<p>Yes, I agree, it may be all for naught. I’m trying to understand Dylan’s perspective. Why rehash family’s dirty laundry in public? So I look at it from a financial scam perspective. Presume I was duped into some bogus investment that wiped out my savings. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough proof to prosecute the scammer and he is one of those too big to prosecute men. A decade later, I see his name plastered on financial magazines as a top financial guru. I think I have a right to say something publicly against him if I feel it is a necessary stop on my road to recovery. It could also serve as a warning to be a vigilant investor to whoever cares to listen. It could also be a good example of what NOT to do as a victim—bury your head in the sand and hope the pain will go away eventually instead of facing your demons before the statute of limitation expires. </p>
<p>I’m not lecturing Dylan. I’m lecturing them all and mostly I’m lecturing the people in this thread and in the media who keep focusing on the distorted minutiae of what did or didn’t happen as though we can actually know, as though a criminal case can be brought, as though 20 years haven’t happened. Again, I suggest reading Samantha Geiner’s piece about this.</p>
<p>I can make this point again. Shirley Temple died. Her parents lost all the money she made, literally all the millions she made. She dedicated the Oscar given her years later - full size to replace the child size one she had - to her mother. She could have been bitter. She could have turned against her parents. She got past it. </p>
<p>People do get past things. As I mentioned, my wife has said we’ve known Holocaust victims who were more forgiving. My wife’s grandfather’s entire family was murdered. I can look at their pictures and he got past it. We talk about negotiating peace in Syria, which means people will have to get past years of destruction and murder. The Bosnians have moved past the vast civil war that included the siege of Sarajevo with snipers shooting people in the streets. (I remember a House Hunters which included an apartment in a building whose facade is chipped away by bullets.) They can get past things. So this family shouldn’t? Yeah, that’s the message we all need: keep old hatreds and wrongs alive. Shame on all of them. Shame on the people who don’t get this but instead use this to bat around judgements they’re not capable of making.</p>
<p>There are plenty of Holocaust survivors who have forgiven and gotten past it, but there are others who were permanently damaged and lived their lives dysfunctionally. I have known both, as the daughter of someone who came here from Germany with her family as a teenager in 1939.</p>
<p>As an adoptive mom, I have a large social circle of parents who adopted internationally. There is a huge variation of early childhood experiences among their kids and a huge variation of outcomes–some kids are fine, some not so fine, some totally dysfunctional. Individuals vary as to their resiliency in overcoming bad experiences. Some people weather terrible experiences better than others because of their inborn nature, and not to recognize this is blaming the victim. Sure, there are better or worse ways to deal with a bad experience, but some of the way people react is outside of their control.</p>
<p>I know speaking for myself, when I talk about getting past something or making peace with it, that does not mean that one denies the perpetrator’s harm, that one says it’s okay, that one “gets over it,” that the person “deserves” forgiveness, or that the victim must ever want to be around the perpetrator, or that they need to have any ongoing relationship whatsoever with that person, or anything of the kind. It really has more to do with letting go of the anger and bitterness within ones’ self in order to find peace and move on with life. It’s not about anything done to benefit the perpetrator and everything to do with benefiting the victim as they move forward. I don’t think WA is ever going to suffer in the way Dylan and the family would hope. So where do they go from there, that being the case? </p>
<p>Getting past something or making peace with it are different things than accepting someone back in your life. I am all for the first two mainly because you can’t turn back the hands of time, and bitterness is toxic. But accepting someone back into your life who has shown little respect for your well-being is something I am not capable of. So yeah, maybe she has to make peace with the past but I don’t see a relationship developing between father and daughter.</p>
<p>I think they all realize that., Harvestmoon. That does not seem to be her goal and he has acknowledged that fact, as well. The “something” is still in dispute and she seems to want him to admit it. But, if it didn’t happen that’s not likely.</p>
<p>If it did happen, that’s not likely either. Denial is not just a river in Egypt.</p>
<p>True. There will be no resolution and we’ll never know what really happened. Everyone agrees.</p>
<p>It’s true that Mia had adopted a lot of kids, but they together adopted Dylan. The NYT picture accompanying WA’s rejoinder to DF’s article shows a family–Mia, WA, and the two kids they shared–Dylan and Ronan. So this was not part of some cool, hip loose affiliation. He is Dylan’s father, and yes, he did sue for custody, and lost.</p>
<p>Well, does that really mean anything, though? Fathers usually lose, especially back then and even without sexual abuse allegations. They were certainly untraditional and proud of for a while there as I recall. </p>
<p>I just read the NY Post article one of the posters linked to a few pages back. Wow!</p>
<p>They are both very screwed up.</p>
<p>Back then? This was not that long ago. Some sort of shared custody is much more the norm, nowadays, and for at least a couple decades.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/celebrity-news/1991-to-present-a-history-of-the-allegations-against-woody-allen/article16706490/?cmpid=rss1”>http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/celebrity-news/1991-to-present-a-history-of-the-allegations-against-woody-allen/article16706490/?cmpid=rss1</a></p>
<p>Okay, it was over 20 years ago and apparently he had just adopted her two years before that while she was already Mia’s adopted daughter. I really don’t see him winning that one no matter what did or didn’t happen. They never even pretended to be a happy family of 4 apart from the NYT photo.</p>
