It is reported that the Government will seek to enact legislation providing for a presumption of “shared parenting” where father and mother split up. This move flies in the face of the Norgrove Review of family justice (2011), to be found at http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/publications/moj/2011/family-justice-review-final-report.pdf , which examined the situation in Australia, where a similar law is in operation, and recommended against it. The precise effects of the Australian provision are in dispute: some say that it has led to more conflict because divorcing parents think it means equal time each with the child; others say that it works well and recognises the equal importance of both parents in a child’s life. “Shared parenting” does not mean that each parent will have equal time with the child, e.g. Monday to Wednesday with one, Thursday to Saturday with the other. It means a presumption that each should have reasonable contact with the child and maybe share the right to make decisons, such as schooling, residence, health treatment and so on. Equal time with each parent is well nigh impossible to arrange in most cases, especially where the parents live some distance apart, as the child has to have a stable base from which to go to school, visit friends and keep their belongings. What matters in such decisions is the welfare of the child, which under our law is “paramount”, and quite rightly so. Of course the child’s welfare is often put to one side in divorce while the parents fight it out over financial matters, even though everyone involved pays lip service to it. If the child’s welfare were in truth treated as paramount, the parents might never have separated in the first place. There is plenty of research material about the ill effects of one-parenthood on children and the effects of the absence of the father in particular. It has even been reported in the last few days that under the proposed new law recalcitrant parents, typically the mother, will be punished by e.g. removal of passport, if they deny access to the other parent.
This all misses the point. The genuine scandal in this country is that fathers, in situations where the mother has no objection to their contact with the children, fail to exercise those rights. They do not show up when a date has been set for them to visit. They lose contact with their children, pay no support for them, do not even send birthday and Xmas cards. How is the government going to enforce contact between children and absent unwilling fathers? will they be punished too? will their children feel even more deprived if they realise that fathers of other children in the same situation are keenly exercising their visitation rights?
I hope the new law, if there is one, is not seen as a victory for the fathers’ campaigning groups. When you see them in action, you realise why they were not granted access rights. I also hope that there can be clarity about grandparents’ rights to see their grandchildren after divorce. On the one hand, one reads heartbreaking stories about loving grandparents denied visits; on the other hand it may be that they are party to the ongoing enmity between the parents, and are taking sides rather than supporting the children.
The important legal principle, which simply must be the guiding light, is the paramountcy of the child’s welfare; that and that alone should be the guide for the judge in those cases that come to court because the parents cannot agree on access.
My experience is that Dads do not turn up at agreed times and that was far more damaging to my daughters than having him in their lives, I withdrew his contact for that reason, but law doesn’t support that. And he would have loved the power to make my life as awkward as possible just because he could, you can not give fathers that power when they don’t turn up or support their children. How can women prove an ex’s controlling behaviour? they can’t! There is often a very good reason when women go to such great lengths to escape her ex and she will be doing it to protect her children usually. There will always be exceptions to the rule in both Mums and Dads who are just doing it out of spite but the spite is usually on both sides so if you hand the man the control he will use it for the same reason taking passports and driving licences away is not the answer and is a very dangerous route to take.
Mine have both grown up successfully without him. One is currently doing a masters degree the other opted not to go to uni and is an HR manager and is a married home-owner with a daughter of her own. So Fathers are not really needed!
How can women prove an ex’s controlling behaviour?
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So you try and control by unilaterally revoking access.
You’re both behaving badly.
I can understand your anger at your ex-partner, but your comment “I withdrew his contact for that reason” does seem to explain the present system in microcosm.
There’s another side to this – a case I know about where the children refused to go visit their father. I think that to him they stopped growing up once the parents split and they got fed up being treated as if they were seven or eight. How do you view that? Should the state declare that they should be made to visit their father, or does it view them as competent to make their own decision on refusal? If so, at what age do they gain such competence?
(The children concerned are now adults, so it was some time ago, although I don’t think they have contact with him even now).
I’ve come across one case where the state insisted that the children have contact with the parent, even though the children had been put up for adoption. The children had been taken away because they had physically been abused.
Now I’d like to see your reaction if you with beaten and mugged to being locked in a room with your attacker, because its your right to have contact, so the state has to enforce your rights.
Quite a few fathers get interested in their sons in their teenage years, which quite often is not the case when the parents are divorced.
Even in my own day, as a child of divorcés in the 1950s, and both school teachers, I saw not my Dad from the age of 8 to 18, which was a career disaster for me; no learning passed on at all.
I notice it even now though with some boys
who would evidently be better served living with their fathers all the time rather than just an hour or two a week.
There are no golden rules of what is best… or worst.
First you have to get the longest-term Life and Civilisation Purposes correct;
then your Legal Principles;
then the ‘paramountcy’ is going to be the ‘needs & hows of each individual egalitarianly within the group’.
