What would you do if your ex-wife tried to thwart your dying wish to spend time with your kids? Maybe something like this (Hat tip MND).
posted by Helen at 11:11 AM
Commentary on popular culture and society, from a (mostly) psychological perspective
posted by Helen at 11:11 AM
47 Comments:
I feel bad for this guy because he didn't have enough time with kids, and then he died. But still, did he have to break her nose?
This case also shows you what a bad idea the Amber Alert system is. These people should have been left to their own private business. Instead, their dirty laundry was displayed up and down the freeways.
Really, their father was dying and he wanted to take the kids on a hunting trip. I feel the ex-wife should have made an accomodation. Even if they had a violent relationship, couldn't she have gone with them, or sent someone she trusted with them? Let them spend just a little more time with their dying father? Sheeh. That is a little more important than school.
Greg,
Yes, I feel bad for him too, and the worst part is, his kids will remember the Amber Alert and resulting police intervention etc. as their last memories of their dad--rather than a pleasant expedition.
I guess we do not know if he had to break her nose or not--depends how forceful she was being and how determined not to let him have the kids.
This is a terrible tragedy. To demonize the mother now would be a huge mistake. If the children had gone with their father and something horrible had happenned, we would be asking why the mother let the children go into the wilderness with someone whose mental status was unclear.
This is not male bashing.
Helen knows better than me, but sometimes parents who are near death and who are exorcised about how their kids will do without them decide to "take the kids with them." Maybe Mom was afraid of that.
As is always the case, I am sure the media has not given us the whole story, probably because they dont know the whole story. And neither do we.
Cathy wrote: "To demonize the mother now would be a huge mistake." I agree and would go further to say that dmonizing others is always a mistake. But where is the demonizing?
Anon wrote: "I feel the ex-wife should have made an accomodation." This is a statement of opinion and there is no slur involved, just a statement of fact. Anon thinks that this would be the best course.
Helen wrote: "I guess we do not know if he had to break her nose or not--depends how forceful she was being and how determined not to let him have the kids." No demonizing there either.
Are you confusing something else with demonizing? I wonder if holding the thought that a woman may be in the wrong in a bad interaction with a man is so repugnant that it feels like demonizing.
That too, was a statement of fact, because I do indeed wonder that! I could certainly be wrong, but notice that there is no attack in my post either. Demonizing involves a vigorous ad hominem attack without regard to the facts. I have only seen people post questions. Isn't it OK to post questions or disagree?
Trey
Anon wrote: "Helen knows better than me, but sometimes parents who are near death and who are exorcised about how their kids will do without them decide to "take the kids with them." Maybe Mom was afraid of that."
Really? How often does that happen? Does it happen more than cildren die from bee stings? Is it more likely than death by accidental poisoning. I know that wicked, sick thangs are done to children, but how often does a dying parent murder their children? Isn't the answer "Almost never?" Then why bring it up unless it is an irrational fear or a desperate attempt to justify a parent's behavior based on a frog's hair tensile strength argument.
Just wondering.
Trey
The father was in the last stages of a terminal illness so I would give him a pass on his behavior but it definitely troubles me.
According to this report, the father weighed 100 pounds and was spitting up blood. He had been told he could die at any time and he was (perhaps obsessively) focused on taking a last trip to a family camp in a remote area. In deep snow, no less, with 2 young boys. This certainly doesn't sound prudent to me. I understand he wants to see his children one last time, but this was not a reasonable plan and something bad could happen. In fact, something bad did happen. He got stuck in deep snow. We won't ever know for sure but these children may be lucky that they were being tracked by the police.
Clearly there should be an accomodation by a mother if a dying father wants to see his children. Clearly, too, this father should have used better sense and chosen some other activity that would be less likely to endanger his children. At the least he should have planned to take another family member with him in case something happened.
Maybe he was suffering from dementia or some other impairment of his last illness, but he could have become incapacitated at any time. Plus I doubt that, sick and weighing 100 pounds, he could have carried his children to safety from their stranded car. I sympathize but I'm not willing to entrust young children to him in that situation. His family's insistence that it was all ridiculous makes me think they were more concerned about the father's last wishes than about the children's safety.
Correction: No deep snow, only a half metre of snow. I'm obviously not metric-friendly but I stand by my point that this was not prudent behavior.
Me: Anon 12:32
The question is whether the mother had reasonable cause to be concerned about her childrens' welfare.
As drj pointed out, she did.
And I think she did she did the right thing.
