A Family Divided: A Divorced Father's Struggle With the Child Custody Industry

by Robert Mendelson

Book Overview

A Harvard-educated physician returned home one day to find a note from his wife stating she had moved out and taken the children with her. The marriage was over, but he hoped he would remain a vital... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1573921513
• ISBN13: 9781573921510
• Release Date: July 1997
• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Length: 547 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

A Glimpse of Hell...A Glimmer of Hope

Dr. Mendelson gives a gripping account of how the legal system views fathers as people who don't care about their children. As a soon to be divorced dad myself, I found that what I am going through right now is (while specific details are different)similar to what his ex put him through. Dr. Mendelson never gave up and I believe never will...no matter how difficult and biased the courts are against fathers. I could not put this book down. Although this book gives no real ideas on how to fight a vicious ex for your childrens' rights to see you, it did give me one very important thing...HOPE! I encourage every father who is currently battling the court system for custody or the right to see their children on a regular basis to read this book!!

Where's hope ?

I feel sorry and pity on Dr. Michael Nieland and me. A lot of time, I felt the stories are so outrages that I can hardly believe him, or I don't want to believe him. But I know it's true. I am right now facing the same stories in my real life. I don't know if I should feel relief because I am not the only one. I do wish maybe the author can provide a list of organizations and attorney as appendix. This is a must read for anyone that might heading towards the direction.

The divorce "industry" at its best

This man's achille's heel was that he had a lot of money. Hadhe not been a "fat cash cow" the divorce"industry" sharks might not have smelled the blood. His account is so ridiculously typical of what goes on it makes me sick. Judges ruining lives with their pen tips, lawyers allowed to run loose with their limited intellect/big mouths, psycopathic literati (aka psychologists) getting seduced by "poor wives" and so-called professionals allowing six and seven year old kids get victimized in the name of "justice" (only to become dysfunctional citizens later one).Good book, rotten society.

A case-book approach... one father's experience

This book will add a lot to future scientific analysis and understanding of family life and divorce in modern America. It's truly a story of American society going, arguably, beserk; and one father's love for his family lost, in spite of spending a fortune just to remain involved in his children's lives. Many of us have spent $10s of thousands trying to save our life with our children, only to lose out; but thinking that we could have won if ONLY we had more money to pursue the fight. Dr. Nieland, a truly courageous man for letting his story be told; is proof that you can spend $100s of thousand with the same outcome. Probably only a parent whom has been wrenched away from his child or children can really appreciated what this system can do to the losing parent's entire existence and ability to believe in the American way of life. This book documents, among other things, the role of the "professionals" (custody evaluators) whom society relies on to advise the court as to how to provide for the best interests of the child. Yet these persons support a system which can deprive a perfectly good and loving parent of any kind of a fulfilling life with his children. After reading this book one gets an understanding how the court seems to usually pick one parent as the "best" parent and exclude the other parent in order to remove conflict from the child's life. Unfortunately for men, almost every study show that, here in the USA, the man rarely wins and is the odd man out... it reminds me of Sonny Bono's autobiography, where the television network decided to reorganize the "Sonny and Cher Commedy Hour" to become the "Cher Commedy Hour", sans Sonny.God bless Robert Mendelson for this truly epocal tale of one family's story in the cruel world of divorce in today's American system of Justice... one has to believe that there is a better way out there somewhere.

Anyone with a social conscience needs to read this book!

A Family Divided is a gripping account of one man's battle for equity. Mendelson's account of Dr. Michael L. Lieland's experience with the family court system was so riveting I read the book in one sitting. This book is a must read for anyone about to embark on child custody litigation or for anyone who already has. I enjoyed Mendelson's book because it was an honest in-depth account of one of the most pressing problems of our times.