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Parents Sentencing Their Children To Death

Filed under: Boys / Youth / Education,Domestic Violence,Gender Politics,General,Men's Health — MurrayBacon @ 8:56 am Fri 25th March 2011

Separating Parents Sentencing Their Children To Death

Quote #1: In an eight-decade study, parental divorce in childhood was the strongest predictor of early death in adulthood.

Quote #2: The early death of a parent had no measurable effect on children’s life spans or mortality risk, but the long-term health effects of broken families were often devastating. Parental divorce during childhood emerged as the single strongest predictor of early death in adulthood. The grown children of divorced parents died almost five years earlier, on average, than children from intact families. The causes of death ranged from accidents and violence to cancer, heart attack and stroke. Parental break-ups remain, the authors say, among the most traumatic and harmful events for children.

—————————————-

The Wall Street Journal – 9 March 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703529004576160601149946420.html

How to Keep Going and Going
In an eight-decade study, parental divorce in childhood was the strongest
predictor of early death in adulthood.
By Laura Landro

What can 1,500 Americans born a century ago, most of them long dead, tell
us about the secret to a long life? Plenty, according to Howard S. Friedman
and Leslie R. Martin, two psychologists who, in “The Longevity Project,”
mine an eight-decade research effort for answers to the kinds of questions
that sent Ponce de León searching for the Fountain of Youth.

There are no magic potions on offer here, but many of the findings are
provocative. The best childhood predictor of longevity, it turns out, is a
quality best defined as conscientiousness: “the often complex pattern of
persistence, prudence, hard work, close involvement with friends and
communities” that produces a well-organized person who is “somewhat
obsessive and not at all carefree.”

The study was initiated in 1921 by Stanford University psychologist Lewis
Terman, who asked San Francisco teachers to pick out their brightest
students – most were about 10 years old – to help him try to identify early
glimmers of high potential. Terman was most interested in intellectual
achievement (his revision of Alfred Binet’s intelligence scale produced the
Stanford-Binet IQ test), but his interviews were so detailed that the
results could be used as a basis for studying the respondents’ lives in
follow-up interviews across the years. Terman himself died in 1956, just
shy of 80; after his death his work was picked up by others, with Mr.
Friedman and Ms. Martin launching their portion of the project in 1990.

The study’s participants, dubbed Terman’s Termites, were bright students,
but having a high IQ didn’t seem to play a direct role in longevity.
Neither did going on to an advanced degree. The authors suggest that
persistence and the ability to navigate life’s challenges were better
predictors of longevity.

Some of the findings in “The Longevity Project” are surprising, others are
troubling. Cheerful children, alas, turned out to be shorter-lived than
their more sober classmates. The early death of a parent had no measurable
effect on children’s life spans or mortality risk, but the long-term health
effects of broken families were often devastating. Parental divorce during
childhood emerged as the single strongest predictor of early death in
adulthood. The grown children of divorced parents died almost five years
earlier, on average, than children from intact families. The causes of
death ranged from accidents and violence to cancer, heart attack and
stroke. Parental break-ups remain, the authors say, among the most
traumatic and harmful events for children.

“The Longevity Project” is short on actual statistics, asserting instead
broad trends among its study subjects and leaving readers to search through
footnotes and then track down published studies if they want to learn more.
With its relatively small sample and retrospective design, it hardly
reaches the level of large population-based scientific investigations like
the Framingham Heart Study, which followed thousands of participants for
decades to identify common factors that contribute to cardiovascular
disease, or the Women’s Health Study, a 10-year randomized, double-blind,
placebo-controlled study of nearly 40,000 women age 45 and older.

Mr. Friedman and Ms. Martin do claim to have used accepted
scientific-validation methods to confirm that their findings can be
extrapolated for a general understanding of health and longevity. But their
results are based mostly on sifting participants’ self-reported data, with
death certificates providing the only verifiable information: age and cause
of death. Data on factors like genetic predisposition to disease weren’t
gathered.

Moreover, the study’s subjects lived most of their lives in a dramatically
different time, before AIDS threatened longevity and before medical
advances such as angioplasty and the development of cholesterol drugs came
along to improve life-span. The respondents were almost uniformly white
children from middle-class families, so the results don’t tell us much
about the longevity of other groups. And many of the girl students did not
go on to have careers, so “The Longevity Project” focuses on men when it
discusses workplace matters and their role in long-term health.