The right thing to do would have been to enable the father to spend time with his kids. Perhaps by going along in a helpful, friendly manner or arranging for someone else to go along to ensure the safety and well being of the kids.
The father was spending time with the kids--they were staying at his house when she came by to pick them up for school.
I find the idea that he may have had to break her nose a bit disturbing, too.
dadvocate is absolutely right. The man was dying. He wanted to spend some time with his children. Everyone involved, including the children's mother, should have done everything they could to facilitate this, up to and including driving him and the children to the locale. Children only ever get one father, he and they deserve their dignity.
Here's another, even less conscionable example.
Anon wrote: "
The question is whether the mother had reasonable cause to be concerned about her childrens' welfare.
As drj pointed out, she did.
And I think she did she did the right thing."
I am not satisfied that drj pointed out that the mom had reasonable cause, I think he pointed out that she MAY have had reason for reasonable doubt. MAY.
Did she do the right thing? I am thinking that the right thing would have been to facilitate the safe visitation of children with a dying parent. Whatever it takes. It is for the children and their long term well being. You give it up and do what it takes.
As for the broken nose, well, the times that I would have due cause to bust someone's nose have been slim to none! Sure, I can cook up a reason why, but it is a stretch to excuse the busted nose. Obviously, women batter as well, but I feel for her broken nose.
Trey
dadvocate said...
The right thing to do would have been to enable the father to spend time with his kids. Perhaps by going along in a helpful, friendly manner or arranging for someone else to go along to ensure the safety and well being of the kids.
Maybe the right thing to do would have been for Dad to tell Mom what his plans were BEFORE she showed up at 8:00 to get the kids ready for school. Here he is, coughing up blood, and is taking the kids to a place they've never been, nor has she.
So, Dad busts her nose and drives off with the kids.
I see nothing in the story to suggest that Mom was a shrew. Dad had joint custody and the kids were with him at the time. Mom sounds pretty agreeable to me.
Anon. 4:06 - From the article: He told her he was going on a hunting trip to a camp owned by his friend Gord Berry near the Town of Temagami.
Webers' brother insisted she had agreed to the trip, but then changed her mind. He said an argument ensued and his brother asked his former wife to leave several times, and when she refused, he pushed her out of the trailer door.
If this is correct, he had told her about the trip and she had agreed to it. We'll probably never know for sure unless she fesses up to it, which she won't do if it's not true and may not do if it is true.
The difficulty here is that we really have no idea what any of these people are like - either the father or the mother. Either or both could have been a nightmare to deal with. We know nothing about how they've dealt with each other all along or how reasonable they were.
Actually we can conclude nothing from the article except that he drove off with the kids and the police arrested him and he has since died. We can't impute any motives to either one of them since we know nothing except the barebones story written.
It would be easy to say either....
She's a b*&^# and wouldn't let him see the kids - it was the only thing he could do.
OR
He was a b&*^%$# and a lunatic and who knows what he might have done with those kids.
It's a very sad story but other than that I can't draw any conclusions from the data given.
Except for one thing...
I'm with you Greg! (did you ever think we'd agree on anything? *grin*) It's a perfect example of why the Amber Alert is such a bad idea. It should never have been used to target a parent who had legal custody rights. Now a regular police alert - yes that would be fine considering his poor physical condition at the time.
It is irresponsible for a person in the terminal stages of cancer to take two little kids out in a rural area alone. The fact that he got stuck demonstrates that. I wonder if he could have freed the car? His friend says he weighed 100 pounds.
It would have been responsible if he had another adult with him. But he chose not to do that.
Thwarting him was the responsible thing to do, and it has nothing to do with his last dying wish. If kids are in a car being driven by a weakened, terminal patient who could die at any time, they are in danger.
Poor little kids.
The father was planning on meeting a friend, so it was not necessarily essential to have the police there to survive. Perhaps he had a cell phone or the friend knew the route and expected time and would have gone looking.
Greg, You raise the central point in this case. I guess where reflection on the Gospel has been helpful for me is in Jesus' theme of people portraying themselves as following the letter of the law but using 'G-d's law' to create distance and destruction, achieving really a hostile intent. I think we see an example here and you highlight it in your sentence about the 'dirty laundry.' My only quibble is I think the law can be used properly. It is not 'the broken nose law' which is the way I see it used here. It is a law to catch a pedophile before, in the acting out of his fantasy, he kills a child. 'Amber' was such a child.
Helen: I guess we do not know if he had to break her nose or not.
I'm going to guess that he didn't have to break her nose. People generally don't deserve to be treated that way. Kids don't deserve to see their father beat their mother either.
