American Mothers

Yes. Justice is biased against the laws, public attitudes, posturing, perceptions, and family court decisions that pretend mothers and fathers are equivalent, that it’s all gender neutral, that children "need" what shared parenting has to offer, and that the government has any business doing family engineering. See Myths and Facts.

Justice also is biased against the dangerous game of Russian Roulette, even though the great majority of the chambers in that gun are empty. Research "Myths and Facts" pages These pages, and the pages on custody evaluation and the joint custody, contain literally thousands of research citations. The sociological and psychological research on families and child well-being impacts public policy and the issues of child custody in family law. The research frequently is misrepresented, and mis-cited by mental health professionals, lawyers, forensic psychologists and others, as well as interest groups lobbying for laws.

The "facts" on the research myths and facts pages refer to the "fact" of the actual research findings. Often what is cited instead is the "spin" or speculation in researchers’ writeups. These pages are presented as a commentary on the flimsy rationales (of record) given for much of current public policy. Also review the other sections pertaining to the issues impacted by the research, such as child custody, parental alienation theory, and other family law issues, as well as the section on therapeutic jurisprudence, which in the family courts is economic opportunism (not science) under the pretext that engineering family affectional relationships is within the ability of mental health "science" to accomplish (this is misrepresentation), and moreover, that it is an appropriate goal of the government and court system using the specious rationale that these interventions are necessary or helpful for children’s wellbeing (while ignoring the many iatrogenic effects on both families and the over-burdened courts).Also see subsection on Child Custody in FAMILY LAW

• Critique of Kelly and Lamb Infant Overnight "research" literature by liz CITATIONS TO RESEARCH This paper is used as a teaching illustration of how to do critical reading, and of how the research is distorted and misrepresented in the sociology and psychology literature. It is a line-by-line analysis of propaganda techniques, logic errors, and outright fraud. The Lamb and Kelly article is presented in its entirety, interlineated with discussion and commentary, as well as annotations. The widely-cited paper,Using Child Development Research to Make Appropriate Custody and Access Decisions for Young Children (2000), is an example of pseudo-science posing as objective scholarship by "researchers" or "scientists".But it’s a political position paper advocating (without sound basis for doing so), for joint custody for babies and very young children.

• Index: LIZNOTES Table of Contents
• Braver Post-divorce Relocation Study: The real findings by liz
• Myths and Facts about ADR and Forensic Expertise in Family Court by liz
• Myths and Facts about Fatherhood and Families by liz CITATIONS TO RESEARCH
• Myths and Facts about Motherhood and Marriage by liz CITATIONS TO RESEARCH
• Myths and Facts about Stepmothers and Mother Absence by liz CITATIONS TO RESEARCH
• Myths and Facts in Wade Horn’s Fatherhood Promotion by liz CITATIONS TO RESEARCH
• Response to Wade Horn’s "The Importance of Being Father" by liz
• Myths and Facts about Parenting and Children’s Education by liz CITATIONS TO RESEARCH
• Statistical myths about child abuse in mother-absent versus father-absent householdsby liz
• What the Experts Say: Post-Divorce Parenting and Child Wellbeing by Diane N. Lye DOC SCHOLAR
• Why People Divorce by liz CITATIONS TO RESEARCH