The book offers quizzes so that readers can assess various qualities – such
as sociability, neuroticism and the tendency to “catastrophize” – and
compare the results with those of Terman’s Termites. The respondents to the
study who fared best in the longevity sweepstakes tended to have a fairly
high level of physical activity, a habit of giving back to the community, a
thriving and long-running career, and a healthy marriage and family life.
They summoned resilience against reverses and challenges – including
divorce, loss of a spouse, career upsets and war trauma. By contrast, those
with the darkest dispositions – catastrophizers, who viewed every stumble
as a calamity – were most likely to die sooner. (The book doesn’t say by
what margin; a study published in 1998 reported that men in the Terman
group were 25% more likely to die by age 65 if they were catastrophizers.)

And what about those cheerful, relatively doomed kids? The authors tell us
that, later in life, such children would be more likely than their peers to
throw caution to the wind when it came to life-shortening habits like
smoking, drinking and driving fast cars. The chipper types were also more
likely to die from homicide, suicide or accident. Of course, the authors
don’t suggest telling happy kids to wipe the grins off their faces, but Mr.
Friedman and Ms. Martin do make a case for instilling values such as
forethought and purposefulness. Indeed, “The Longevity Project” is not just
an exercise in numbers-crunching; its larger aim seems to be to improve
public health by encouraging a society with more goal-oriented and
conscientious citizens. Now that’s a long-term project.

Ms. Landro writes The Informed Patient column for the Journal.

The Longevity Project

By Howard S. Friedman and Leslie R. Martin
(Hudson Street Press, 248 pages, $25.95)

MurrayBacon – I apologise for the attention seeking title.

Part of making responsible decisions is knowing what all the consequences are, that result from the options being considered.

23 Comments »

  1. Not PARENTS, but MOTHERS abuse own kids to punish fathers.

    We have to make it clear: women use kids as an instrument of exploitation of men. And if he is not exploitable sufficiently, she will use kids to punish him. She may even kill his baby before or after birth.

    This tendency angers grandmothers, because they are women too, so they can see it (men don’t see it so clearly).
    And this irritates second wife too, seeing how ex-wife abuses him and his kids. This attitude of mothers causes frictions among women, if they have family ties to father or they want an equal share of exploitation.

    Our feminist dictatorship gives lion’s share of exploitation to the woman who hates a man. The testimony of other women is not taken seriously in our courts. They want to teach a heterophobic lesson to all women, to stay away from men, or to ruin men.

    Feminism is primarily anti-men, not pro-women.

    Comment by Ivan Zverkov — Fri 25th March 2011 @ 1:00 pm

  2. Dear Ivan, I know that there is truth in the dynamics that you mention. I am aware that men do lots of unfair things to women too and in the past maybe many more men were bastards. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

    If feminists have had a degree of influence onto social policy, then whats wrong with men (and most women), if they have failed to have a matching influence on social policy?

    This isn’t an idle question, if men cannot see where they have gone wrong, then it is unlikely that they will get their act together to sort these issues out….

    Besides, I see familycaught relationship vandalism as the foreseeable outcome of appointing greedy thieverous lawyers to positions as “judges”.

    By dealing with familycaught, women and men are just taking an unmanageable gamble. Never gamble, when you are not prepared to lose! Only gamble with ex-wives that you want to lose…

    Open Courts would go a long way to helping familycaught to get nearer to following legislation. If they don’t want to be helped, then it will take strenuous efforts from the public, who want their families protected from these manipulative thieves, for improvements to happen and to stay happening.

    best regards, MurrayBacon.

    Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 25th March 2011 @ 2:09 pm

  3. The most problem with separation is if one is trying to “fix the problem”, ie seeking help, but the other stops all effects. Because if your male, you are never listened too by anyone esp if your the one trying to seek help.

    CYFS (in my case) refused to do anything cause the x said no. eventually after a fabricated DV happened, CYFS had no choice but to be involved now.

    CYFS have identified my x has serious issues, but of course, its too late.

