Matter of Corey Mc. v. Tanya Mc. (N.Y. App. Div. Nov. 24):
[T]he mother appeals from an order of disposition of the Family Court, Queens County ..., which, upon a ... finding that she had neglected the child Corey Mc., and derivatively neglected the child Tyler Mc., placed the children in the custody of the Commissioner of Social Services of Queens County until the completion of the next permanency hearing...ORDERED that the order of disposition is reversed ... and the proceeding is dismissed.
The finding of neglect in this case is based on a single physical confrontation between the mother and her adolescent son, Corey Mc. (hereinafter the son), who at that time was 15 years old and 5 feet 10 inches tall. The evidence in the record established that the mother and the son had a troubled relationship. In this particular incident, the mother confronted the son over what she believed to be a specific instance of inconsiderate behavior, after which she left his room and closed the door. The son came out of his room and directed a stream of profanity-laced invective at the mother, who attempted several times to withdraw from the confrontation. When the son continued his verbal abuse, the mother either punched or slapped him in the face. The incident escalated further, and the son knocked his mother down and continued to curse at her; she got up and hit him on the face with the heel of her shoe, bloodying his nose. The mother then immediately called the police to seek medical attention for the son. The Family Court found that the mother had neglected the son by hitting him with her shoe, and derivatively neglected her then-12-year-old daughter, Tyler Mc., and the Family Court placed the children in the custody of the Commissioner of Social Services of Queens County. The mother contends that the Family Court’s finding of neglect with respect to the son was not supported by a preponderance of the evidence as required by Family Court Act § 1046(b)(i). The attorney for the children, who opposed the finding of neglect in the Family Court, agrees with the mother’s position, and so do we.
A “neglected child” is defined as one whose “physical, mental or emotional condition has been impaired or is in imminent danger of becoming impaired as a result of the failure of his parent or other person legally responsible for his care to exercise a minimum degree of care . . . in providing the child with proper supervision or guardianship, by unreasonably inflicting or allowing to be inflicted harm, or a substantial risk thereof.” Although a single incident may sometimes suffice to sustain a finding of neglect, the record does not support such a finding here. Given the age and size of the son, the provocation, and the dynamics of the incident, the mother’s acts, which, as she readily acknowledged, were not an appropriate response to her son’s conduct, did not constitute neglect. Necessarily, then, the Family Court’s further finding that the child Tyler Mc., who witnessed the incident, was derivatively neglected, likewise was not supported by a preponderance of the evidence.
Alice says:
“...the son knocked his mother down and continued to curse at her...”
Just what would have been the “appropriate response” according to the lower court?
My grown children have called me everything but a “good mother,” but my opinion is that, given what her 15-year-old and out-of-control son had just done to her, her hitting him in the face was not an “inappropriate” response.
There comes a time when mothers should begin treating the people whom they gave birth the same as they treat other people. There comes a time when mothers owe no “special pass” to rotten treatment just because it comes from a person they gave birth to. And any 15-year-old the size of a grown man who knocks a woman to the floor should learn that the woman might hit back.
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November 27, 2009, 9:13 am11-B/2O.B4 says:
Wow, just wow. Sorry, I know this is a legal blog, but I can’t think of this in legal terms. This is insane. How does a man ever think it’s a good idea to lay hands on a woman, much less his mother? And yes, 15 is, or should be, a man. How crap was his upbringing that this seemed even plausible to the little hood? There’s your neglect, he wasn’t beaten properly to socialize him to not be a psychopath.
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November 27, 2009, 9:38 amEd says:
Just how long did it take to establish the obvious? How long were the children in the gentle grip of the Commissioner of Social Services of Queens County?
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November 27, 2009, 9:49 amtheobromophile says:
I’m with Alice. This kid smacked his other around and only got hit in the face?
Last time I checked (and someone might know a lot more about this than I do), a lot of abusive boyfriends and husbands grew up in houses in which it was seen as acceptable to hit women. If men don’t grow up by seeing their mother and sisters treated well, they are much, much more likely to be abusers.
So what is this guy going to take from all this? If women fight back, you can drag them through the court system and try to take their children away from them? My heart goes out to whatever girl may cross his path.
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November 27, 2009, 11:16 amDave N. says:
It is interesting that slapping her son was not considered the abusive act, but rather hitting him with the shoe was. I do not think slapping him was abusive, either, given the situation as described, but many kids get the idea that any form of corporal punishment is abuse and use that as a club to threaten their parents.
Unfortunately, the zealot approach (any hitting of any kind is child abuse) detracts from situations where there truly is abuse and kids truly need protecting by cheapening the definition of “child abuse.”