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(Once the Life & Human-Life Purposes are made correct, and constituted,
the Legalities must surely be lockstep-correct;
and the real needs of every individual will be harmonious with both the overall needs of Life & Civilisation, and the needs of the individuals’ community and small-group[
of which latter the individual child therein/thereto is one, egalitarianly-guaranteed, ‘co-paramount’).
Divorce seems to be all about personal space and property ownership, and rather less about
the rights of the children.
When myself and my kid’s dad split up because he was seeing someone else, I let him see the kids whenever he wanted. I even moved a bit closer so that they could just pop round and visit him whenever they wanted and he and his girlfriend were fine with that. I think forcing parents to do what the state wants them to do would only lead to more hostility at the end of the day because they are no longer in control. At the end of the day, I wanted to do what was right for my kids and I think most parents are like that.
My sister however, has had a really rough time. She left her husband because he was extremely controlling and left the kids in his care till she found a job and a house to live in. Since then he has got re-married and himself and his wife are extremely nasty to her about the kids. They will dress them up in clothes that don’t fit just to make her look bad and all sorts. They never bring the kids back on time but expect her to do so every time. How do you legislate against people like that? People who are spiteful and vindictive and are only intent on making life hard for the other parent? They’ll find a way to control the situation no matter what you do.
And if they aren’t in control, they aren’t responsible.
Take the current Greek situation. Are Greek citizens responsible? No. They have been lied to by politicians, and they haven’t had a vote in any of the borrowing decisions. Hence they aren’t responsible.
Likewise when the state takes control.
You end up with situations like this
http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16247543
Forced abortion by the State. Remember the roots of Labour and Beveridge. That was his plan, for the same here.
If the parents cannot agree on access, then they do not have the child’s interests at heart, no matter what they present as justification. Neither of them. And that is the same if only one of them is being awkward. It is true that the tolerant one is forever having to submit to the beligerent other, but, often, as time passes the resentment lessens. And, as the child gets older they have more say over their fate.
If the beligerence continues then this is indeed unhealthy for the child. However, they do remember both parents wanted their company and were therefore willing to put up with the discomfort for contact to remain. Which goes a long way to increasing their sense of self worth.
The problem lies in the parent with custody who condemns the child for their attachment to the other parent. This creates a serious distress for the one in the middle, the child. The misery often carries on into adulthood and both parents should be made aware of this in no uncertain terms. Parents who spit in anger and say derrogatory things such as, ‘if you hadn’t been born I wouldn’t have to put up with all of this,’ or, ‘your mother/father doesn’t care about you otherwise they wouldn’t put me through this,’ is passing the blame for the situation onto the child and is a killer. And taking the child out when a parent is coming for access is unforgivable as that child, no matter what they say to the offending parent, is devastated by not being there for mummy or daddy. It is very painful to hear and see.
What is also distressing for any parent is when one is in poverty and the other wealthy. It is painful to feel so inadequate when one parent is seen to be buying affection with a tremndous amounts of gifts or hoidays and the struggling one can barely afford clothes or food. This must be taken into account when settlements are being suggested.
However, if some kind of behaviour therapy for the parents was mandatory, separately, not together, this may help the situation from getting out of hand.
Having watched family members go through this rollercoaster first hand and witnessing the destruction, is, to the outsider unconscieniable and often equally as painful to the observer. The selfishness toward the children they love is sometimes beyond belief.
A helpful remedy rather than sex lessons in schools, should be emotional lessons as top of the bill. Heightened emotions are what create happiness or misery, not how babies are conceived and born or whether sex is good or not. That is trivial in comparison.
The issues around relationships, how to navigate through expectations of romance and reality are where all this begins. Break ups are down to two things, always and without doubt. One is unrealistic expectation of what marriage or partnership is, on both sides of the argument, or, a lack of understanding of the needs between different sexes within a relationship. Which ends up with both sides feeling betrayed, when often they shouldn’t, regardless of the circumstances at separation.
And the most important of all things to the child, is continuation of the families status quo. If grandparents were in the picture, then those grandparents continued love and affection can offer a great sense of security to children who face the trauma of separation from one of the parents. And fathers are often more stable and logical than mothers when the reassurance of their connection to their children is as secure as it is for the mother.
Both parents must remember that fate plays a big role in all of this mess, and they cannot be sure of the future with any certainty. And so, with this in mind, they should be delighted for their children when the opposite number wants to maintain a relationshhip and will be there for them when the cards are down. Illness and death can strike at any time and there is no one as close as the other parent when it comes to support and understanding during those awful times.
Is it possible that role models (as per radio discussions) have always been a way of growing up; that even if you do have a mother and father at home, one of them may be, for you and for whatever reason, a hopeles role model, and that quite the best thing is for the child to be encouraged to find a reliable role model
outside it?
We were three sons of a schoolmaster, and tired as he was by the end of the day, the one thing we all did was go out find a role model more suitable for the purpose!
Bless the departed soul of my late dad!!!