    Because of this fabricated DV, they refuse to listen to me. Instead listen to her and getting this false picture of me.

    I feel that if one tries to seek help, they should listen regardless of your sex.

    Comment by Jono — Fri 25th March 2011 @ 6:13 pm

  4. dear Murray.. generally for most cases men react to being provoked by women which is natural after having reached their limits. this has happened in the past and is still happening. So why is the aggressor (woemn) being labelled as a “victim” when she keeps on provoking and pushing man to reach the limit? even dogs turn on their cruel owners when they are pushed to their limits.. we are talking about humans who are more intelligent.. men generally work fairly unless they have been treated with unfairness.. then they turn… and get blamed for it while womens unfairness is overlooked.. why is this so?…

    Comment by karan jiharr — Fri 25th March 2011 @ 8:06 pm

  5. Thanks for sharing this Murray. It’s very important to put forward IMO.

    When I first heard about cases in the family caught, I shared it with recovering addicts (in group settings) who told of their childhood suffering from divorced parents. I can understand early deaths when considering the behaviours of the children as they grow.

    Anyways, to my astonishment, I was hearing stories where parents had warred for a long period of time with one man having his parents sent a letter each on his 18th birthday from a judge telling them they couldn’t fight in his courtroom anymore. The man has disorders and suffered over many years with mental illness. His brother came out worse. (perhaps because he was older)

    None said their father or mother had it worse than the other which makes sense because you can’t war when there’s no-one to war with.

    What else I learned through contact with single parents, is those whose parents separated and used the family court, didn’t/don’t want to put their children through the same thing but can end up doing so because the other parent isn’t thinking the same way.

    It’s such a shame.

    Comment by Julie — Sat 26th March 2011 @ 1:12 am

  6. I was first acquainted with this study and its conclusions when an article about it was broadcast (published) at Fathers and Families website (headquartered in California). I’m glad the authors pointed out the obvious, as I’ve been making similar observations (anecdotally) for years and wondered if it was the case that longevity of children is correlated with divorce. Of course, this article only identifies a correlation and not an actual mechanism, but I’m sure we can all think of mechanisms that may influence longevity for children of divorce. Since most divorces are initiated by mothers (like more than 85% in the US), I’m sure this is just one more nail in the coffin for feminism and all those evil women who divorce their husbands and separate their children from their fathers for no legitimate reason except that they are short-sited and lazy. But it may be too late for civilization. Anyway, another interesting article not referenced by the one above concerns fathers and husbands and longevity and mechanistic relationships for that has been well-studied and documented. Women’s shelters were created to help allegedly abused women. Ironically, most women at shelters are drug addicts, homeless, con-artists, and usually suffer from severe mental illness – but above all else, most are more abusive than the men they left for the shelter. More ironic are data showing conclusively that number of wives/partners murdered by their husbands/partners has not changed in response to creation of women’s shelters. Instead, the number of husbands/partners murdered by their wives/partners has declined. Results of further study showed conclusively the mechanism for this correlation -that the women’s shelters provided an alternative to abusive women who would otherwise have killed their husbands. Despite this well-documented and researched fact, feminists still insist that most women at shelters are victims of abuse and more shelters are needed because obviously the multitude that exist already are not enough to help all these allegedly abused women. Talk about stupidity. This is the kind of logic on which the economy of all developed countries is based. Is it any surprise that civilization is falling apart – when logic like this pervades our legislative, judicial and executive systems.

    Comment by Darryl X — Sun 27th March 2011 @ 12:58 pm

  7. Advice for all men,
    If you are divorced from your x, and your x proves malicious there is nothing the Courts or all the state social agencies combined can do. For starters, none of these agencies are on your side no matter how right you are.
    The Courts work under a law that is woman best interest orientated.

    My x forced me to engage in a Court battle, through women’ refuge sponsorship. At the beginning I thought, like all sheepish citizen that the court will hear the case and settle things fairly.. Ey we are a fair country where every one gets a bargain.. Man I was wrong! When I understood their logic, i.e that they were on her side no matter what, I took things in my own hands. I decided to totally disengage from the Court. I stopped to reply to her lawyers and wrote to the Court that I will stop seeing the children until all Court orders were removed (protection etc), because the orders were barbaric, unjustified.