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November 27, 2009, 11:41 amtheus says:
My parents got divorced and my mom was a basket case. When I was 15, she used to “finish” arguments by slapping me in the face. I wanted to hit her so bad, and still resent her for it.
If the facts of this case are as they appear, it was an absurd overreaction by the authorities. However there may be another side to it.
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November 27, 2009, 11:54 amStating the obvious says:
It’s a pity that it took the courts 15 years to catch up with this obviously unfit mother, who obviously hasn’t the first clue how to raise or discipline children. Because of her–and the state’s–negligence, she has raised a child who is abusive, violent, and disdains authority. And she, and you, want our sympathy now because the system has just caught up to her obviously complete inability to raise socialized children?
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November 27, 2009, 12:17 pmShelbyC says:
Somebody needs to whack this judge with a shoe.
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November 27, 2009, 12:25 pmStating the obvious says:
There comes a time when mothers should begin treating the people whom they gave birth the same as they treat other people.
So you think the appropriate response to a teenager who swears at you is to punch him in the face and hit him with your shoe? How old are you?
Considering the mentality of many of the people on this site, it’s a good thing there wasn’t a gun in the house. I’m sure there would have been more than a few who would have excused her using deadly force. After all, she brought him into this world, she should be able to take him out.
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November 27, 2009, 12:26 pmSoronel Haetir says:
More interesting, if it had stopped with the slap how open to a DDV charge would the mother be?
I do think this mother is very much at fault. Perhaps not at the moment of this incident but for all the years leading up to it.
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November 27, 2009, 12:59 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Stating the obvious, I don’t think you were accurate when you said this: “So you think the appropriate response to a teenager who swears at you is to punch him in the face and hit him with your shoe?” It’s not like he said “damn” and she bloodied his nose.
There are circumstances under which running your mouth can get you into a lot of trouble. Apparently he’s reached the age of 15 without getting control of himself, and that’s a problem, but if he learns from this that there is a time and a place to zip it, his mother may have saved his life.
Theus, I’m sorry you had to endure that. Presumably you didn’t go after your mother when she was trying to walk away, and verbally abuse her until she slapped you.
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November 27, 2009, 1:04 pmCrunchy Frog says:
Apropos of absolutely nothing, but did anyone else notice the conspicuous absence of the word “father”?
Stating the obvious: Do you have children, by any chance? Just wonderin’.
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November 27, 2009, 1:06 pmGuy says:
One of the (many, many) sad things about this is how quick everyone is to take sides in the dispute, or use it to make a pet political point.
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November 27, 2009, 1:17 pmDavid Chesler says:
As any parent who has been mugged by the government knows, she’s caught between two unpleasant alternatives: discipline the son and it’s neglect-by-abuse, or don’t discipline him and it’s neglect by teaching him to disdain authority.
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November 27, 2009, 1:21 pmRandy says:
Theo: “Last time I checked (and someone might know a lot more about this than I do), a lot of abusive boyfriends and husbands grew up in houses in which it was seen as acceptable to hit women. If men don’t grow up by seeing their mother and sisters treated well, they are much, much more likely to be abusers.”
Absolutely. I fear for any women this son dates, as this will be a problem in the future.
We don’t have all the facts, and every family has different dynamics, so it’s useless to speculate as to whether the son is crazy or the mother, or both. Nonetheless, it’s safe to argue that the family situation is not ideal. Violence of this sort should never be tolerated within a family.
A friend of mine points out that when children act like this, somewhere along the line they failed to learn respect from the parents. Parents need to teach respect, and they also have to earn it from their children — it’s a two way street. Parents need to respect each other as well, and sometimes that’s not the case.
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November 27, 2009, 2:07 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Well, I sure did. Around here, teaching a boy to respect his mama is the dad’s job. Hopefully he leads by example.
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November 27, 2009, 2:07 pmDave N. says:
Gosh Randy, why can’t you be this wise and reasonable in your political posts? ;-)
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November 27, 2009, 2:36 pmRyan Waxx says:
You’re right! How dare anyone exercise judgment or try to draw larger conclusions!
All these... judgmental conclusion draw-ers! They just burn me up!
Next thing you know, they’ll have opinions!
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November 27, 2009, 2:49 pmLeo Marvin says:
I’d have liked more information about that. Was it a flat heel or a spike? If it was flat, I don’t see how she can be faulted for using any more than was reasonably necessary to repel the kid’s attack. If it was a spike, I’m not so sure.
