Good news! Brayden Carty has been found and is now safely home with his father.

Here’s the America’s Most Wanted link: Parental Kidnapping Foiled in Tennessee.

Nothing is more terrifying to a separated or divorced parent than the fear that the other parent will take your child and disappear. In this case (that appears to be still open) little Brayden Carty was taken by his non-custodial mother from her Virginia apartment during a visit.

Contrary to popular opinion, it isn’t only non-custodial parents who kidnap children. Often, custodial parents (usually mothers), unhappy with a court ruling that allows the other parent any contact with a child, In this comment on Glenn Sacks’ criticism of a California parental kidnapping law, an expert on parental kidnapping has some sobering insights into the extent of the problem: Judi Cochran Comments on Parental Kidnapping.

What can you do to prevent parental kidnapping? Michigan family lawyer, Jeanne Hannah suggests a tracking device that operates on GPS technology. “Swatch Watch,’ Keeps Kids in Sight. . If your concern involves international kidnapping, and you and your child are a United States citizen, you can, under some circumstances, register your child with the United States Department of State U.S. State Department Prevention Tips for International Child Abduction.

Of course, none of this helps Brayden. If you, or anyone you know, may have information that will get him back to his dad, please help. Here is the website for America’s Most Wanted: Help Find Brayden!

American media advertising is slowly reframing the way it portrays fathers, as reported in this article from the Kansas City Star: No More Bumbling Homer.As a society, we have traditionally pictured Dad mostly as a provider. How many Father’s Day cards have you seen that focus on Dad’s skill in handing out cash (The National Bank of Daddy)?

Of course, for a lot of men, especially the Baby Boomers, this picture of Dad is the only one they knew. But that doesn’t mean they can’t learn (or unlearn) this stereotype. In addition to cash, fathers provide other things that are often more important to their kids than dollars. Like time. Attention. Energy. Empathy. Listening. Affirming. It’s time for everyone . . . fathers, mothers and Wall Street . . . to start recognizing the value of these other contributions!

The best way for a father to succeed in a custody case is to show a history and pattern of involvement from the day a child is born. One way for fathers to do this is to take advantage of paternity leave and stay involved . . . through toddlerhood, elementary school and beyond. Children deserve the best of both parents. This commitment of time and attention often requires sacrifices. Often, you won’t be paid for the time you take off from work. But the reward you gain is well worth the loss. You win an attachment to your child that will sustain you throughout your lives.

The Family Medical Leave Act is a federal law that can help some fathers (and mothers!) give their children the gift of time from both parents. If you are about to become a father, consider this: Paternity Leave Checklist..

I’ve just spent far too much time trying to find a Father’s Day tribute, but I think this one’s pretty good: Father’s and Daughters.

Not to neglect boys and dads, but this is Father’s Day and I’m a daughter, so this tribute is dedicated to my own dad, Dr. Donald Rice.

Here’s what he did that I cherish:

He taught me that I matter.

He saw me, and he was always delighted.

He tells that story about the time he picked up Mama and me from the airport, and how my head fit in the crook of his elbow and my feet just touched his wrist to anyone that will listen when I introduce him to people.

He told me I was always a wonderful child (we won’t go back to those teen years since he’s clearly forgotten them!)

He told me I could do anything I wanted to do, and he believed it.

I respect those of you who are good providers. That’s important. But when your kids are . . . well, as old as I am . . . on Father’s Day, it’s the fact that you see them, you’re proud of them, you spend time with them, you listen to them, and that you try to understand what matters to them that they’ll remember on Father’s Day.

This post isn’t so much about a huge, public, “mea culpa,” as it is about waking up. Which is what I really think we’re all here to do. I just wondered how many of us who are mothers have had this experience, and how willing we are to loosen our grip on our egos just a little bit to just step back and look at this possibility.

We keep our children from their fathers because it makes us feel like we matter.