    And I did stop seeing the children…

    The Court all along knew, from my affidavits (My own,(I represented my self) with FULL emotions (lawyers will advice you not to show your emotions and duck down), that I were not that unreasonable, and I told them every time I had a chance that they made a mistake in making those orders and should correct their mistake. I was never disrespectful to the Court nor the ex for that matter but always said that the system destroyed my family and that their protection orders have dangers and un-safety built in. (In Helen’s Clark Era, the last term we had so many women’s deaths after protection orders were served like lollies, remember the campaign it is not OK? I was caught in that era! the last term was the harvest season for Helen’s policies). Believe me, Helen rode to power on my back for all the three terms.

    Guess what last Christmas, a judge discharged all the protection orders a previous judge served on me. All of them!
    At the hearing I was uncompromising: If the orders stood I will have nothing to do with the children until discharged.
    You can not have a proper and natural relationship with your the children if you see them under conditions.
    Those conditions create anxiety which reflects itself in the relationship you have with the children. They had to go!
    … and they did.

    And now the ex is still trying to use a lawyer (paid by you tax payer) to correspond with me re children’s care. I refuse that too. I refuse all protocoled accords regarding caring for our children. It has to be natural inhibited, 100 per cent practical access for both. If there is an unforeseen event in town (say last day of a film that caught my attention) I need just to give her a call and she should oblige to let me take the children with me. Of course I will not insist if the children are sick or have other planned engagements. I will not make an un-reasonable request either like a visit three o’clock in the morning. If the Court has to be involved then it has to be 50 50 shared custody. Nothing else is acceptable.

    Of course everyone circumstances are different. In my case the ex is not malicious and she wants the children to have contact with me. But she wanted controlled access, on her terms hence the solicitation of the Court under the auspices of Women’s Refuge (I loath that organization now)

    This is what I learned,

    If you happily go for a violent course (I am addressing here those who have been wrongly served by a protection order under the instigation of Women’s Groups, they always do) the Court interprets it as you really being violent and admitting to it.
    I did that course and a lawyer told me that verbatim .(At the beginning of this saga I was not firm on my feet)

    If you accept supervised visits (I did that) everyone will interpret it as you needing supervision to look after your children.

    Lawyers are against you as a rule of thumb. Dismiss them! Her lawyer too. Refuse to have anything to dot with her or him.
    So represent your self.

    See-ing you strong, your children will follow in your foot steps.
    Love your children, forgive your ex and be staunch but not stupid with all those wrecking families in the Family Court and state agencies.

    Women are bags of emotions and are naturally unreasonable and when they have a Court with them like the Family Court they are doubly unreasonable and ferocious! (Not all of them of course, and apologies for all beautiful female minds out there)

    I have no interest in gender debates but I know to well that there is a gender lobby at work wrecking the human habitat. This gender lobby includes as staffers men too. The lobby uses women as a tool, i.e working against them long term.

    Comment by tren (Christchurch) — Sun 27th March 2011 @ 3:24 pm

  8. please read: It has to be natural un-inhibited, 100 per cent practical access for both.

    Comment by tren (Christchurch) — Sun 27th March 2011 @ 3:28 pm

  9. The Courts work under a law that is woman best interest orientated

    and look at the state that is in. As much as they love to say that, the stats dont show it. In my case, the x has had alot of tax payer funded support just to look after herself. The x was sent off to a place (dont know if I can mention the name) for mothers that are going to lose there kids.

    If you happily go for a violent course (I am addressing here those who have been wrongly served by a protection order under the instigation of Women’s Groups, they always do) the Court interprets it as you really being violent and admitting to it.

    We have yet to goto court yet. Ive been asked to do Man Alive (violence course) without any funding and as such I cant afford to go. CYFS felt that I needed it based on all the lies from the x and her family. The x is withdrawing her protection order for an undertaking (and no she doesnt have a protection order at the moment). Her family is no stranger to violence.

    If you accept supervised visits (I did that) everyone will interpret it as you needing supervision to look after your children.