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November 27, 2009, 3:05 pmLeo Marvin says:
Nobody’s directly addressed the questions I think EV implied with this post. Can a parent be abusive for using only as much force as they’d be allowed in their self-defense? Alternatively, could it be non-abusive parenting to use more force than would be allowed in self-defense?
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November 27, 2009, 3:26 pmSkyler says:
It’s clear that the child is immature mentally, if not physically, and is still improperly socialized.
I wouldn’t be so quick to jump on the mother for all the blame. When a kid is 15 years old, there are other influences for his behavior than just the mom. There’s the father, friends, friends’ parents, schools, gangs, etc. He might be abusing drugs or alcohol which could have a big impact on his behavior.
Ultimately, the parents should be held responsible, but where is the father? What limitations did the father put on the mother’s ability to dominate the son? Is the father still around, and if not then how recently did he leave?
It’s not so simple as June and Ward telling Beaver to clean his room.
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November 27, 2009, 3:34 pmSkyler says:
I think another interesting point is this: I don’t know about New York, but in Texas they’re very clear in the law that parents are allowed to use force on their children, so long as the child is not endangered.
But my brief exposure to family law courts indicates to me that although the parent may not be subject to criminal prosecution, the family courts react to any use of force whatsoever as a reason to alter the parent-child relationship. That is, if mom and dad are fighting for custody of their kid, then the parent that spanks will not be favored by the judge in the least. So much for having a law to protect the parents from spanking their children.
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November 27, 2009, 3:39 pmRandy says:
Dave N.: “Gosh Randy, why can’t you be this wise and reasonable in your political posts? ;-)”
I am. You just haven’t noticed....:)
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November 27, 2009, 4:24 pmOrder of the Coif says:
Catch-22.
This is why so many sensible couples choose to pass on children.
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November 27, 2009, 4:35 pmEinhverfr says:
I am going to side with the mother here. I actually don’t think, after being shoved down onto the floor and after having tried to withdraw from the confrontation, it is inappropriate to strike back in the manner described. The sooner the kid learns that violence can get you hurt, the better.
I also think traditional corporal punishment is a two-edged sword. People react to being hit in very specific ways and these aren’t always what one wants out of punishing one’s child. At the same time, in specific cases (where there is a fundamentally problematic relationship as would seem to be the case here), it can be helpful. Keeping it to a rare occurrence also makes it more effective when used.
One more thing to consider: children often test boundaries to see what they can get away with. This is especially true for children at certain ages (including adolescence). I have watched my 5-year-old son occasionally pick fights which are quite obviously mere attempts at seeking punishment. If you don’t enforce such lines, sometimes quite rigorously, the child feels unloved and not a part of the social unit of the family.
I would certainly hope that out of the confrontation at issue here, everyone benefited from the episode. I fear, however with the intervention of the state, that might not be the case.
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November 27, 2009, 4:51 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Dobson compared this phenomenon to a watchman at night trying doors that are supposed to be locked. He turns the knobs and pushes or pulls but he hopes the doors won’t open.
Five years old is an appropriate age for this behavior. Fifteen, not so much. It’s been my nonscientific observation that the kids who act out at that age are the least mature ones.
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November 27, 2009, 5:06 pmjccamp says:
Someone asked “How long?” The original fact-finding hearing occurred in June, 2007. The order removing the children was entered in September, 2008 — although they were probably out of the home from at least the June hearing and perhaps before that — and the appellate decision reversing the Family Court order just happened, November 24, 2009. So the 15 year old is probably an adult by now, and the female child 14 or 15 years old.
“The finding of neglect in this case is based on a single physical confrontation...”
Better late than never. But the mother should perhaps have tanned the son’s hide long before he reached 15 years and 5’10″. Not an ideal way to end the argument, but the son needed to learn the consequences of smacking a female, especially one who happened to be a parent.
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November 27, 2009, 5:45 pmEinhverfr says:
Laura:
I am not saying the mother is necessarily being a good parent the rest of the time. Really if it came to that, either the kid is very troubled, or the kid has some sort of neurological problem (I did as a kid, but it was less pronounced by 15).
I am not drawing a whole lot from the lack of mention of the father from this because for all we know this could have happened at a time when the father was at the office. Or the father might not be present. We don’t have enough information.
One lesson I AM drawing from this, though, in conjunction with watching my own children grow up as well as watching children of friends, is that there is a tremendous hesitation in this culture to discipline children AT ALL, and that this is leading to tremendous problems. The most whiney, hard to please kids are those who are never disciplined. And this acting out then persists well beyond where it should because the child hasn’t developed a sense of place within the family.
