Hello everyone,

As of right now there is a court order in effect that states I have custody of my older 2 children, my EX-wife has custody of my 3rd child, all girls (Amanda, Lori, and Mary).

A week ago from Sunday when I went to pick up my children for my EX's house, a drug user was holding Lori (1 year old). She smelled of tobacco and some orange smelling spray stuff that seemed like it was there to cover it up. When I tried to put Amanda in the the carseat, she fought tooth and nail to get it. When I brought her over my mother's house I found out why, she had a dark bruise which could not be self inflicted on about butt level toward the side of her body but on her back.

She wouldn't let anyone touch her to change her diaper or give her a bath. She had a hard time sitting down for 2 days. This is the second time my daughter had a bruise on her, the first time was one that wrapped around her waist and was obviouslt a thumb print along with another finger print. This first bruise lasted over a month before finally starting to fade away. My wife refuses to tell me anything about the second bruise, she states the first one was caused by a carseat which would be impossible.

My wife has an agression problem. She use to hit me but I never said anything because if she did, people would laugh at me. It wasn't like she could hurt me because I was a lot stronger then she was but she did leave some marks. I had to tell her to stop which she did for a short period of time, then started up again. When I finally told her to stop a second time she did. Now it looks like my daughter is suffering because of it.

Well, 2 days ago I did something against my current court order, I refused to return my 3rd child for fear of my daughter's health and safety. My lawyer says this way a bad idea (didn't get his message until after her lawyer filed an order of contempt). I filed an order of custody myself which explained why I did what I did, before her lawyer got a chance to file his.

My problem is that I can't find federal laws helping me with this situation. I know for a fact that a parent can take their child even if there is a court order if they fear for their child's life or safety, but I don't know the exact law and can't find it. I remember a case of a father (Tv show called A Father's Love based on this true story) who did such a thing and took his daughter into hiding when he sought help and no one would really help him.

I caleld CYS (Child Youth Services) who first told me to hold on to my daughter until I go back to court and testify on what happened, then today another CYS personal called telling me they can't tell me what I can or can not do, only tell me taht if they feel this is a pressing situation they would call back with a case number. I didn't get the call but I fear for my children's life.

Luckily I can argue that Amanda and Lori are outside Pa jurisdiction because I live in DE and they lived in DE with me for 11 months now as of Sunday. My 3 month old is my concern because custody was not giving to me due to a technicality (She was born after the initial decision for custody so now we must wait for a full court hearing). My lawyer wasn't relaly helping me on the matter and in fact wouldn't even talk to me about this until well after I made up my mine to take it upon my self to protect my daughter.

My EX has violated the old court orders MANY times and this is my first, even though she is lieing to the court stating I have committed 12 offenses now, 10 of which I can prove from phone records and other factual information that she is lieing. 1 is her word against mine and the last is obviously this last act of protection.

I am at a stand still because I am having trouble finding superior court cases for PA or federal court cases that would tell me that over riding a court order for the safety of a child is legal as long as there is just proof (I took pictures of the bruise and had witnesses Sunday night who saw the bruise to prove I am not lieing, one was my mother who use to work for CYS as a daycare provider.

Sadly I am studying to be a lawyer and I am outside my realm of knowledge on this issue. Anything you might know will be helpful, asking a lawyer is out of the question though because my lawyer is strict on following court orders no matter what the situation, so he is upset with me and might even drop me as a client for this even though I did do it for my daughter's safety.

you're most likely going to be ok as far as violating a court order. the judge will probably note that you can't just take action yourself, but will find in your favor. here's the right procedure to handle this in the future. if you find a mark when the kids come home call children and youth in pa. they will send a case worker to visit and note the mark, and basically check out the situation. then you're supposed to go to court and file a motion. if the ex beat you to court, it's not the best thing, but not the end of the world. the bottom line is she can't hit your daughter. judges are people and wont let your kids be harmed over a technicality.


the same sort of thing has happened to me. i have custody of my kids, ex had 1 day a week no overnights. my daughter came home and told me mom hit her. i called children and youth, they told me i was obligated to not send my kids if i thought they were in danger. my ex filed first for missed visits. long story short, my ex now has a few hours every other week supervised visits, but has never taken any of them thankfully...

I'm all for keeping the kids safe, that's our job. Just gotta be careful with the legal system in doing it, going against a court order is a bit of a gamble in how a judge is going to deal with it.

I would try to have the bruise documented by a doctor as well, they may not be able to state the cause of the bruise but at least it will have been further documented and honestly if it were me, would set my mind more at ease anyway. Just a little scary to hear of a bruise like that first one you mentioned lasting for a month or more.

