Special Tribute to Alienated Moms on Mother's Day
Moms Live On in Children via the Primary Bond
Mother’s Day is celebrated in almost every country in the world, mostly on this second Sunday of May.
While it is important to pay tribute to all mothers everywhere for their important role, special accolades are due those who’ve been alienated from their children via Family Court. These mothers will likely not be given cards, gifts or any sort of appreciation, so they are being honored here.
Alienated moms are hereby acknowledged for the important role they played while being able to actively mother their children. They continue to play an important role in their lives invisibly through the mothering they did prior to the alienation. Their children may not recognize it, but they are still primarily attached to their mother in a way that benefits them throughout their lives. More on that later…
The immense pain alienated mothers have endured needs to be validated as well. Mothers are not built to lose their children—it’s extremely traumatizing. Of course, that’s the point in contested custody cases. That is why children make for such powerful leverage. The alienation of mothers from their children via Family Court forms a large part of the Custody Crisis.
Mother’s Day also provides a good opportunity to raise awareness about this horrific form of oppression being inflicted upon women by the unjust, sexist Family Court system. Being alienated from children is arguably the worst thing that can happen to a mother, other than a child’s death, but it gets little attention. So please share! Let the world know mothers are being alienated from their children via Family Court in droves.
SANCTITY & DIMINISHMENT OF MOTHERHOOD
Motherhood has been considered sacred and has been celebrated in various ways for thousands of years, probably ever since humans evolved consciousness of the vital role mothers play in shaping society and perpetuating the human species.
Goddesses representing motherhood were common before patriarchy took hold with its concomitant, monotheistic male gods.
With patriarchy reigning supreme, motherhood was diminished and downright disrespected. Dr. Carol P. Christ explained it best:
In order for patriarchy to succeed, the maternal values that focus on nurturing life must be discredited. The idea that honor is due to mothers must be destroyed…And if need be, the mother herself must be eliminated. It is not coincidental that matricide is at the heart of the story told in the Oresteia. Breaking the bonds between mother and child is the point of the story.
The Oresteia was written over 2,000 years ago. This demonstrates that men have used the powerful bond between mother and child as leverage to control and punish women since day one. In fact, that was the main goal of patriarchy—literally the “rule of the father”.
Ever since patriarchal domination began, the fact that a mother miraculously gestates, gives birth, and nurses children, with all the attendant pain, effort, and risk to their life that entails, has been pretty much disappeared, not to mention all the “icky poop and mucus”, terrible twos, and 24 hour/day nurturing of the early years.
This diminishment of motherhood led to Anna Jarvis finally giving it a bit of recognition in 1908. She declared a mother to be the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world and originated Mother’s Day in the U.S.
So mothers were thereby given one day a year for honoring the amazing and vital role they play in children’s lives and, hence, in society. Of course, a couple years later, Father’s Day was instituted so as to offset and gender-neutralize that honor.
But let’s look at this issue from the child’s perspective for a moment. After all, they are the most important actors in this tragic drama.
KIDS’ PRIMARY ATTACHMENT
Children’s primary attachment figure is the parent who the child primarily bonds to in the early years. This is virtually always the mother because she does the gestating (yes, there is bonding during last months of gestation), nursing, and primary caregiving. This bonding is simply due to the biological circumstance of being a female.
Women did not ask for this human task. But they are primed for it biologically—and they almost always follow through with extensive nurturing and love once on this maternal path. And this maternal love and primary nurturing is crucial for children’s healthy emotional development—the basis for all aspects of their future lives, including, most importantly, forming relationships.
This role of mothers is validated by empirical research, women’s experience over the millennia, and common sense. At every stage of development—birth through teenage years—children need their primary bond. There is no good substitute. Dr. John Bowlby, the original researcher of attachment theory recognized this.
Significantly, the mother remains the primary attachment figure forever—even if they are taken at a young age and completely estranged from her. Primary attachment is not something that changes throughout the life span, no matter what happens. In cases of alienation from mothers, children must simply cope as best they can.
Children who’ve been taken and alienated from their mothers usually cope by dissociating and, in turn, that dissociation often causes other mental health conditions, like anxiety or depression. This terribly negative impact on children, and by extension on society, is why they should never be taken away from their primary bond. [Unless, of course, she is seriously abusive, but that is almost never the case in Family Court cases. Abusive and drug-addicted mothers are dealt with by social services in dependency courts.]
THREAT TO MEN’S POWER
This fact—that children need their mother and are harmed badly, long-term, and often irreparably when taken away from her—inadvertently threatens male power in the family. It makes it more difficult to justify removing and keeping children away from someone so crucial to their healthy development and happiness. It looks awfully bad for a father to do that.
Hence, false narratives about attachment must be embedded into society and law so men can continue to use kids as leverage. Not surprisingly, that is exactly what the OBN/FRA’s [old boy network/fathers’ rights activists] are busy doing. They are co-opting the issue of attachment and spinning it to men’s advantage. Ironically, they are using “parental alienation” and “best interests of the child” in the process. But that is for another column.
To be clear, men have always had the power to use children as leverage. It just wasn’t an issue until women gained the power to divorce and live independently of men, thanks to Women’s Lib in the ’60’s. Suddenly women were able to more easily leave men who were not good husbands or fathers, or were abusive, or with whom they fell out of love.
This was a massive blow to age-old paternal dominance and led to men devising official ways to maintain power after separation. The power to take children from mothers was the key leverage necessary, and the Family Court system provided the means to do it.
Family Court is not just coincidentally a “special” court. It is specifically designed so judges have unlimited “discretion” to switch custody from primarily-bonded mothers to secondarily-bonded fathers, regardless of facts, evidence, or research or the true best interests of children.
