KIDSDESERVEDADS.COM
Submission Guidelines
KidsDeserveDads.com is an online archive for dads to share their personal stories from their horrific experiences with the Family Law system.  Site creators and editors assume no responsibility whatsoever for the content of any submission. As every participant's experience is unique to each dad, submissions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of site owners, editors, and/or the Bay Area Father's Rights Support Group or Kids Deserve Dads.

Please keep your personal story describing your experience with the Family Law system to no more than 500 words (if writing in Word, you can check the word count via the pull down menu at the top of your Word document). Although you are prompted by the fields above the Story Submission box, at the end of your story, please be sure to include: 

-- YOUR FIRST NAME
-- FIRST INITIAL OF YOUR LAST NAME 
-- CITY, STATE/PROVINCE
-- COUNTRY

In a separate email sent to KidsDeserveDads@yahoo.com, along with your first name and first initial of your last name, you may include:
-- YOUR COLOR OR B/W HEADSHOT OR A PERSONAL AVATAR (optional)
   (Artwork must be your own or royalty-free. For a large selection of royalty-free clip art click here.). If you do not provide us an image file, we will assign an image file deemed appropriate by our editorial staff to your story.
 
We will NOT publish your email address. We only request it in the event that we need to contact you by email for clarification of any details described within your story.

WHAT YOU MAY INCLUDE IN YOUR STORY:

In your story, you may refer to your child or children and/or your ex-spouse or spouse by FIRST NAME ONLY. You may also include each child's AGE.  As not every name you refer to in your story is readily identifiable as male or female, please be sure to use personal pronouns (he/she; him/her; son/daughter) where your child's first name first appears in your story.

In your story, please refer to your spouse/ex-spouse, fiancee/ex-fiancee, or girlfriend/ex-girlfriend by FIRST NAME ONLY, although you do not need to reference your spouse's name at all. You may or may not choose to include your spouse's age at the time of your submission. 

You may include a HEADLINE, or, if you prefer, you can leave the inclusion of a headline up to the site editors. For example:


CELEBRATE INSANITY  -- Brad S., Santa Rosa, CA
My ex-spouse joined a 12-step program because she was told she had "co-dependency
        issues." That was news to me. The group, I later found out, was initially formed to help
 spouses with particular issues they were wrestling with in their lives -- alcohol/drug
 addiction, relationship problems, etc. In practice, however, the longer 'Lynn' attended
 the weekly meetings, the more distant she became from me and the kids. Within weeks,
 she was finding every minor opportunity to escalate anxiety and discord between us.
 Coincidence? I'm not so sure. Ten weeks after joining, and immediately after what most
couples would have concluded was a minor spat, my ex phoned the police and had me
 hauled out of our home under a family-wrecking device known as an 'E.P.O.' (Emergency Protection Order'). This was weapon #1. The E.P.O. was only supposed to last five days. but while I was holed up in a local hotel, and I later learned, on advice of a few members of her church and 12-step program, she filed a T.R.O. That set my children's separation from me back another 30 days until the court date. As I did not have an attorney by the time of the first hearing in Sonoma County Family Court, I requested a Continuance. Another 30 days transpired. By the time of the next hearing, I had not seen any of my children -- for whom I had served as Primary Caregiver, protector, and dad -- for more than 60 days. At the second hearing my (now) ex presented a series of FALSE ALLEGATIONS against me, the man who looked out for the kids every day for more than five years. The dad who she entrusted to drive them to and from music lessons, soccer practice, daycare, elementary and junior high, the local Jack In The Box, and pretty much everywhere.  The judge hit me with a 5-year restraining order based on NO EVIDENCE. He didn't even hear the evidence! I guess that is what you get for letting a "support group" and a so-called church influence your spouse's thinking. I'll be in "recovery" for years. And so will my kids. What mom does this to her children and still has the nerve to call herself "mom"? Good thing several family members and friends have contributed thousands to my legal defense fund. We've retained one of the toughest dad's rights law firms in NorCal. But what about the dads I read about every day who don't have this option? Where do they turn?

WHAT YOU MAY NOT INCLUDE IN YOUR STORY:

-- any home, business, and/or school addresses, names of any schools your children attend or have attended, names of any professionals such as therapists, doctors, counselors, associations to which your spouse and/or children belong (boy scout or girl scout troops, for example), or information that someone reading your story could use to identify or make contact with your spouse/fiancee/girlfriend or ex-spouse/fiancee/girlfriend or children;

-- contact information of any kind whatsoever of any individual referenced in your story including, but not limited to: phone numbers, street addresses, email addresses, screen names, names/addresses of medical/therapy practices, teachers, etc. for the same reasons disclosed above. The exception: You may reference the full names of Family Court judges. But, if you have this information, you may not reference any personal contact information on any judge;

Site editors reserve the right to edit all content for grammar, usage, syntax, spelling, and punctuation, or if the contribution exceeds 500 words. All submissions will be reviewed by site editors before posting to ensure that they adhere to the site's Submission Guidelines. 

In most cases, we will confirm that we have received your submission within 48 hours of receipt. If you do not hear back from us within 72 hours after you have submitted your story, chances are good that we never received or saw your submission or it was intercepted by our Spam folder.  So please write us again (KidsDeserveDads@yahoo.com) until you receive a response. We check our email inbox and Spam folder every day. 

Thank you for sharing your story. You are contributing to a movement that intends to get laws changed to make them more equitable and fair for dads and kids.