name and that of the organization as calling them out is not helpful. Their perspective is widely held in child and family policy circles.

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Hi,

Thank you for our conversation and your candor. Although it’s painful to hear, knowing the true objections makes problem-solving much easier. I’ll show you the same respect and candor as I call out what seems to be the underlying problems in tackling these very difficult issues: misinformation and false narratives.

While I know you were trying to empathize and be constructive, candidly, it came across as dismissive and demeaning. A common tactic by those who oppose shared parenting and recognition of DV as a two-way street is to label our position as father’s rights or misogynistic. I know that wasn’t your intent, but that’s what many men and women I advocate with frequently encounter.

You’re correct that the policy consensus has moved away from Parental Alienation (PA), but this shift is largely driven by misinformation and narratives pushed by a small but influential group. Unfortunately, these voices have led many policymakers and organizations like XXXXX astray.

It’s perplexing how a single, widely debunked, non-peer-reviewed paper (Meier) can outweigh a wealth of peer-reviewed social science research supporting PA. This imbalance exists because certain advocates, posing as survivors and defenders of victim rights, manipulate emotions rather than relying on valid data or peer-reviewed science. They utilize fabricated papers and anecdotal evidence to appeal to our natural instincts to protect women and children.

A persistent myth used by the DV lobby to oppose a rebuttable presumption of equal shared parenting is the claim that it would empower abusers. I’m not aware of any peer-reviewed studies supporting this premise, yet it remains a powerful narrative that many policymakers, including yourself, believe and echo.

The overarching false narrative that damages child safety and well-being is the idea that men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators while women are almost always the victims. This simply isn’t true.

I hold deep respect for you and XXXXX, and I know we all share the goal of protecting children and ensuring their well-being. Although I don’t anticipate XXXXX’s support in the immediate future, I hope to continue a constructive dialogue with you. Bridging the gap between our perspectives will require mutual respect, candor, reliable data, scientific evidence, and a willingness to challenge long-held beliefs. It’s a difficult task but achieving this will lead to generational change in family court, child protection, and domestic violence systems.

Thank you again, XXXXX, for your transparency and clarity. I hope you can appreciate mine as well. I will follow up separately with data and research on the topics we briefly touched upon.

Respectfully and with gratitude,

Carl