The rest is just speculation.
Good grief, people! Have any of you ever spent any time with anyone in the terminal stages of cancer? Can any of you really relate to the desperation this man could have been feeling? "Did he really have to break her nose?" Of course he frickin' didn't! It's a damn stupid question and this PC posturing over it is pathetic.
"A large-scale takedown operation was planned to apprehend" him, involving helicopters, snowmobiles, four-wheel drive vehicles and, for goodness sakes, "tactical decisions" thrown in for good measure. I bet they had fun. It sounds like The Blue Brothers. Hut! Hut! Hut! Hut! Hut! Hut! Sheesh. The poor sap gets stuck in the mud, they arrest him and charge him with assault. He died 4 days later. D'ya think if he'd lived long enough they'd've thrown him in jail...? Would justice then have been done?
The questions we should be asking are: Why did it come down to this? Why wasn't there someone there to make sure he had a few, happy final days with his children? Why was he coping alone in that condition, never mind with his kids? I'm sorry the missus' nose hurts, but someone, somewhere let him and his kids down big time - hysteria piled on indignity piled on tragedy with a lingering death to cap it off. Whichever way you cut it, this was a horrible farce and every single player in the drama, him, her, the kids and their families, deserves our sympathy and prayers.
"There was a dispute and (Webers) assaulted her, apparently broke her nose," said Robb.
Given that the man's *brother* was the one said to have pushed the ex-wife out the door, and further given that the brother's last name is the same as the boys' father's, I took the statement above to indicate at least a possibility that the brother, not the boys' father, broke the woman's nose. Her ex-husband weighed 100 lbs., was spitting blood and was very near death; could he have hauled off and punched her in the nose without collapsing, right there?
Vicki,
When I first read the newspaper article, the repeated use of "brother" confused me, too, but I think if you read the article again you will agree that it says it was the father, Ted Weber, who pushed his wife. Ted's brother, Bob, is quoted and was apparently the source for the portion of the article that described the confrontation between Ted and his wife. Here's the crucial paragraph, and I've inserted the brothers' names in brackets to hopefully make it more clear:
"[Ted] Webers' brother [Bob] insisted she had agreed to the trip, but then changed her mind. He [Bob] said an argument ensued and his brother [Ted] asked his former wife to leave several times, and when she refused, he [Ted] pushed her out of the trailer door."
It must have been the father, Ted, who asked his wife to leave and then pushed her, otherwise the second sentence makes no sense. How could Bob ask "his former wife" to leave and then push her when Bob is the brother-in-law? Finally, I assume she broke her nose in the fall and, if so, we're not talking about a strong punch in the nose. Given his medical situation, I agree that it's unlikely Ted could have broken his wife's nose (or any adult's nose) by punching, although I guess it is possible.
I don't think that looking this over carefully will make it any less likely to happen in the future. What steps can possibly be taken to keep divorced couples from being selfish, always insisting on their own way about things, and trying to continue to control each other using the children? If there were steps to be taken against selfish behavior in adults, I assert that they'd be best applied for all involved before the divorce even happens.
This story is a very old one, just with a bit of a twist about it in that the dad died.
Right on, John Doe.
John Doe wrote: ""Did he really have to break her nose?" Of course he frickin' didn't!"
Well, there are some situations where breaking a person's nose is justified. Aren't there? A patient of mine was in the midst of a saxual assault and he picked up a rock and hit the perp in the nose breaking it fabulously. The perp was an older teen, the survivor (victim just does NOT apply here) was younger and not able to protect himself without the rock. Breaking the perp's nose gave him the time to escape and tell an adult so that the bleeding and crying would-be-perp was caught and sent to the doctor then treatment. Cool!
So while I am doubtful about the ill father "needing" to break the woman's nose, (and I stated so,) it is not difficult to believe that he COULD have. Some things require physical aggressiveness. Thank God, these situation are rare, but they exist. We do not have to trot out the Nazis for a good example. There is a serial rapist in our community. I have my father's pump action 12 guage shotgun. If an intruder comes into our house he will first hear the sound of a shell being chambered and me saying "Get out of my house or die." Perhaps, depending on his choices, the next thing he would hear would be the last thing he would hear, the gun discharging.
If I have no other options, I would use deadly force to protect my family. Not my property, but that is just me. Wouldn't you John Doe? I bet you would! And that is part of being an adult and a father or mother, being prepared and able to protect your family.