And in case you are thinking that judges allowing fathers to alienate children from mothers must be a rarity or an exception to the rule, think again. In our Custody Crisis Survey of 645 mothers, an incredible 44%—nearly half!—were completely estranged from their children.
In the vast majority of cases, mothers were alienated to a greater or lesser degree after litigating in Family Court. In 53% of cases, the judge’s order enabled the alienation, and in 54% the father was simply allowed to violate the custody/visitation order.
A WORD ABOUT THE WORD ALIENATION
Mothers are being widely discouraged from using the word alienation, so a word about why we think it really should be used is probably in order here, since we are speaking about alienated mothers.
Since the ’90’s, PPO’s [protective/safe parent organizations] have pressured mothers who are victims of the Custody Crisis to not utter the term parental alienation. Their logic is that since mothers are being falsely accused of alienating, banning the word/concept will solve the problem. But this is faulty logic as explained in “Down the Parental Alienation Rabbit Hole”.
It might make it a bit more difficult to switch custody if judges are not allowed to use the term alienation, but they have a plethora of other things at their disposal to justify the switch. It would barely make a dent in the Custody Crisis.
Most importantly, it keeps alienated mothers from using the one term that best describes what’s been done to them, the one the public readily understands. Here is a diagram that shows why some of the suggested replacement terms don’t work. Alienation is a distinct concept from DV by proxy, coercive control and post-separation abuse.
[NOTE: This diagram is qualitative, not quantitative.]
Anyway, the word and concept of alienation has been around for centuries. That is not the problem. The problem in contested custody cases is the system. The Family Court system empowers judges to falsely find mothers to be alienating and to allow fathers to alienate.
Better to embrace “alienation” and use it to women’s advantage in exposing the harm being done to them.
TAKEAWAYS
The primary maternal bond, by its very nature, represents a threat to men’s power.
The maternal bond is used as leverage post-separation.
The mother remains the primary attachment figure for the child’s entire life, even if they are alienated.
Judges routinely enable fathers to take and alienate children from mothers.
Mothers are suffering due to court-enabled alienation.
Women should embrace the word alienation and use it to their advantage.
Women need to speak out about how Family Court is causing mothers to be alienated from their children.
The taking and alienating of children from mothers negatively impacts society.
A WELL-DESERVED TRIBUTE
Alienated mothers are invisible to larger society. Nobody came to rescue them. They have been disappeared. They anguish in silence. They have been ostracized. They are ashamed because society has been conditioned to believe a mother who’s lost custody is a bad mother, that it is her fault.
But it’s quite the contrary.
Most alienated moms were great mothers before their children were taken. Most have given up lives as they knew it in the fight to keep and protect their children. Many have been imprisoned in the process. Most financially devastated. Some have ended their lives because they could not bear the pain of losing their precious children.
Keep in mind, Moms, that your children are better off for having had you in their lives, for however long, even if they do not consciously recognize it. It is deep down in the very fabric of their beings, the beings you birthed.
So pat yourself on the back today and every day. Treat yourself to some nourishing self care. You done good—as good as you could given the oppressive Family Court system.
We Sisters of the Coalition on this Mother’s Day 2024 hereby give a well-deserved, special tribute to the thousands of moms who’ve been alienated from their precious children.
PS: You can share this article with family, friends, the media, and the public to support that you did not deserve to lose custody. Point them to Women’s Coalition International.org if they want more info.
IN OTHER NEWS
SISTERS IN SOLIDARITY
Our next Sisters in Solidarity forum will be this Saturday, May 18th at 1pm Pacific; 4pm Eastern; 8pm GMT; 9pm UTC; 7am Sydney, Australia.
If you’d like to join SIS, please fill out this form. More info here. You will receive an invitation to the zoom a few days before [check alternate inboxes].
NOTE: We have a special announcement Sisters, so don’t miss it!
CHAPTER 16 IS OUT!
“Patience Beyond Reason” is Chapter 16 of Dr. Blue’s Mother-Fucking: The Saga of One Fucked Mother.
In this chapter, Legion’s “patience beyond reason” for Herry’s abuse and infidelity has run out and she finally tells him he has to leave until and unless he decides to change. Fear of her boys becoming like him gives her the courage to act. But the stress of it all causes a stint of sleeplessness which impacts her mental health. This normal reaction to a major life stressor is then pathologized by the mental health system.
Legion muses how women over the centuries have been called crazy and witches for their reactions to men’s oppression, and how in turn this is used to further degrade and dominate them. She foreshadows how her own pathologization will be used against her in Family Court.
Dr. Blue’s novel is based on her own experience of the Custody Crisis. It uniquely conveys how Family Court judges are “mother-fucking” women—a form of systemic violence directed at ex-wives—as protagonist Legion is systematically and methodically deprived of her children and money and reduced to “one fucked mother”.
Chapters are stand-alone interesting so you can begin reading anywhere. A Cast of Characters follows to help readers at any point. All published chapters are included in the Section: “The Saga of One F**ked Mother” accessible on the top bar of the home page: Women’s Coalition News & Views. Sequential chapters are published every Wednesday and subscribers will find them in their inboxes, so make sure to subscribe if you haven’t yet!
You may also support the Coalition’s work through a one-time or recurring contribution through PayPal:
Family court has the power to separate women and their children. Patriarchy dominates family court. The mother-child bond is sacred. It is a powerful connection. Damaging that bond causes immense pain and suffering. Women and their children deserve to have a relationship. Male entitlement rules family court. Family court must end.
Yes. I’m feeling it right now at this very moment my court date is May 16 pray for me.