Thank you for your input. I have been trying real hard to find information through the internet but it isn't easy. I filed a PFA (Protection from Abuse) in Delaware and they told me my children fall under Delaware jurisdiction now anyways which is what I wanted from the start. Luckily in DE the PFA also can handle the custody, child support, and any other issues involved in seperation including seperation of personal items. It is much simpliar here.

I hope the judge does see I did it for the protection of my daughter. I am taking my oldest daughter to see the doctor in less then an hour to have him look at the bruise, CYS did suggest that to me in the future but I figured it would be smart to have him look at it anyways since she still tells me it hurts sometimes when I try to change her diaper. She is able to sit down now without problems though.

The court order that is in place in PA was not suppose to be set up the way it is anyways. It is the only order that gave my EX custody of Mary and really the only reason she was granted custody was because the judge wouldn't change any type of custody without an evaluation done on both of us, which CYS states is very thorough but I haven't seen how yet.

I filed for custody of Mary but her lawyer decided to change the old custody because my EX could have supervised visitation whenever I felt liek enacting it. My lawyer and I wrote it up so we put a lot of safe outs for me just in case she did anything like this. When the judge stated that he wouldn't change custody, her lawyer quickly wrote up a new order stating she had custody of Mary and that visitation with Amanda and Lori would change. I never approved any of these changes. We went back to court immediatly before Christmas (Dec 23rd) because of the problems with the order including holidays. My lawyer stated the judge wouldn't change custody without an evaluation so let the order stand with changes to holidays (She took all holidays in the court order granting me very little time with my 3rd daughter while taking a lot of time with my first 2). She pulled even more stunts when he wrote up the second court order. I never signed any of these court orders so Delaware will not respect them thank goodness, and hopefully when I go back Monday the judge will agree the jurisdiction now lies in De and my EX can't keep on playing court games anymore (filing fake orders of contempt, making lies about me as a father like saying I put bruises on her but never hit her(I didn' hit her but she put bruises on me, just I never complained because I am a guy and she really didn't hurt me, just the marks appeared over time) etc...).

The first bruise was scarey. My mother yelled for me from anyother room asking me what happened to her granddaughter. I obviously was clueless wondering what she was talking about. When she showed me the bruise I whipped the cordless phone from the receiver and called my EX right away (At the time we were seperated because she committed Adultry, but the children were in my custody because she signed an divorce agreement stating that I am to have full physical custody). She told me she didn't know for a week, then finally made a lie about how the car seat created it, but there is no way a car seat created it. Since my wife and I were trying to work things out and the blame seemed to fall on either her mother or Aunt (who lately showed she has some serious anger management issues when she screamed at my mother outside the court room because she was mad at me). Now I am honestly not sure because I know she grew up having aggression problems (She was always in principals office for doing bully things like pulling hair, hitting people, etc... and she hit me a lot too. Now 2 bruises appear on my daughter, I am very concerned.

The second bruise rom last week was bad enough that she had problems sitting down. She refused to let anyone change her diaper no matter how bad she pooped (She had wet poop running down her leg and rather leave in on her body then have me change it). She never acted like this before, specially for taking baths. She yell and scream when bath time was over because she loves baths but wouldn't take one because of the bruise.

I know it was a chance I took when I refused to give Mary back but I am hoping for 1 of 2 things, the order won't even go through because she would now be apart of Delaware's jurisdiction since this is the state where I will be a lawyer or the judge will understand why I did what I did and change the order until evaluations are complete which should be 2 weeks from friday for me.

Wish me luck, in the meantime I am going to continue to look up different federal cases involving custody in hopes of finding something that could assist me. I know there are quite a few out there.

Oh, if anyone is interested ... the reason child abuse laws are in place was because of a nurse in the late 1800s named Ellen from New York. They had laws to protect animals but none for children. When a child was being abused she fought tooth and nail using her status as a fighter for animal rights to enact the first child abuse laws in America. Learned that while looking for information on my case. Too bad there isn't a national registry that is publically on the internet (Instead of a law library) that summerizes every case any allows for easy searching based on types of law (Family, criminal , etc...). I guess life wasn't meant to be easy or we all wouldn't be here, huh!

Glenn,
I wish you the best of luck. You know alot about your case, and the legalities of it.

I don't know legally, but to me it sure sounds like the girls need to stay in your care, and their mother should get supervised visitation. That is, if you can't get her parental rights termanated.

Good Luck!

Glenn,

I am not sure if this helps or not, but my lawyer (Delaware lawyer) tells me if I feel the children are in danger, then don't send them. My ex has no overnight visits as of yet do to drug issues.

