Story Archive

How to Ensure a Healthy Relationship

Judge Lisa Gorcyca of the family court in Oakland County, Mich., found that Maya Eibschitz-Tsimhoni had turned her children against their father. So the judge ordered the kids to “have a healthy relationship with your father.” It didn’t happen. “I saw him hit my mom, and I’m not going to talk to him,” said the eldest, 14. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” The judge disagreed: “I ordered you to talk to your father,” she said. “You defied a direct court order.” She sent the lad to Children’s Village — a jail-like place, she told the kids, where inmates “go to the bathroom in front of people” — and when his siblings, ages 9 and 10, refused to have lunch with their father, she sent them there too. The judge may have been disappointed. “There is privacy in the bathroom,” said the director of the highly structured facility where the Tsimhoni children were confined. “We try to make it as homelike as we can.” After more than two weeks, the judge relented and, as their father asked, let the kids go to summer camp. It’s not clear what will happen to them next. Their parents have been fighting over custody for five years. (AC/Detroit Free Press) ...Five years with the court controlling their personal relationships and they still havent learned our rights aren’t secure without respect for court orders?