Weld's legacy: Engine of Fatherlesness

Former Governor William Weld has departed, but unfortunately Massachusetts' fatherhood advocates won't be exhaling any healthy sighs of relief. Weld's legacy of fatherhood-busting policies survives him, and from the looks of things, will continue unabated under the leadership of his former understudy, now-Governor Cellucci.

Weld announced the formation of the Advisory Commission on Father Absence and Family Support July last year. In January this year at his State of the State speech he declared that "fatherlessness is the number one social problem in the Commonwealth." In July, in what could be considered the capstone to his entire anti-fatherhood administration, Weld made as his last appointment to the commission the state's champion dad-demonizer and leading child support banshee, Susan Brotchie.

The commission includes ten men and nine women. When it was first announced, at least two credentialed father's advocates, Ned Holstein (at the time with CPF) and Steven Carrier (Fathers Group), formerly approached the commission for inclusion. Neither received even the courtesy of a reply.

Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, perhaps the only person on the board who might be considered sensitive to the plight of the throwaway dad, was solicited by the commission. Some of the other names provide a who's who of the local anti-fatherhood crowd: Mitchell Adams, Marie Kenny from the domestic violence commission, and Marilyn Smith (more on her later).

In his six-plus years in office, Weld presided over a veritable engine of fatherlessness. Far from being an innocent bystander simply going along with the program, Weld often led the charge. Earlier this year he drafted his own 'Let's protect the children from abusive fathers' legislation that almost makes last year's Gray-Cohen bill look appealing by comparison.

Known for a quirky sense of humor, Weld's executive decisions often appeared to have comic intent. He appointed his Harvard college roommate, Mitchell Adams, childless by lifestyle choice, to head the Department of Revenue. From this visible office, he has taken every opportunity to publicly insult and demonize non-custodial fathers. Adams can always be counted on for a media sound-byte to bash those deadbeat dads who would "take candy out of the mouths of their own children."

Long-time advocates Paul Clements and Patrick Flynn have both appeared on radio and television opposite Brotchie, described as a "child support advocate" on the commission board roster. According to Clements, he and Brotchie appeared on WRKO radio with former talk-show hostess Victoria Jones several years ago. During a commercial break, off-air, Clements suggested to Brotchie that she was "blinded by a hatred of all men;" according to him, she agreed that this was so. He claims he said that her anger arose from her live-in boyfriend's refusal to marry her, and she deliberately let herself get pregnant in an attempt to trick him into marriage. [He bailed out anyway.]

Clements maintains that he directly confronted her with this accusation, and furthermore accused her of now using the child support laws to punish every man in the state for his defiance of her. Clements states that Brotchie's response to this was that he was "right on target."

As founder of ACES (Association for Child Support Enforcement), Brotchie spearheaded the child support enforcement movement here in Massachusetts, home of the highest guidelines in the nation. Brotchie has been a consistent beacon of anti-father rhetoric. Her behavior has won her friends in government - apparently including Weld-and the victim-feminist sympathizers in the media and entertainment industry who recognize the capital to be earned in being tough on those deadbeat dads.

But now that Brotchie has joined the governor's board, things become surreal. In a July 2 story in the Peabody Citizen, Brotchie states "The worst thing in the world is a mother denying a father access to his children when the father has a legitimate right to see them." Then, she is quoted with this stunning statement: "I was a little surprised that no fathers were appointed to be advocates for the kids...I think fathers should be represented on the commission."

We began contact with the governor's office on July 18 to try to find out if in fact it was true that the Commission on Father Absence was ... absent a father. We also wanted to find out if the commission was going to address the simpler-to-solve problem: those fatherless families where the father wants to be involved with his children, is actively trying to be involved, but is being prevented by the mother with the help of the courts.

It took five weeks to get an answer.

We were first referred to the director of the commission, Marilyn Smith. The call to Smith was greeted by that familiar, friendly voice of the Child Support Enforcement Division phone answering system. Lo and behold, the Executive Director of the commission is the chief legal counsel for DOR/CSE! Marliyn Smith's claim to fame is co-authorship of the 1986 report "Massachusetts' Child Support Guidelines: A model for Development."

This report provided the basis for the Massachusetts guidelines, the nation's highest (the guideline child support rate tops off at a whopping 40.25 percent of gross pay for the non-custodial parent). This shoddy piece of work makes no attempt to mask its intent to impoverish non-custodial fathers. In it, the father's gross income is compared to the mother's tax free income, and 1960 economic data is used in a model that determines that two post-divorce households require only 115% of the (intact) family income to suffer no loss of standard of living. There are numerous errors in the formulas; typical feminist advocacy work masquerading as a legitimate scientific study.

For the next three weeks we parried with Smith's office trying to schedule a phone call. Eventually, on August 12, the two questions were passed through to her executive assistant. Two days later we were informed that the questions were not in Smith's purview, and that we should contact the Governor's press secretary, Allison Green.

Ten days later, we finally got a return call from Green. According to her, Brotchie meant that she was surprised that none of the NCP fathers recently "honored" by DOR/CSE for paying their child support obligations were on the commission, and that there were indeed fathers on the commission.

In response to our other question, Green told me that forced fatherlessness was not considered "critical," and that the commission was limiting its scope to addressing situations of intentional father absence. She did assure me that she would pass our concerns on to the Governor. Perhaps Holstein and Carrier can expect to hear from the commission soon?

To the best of our knowledge, the commission has met twice since its inception.

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