How much in that sentence has to do with our children? Not much, I’m guessing. Certainly not much in my own experience. Which is one reason I do this work. Because I’ve made the mistakes myself and I hope I’ve learned a little bit from them.

I’ve been taking my own advice and reading what I recommend. That is, Dr. Kyle Pruett’s book, titled, “Fatherneed.”

I started with the chapter on Mothers and Fatherneed.

It hit me like a Mack truck. That was me!

Dr. Pruett talks about how we women serve as gatekeepers to our children’s experience with their fathers. How we can, by a gesture, the way we hold our bodies, the tone in our voices, push Dad away and say (as he quotes in his book), “This is my world, and I’m not sharing it.”

I looked back into the mists of the past at the father in my children’s lives and I got a very unpleasant shock. That’s what I did.

This isn’t to say that men don’t do the same thing in some families. Or that they don’t sometimes refuse to invest themselves in the way that matters most to their children. Or that some just never even take up the mantle at all. Or that they abuse their size and mass and cause terrible harm to the smaller beings in their lives (too often, the women and children under their roofs). All those things are true, in some cases.

But if we women, we mothers, are honest, really, truly painfully honest with ourselves, most of us just have to admit, “Yep, that’s me.” I’m the one who locks out dad because this thing called nurturing is the one thing I still have that’s mine. And I’m not sharing. As Dr. Pruett also says, there’s not a shred of interest in the child in that statement, “This is MY world.”

Like so many other things, the great equalizer between men and women, between races, between socio-economic status, is ego. Just plain old ego. It’s all about me. And maturing, or waking up, or whatever else you want to call it, is a process that lets go of all the assumptions about what we mean to the most precious people in the lives of most of us . . . our kids. Our children need to see us accomplish this relinquishment, no matter what our age or gender. They need to see us let go of that clinging to “ME.” Because that lesson is the only one that will make this world a better place.

How many of us, as mothers, have clung to our motherhood because we were angry, or disappointed, or alienated, and said, “This is all I have, and I’m not giving it up!” How many of us have marched at the head of the parade of some cause or other that lets us hang onto that essentially selfish, entitled assumption that says, “He can’t possibly do it right.” (Translated, that means, “The way I do it.”)

I don’t know about other women, other mothers, but I’m truly humbled by seeing how readily I’ve assumed I was all my children need. Seems to me, if we’re ever going to turn around the increasingly divisive, angry world we live in, we need to just stop for a minute. Listen to the voice that has always driven us. Just stop and look at why we really do what we do.

The more all of us, both mothers and fathers, are willing to see the ego in our gatekeeping, the more likely we are to let it go, or at least loosen our grip on it, and the happier, richer, more whole our children will be.

In April 2008, the Maryland Court of Appeals held that there is a legal basis for a civil lawsuit known as a “tort” (meaning, the kind where a person gets damages for civil injuries) when there is an extreme and outrageous history of interfering with custody and visitation. The Daily Record: Father Keeps $3M Award in Case of Two Sons.. In Khalifa et al. v. Shannon, CA No. 56, Sept. Term 2007. Reported. Opinion by Battaglia, J.; concurrence by Raker, J. Filed April 9, 2008) the Court of Appeals clarified an existing legal principle. Before Khalifa, the law required that to bring a lawsuit for interfering with custody and visitation, a parent had to prove that he or she had “lost [the] economic services,” of the child. Not so anymore, said the Court in Khalifa.

Technically speaking, the tort the court recognized is known as “interference with custody and visitation,” and it’s been recognized to a degree since 1986 in Maryland (Hixon v. Buchberger, 306 Md. 72, 507 A.2d 607 (1986)). However, most family lawyers in Maryland didn’t believe it existed before Khalifa (see the Daily Record comments by Michael Hendler and Marc Noren, co-chairs of the Maryland State Bar Association’s Family and Juvenile Law Section).

