Tom: Hi, I'm Tom Martino. You know, no one likes divorce it's a terrible thing on the family, right? But divorces happen. By the way, we already have a question on what we're going to be talking about so Floyd hang on and we'll introduce April Jones, the founder of Jones Law Firm. She specializes in helping fathers keep their rights and she fights for children's rights.
Now, they're synonymous, by the way, because April believes in a family. You've got parents and kids, both parents now – we're not talking about these fathers that run away and never come back. We're talking about guys that want to be with their families. And April you told me one time you think it's terrible how sometimes there are cases manufactured against these good fathers that just want to be a father and it's almost assumed that the mom's going to do it all.
April Jones: Absolutely, what you see a lot is you see a normal family structure where the mother did a lot of the parenting or a lot of the "knows the teachers, knows the doctors and the father goes to work." They get divorced and now they have to figure out how to balance it both ways, the father in order to have his parental rights and his 50% parenting time needs to be able to do those things as well.
So part of what we talk to our clients about is go to the schools, know the teachers, know the doctors - all the things that you wanted to do anyway, but typically you have a system. Your wife will make the appointment, she will come home and tell you what happened and then you can go to your daughter and say, you know, "Did you get the purple bands on your braces?" But when you're having a custody dispute it can turn into, "He doesn't know who the doctor is, he's never taken them to the orthodontist - I've done everything."
Tom: So, when parents or when a mom uses this as a weapon that she knows everything, do the courts listen to that?
April Jones: Well, it's not so much if they listen to the mom, but they do turn to the father and they want to see that you can parent, that you can manage your children and manage them alone. That's where it comes in.
Tom: So, is that why a lot of times courts seem to cater to moms because moms have been doing most of the nurturing?
April Jones: A lot of times with these same guys the wife might shut them out or make parenting difficult and instead of pushing back they can sort of pull away. By the time, we get to court and there's a new status quo and the status quo is the hurt dad, the pulled away dad and I've got to go and try to show that no, he can parent, he does have a history, but it is really important to preserve the status quo between the time you file and the time you're divorced.
Tom: Alright, so, if you're having problems in your marriage or you file for divorce: dads, even if they get angry at the mom, instead of trying to pull children away - you focus your love and energy and on your kids.
April Jones: Absolutely, absolutely.
Tom: Because no one can ever fault you for that.
April Jones: No.
Tom: And then you have the cases where these poor dads and, look it we're talking about some of these extreme cases but it happens, you know that, if you're a dad you know what happens. I've seen cases, just terrible, where they accuse the dad of being abusive or violent.
April Jones: Right, and those are the difficult ones – the harder ones – because now we've got a perfectly good dad and we've got to fight our way out of a paper bag just to get back to regular parenting time. And proving that negative is complicated and it's disheartening for the father who knows he's done nothing, so we've really got to just jump in there and just take control and don't let the dad back out or get defensive and you know, just make it go away.
Tom: Yeah, so now what's the first thing dads do wrong? I mean really, what do they do? Do they just take the backseat automatically? I think that's what they do.
April Jones: No, not all of them take the backseat automatically but yes, that does happen and you can have a mother or wife who's more the aggressive or "this is how it's going to be" or "this is what we're going to do." And that works when you're in a household and she's running it but it doesn't work when she's against you and you're no longer on the same team.
Tom: So should fathers be more assertive?
April Jones: Absolutely, be more assertive and even if it's not your personality, purpose to do what you need to do. Find out what that is, than do it. Call the teacher, call the doctor.
Tom: Get more involved with your children.
April Jones: Get more involved, find out
Tom: Medical providers. You're saying a father needs to know all this stuff.
April Jones: You need to know it anyway and what's so good about our advice is it makes you a better father, it makes you happier. You really do want to know what's going on and you no longer have that person feeding you the information.
Tom: And now there are a lot of fathers who are routinely involved anyway and they should be.
April Jones: Absolutely.
Tom: It's nothing big to get more involved and so what about the big thing you're going to hear, "Well he can't take care of them, he works full time." What, how do you tackle that?
April Jones: Well, what we do is we look at their schedule and we say, "When's your work schedule?" I have a lot of pilots, for example. They're gone a lot, but we look at their schedule, they get it thirty days in advance. We tell the court we can fashion a parenting plan around their work schedule. We can fashion it around a long day, the days you get off.
