Update (12/14/23): The Pennsylvania Senate passed the bill dubbed Kayden’s Law by a vote of 50-0 on Dec. 13. The bill now moves to the state House for consideration.
When a child development professional first told Inaya that they would be filing a Childline report on behalf of her toddler, she felt both relieved and terrified.
The Pittsburgh mother of one was fearful her then-husband would hurt her child once she disclosed the abuse, but her worry poured out to the child development professional. “One weekend I broke down before her because of what had been happening, and she then told me that, ‘You and your daughter are no longer safe here,’” said Inaya, whose real name is being withheld out of concern that publicity might result in negative consequences.
Inaya had been enduring what she described as increasingly threatening tirades and promises of violence: throwing items, breaking down doors and descriptions of physical harm that would come to her and her child if they did not comply. Once the Childline report was filed, Inaya knew the risk had surged, and she had to leave.
“That’s when I called up the women’s shelter, and she said, ‘Just pack two sets of clothes for yourself and your daughter and come right here.’ OK, and so that’s what I did.”
She believed that would be the start of a new — and safer — life for her and her toddler.
Instead, five years later, Inaya’s ex-husband has primary custody and she is only permitted to see her child for two overnight visits per week, which she says amounts to about 13 to 15 waking hours. The case has included testimony brought by an expert witness called by her ex-husband who said that physical and sexual abuse might be less harmful to a child than “parental alienation.”
The decades-old theory of parental alienation, which holds that one parent may deliberately turn a child against the other, has polarized family courts across the country. Court decisions to disregard abuse allegations, driven in part by the theory, have been linked to child deaths.
Since the death of a Philadelphia-area child in 2018, advocates and lawmakers have pushed for more protections for the children of parents fleeing abusive situations. But while measures inspired by that death have made their way into law in some states and can even unlock federal funding, they haven’t yet made it through Pennsylvania’s General Assembly.
Parental alienation: Worse than a punch?
Psychiatrist Richard Gardner coined the phrase “parental alienation syndrome” in 1985, characterizing it as a disorder in which children, programmed by the allegedly “loved” parent, grow resentful of the allegedly “hated” parent, and often of that parent’s extended family.
In 2013, the American Psychological Association [APA] listed parental alienation as a specific form of child abuse. Parental alienation syndrome is not listed as a medical term in either the International Classification of Diseases or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Nonetheless, it turns up in custody cases, including Inaya’s in a 2021 custody trial.
Her lawyer sought to exclude the testimony of Robert Evans, a psychologist and co-author of the book “The Essentials of Parent Alienation Syndrome,” but a county Court of Common Pleas judge denied that motion. According to the trial transcript, Inaya’s lawyer then cross-examined Evans, presenting hypothetical scenarios of abuse.
“Can a parent inflict more damage by parental alienation than the parent could inflict by, say, breaking the child’s bones?” the lawyer asked.
“Conceivably, yes,” Evans answered.
“… How about, you have a 4-year-old child, and the parent punches the child in the face and leaves two black eyes,” the lawyer continued. “Could in your opinion parental alienation be worse for the child than that?”
“Potentially, yes,” said Evans.
“OK, how about if you have a 4-year-old, and the father forces the child to perform fellatio on him. Could that be less harmful to the child than parental alienation?”
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