Even the judges writing the Khalifa opinion weren’t entirely consistent. Judge Battaglia said the tort had existed, but the prior case (Hixon) was not helpful because the degree of interference in that case wasn’t as severe as that in Khalifa. On the other hand, Judge Raker, who wrote a part of the opinion agreeing with Judge Battaglia, said that the appellate court had the authority to create a new tort of interference with visitation and custody, but that it had not existed before Khalifa.

Khalifa has some family lawyers in Maryland worried that there will be a mad rush to the courthouse to extend the conflict of unhappy divorces and their aftermath by filing lawsuits against interfering parents. There may be a few. On the other hand, there have been other cases in Maryland where the appellate court has opened up new areas of tort liability in family cases (such as the ability of husbands and wives to sue each other for all kinds of torts). When that happened, we heard the same thing. “Oh no, Mr. Bill! We’re going to be inundated with lawsuits by crazed divorce refugees!”

But it hasn’t happened. That’s because cases like Khalifa are one of the best examples of the appellate court doing its job. Creating new law or expanding older law to serve newly recognized needs of families. And one of the most pressing needs in Maryland family courts is a mechanism for consequences when parents ignore or flout court orders for custody and access.

Kudos to our Maryland appellate court! This is an awesome decision.

This book is a “must have” for fathers (and mothers) who want to build an engaged relationship between fathers and children. Dr. Pruett provides a global template for all aspects of preparation for and engaging in, fathering.

He also talks eloquently about the divide between mothers’ territory and fathers’ territory, about the need for all of us to open and engage in a continuing dialogue about how we can help each other, and about what we women can do to welcome fathers into the lives of our children (note: requires intentional relinquishment of ego).

This goes on the “best” list.

In the Father’s Bill of Rights I wrote that children need and deserve the love and attention of both mothers and fathers. What I was talking about wasn’t just any father, but an engaged father (a term coined by Kyle Pruett, M.D.).

Dr. Pruett is a leading researcher in parent-child bonding, specifically the role of fathers in child development, and has conducted fascinating research into the importance and differences of fathers. Check out this link to read about it: Interview with Kyle Pruett, M.D.

The Preamble to The Father’s Bill of Rights places double emphasis on the fact that children need both parents in the first two paragraphs. This post explores the basis for society’s unbalanced emphasis on a child’s need for a mother and new insight into the need of children for fathers.

“A successful society respects the roles, influence and experience of children to both fathers and mothers.”

Genesis of the Primary Caretaker Presumption: John Bowlby, a British psychologist, started the ball rolling on the importance to children of attachment to a primary caretaker Click here to learn more about John Bowlby’s history and legacy.. I emphasize the “a” in the singular because he drew all his conclusions without questioning whether a singular attachment was both a necessary and a complete basis for the inferences he later made. Bowlby coined the phrase, “primary caretaker,” based on his assumption that there was only one — hence the word “primary” in his analysis. Bowlby was from Great Britain and his childhood took place during a time and social structure that routinely separated young children, not only from their fathers but their mothers. In the middle to upper levels of the socio-economic strata, young children had nannies who served the function of nurturer and were generally shipped off to live away from their entire families at very young ages. Bowlby’s own childhood reflected this social tradition.

Social Support for the Primary Caretaker Presumption: Given this background, it is little surprise that, as an adult, Bowlby dedicated his professional research to proving his own experience — that small children need secure emotional connection with nurturing adults and that without it, they can actually die. Bowlby also showed how devastating insecure attachment can be to children. Click here to read about insecure attachment.

Increasing Attention on Children’s Need for Both Parents: Over time, family courts have developed what is known as “the primary caretaker presumption,” based on Bowlby’s work, in deciding who shall have custody of the child. They have done so by adopting the incomplete basis for an understanding of attachment. Now, child psychiatrists are calling into question the underpinnings of this assumption. Kyle Pruett, M.D. Talks About Why Kids Need Dad.

It’s time for our society — at all levels and in all places, including the legal system — to make decisions about children’s needs based on the totality of their recognized needs, not on outdated, incomplete presumptions.