Glenn,

I have been told by many sources; lawyer, SRS, etc. to document every bruise that may be suspicious. The ones you describe sound like a shoe that fits..in my opinion. My 2 daughters, 3 and 7, unfortunatly live with their mother as of right now. Every bruise that shows up looking like it could come from abuse, I not only take pictures, but also video tape the bruise, and asking them how it happened. And no, if something shows up somewhere that would be indecent, which luckily hasnt happened, I wouldnt video tape, Im not an idiot...

I have only every other weekend and divided holidays, but to my benefit, their mom choose to wrok every weekend and the late shift, so I travel 180 miles round trip every weekend and get to be with them(most of the time).

I have come upon a situation similar to yours, but no brusies as of yet. I recently learned my ex's live-in boyfriend has started spanking my youngest, and I wonder about my oldest, who will hardly talk about things during the week. Being 7 and constantly threatened and manupliated by your mother to not tell about anything that goes on at her house seems to make my oldest live in fear of telling me anything. The only thing I requested numerous times to my ex was #1. Her boyfriend or whoever she is dating/sleeping with at the time, does not disipline either girl, in any way. and #2. She does not leave either girl alone with the boyfriend for any ammount of time...example, running to the store...my parents live 10 minutes from their house and are always home and willing to watch the girls. She seems to take my request as trying to control her life and has done both, on how many occasions, who knows. The first, last year, when she left both girls and one of my oldest daughters friends from school alone with her then boyfriend (who turned out to be a meth dealer while he was in and out of jail), and my oldest got spanked. And when she found out about it, nothing was told to me. My oldest told me. The second and most recent time, last week, with a new boyfriend, my youngest was spanked, by the boyfriend, with my ex sitting right next to him, 1 minutes before I pulled up to see the girls before leaving town. Any Father who spends time with his kids knows the difference between a 'hurt' cry and a 'play' cry. The explaination was from them that hes was playing and accidently tapped her too hard. My oldest said they werent playing and she really got spanked. When I walked up, I heard her crying and once they came outside on the porch to see me, both girls said that he had spanked her. So I opened the screen door, and in a non-threatening way said to the boyfriend, "please dont spank my girls anymore". Within in 5 seconds, I was standing face to face with him on the porch, learning that no one gave a **** about me around there and what was I going to do about it, all with my daughters watching with my ex at the front door. Keeping my hands in my pockets, I told him I am concerned with the safety of my daughters, and if that hurt his feelings, that was something he would have to deal with. I tried to state a few more common sence things through his jibber jabber, he eventually went back inside, yelling the whole way. After hugging and kissing my now hystarically crying girls, I left because I didnt want to see anything else, if it were to happen. Then my ex starts screaming at my oldest, turning and twisting it into her fault, which I still dont have the slightest idea how???

Swallowing the rage and anger built up from maintaing calm during the ordeal and determined to do something without resorting to violence and going to jail for assult and batt., I wrote to my lawyer, who told me there are no spanking laws of such sort and I could do not one thing but sit and watch for a bruise(here in Kansas anyways), I sit here in fear, helpless to all of this.

Lets look at something here....what rights do we as fathers or the non-residential parent have at all??? A convicted sexual predator has rights to protect himself, Illegal aliens all over the US are provided with all if not more rights then a normal citizen and might soon be eligable for scholarships to college....but as a single father with non-residential...has to sit back and wait, for abuse to happen before ANYTHING can be done!!!

Im not against spanking at all, I choose to use it as a last resort. But I do disipline my children and demand they listen and respect me and the rest of their family. But in how many other areas of life, are there laws, enforced and accepted, that prevent accident, injuries and are put there by the government to keep people safe and out of harms way???? My complaing would be even longer then what it is if I started listing them, but I hope you understand my point. All these safety PREcautions to keep people safe, but nothing a Father can do to try to establish some sort of safe enviroment for his children? Im not trying to say ex's cant have boyfiends or girlfriends,(remarring is a whole other issue, which I would have no control over at all then)...what about a background check, some sort of law stating only the biological parent(which in Glenns case wouldnt help..sorry), either one is allowed to do and physical punishment for children. How much trouble would I be in for going to the playground and spanking the kid that pushes my daughter down to the ground???

Maybe Im whinning, but to those of you single fathers who have im sure at times felt it, being helpless to protect your own flesh and blood is not something a Man should ever have to deal with. Knowing my luck, Ill be in jail a month after posting this, because I smashed her boyfriends hands with a baseball bat, but who knows, maybe there is something that can be done.

i do appoligize for venting in Glenns post...I am not meaning to take attention away from his situation....Good Luck to you Glenn....