So I have doubts about whether it was necessary (or even possible) for the ill man to break the mom's nose, and I certainly hope she is OK, it is not being PC to admit that it MAY have been a sad but necessary assault. It is just being honest.
Trey
John Doe,
His feelings of desperation have no bearing on the question of whether the kids were safe driving in rural snow with someone who could drop dead at any minute.
He failed his kids. It's not anybody else's fault. It was his bad judgement, and the folks who went after him did the right thing.
The kids welfare is far more important than his feelings.
Dear Trey, the one thing I absolutely cannot do under any circumstances whatsoever to protect my family is use violence of any form, as any father who finds himself involuntarily on the wrong end of the divorce courts will tell you. Yes, I know that's not your point, but you took the discussion to a different place and you allow me to take it to another still.
Let's assume that Mr. Webers did break his ex's nose (as others have already said, we don't know for sure), and let's suppose that he was driven to do so by circumstances and that the majority of the population, knowing all the pertinent facts, would conclude that he was justified in doing so. I have two comments: 1) his motivation is driven to irrelevancy because of the subsequent huge drama and Webers' death and 2) the "system" would still most likely have come down on him as an abusive father proven to have been violent towards his ex-wife and therefore a danger to his children (there was a huge cross-country chase and they were legally in his custody!). This is the absurd reality of our modern world - a father who is even suspected to have a smidgen of an inclination to raise his hand in violence (i.e., all of them) is highly suspect, and in the absence of complete cowed surrender to anyone who fancies a go, he is assumed lethal.
Anonymous, don't put words in my mouth.
John Doe,
You said, "but someone,somewhere let him and his kids down big time."
Wrong. He let his kids down all by himself, and his feelings don't matter.
anonymous 12:51:
I hope you never work with the terminally ill. I could see it now. "Your dying wish--bah, humbug...."
Temagami was 300 miles over somewhat isolated winter roads from Mount Forest. I can understand the mother's concern about having young children travel that distance supervised only by a dying and obviously ill man. There is a lot of lonely, uninhabited road between Mount Forest and Temagami. Should he have become incapacitated it could have been hours before they received assistance. I haven’t travelled that particular stretch of the highway recently, but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find that there are still large stretches where there is no cell phone reception. You’re on the edge of Canadian ‘civilization’ and skirting the wilderness travelling this route.
Helen, while 99.9% of the time I agree with you I think this is a case of poor judgement on the part of the father. I've got to say, I wouldn’t have let my children make that trip, over those roads, accompanied only by someone in the physical condition of Ted Webers, even if he was their father. While I know nothing of the particulars of the family dynamics or Mr. Webers himself, individuals as sick as he was frequently loose their ability to make sound judgments (too little oxygen getting to the brain due to low blood cell counts, too many other toxins floating around because the remaining body systems just aren’t functioning right). I think it’s an unfortunate occurrence but not one that should be held up as an example of how the system generally discounts fathers.
helen,
If a 100 pound man about to die any day wanted to drive his two kids alone to a rural area, I would easily say no. What would you say?
Do you think the fact that it is a dying wish gives him a pass to endanger the kids? If so, why?
I hope you're not in a position where you work with kids.
anonymous: by "letting him down" I meant that he should never have found himself in that position in the first place. Someone, somewhere should have facilitated his time with his children. You can make as many "objective" assumptions or assessments as you like of this man's condition and state of mind, but the fact is that there is nothing objective about impending death. It is a pity that so much of modern medicine has been reduced to treating the body and its malfunctions, but little attention is paid to the person inside. The sort of thing I'm talking about involves words like "hospice", "caring" even "ministry" if you will. Webers was suffering a double whammy - he was a divorced father and he was suffering from a terminal disease. Such is the human animal that both of these tend to reduce the amount of community support he was likely to be getting, like a double dose of the cooties. We like to believe in the warm fuzzies, that we look after each other in our hours of need. The brutal fact is that we often don't and many of us are abandoned to our fates. 'Seems to me that Webers was in that position and he shouldn't have been.
I, for one, refuse to judge this man's behavior, it is not my place to do so and I respectfully suggest that it is not yours either. You can posture as much as you like about the safety of his children and make as many righteous statements as you want about chasing him down, from our ex post facto point of view, they're empty words. From the point of view of those watching it all unfold as it happened, perhaps there was a case for barrelling after him with the SWAT team, but it seems much more likely to me that hysteria got the better of them. I hope that at least some of them have the decency to be embarrassed.
Finally: "If a 100 pound man about to die any day wanted to drive his two kids alone to a rural area, I would easily say no. What would you say?"
