What Makes a Parent?
May 16, 2017 11:16 AM   Subscribe

 
Am beginning to think that the categories of parent and spouse are going to vanish in the next few decades . . .
posted by Peach at 12:08 PM on May 16, 2017


Oh, my god. Having read that, it is impossible for me to view this as anything other than an insane, extremely wealthy ex-girlfriend, abetted by an equally horrible lawyer, making Hamilton's life a living nightmare. There are conversations to be had about what constitutes a family, but Gunn does not strike me as a poster child for nuance and redefinition. Gunn strikes me as a nut.
posted by kyrademon at 12:11 PM on May 16, 2017 [34 favorites]


The New Yorker editorial style is the most effective at convincing me to dislike someone with just a few well-placed direct quotes.

Am beginning to think that the categories of parent and spouse are going to vanish in the next few decades...

I think that the state will always have an interest in defining who has parental rights over a child, unless legislatures begin to take over the kinds of decision-making that currently leave to parents.
posted by muddgirl at 12:16 PM on May 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


Gunn comes off to me like a severe headcase, but I come from a background which includes a wealthy and toxic parent so that may effect my reaction just a bit.

My emotional reaction is that now I'm imagining a crazy parent with means suing me for time with their grandkids. Any whiff of people who seem like they want to own a child makes my eye twitch.
posted by selfnoise at 12:22 PM on May 16, 2017 [3 favorites]


And if you're up for more, a Washington Post article about a program to teach kids to reunite with a parent they don't want to see:

They were taken from their mom to rebond with their dad. It didn’t go well

"Laura, David and their siblings are among a growing number of children in high-conflict divorce cases being sent — often unwillingly — to nascent and unproven “reunification” programs, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars. These workshops have sprung up in the past decade mostly to address parental alienation, a disputed disorder coined in 1985 by psychiatrist Richard Gardner that refers to a situation where a child chooses not to have a relationship with one parent because of the influence of the other parent. Opponents charge that the reunification programs, and accusations of parental alienation itself, are shams — a way for lawyers, psychologists and social workers to profit from parents in bitter custody battles, and for the more financially secure parent to gain a custodial advantage. Proponents say that parental alienation involves truly harmful psychological behaviors that should be recognized by the therapeutic community and tort law, and that reunification programs are sometimes the only way to put families back together."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 12:32 PM on May 16, 2017 [5 favorites]


Jesus Christ. Ok, now both my eyes are twitching.
posted by selfnoise at 12:46 PM on May 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


There are conversations to be had about what constitutes a family, but Gunn does not strike me as a poster child for nuance and redefinition.

When I saw that this piece was about ex-girlfriends battling over custody, I figured it'd be along the lines of "gay couple splits up and hijinks ensue thanks to heteronormative/homophobic definitions of family," e.g. the recent case in Tennessee.

Yeah, not so much.
posted by imnotasquirrel at 12:50 PM on May 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


Crikey. Sad story but a great article.
posted by Samizdata at 12:54 PM on May 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


All the "additional parent" legal theories seem nicely intended, but it was pretty obvious that their deployment to achieve those nice intentions would be overwhelmed by their deployment as nasty new tools in contested breakups. You have to know very few divorced people not to recognize that intentional parental alienation is a real thing, but it wouldn't surprise me that it, too, has been weaponized beyond its fair bounds by the divorce establishment.
posted by MattD at 1:28 PM on May 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


Yeah, having dealt with super controlling individuals before, Gunn reads to me as a super controlling individual. This does not seem to be about her love for the child in any way, shape, or form. So when I got to this line in the article: "A de-facto rule could also give an abusive lover a new weapon, in the form of a threatened lawsuit" - I thought, "are we not already there, right now, with this story?"
posted by sockermom at 1:32 PM on May 16, 2017 [3 favorites]


This is just awful. Of all the horrible little moments so vividly described in the article, this might have been the one that made me cringe/yelp/shudder most:
"According to Hamilton and her friends, the couple broke up in December, 2009. Gunn rejected that description. She said that they had experienced a moment of crisis—'a big excavation of important things that we needed to work through before the baby comes.' She added, 'I am entitled to go through a crisis. I’m entitled to take time and navigate that with a partner.'"