<p>I worked in this area of law for a while. Remember that two different standards are applied. To the criminal part of the matter, whether Woody would be charged, the standard is beyond a reasonable doubt. Could the presecutors prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt? No. Not possible. OJ didn’t do it either.</p>
<p>For child custody, the standard is which is the better parent for the child. There was never any question that Mia had been the more involved parent, and unless she was found unfit, she wasn’t going to lose custody. It is surprising that Woody got no visitation at all, even supervised, but the judge, the social workers, the other children all were on Mia’s side (common) and couldn’t be reasoned with. On appeal, the standard is was the trial judge’s decision unreasonable, not whether the appellate judges would have made a different decision, and no one can say that leaving the child with Mia was unreasonable.</p>
<p>I think a lot of this is driven by Ronan. He is obsessed with Woody Allen and making him ‘pay.’ He constantly tweets nasty things about him and constantly claims Soon-Yi as his lost sister, and has since he was about 14. He was 3-4 years old when Soon Yi went to live with Woody, so I really don’t think he remembers a long sibling relationship with her. She wasn’t always at Mia’s home as she and her Previn siblings spent time with their father and what 20 year old is home playing with a baby brother in NYC? Ronan hates Woody, and if there was any chance in the world that he wasn’t Woody’s child he would take a DNA test and prove it, thus forever ridding himself ofWoody Allen.</p>
<p>Why didn’t Woody adopt all Mia’s children? Because 6 of the 8 HAD a father, Andre Previn. He adopted Dylan and Moses because they were adoptable (Ronan/Satchel was his bio child) and I think Mia asked him to. I think the counseling he got was probably because he was overprotective of his only daughter and I don’t think he ever considered the Previn children as his or that he needed a relationship with them and had no interest in them. When he adopted Dylan and Moses and Satchel arrived, Allen had no idea how to be a parent so he sought counseling. He’s been in counseling/therapy for everything else in his life, why not this?</p>
<p>Both Mia and Woody are nuts and neither should have ever passed a homestudy, but if I had to decide, I’d believe Woody over Mia. Mia was obsessed with Woody, and I think she did everything she could to keep him even after he broke up and started dating her daughter. One account I read was that Woody started dating Soon Yi after Mia told him to take Soon Yi to Knicks basketball games, that she still wanted to be in movies he was directing after she found out, and it sounds like she invited him to the CT house when the events are alleged to have happened, AFTER the affair with Soon Yi had started. Mia wants what Mia wants and I don’t think she puts her children first.</p>
<p>I have seen mothers a lot less cleaver than Mia Farrow convince their children they had been molested in order to win custody. Anger, jealousy, and money are powerful forces in a divorce or custody battle. I’ve had kids tell amazing stories and the kids believe those stories because they’ve heard so many lies they don’t know what is true anymore. I’m sure Dylan believes everything she wrote in her letter. I give no weight whatsoever to the testimony of a nanny employed by Mia that Dylan had no panties on and Woody was just lying on lying on the sofa with his head in her lap. Really? And none of the adults said anything at the time?</p>
<p>All that said, I don’t like his movies or her acting.</p>
<p>I think Woody Allen is one of the greatest comedians of all time. His short story about a chess match is classic. His stand up routines are fantastic. He has made classic movies.</p>
<p>I am wary of the NY Post but is the story true that as a 41 year old, Woody dated a high school kid? I used to work with a guy who was 33 and dated a 16 year old kid. He used used to wait outside the high school and picked her up after school. They married. It was still gross. They are divorced now. I told my oldest daughter never to date a guy way older than her. The older guy would have issues. </p>
<p>I think a 41 year old guy dating a 17 year old is disgusting. </p>
<p>
There were three witnesses testifying to different incidents: the babysitter hired by Mia who could not find WA and Dylan for 15 to 20 minutes, the babysitter of a visiting friend who saw WA’s head on Dylan’s lap and the French tutor who noticed Dylan not wearing an underwear. Page 10-11 of [url=<a href=“http://www.vanityfair.com/dam/2014/02/woody-allen-1992-custody-suit.pdf]WA-1992-custody-suit[/url”>http://www.vanityfair.com/dam/2014/02/woody-allen-1992-custody-suit.pdf]WA-1992-custody-suit[/url</a>]</p>
<p>You cannot dismiss the observations of the psycologists. Like I said upthread, in the same document, page 24. Justice Wilke stated,“I agree with Dr. Herman and Dr. Brodzinsky that we will probably never know what occurred on August 4, 1992. The credible testimony of Ms. Farrow, Dr. Coates, Dr. Leventhal and Mr. Allen does, however, prove that Mr. Allen’s behavior toward Dylan was grossly inappropriate and that measures must be taken to protect her.”</p>
<p>You believe Woody over Mia based on your own observations but Justice Wilk did conclude that WA was grossly inappropriate. He even said, “What is clear is that Mr. Allen’s lack of judgment, insight and impulse control make normal noncustodial visitation with Dylan and Satchel too risky to the children’s well-being to be permitted at this time.” (page 30)</p>
<p>I have absolutely no problem with a big age gap between two adults. When I was just out of grad school I dated a man considerably older than myself (he looked nothing like Woody). It was one of my best relationships. We dated for 2 years and are still long distance friends today. My husband even likes the guy!</p>
<p>But I think the Woody/Soon Yi relationship definitely crosses a line. Judge Wilk put it best when he wrote of Woody:
“He showed no understanding that the bonds developed between adoptive brothers and sisters are no less worthy of respect and protection that those developed between biological siblings.”</p>
<p>If woody allen weren’t woody allen, he’d be in prison. total creeper.</p>
<p>HarvestMoon1, you werent in high school. </p>
<p>^^^
I was responding to those who felt a big age difference was “gross” and “disgusting”. And actually, Soon Yi was 19 when she started dating Woody Allen - that would put her beyond high school. They married when she was 25.</p>
<p>Interesting fact though, Allen’s first marriage at 19 was to Harlene Rosen who was 16 when she married him. Some things never change.</p>