(I apologize in advance for the poor quality-this was taken from a still camera video, not a camcorder) This is my boyfriend and I, going through the house where his 4 kids were living with their mom at the time. Dad had moved out on or about the first of December, 2005. Mom had what amounts to sole custody of the kids for the previous 2-1/2 years leading up to the day we took this video footage.
The two girls, who are also the two youngest (8 and 10 at the time), explained to us earlier in the day on July 13th that there were no toilet seats in the house that worked, and we were perplexed at what that meant. We were concerned because Mom has a history of a filthy home, and sending the girls over for visitation in filthy clothes which were not the right size, or appropriate for the weather, with no changes of clothes or pajamas for overnights--and often the clothes the girls were wearing were urine soaked, and the girls' panties were crusty. (Disgusting, I know. Dad bought panties for them to change into at our house.)
Anyway, back to July 13th. We knew Mom was driving all 4 kids to a summer camp that afternoon, so my boyfriend and I took the opportunity to record the condition of the marital home. As a result of this documentation, the two youngest were removed from Mom's custody and placed in my boyfriend's home (where myself and my two kids also live). The oldest boy (17 at the time) has threatened to kill us, due to alienation from mom, so he can't live here. The next to oldest boy (15 at the time) began committing sex offenses a couple years ago, so we can't have him living here around the girls.
The girls exhibit tons of neglect dysfunction and symptoms, which always reappear after the kids have visitation with Mom. The girls wet their pants (which their mother conspires with them to hide), they lie and steal, they self-mutilate, they destroy property at our house when we hold them accountable for unacceptable behavior, they regress to infantile behavior such as thumbsucking or acting like a baby, and they turn inward and self-isolate. The kids have been given pretty much no sense of hygiene, and have only mastered a few basics after constant enforcement since the time they've come to live with us. The girls would pee all over the toilet and floor, and in their pants and beds, which you'll probably understand more after you see the bathrooms in this video. The nastiest bathroom with the black toilet was the only one the girls said anyone was using. And although it was so foul it literally made me sick for an entire day after visiting this home, it is almost regrettable we could not record the smell on video. You have to understand, it was a smell that could not have been cultivated overnight...it reflected, at the very least, months of neglect, if not years.
Mother has not been charged with any abuse, even though the condition of the house alone should be enough to warrant it by statute in Colorado. And sadly, the current custody evaluator on this case has done nothing to address Mom's behavior, nor has the court ordered any type of rehabilitation or treatment for Mom's obviously dysfunctional and harmful behavior. In fact, all the evaluator wants to do is give Mom even MORE time with the girls, despite her having admitted to both my boyfriend and I that the girls "are not safe with" Mom, and that Mom has some serious problems from which Mom is likely never to recover. It should be obvious to any competent and ethical mental health professional that more time with Mom is not in the best interest of the children. But instead of protecting the children, the professionals and attorneys on this case only protect Mom's "right" to see and speak with the kids whenever and wherever she wants. These same people harass Dad whenever he tries to protect the kids, even though it is documentably necessary to the kids physical and emotional health and well-being.
Mom is also a perpetrator of Domestic Violence against Dad, even with the kids (and me) present, but the "system" just doesn't seem to know how to handle females abusing males. The prevalent thought is that any man is inherently capable of protecting himself from a woman, so no creedence is given to his claims, and nothing is ever done to improve the situation.
This video is going up on YouTube as a plea to get people to see what's going on, and to get them involved. Please comment--particularly if you have a divorce/custody case in the state of Colorado. Unfortunately, this kind of horror is tolerated as everyday occurrence here. Children's lives are being ruined because the "system" does not work to protect them from this when it happens in the scope of a divorce. For some reason, anything illegal that happens during divorce is shrugged off as excusable. And that is horrific, because it minimizes and discredits the harm perpetrated, and this type of damage to the children can never be undone.
But you do bring up a good point that a mother figure isnt always better than a father figure at raising children...Judges incorrectly assume that a mother is and will always be better at raising kids then a father could be
-Matthew