The Parentectomy

   

Parentectomy is the removal, erasure, or severe diminution of a caring parent in a child's life, following separation or divorce. A prime example of parentectomy is when one parent moves away from the other fit and loving parent.
Parentectomy covers a large range of parent removal from partial parentectomy, "You may visit your Daddy or Mommy every other Sunday"; to total parentectomy, or complete parent absence or removal. The victims of a parentectomy are the children and the parents so severed from each other's lives.

A parentectomy is the most cruel infringement upon children's rights to be carried out against human children by human adults. It is child abuse.

Parentectomies are psychologically lethal to children and parents.  With a "Parentectomy" comes the vilification and denigration of the "targeted" parent. Here is a link to Jodi's site showing the ongoing denigration and vilification that Ron has had to endure since shortly after Shelby's birth.  Now me too as the stepmother, while she continues to deny we exist in our roles as Shelby and Ronald's parents in the "delusional world" she has created for herself.
Jodi's website
 (Website has been removed from overblog because of terms of use violation)
Here is an example of what Jodi and Donald have done in their attempts at a "parentectomy" of Ron from his children's lives. Following is a Certificate of Live Birth of his daughter Shelby. This is not the original. The original was made at the time of her birth with "paternal" papers that Ron signed as the biological father. Her given name at birth was Shelby Sue Cornett.  His son's name on his original birth certificate is Ronald Daniel Cornett.  Both children's originals have Ron's name on them and are still on file at the Pierce County Courthouse in Washington State as a matter of public record. This certificate has Donald Griffing's name as the father. Donald is the man who abducted Shelby and Ronald from Ron's home in Kalispell, Montana in 1997 and absconded with them to his home in Guymon, Oklahoma.  Both children have two birth certificates on record.

Following is an letter to the Editor I found in a Montreal Newspaper from a victim of a Parentectomy.

Dear Editor,

Having been raised in a home with divorced parents, I am thrilled to have an opportunity to share with the Yated readers a happy ending to a sad an unfortunate childhood. I have, Boruch Hashem, finally reunited with my alienated father and now we, and his new family, have established a warm, solid relationship together.

I am now 20 and happily married.

I was a product of parental alienation by my mother, who kept me away from my father. She fed me a host of lies, false allegations and sheer drama, and thereby robbed me of a relationship with him due to her selfish personal war that she waged with him all the years. It was almost an obsession to completely blot him out of our lives. She should have sought help for herself, since this was about her own selfishness and not about what was right for her child.

It is only fair to mention that I had a loving mother and I have many fond memories growing up, but despite all of that, there was a steady sprinkling of lies relating to my father’s whereabouts, which left me quite confused.

How I finally sorted things out is a story too long for this column, but when I started dating, issues about my father kept creeping into every conversation with shadchanim(matchmaker) and I was stunned to discover that my father was, in fact, an outstanding human being, quite well known and respected, with a loving family. I set into motion a plan that ultimately led me back into his life.

The grief he suffered is indescribable. He shared with me his own journey with rabbonim(rabbi), dayanim(senior rabbi), friends and family who were all equally helpless in effecting some sort of visitation due to my mother’s relentless compulsion with revenge.

Unfortunately, rabbonim(rabbi) are not equipped with much to enforce agreement. Despite their best efforts to reason with my mother, pointing out the wickedness of such alienation and the impact on my childhood, nothing changed.

What she caused, a parentectomy of sorts, is unforgivable. The emotional manipulation I suffered for nearly 20 years will take me a lifetime to make sense of. Couldn’t she have seen that this would backfire?

I am happy today beyond words. I have a new family, siblings and grandparents who embraced me and my husband. I am trying to make up for lost time. I am trying very hard to focus on that and not on the resentment I have for my mother who caused so many individuals so much pain. She is now suffering the backlash, the wrath of her child, for having precipitated this enormous loss, because our relationship today is cold at best. In time, I honestly hope things will improve on that front too, but for now it comes down to my own personal healing experience and my new found happiness.

It is my sincere hope that by sharing my story, I will encourage others in similar situations to seek professional help to try, at all costs, to avoid a lifetime of unresolved pain and regrets to their children.

Name withheld, Montreal, Canada