Tom: But just don't cut them out.
April Jones: Don't cut them out.
Tom: Do the courts want to cut them out?
April Jones: The court does not want to cut them out. By statute, the courts are to issue parenting without regard to gender. It says in the statute and I think if a lot of fathers knew that they would feel empowered from the start and we could get better choices from the start.
Tom: April Jones is the founder of the Jones Law Firm. We have Floyd on the phone and, by the way, you're welcome to call in through the show: 3030-Martino. Hi Floyd. What's your question?
Floyd: I was wondering what I could do? I had a kid when I was very young.
Tom: You had a child young
Floyd: Fourteen-years-old and the mother up and left when the kid was nine months old. The kid is now nineteen years old and I've been trying to have some kind of visitation or something.
Tom: Did you pay child support?
Floyd: No, because she was never on any assistance.
Tom: She was never on any assistance. You were fourteen when you fathered this child?
Floyd: Fourteen-years-old
Tom: How old was the woman?
Floyd: She was fifteen.
Tom: Fifteen. Okay, so you were both children and the child is now nineteen years old. She took him away at nine months old. Is it too late for him? I mean this is an adult child right now. The mom can't keep you from seeing this child right now.
April Jones: No, no the child's a majority. From nineteen forth, the child's a majority.
Floyd: She targeting so far against me though. I offered.
Tom: Hold on. He's saying she turned him against him but this is not a thing for the courts is it? Right now?
April Jones: Not at this point. That's the parental alienation that we need to get in and avoid in the beginning. That you don't come nineteen years later and try to fix it.
Tom: Exactly and you know, Floyd, yours is really not a legal question because she cannot keep you from seeing this child and if he wants to see you, he can see you. You need to go about that gingerly though. We have another phone call, who is this? Stephanie, welcome to the show. What's going on, Stephanie?
Stephanie: I have a guy on the birth certificate who is not the father, proven through paternity, and I am trying to find out how to change the name on the birth certificate to the real child.
Tom: Alright, so the guy on the birth certificate is not the dad. How did he get on the birth certificate?
Stephanie: He signed the paternity when the baby was born.
Tom: Was he still, was he your boyfriend?
Stephanie: Yes, he was my boyfriend.
Tom: Okay, but he's not the dad, she wants to change it. Do you know who the real dad is?
Stephanie: Yes, I've got paternity to prove who the real father is.
Tom: You have paternity to prove the real dad and this other dad that's on the birth certificate. Was he part of this child's life?
Stephanie: For a couple months.
Tom: For a couple months. So what is your purpose of changing the birth certificate at this time? Is it to go after support and stuff?
Stephanie: No, I'm actually with the baby's father.
Tom: She's with the baby's biological father. The birth certificate…
Stephanie: And we're trying to get his name put on the birth certificate.
Tom: The birth certificate shows another guy, but he's definitely the father.
April Jones: Are there court orders determining paternity?
Tom: Was there paternity determined by the courts?
Stephanie: No, but when I went to get the paternity test done we got it, we got it so we can change it to all the legal stuff.
Tom: Okay, so they did get the paternity established and all the legal stuff but how do you change the birth certificate? I imagine that rubs your husband or boyfriend the wrong way right now because he's in the child's life and he wants that corrected, right?
Stephanie: We weren't together when we found out I was pregnant.
Tom: Okay, well now that's fine. Now, how does she change the birth certificate this time to reflect the true biological father?
April Jones: Well, she has court orders and she already has an action. In that action, she can ask for the court to order that the biological father be placed on the birth certificate.
Tom: You already have the paternity established, so it should be just a matter of taking that even to the county directly that issued the birth certificate and ask for them to re-issue it. Tell them it was done in error and if that doesn't work you can go see an attorney.
By the way, speaking of seeing an attorney, April Jones, of the Jones Law Firm will offer a free consultation, okay, a free consultation to a dad. Now, she specializes in dads but of course anyone having problems in domestic law with children, children's rights, but she really has a focus on the man because she wants to see good fathers get their rights reserved.
So call April for a free consultation. Also she can send you out a newsletter, no obligation to give you a lot of useful tips. She can send that to you right away. Why don't you give her a call at 866-679-6869. Hey, if you know a friend who's going through this battle and you know that he's a good guy give him the number. April Jones is online at www.apriljoneslaw.com.