Woman with Stage 4 cancer denied custody of kids

[Racket_Man]

http://www.parentdish.com/2011/05/11..._lnk3%7C212934

Family court judge rules

A judge in North Carolina denied Alaina Giordano primary custody of her children, Bud, 5, and Sofia, 11, because she is unemployed, "the course of her disease is unknown" and "children who have a parent with cancer need more contact with the non-ill parent

Judge Nancy Gordon ruled the children of the Durham, N.C.-based mom must relocate to Chicago to live with their father, Kane Snyder, by June 17.

[Andara Bledin]

I like how everything about the article focuses on her having cancer, while the fact that the woman is unemployed is barely given a single line.

I would think that the mother having no means of support, unlike the father, would be a much greater deciding factor.

But it doesn't make for exciting headlines.

^-.-^

[Greenday]

Wow, wtf? Did she just try to put cancer on the same level as asthma or diabetes? I'm sorry, but cancer is a lot more deadly than either of those two. Let's say they gave her full custody, then she got sick and was in and out of the hospital. That's going to be extremely tough on the kids. By staying with the father, they can visit her when they need to while still having someone who can be home all the time.

Plus she has no job. Food doesn't pop out of thin air and I doubt she's growing food and raising livestock.

Unless the dad is some deadbeat, this was the right decision.

[KnitShoni]

So, she wasn't denied custody, she was denied PRIMARY custody. And the article states that her custody would be limited only if she stayed in NC.

She says she's "fully functional." So...why does this divorced, fully functional mother of two who wanted primary custody of her kids not have a job?

[telecom_goddess]

She says she's "fully functional." So...why does this divorced, fully functional mother of two who wanted primary custody of her kids not have a job?

Would YOU hire someone with stage 4 cancer? It's something you would have to disclose and I can just see them having heart attacks over insurance costs and all the other costs she might generate by being out, or I don't know ...dying.

It sucks that she got denied custody but again if she is that sick she could die at any time and that would be bad on the kids.

[Aethian]

Wow, wtf? Did she just try to put cancer on the same level as asthma or diabetes? I'm sorry, but cancer is a lot more deadly than either of those two. Let's say they gave her full custody, then she got sick and was in and out of the hospital. That's going to be extremely tough on the kids. By staying with the father, they can visit her when they need to while still having someone who can be home all the time.

Plus she has no job. Food doesn't pop out of thin air and I doubt she's growing food and raising livestock.

Unless the dad is some deadbeat, this was the right decision.

I think...this is the first time I've ever fully agreed with you.

[AdminAssistant]

First of all, cancer sucks. It sucks a big one. Especially since it's a disease where the 'medicine' actually (initially) makes you sicker. Secondly, I'm coming at this from the daughter of a Stage 2 (3?) breast cancer survivor.

The woman has two contradictory arguments: "I'm able to fully take care of my children" and "I may die soon, so they should have as many memories of me as possible." Both of those things can't be true. When Mom was going through her treatments, I noticed that there was a culture of victimhood among cancer patients and survivors. Mom fell right into it too, the tiniest bad thing could happen to her, and she'd have a mental breakdown. She's never been even remotely religious, and all of a sudden she was praising Jesus with every other word. I'm not saying that she should have just sucked it up and handled it, but her entire personality changed. Once her treatment was over, she went (more or less) back to normal. She still has a victim complex, but there are other factors in that.

Some people seem to think that having cancer makes you special and gives you certain rights. It doesn't. Sure, I think you should have the right to bring plastic silverware into restaurants and take more sick days at work or whatever else you need to do for your treatment. But Mom was able to get a handicapped license plate for her car, that she didn't even need. (Either Dad or I drove her to her treatments and doctor appointments, and she already had a close parking space at work.) She didn't need to replace everything in her life with pink things bedecked with pink ribbons, but she did. I will give her credit for one thing. She refused to wear a wig. She wore hats and caps (decorated with pink ribbons, of course) or just went bald.

This mother thinks she should get special consideration because she has cancer. But is she properly able to care for her children? No. She doesn't have a job and she's ill. I imagine that she's barely able to take care of herself. I was in college when Mom went through treatment, and I had to go home every weekend to clean and do laundry. Are these kids old enough to do that? Is that the best childhood for them, caring for their sick mom? No. Let the dad take care of the kids and the mom focus on caring for herself.

[HYHYBT]

The woman has two contradictory arguments: "I'm able to fully take care of my children" and "I may die soon, so they should have as many memories of me as possible." Both of those things can't be true.

They can both be true right now; it's just that, if she is going to die soon of cancer, there will come a point where she cannot.

The problem, to me, is that the parents live too far apart for the children to see the one they don't live with on a regular basis.

[BlaqueKatt]

They can both be true right now; it's just that, if she is going to die soon of cancer, there will come a point where she cannot.

not if she's undergoing chemo, I know of people that have been under chemo that would randomly collapse due to fatigue, and couldn't get out of bed for days. plus how i a person with no job able to "fully care for a child", child support is support, it is not meant to "pay the other parent to raise the child"-my mom got a whopping $150 a month in child support for me, my ex husband payed $200 a month while we were separated before the divorce, it costs a lot more than that to raise a child.


and according to this article the decision had NOTHING to do with her illness, it was her lack of a job-she's pulling the cancer card to garner sympathy.

The judge ruled that because Giordano does not have a full-time job and cannot support the children, the father should get primary custody. If Giordano wants to be near her children, the judge says she should move to Chicago.

and his quote from the woman herself kinda proves that:

“And basically it appears to me that the judge decided my husband’s job was more important than my health.”

[dendawg]

Would YOU hire someone with stage 4 cancer? It's something you would have to disclose....(snip)

[kiwi]

Does she have savings? Does she have an insurance pay out? It's rare but not having a job doesn't always mean they have no means to pay the bills.

[AdminAssistant]

dendawg, it's hard to disguise chemotherapy. An employer would probably know that she's ill, even if she tried to disguise it. Besides, she will need to miss work, for treatments, for doctor appointments, because she's too tired. She really can't work too much with the public, since her immune system is so compromised. Besides, even if she eventually gets a job, if she qualifies for health insurance, she will have to disclose it there, and insurance companies don't like to cover cancer patients.

[Greenday]

Does she have savings? Does she have an insurance pay out? It's rare but not having a job doesn't always mean they have no means to pay the bills.

But is it enough to feed, buy clothes, doctor visits, etc. for the kids?

[kiwi]

But is it enough to feed, buy clothes, doctor visits, etc. for the kids?

That's what Im asking, we don't know how she is paying the bills, she might have enough put aside to last another year without having a job. Some people do have savings/investments/insurance policies/family to fall back on.

My own mother has an insurance that will pay out $1000 a week for 3 years if she has to stop working for cancer treatments. We don't know enough about her financial situation to say simply that she has NO money because she isn't earning an income.

[AdminAssistant]

Even if she's able to financially provide for them, is she able to physically care for them? One is 11, and old enough to do a lot on her own, but the other is 5. Can she clean up his messes, cook their meals, do their laundry, and all the other things that mothers have to do? Or was she making the 11 year old take on that responsibility?