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November 27, 2009, 6:55 pmCrunchy Frog says:
More likely he’s out of the picture entirely, if he was ever more than a sperm donor to begin with.
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November 27, 2009, 7:07 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Einhverfr, agree. I remember the story a few months back about a woman who put her squabbling daughters out of the car and drove off. She came back to find the older one but not the younger — she’d cried to a stranger, who had called the police, and the woman was in big trouble. The younger kid was about eight, IIRC. My thought was that the mother did not have control of the kids and didn’t effectively assert any until after she’d lost her temper. That leads to bad results.
Had my kid in a Target once, when she was three years old. We picked out some candy, among our other shopping. When we got to the checkout lane, she wanted out of the cart. She walked up to the candy display.
I said, “We aren’t getting any of that. We already have candy.”
She didn’t look at me, but put out her hand as if to take some.
I said, “If you touch that, I will spank you.”
She still didn’t look at me, but withdrew her hand and continued to peruse the candy with her hands behind her back.
There were some gray-haired ladies in line behind me and one of them remarked, “That’s not something you often see nowadays.”
Had a very easy time through adolescence and the teen years, although I don’t think my husband and I can take all credit for this — I’m not much of a blank-slater. At 22.5 yrs and launched from our household, she continues to be a delight.
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November 27, 2009, 7:13 pmLeo Marvin says:
Maybe she did.
And you infer that from what? The tried and true Internet axiom that absence of evidence
is evidence of absence?
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November 27, 2009, 8:39 pmDavid says:
We know the size of the kid but not the mother. What if the mother was 5’8″ and weighed 245? Would that change the result? Just wondering.
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November 27, 2009, 10:06 pmJack says:
About 9 years ago, I represented a man on appeal of a conviction for domestic battery. For 13 years, he had been living with and providing for a woman and her children. The facts were astonishingly similar: out-of-control big kid, blew off mom with expletives etc. Mommy dis-remembered a lot of her statements to the cops when it got to trial and threw my client under a bus, defending her son. The appellate court agreed that my guy was acting as a parent, but affirmed the conviction over a claim that the contact was reasonable parental discipline.
Readers of this blog know the consequences of a conviction for domestic battery.
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November 27, 2009, 11:55 pmtheobromophile says:
I also noticed the lack of a father figure, but hoped that someone else would say something.
Randy — thank you. :)
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November 28, 2009, 12:31 amRicardo says:
To state something not so obvious, the evidence that parenting plays much of a role in terms of adolescent anti-social behavior is very thin. Genetics and the child’s peer group are probably much more important. Talk to immigrants from non-Western countries sometime who are raising children in the U.S.: many will tell you they barely understand their kids because the kids are spending all their time hanging out with Americans and adopting American values and social norms themselves. The parents have almost no power to control this.
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November 28, 2009, 10:51 amSkyler says:
And remember that the mother may have been hampered by the father in teaching the kid how to behave. And then sometimes kids are just insane and no amount of teaching can help them.
We just don’t know if any of this applies andwe shouldn’t jump to conclusions.
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November 28, 2009, 3:43 pmTim says:
We don’t have access to the documentary and testimonial evidence. It is quite possible the trial court did not credit the mother’s version of events. If the mother testified, she might not have come across as credible. The judge might not have explicitly stated as much in her decision (this happens all the time in NY Fam Ct) leaving the door open for the appellate court to adopt whatever facts appear in the record as credible without the benefit of seeing the live testimony.
As the decision states, the attorney for the child did not support a finding. All this means is that the child instructed the attorney to not support a finding. The attorney has no other obligation but to represent the clients wishes. In a practical sense, in NY family court, when the child can give an opinion, the child’s attorney does not look at the facts, determine what is in the child’s best interest, and advocate for that position. In this case it is quite possible that the child changed his story, withheld some information from children’s services, or just did not cooperate at all. This is very common for children this age once children’s services gets involved (unless they really hate the parent which even then it’s hard when you are considered a snitch). And while this might have been plain to all the parties involved through various pre-trial hearings, conferences and reports to the court, it’s possible none of this information made it into the trial record (but was known to the judge) as the evidentiary standard under the family court act is different for trials vs. all other types of hearings/conferences.
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November 29, 2009, 6:39 pmTim says:
What I wanted to finish saying was that the way the appellate court decision reads is that children’s services overstepped their authority. However, it is quite possible that the facts as stated is not the way the incident really went down and may not reflect what was happening withthe family (i.e. the relationship with the mother/children, the compliance of the mother with her services, etc...) at the time the trial court made a neglect finding.
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November 29, 2009, 6:50 pm