    I offered this from the start at the advise of a lawyer. I was told the x would also have to do it also. CYFS overrode that rule and just me had to do it (I guess cause by then the x accused me of DV). So much for the protection of my daughter. There is a period of a month when massive amount of bruising was found on my daughter. CYFS felt it came from me but once they were made aware I had zero contact with my daughter, nothing more came of it. Even now, 8 months latter, my daughter always comes to me with bruising on her legs (and sometimes over parts of her body).

    please read: It has to be natural un-inhibited, 100 per cent practical access for both.

    This is a wonderful dream. For one you would be putting lawyers out of a job.

    I would love to say thats possible but knowing the x she couldnt give up the power and control she feels is her right. The x is doing her best to hurt me through my daughter. She is putting my daughters life at risk for her own power and control game.

    Comment by Jono — Sun 27th March 2011 @ 5:52 pm

  10. Jono,
    You say –

    I’ve been asked to do Man Alive (violence course) without any funding and as such I cant afford to go. CYFS felt that I needed it based on all the lies from the x and her family.

    Fact is you DON’T have to attend a living without violence course at Man Alive or anywhere else
    Somebody should have told you that you can contest the order to attend and they should also have directed you on how to do so. If you haven’t been informed of this HUMAN RIGHT then somebody (surprise, surprise, most likely a feminist I imagine) isn’t doing their job and probably deceitfully wants you (another man) to attend the course unnecessarily to fulfill their narrative and/or personal quota.
    You can contact North Shore Men’s Center or other non feminist Men’s groups for fair-minded advice on how to get the order discharged on the grounds that it’s based on lies and that there’s no corroborative proof of your having done anything wrong.

    Comment by Skeptik — Sun 27th March 2011 @ 6:42 pm

  11. Good advise and insight Tren but I think the emphasis should be on “In my case the ex is not malicious” because that is what puts your case in a minority and makes it workable.

    Comment by MAX — Sun 27th March 2011 @ 6:55 pm

  12. Great discussion Tren, Jono, Skeptic. It would be good if someone could give feedback as to what’s going on with Nth Shore men’s centre – is there still meetings?

    I too have put forward the argument innocent men shouldn’t rush off to do parenting courses, anger management ect because I too think it’s a guilty statement. However, I do agree with one father who volunteered supervised access with the children’s lawyer until the DV charges were sorted out – his wife was violent so the children needed contact with him.

    What worries me is the new ‘Home for Life” that has your child under 5 adopted out (shared guardianship doesn’t make things different, IMO) paperwork an’ all, within 18 months while it takes 2 plus years to get through the FC system.

    I’ve heard the best thing to do is get it out of the FC and into the High Court. To do that, I am thinking you state you disagree with CYF social workers plan – I don’t know though (I rely on others to teach me).

    Comment by julie — Sun 27th March 2011 @ 7:27 pm

  13. Off topic, Tren, I hope things are OK for you in ChCh.

    Comment by Julie — Sun 27th March 2011 @ 7:35 pm

  14. Fact is you DON’T have to attend a living without violence course at Man Alive or anywhere else
    Somebody should have told you that you can contest the order to attend and they should also have directed you on how to do so. If you haven’t been informed of this HUMAN RIGHT then somebody (surprise, surprise, most likely a feminist I imagine) isn’t doing their job and probably deceitfully wants you (another man) to attend the course unnecessarily to fulfill their narrative and/or personal quota.

    At the second FGC, CYFS suggested I should do a Shine anger management course.

    Indeed as per FGC-plan it was agreed you would attend a living without violence programme. Now Shine is the programme for the Auckland City Area. The programme in West Auckland is through Man Alive.
    I have contacted Man ALive and they will be in touch with you to discuss further.

    This was the email I got. I can not fund this personally.

    I have spoken with xxx who stated that you would qualify for funding through WINZ. The initial appointment is for free and xxx will then explain to you the process.
    Alternatively there is a possibility that CYF might fund however this is not a guarantee and only when the WINZ funding fails.

    Comment by Jono — Mon 28th March 2011 @ 6:45 am

  15. I too have put forward the argument innocent men shouldn’t rush off to do parenting courses, anger management ect because I too think it’s a guilty statement.