Divorce or no divorce, happy marriages or not, external influences are bound to be sought for the different psychological needs of growing up?
I am no expert on educational theory but there must be mountains of literature on the subject.
My es and I split-up in 2004, when my daughter was under 1 and my son, 3.
Since then I have tried to be in their life as much as possible, but it has not been easy. The courts and her reduce and reduce contact without reason other than she doesn’t like me.
I used to think parenting was a viable way forwards, but after 8 years, co-operative parenting is the only healthy way for the children or to exclude one parent.
The solution, make parents co-operate. Make them go to parenting lessons and imprison them if they behave like idiots. You wouldn’t have to spend a lot, just do it a few times and the rest would get the message. Regards, Graham.
I used to think parenting was a viable way forwards, but after 8 years, co-operative parenting is the only healthy way for the children or to exclude one parent.
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If you exclude one parent, then my view is that you have to remove the onus on them to fund.
Yes, I agree with that. To correct my mis typing earlier, in case it confused.
1. My ex wife.
2. I used to think that parrallel parenting could work.
Dear Baronness,
Every child needs a father and a mother to grow up in a healthy way but unfortunately it is not the other way around where some parents kindly let their children grow on their own or with their grand parents with no single tenderness, warmth, love and affection, on their behalf .So imposing such reluctant parents an equal contact with their children will not be sufficient enough to compensate the desperate urge of the children to live , be cared and loved by both parents.At that stage, it would be advisable that clinical psychologists intervene in the regular contacts between the children and their one parent.Such psychogical help is useful enabling them to shed their tears and to accept the situation of having split parents.It is time that those “poor angels” tell what they are feeling inside so that they in turn will not reproduce the hell they have been through of not having a well balanced family life.
God save the QUEEN. God bless the United Kingdom.
Nazma FOURRE
One or two ‘nitty-gritty’ moral and practical points please:
The Queen’s Family is not a good example to be followed by most families.
Whilst the royal family’s individual members have been scoring highly in ‘marketplace’ skills
such as Prince Philip as a 600 hours pilot at RAF level,
Princess Anne as a horsewoman gold-medallist in The Olympic Games,
the Lady Diana as a smiling public-personality and Red Cross reach-out hand to war-stricken children abroad,
and Prince William as a skilled Helicopter and Defence officer,
the costs thereof continue to be Enormously beyond the reach of the great majoprity of families.
Royalty, and the Upper-Classes generally, have had each had huge personal incomes;
and the very best of educators, trainers, mentors, social-companions, and personal-staff.
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A further serious moral and practical factor in considering the upbringing of children in today’s world, might be the advances by some serious small communities into
shared parenting and community-responsibilities
even to the serious extent of having every male-member of the community ‘liable’ for the expenses and duties of father,
and every woman responsible for sharing the mothering tasks;
mothers may choose a different social-father than the biological-father,
and may ‘diplomatically’ withhold the identity of that biological father;
meaning that whilst there is but one real bio-father, any of the men could have been the bio-father;
but the bio-father being not by any means always an adequately suitable social- or
lifeplace- father, the ‘fathering’ is shared, by ongoing monitored agreement, amongst all males financially, and contracted to some males ‘lifeplacedly’;
similarly the mothering duties are shared.
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Lastly, the United Nations declaration of Child Rights (about 1990) made what some of us would judge to be a serious “Method I” error, by stating that
(“) In matters of religion, the child shall conform to the parents’ wishes(“)
which we believe should have been worded
“The child shall Method-III equally-resolve matters of Religion with the parents”.
My son is an extremely good father – his children adore him. He has shared responsibility. His ex wife however tries to “spoil” the arrangements he makes with her when he has the children i.e. days out she has taken them too late for outings. When my son books say two weeks holiday in the summer and say wants to take them abroad for two weeks she holds on to the passports. She also sends winter clothes so he has to go and buy all their summer clothes. It goes on and on – she thrives on making my son’s life a misery but unfortunately the Law is an ass when it comes to advising on parenting, the Law cannot decide what to do for the best so ends up making everything worse. A father should not have to go to court to see his own children (excluding of course absent fathers who choose not to see their children) expecially when he is making regular payments to the mother, buying clothes, shoes, schoolwear, helping to pay for school trips etc. He tries his utmost to keep the peace and give in to his ex wife’s demands. He is now so fed up he feels it is pointless to try and arrange things for his children because their mother just does not co-operate. He is thinking of taking the matter to the courts or CSA or Social Services. The children have expressed a wish to live with him. Their ages are 10 and 11 soon to be 12. What chance has he got of the Courts telling the mother that if her continued disruption of the childrens’ visiting rights she would be in danger of having the children removed from her residency and place with the father. My son has said if the children lived with him all this aggravation would stop because he would not every deny her her rights by being vindictive. The Children are doing well at school but feel that they are being punished because of the attitude of the mother. She is a very moody person, prone to black moods of the highest degree. What can be done?
Walkaway and see them when they are 21.