Of human bonding

Woody made whoopee with Mia in bed. He was her boss by day, her children's part-time employer, the employer of at least one nanny and several therapists who cared for and treated the children; as well as the scruffy but gallivanting man-about-town escort and host for Mia and her whole oversize brood at night, on holidays, and on vacations.

And though claiming he "was not any type of father to [Mia's] adopted kids in any sense of the word," Woody had varied fatherly ties to the children he shared with Mia, either through legal adoption, by blood, or even-Mia belatedly learned through sex, with Soon Yi. Though Woody didn't sleep at Mia's apartment, her lawyers point out that after the adoption of daughter Dylan, Woody spent more time with her and her younger siblings than most traditional fathers. Despite the non-existent rules for Woody's complex paternal roles and seeming lack of an agreement on how his fathering responsibilities should mesh with her rights as a mother, Mia seems to have expected him to bond and behave towards her children within traditional fatherly bounds.

For example, Mia has reportedly demanded that Woody pay $7 million child support and her $300,000 legal fees--money she would be entitled to ask from a conventionally wed husband in a standard divorce case. But this is no ordinary case. Woody, for his part, is seeking custody of three children. Mia has also countered Woody's custody suit by suing to revoke his recent adoption of two of her adopted children, and their natural son, Satchel, on grounds that as a virtual father, he had violated ancient fatherly taboos by what she termed his "virtually incestuous" relationship with Soon Yi.

But one year after Mia reportedly told a Manhattan Surrogate Court judge that Woody had been a fit and exemplary "coparent" of the three prospective adoptees, Mia's lawyers told a Manhattan Criminal Court judge that Woody had never had any claim as a father in her household because he wasn't her husband. He wasn't even his natural son's legal father until formally designated so by the adoption, four years after his birth.

"There are no Allen children," Mia's lawyer argued. The lawyer was pointing out that Woody had chosen to have Satchel named Farrow, not Allen; reportedly, Woody had not wanted Satchel singled out by "being the only Allen among all those Farrows and Previns"--Mia's adopted and natural children with her ex-husband, Andre Previn.

Woody, however, has also veered from denying to affirming his paternity. Last summer, in explaining why he felt no guilt over his love affair with Soon Yi, he gave reporters his "I am not any type of father" to Mia's kids speech. At a hearing four months later, Woody again cloaked himself in his purported non-paternal role. This time he denied his paternity in order to duck having to pay Mia's legal fees. "It's almost laughable," Woody's sound-alike lawyer, Harvey Sladkus, said of the Mia side demand for money. "These two individuals...have never been married, never lived together in the same household." Therefore, Woody's lawyer explained, "prevailing concepts" (which might justify a husband's paying a legal wife's fees "just don't exist in this case."

But Woody is also suing Mia for custody of the three children in question, like any conventional father. And like any conventional father, he seeks to win custody by accusing Mia of being an unfit mother.

So far, the sole specified transgression is that she has been a second rate therapist-selecter and -provider for the children. According to Sladkus, Woody is the parent best able to provide the children with "a stable environment" --one fully staffed with Woody-selected psychologists and psychiatrists prepared to instantly address their urgent, "uncontroverted" treatment needs, and to heal the "fragile" mental state to which the publicized Woody-Mia mess has reportedly reduced them.