Attention all controlling assholes: A BREAKUP IS UNILATERAL. YOUR PARTNER DOES NOT NEED YOUR CONSENT IN ORDER TO BREAK UP WITH YOU.

Yaarggh. Yeesh. Bleh.
posted by ourobouros at 2:33 PM on May 16, 2017 [23 favorites]


She added, 'I am entitled to go through a crisis. I’m entitled to take time and navigate that with a partner.'
posted by clew at 2:43 PM on May 16, 2017 [8 favorites]


And this is entirely anecdotal and biased, but to me "parental alienation" sounds suspiciously like avoiding the woman who got my cat diagnosed with PTSD as a child.
posted by pan at 6:06 PM on May 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


"I love this child and I want to be a part of his life. And I'm willing to drive his custodial parent into distress and debt, force her to sell the home he lives in, disrupt the life change that I falsely led him to believe was coming, and otherwise upend his existence for months to years to make that happen."

Really??

Screw "giddy" lawyers who are glibly eager to turn people's lives into war zones over the novelty of a case (and, presumably, the volume of invoices involved). As someone whose parents went through a drawn-out divorce in NYC courts, this article made me feel pretty sick.

Also, as sympathetic as I am to the perils of queer adoption, all of this shopping around for children in random foreign countries seems pretty gross ("Maria said you could get a kid here").
posted by evidenceofabsence at 6:11 PM on May 16, 2017 [4 favorites]


Good Lord. Gunn is nuts, and Chemtob should be censured. And that judge needs a good slap on the wrist for letting a case get so out of hand.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:14 PM on May 16, 2017 [10 favorites]


Note the involvement of Jane Aronson, self-described "Orphan Doctor".

As soon as I saw her name come up, my heart sank for that kid.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 7:27 PM on May 16, 2017


Yeah, my primary reaction was "where is the judge in all this?" I know that the court gives great deference to a presumption of honesty in sworn testimony, but at some point isn't it the judge's job to say "I know you think now that this is about a high-minded ideal, but it appears to me that you just don't like that you have no control over this other person's life." Here's to hoping the appeals court is more expeditious in their action.
posted by meinvt at 7:28 PM on May 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


That Gunn is a lesbian did not make her child snatching a part of the larger struggle for legal recognition of lgbt families. Her unethical lawyer and that shady "orphan doctor" didn't seem to understand this
posted by knoyers at 10:23 PM on May 16, 2017



"I love this child and I want to be a part of his life. And I'm willing to drive his custodial parent into distress and debt, force her to sell the home he lives in, disrupt the life change that I falsely led him to believe was coming, and otherwise upend his existence for months to years to make that happen."


Not only that, but it's pretty clear that Gunn has no interest in being anything other than what the posters on Mumsnet refer to a Disney Dad/Mum. She wants the fun bits where she gets to spoil the kid and have days out- there's no mention of anything even approaching an equitable arrangement. Meanwhile, the other parent gets to do all the shit work, and is supposed to kiss the Disney parents arse because they pay child support. This bit really pissed me off: In court, Chemtob characterized these arrangements as being close to vagrancy,

Yeah because you didn't let her move, you arse!
posted by threetwentytwo at 3:58 AM on May 17, 2017 [5 favorites]


This was really fascinating/horrifying for me to read, as someone who had a vaguely similar circumstance- as a single mother, I had talked a bit about co-parenting my kid with a friend who we called "godmother", and when that person friend-broke-up with me (as was their right), she actually asked me, using the word, for scheduled unsupervised visitation.

Fortunately this was years ago, I shudder to think I could have been in the hot seat of something like this. My heart goes out to Circe Hamilton.
posted by corb at 7:17 AM on June 12, 2017


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