How about: "How can I help?"
Have you got the message yet?
It further occurs to me:
"I think it’s an unfortunate occurrence but not one that should be held up as an example of how the system generally discounts fathers."
It certainly indicates the readiness with which the powers that be are willing to pull out all the stops and have a carnaval. Methinks there are too many of them with too many toys and not enough of the right kind of work to do. "Whup ho! There's some father off on a holiday with his kids! Round up the posse, lads! Nyeehaw!" Everybody loves a bona fide bad guy, it gives them an opportunity to show what good guys they are. Actual thought doesn't come into it.
John Doe,
Yes, just imagine what would happen if the tables were reversed and a dying mother had the same wish, I would bet that someone somewhere would have made it happen--that she could spend her last days with her kids in a place that meant a lot to her.
I guess that is what I find so unfortunate about this case, that the people in this man's life could not have made it possible for him to spend special time with them. One must also consider the harm done to the kids--this is what they remember--their father being treated like a criminal rather than with more compassion. I agree that there is little of that left at times, especially for the dying. My father died four years ago, and though I am an adult, I remember the hospice who dealt with him as unfeeling and horrible. They didn't mean to be--they were just "busy" and never got around to calling in morphine but it left a wound in my psyche to see my father suffer. I can only imagine what those two kids must feel. A little more compassion would have been nice.
Jean Genet wrote of the 'gesture' in the actions of his fellow idealized criminals that was lovely. I think here that the children will see the gesture of their father to take them to a serene and beautiful, if possibly harsh, nature to have been lovely and it will be symbolic of him. Ideally he was able to remember that nature and connnect it with his and his wife's children.
Helen: One must also consider the harm done to the kids--this is what they remember--their father being treated like a criminal rather than with more compassion.
There is a simple reason that he was treated like a criminal: he committed a crime. I agree that it's a shame that his kids have to remember him that way, but it was his own fault.
The fact that he didn't get help for his "dying wish" may or may not have been his fault too. We can't know because the papers haven't given enough details. Which in fact they shouldn't, because it's that family's private business.
John Doe,
Nonsense.
1. Impending death is as objective as it gets. Dead or alive.
2. This whole thread is about judging the guys behavior and the behavior of others involved. I'd say you are judging when you say he was let down.
3. The safety of kids is not posturing. Kids are in danger when they are taken on a rural ride by a guy about to die.
4. Nobody should be embarrassed about going after kids who may be in dnager. Some have the strength to stand up and act. Others just posture and whine.
5. Would you have let the 100 pound guy about to die take his kids alone on a 300 mile rural ride?
6. Fathers go on holiday with their kids all the time and nobody pays any attention. They pay attention when the kids may be in danger.
7. What does "Whup ho" mean?
Anonymous, does the phrase "moral complexity" mean anything to you or are you just out to demonstrate some sort of implicit (and simplistic) moral authority?
Hmmm...he's spitting up blood and only weighs 100lbs, but he was able to break the mom's nose? Sorry, but I can't see that. If she fell and hit something after being pushed out the door, her nose might have broken, but I can't see an endstage cancer patient being able to hit someone that hard without hurting him or herself more.
I don't think he should have been driving the children or himself anywhere. I do think that taking them all to the cabin for the last days of his life wouldn't have been a bad idea. School can be made up, people stay dead forever.
Helen, I'm sorry your dad got bad care at the end of his life. Our hospice nurses are allowed to make palliative care changes on their own within an agreed upon treatment plan and then inform the doctor. In other words, the doctor signs off on Drug Z upto X dose in Y hours and the nurses are allowed to use what they need. When they deliver the first max dose, they page the physician to let him know and ask for a change to the treatment plan so that the patient suffers as little as possible.
John Doe,
Moral complexity has nothing to do with the safety of kids being driven on a rural road by a guy about to die. I see no moral question there, just an evaluation of the probability of the safety of the kids.
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Old posts. This is over a year ago now, and I am reading because I am the sister of the man who died. There is a danger in the lack of info in the media. The man was not alone with the children. He had a friend along to help out, and had arranged for help at the cabin as well. The media likes to sensationalize events. It helps sell the story.
The mother's nose was about as broken as mine is now. Also a sensationalization of the story. She broke her nose over 10 years previously in a fight with an old boyfriend. She was prone to physical violence and she did not let the fact that the man was dying stop her from pushing him and the children around. As many point out, how could a 100 pound leukemia patient have done her any harm?
He was just trying to have a few days of peace with his kids before he passed away.
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