    I did a parenting course off my own back. I like to increase my knowledge more than anything. As to anger management, I do not wish that, as I know in myself I dont have an issue. Part of Man Alive is you have to agree that your violent which I dont.

    The courts tell you to do parenting throu separation.

    Comment by Jono — Mon 28th March 2011 @ 6:57 am

  16. That is right MAX. My ex is not malicious. I do not know how I would have behaved if she was malicious and I understand different circumstances call for different actions. But I am a firm believer that if fathers refuse to see their beloved little ones because of the conditions imposed by Court orders than things will change for the better. Let us be clear. It is a protest not abandonment of children. I had no idea that the Court will discharge the orders, the ex defended them with a steely resolve (she had all the state agencies write affidavits stating that if the protection orders were removed her case will worsen – fragile mental state and that her well being and that of the children were dependent on those orders. I was resolute and prepared not to see my children if the protection orders stood and i was serious about it. The children know I love them and the mother told the children that I loved them and that I was just trying to sort out things with the Court. (My ex is a super mother no doubt about it ). Anyways, the judge I guess could see the theater on play by agencies, lawyers and counselors and dismissed all the orders. Could have been an other judge with a different outcome. There is no silver bullet but the point I wanted to make is that state agencies are utterly incompetent and one should be careful when dealing with them. In the case of Womens’ Refuge they are outright fascists with serious political clout.

    Comment by tren (Christchurch) — Mon 28th March 2011 @ 8:46 am

  17. Jono I refused to do a parenting course too because the agencies are only interested in compliance with policies and have something to show in statistics. They do not give a toss about me and my children. If I am keen to read text books about parenting there are plenty in the library. We are humans, like all animals we have built in knowledge how to look after the children. We nurture the children and the children nurture us even more. You want to learn better methods to look after your children, your neighbour, the-woman-next door is much much effective, accessible, free, friendly, honest than all the state agencies combined. Just reading that email makes me wanting to puke. Sorry everyone, over the last three years I developed an allergy to all hypocritical things coming out of wolfs dressed in sheep skins employed, accredited by the Family Court: Lawyers, psychologists, counselors etc.

    Comment by tren (Christchurch) — Mon 28th March 2011 @ 9:06 am

  18. I replied but the reply did not get through. Thanks Julie we are all fine. Appreciate your concern.

    Comment by tren (Christchurch) — Mon 28th March 2011 @ 9:09 am

  19. Tren, I actually did the parenting course without been asked. In fact no one knew (agency wise) that I was doing it. Felt weird being the only guy but it was great, the women didnt judge me.

    What im not happy in doing is Man Alive. Family, friends including myself question why I need it. Saying “I would look into it” is not the same as “I agree to do it”. I have always tried to defuse the matter by removing myself. What more can I be taught than that? If someone is attacking you, dont you have a right to protect yourself?

    One thing that has my goat up at the moment, the previous Police visit noted that I pushed my x. Yes thats true (to a point) but also the fact that she was holding me down and refuse to let me up. I was told I could have been arrested. Can someone tell me what i should have done while in great pain? If she wasnt on me, I wouldnt have the need to push her off.

    I have been around kids for years. I am a father and an uncle and was very involved in both. I have always wonted my own child and felt blessed when my daughter came into this world. Although this wasnt planned, I still love her to bits. The x on the other hand……

    Comment by Jono — Mon 28th March 2011 @ 9:54 am

  20. Tren…nice one…’if an action considered is good for yourself AND for everybody else then it’s usually a good one’.
    If everybody did what you have done there would be less dinosaur sht going on around the FC and…

    However, it doesn’t protect us from choosing the wrong women…
    You have done well there, mate.
    Maybe we should devise a test…

    Comment by MAX — Mon 28th March 2011 @ 10:32 am

  21. Murray, here’s those cases I told you about.

    Comment by julie — Mon 28th March 2011 @ 3:16 pm

  22. 🙂

    Comment by julie — Mon 28th March 2011 @ 3:21 pm

  23. But wait there’s more …..http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42364656/ns/health-kids_and_parenting/

    No fault divorce and ‘Child Support’ with that burger Sir?

    Comment by Skeptik — Tue 5th April 2011 @ 6:04 pm

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