Louis de Berniers and parental rights

[Xenia]

Sunday Times 15.8.10. I do support his position of 50% rights to fathers post divorce particularly fi they did 50% of the homestic work and childcare before the divorce and never had their wife working or not at all.

Of course you reap what you sow and househusbands perhaps fairly get child residence.

Legions of men choose not to help post divorce and if the default where 50% each they could be forced into childcare, clearing up sick, cleaning, dealing with child issues.

Also if a mother loves her children and knows how she would feel if she saw them rarely how can she want to hurt their other parent by denying them a fair 50% contact time?

"We've got to overturn this idea abiout the sacredness of motherhood as if being a mother give you the diviine right to own the chidlren and it's up to you to decide how you share them out. That' just got to stort. It shoudl be assumed automaticalyl that there iwll be shared peenitng, basically equal parenting, unless there's a damn good reason not to. The assumption should be that it's equal rights fomr hte start".

I would agree with that,. My only caveat would be if you've enjoyed a happy little housewife set up where you do nothing and seh does all, you haven't bonded and she has then more fool yo on divorce - you may have less contact. If instead you've done your fair share of scrubbing the loos and the babies' bottoms on a 50% basis then that de facto reality shoudl be reflected in contact orders and de fault positions post divorce. In other words men shoudlnt' have it all ways - a non earning domestic slave totally bonded toh er babies during a marriage, babies you hardly saw and never helped with and then after divorce suddenly you're Mr very involved who would love to be washing and mending clothes and getting things ready for school on a daily basis.

I think most men or women over 50 who only then start family life are not likely to be great fathers and if women have a choice (and many do not if their biological clock is ticking away so they have to take all comers as it were) they shoudl probably conclude as I do when approached by men over 50 who have never married nor had children that there is probably a reason for that.

On the wider issue I think men worried about losing contact after divorce need to think about that during the marriage. Do more at home than their wife. Let her prioritise her career. Do a lot of the night holding of screaming babies. get very familiar with the washing machine. It's not rocket science and then keep up good relationships and be prepared to cmpromise.

Sadly there is a mindset - mostly men - that either they want 100% of the children or nothing. It's an ego thing and they want it all on their own terms or nota t all or they want to keep changing times or dates. Contact tends to work when it is set in stone and everyone knows where they stand and there are never changes. If work calls you on your time on duty then you don't ask the mother - you hire the weekend nanny etc. You be 100% reliable and both should put themselves into the shoes of the other.

Bonding is the real issue here. We bond with those with whom we are with whether that's the nurse in the care home who washes our bottom every day or the mother who breastfeeds us every 3 hours every night for 6 months or the father who cares for us all day alone on Saturdays or whatever. LDB talked about sacred motherhood butin fact men can bond. Did he bond? Is it lies that he was away a lot bonding with 3 blonde women - might well be, we have no facts... or was he putting int he hours with the babies such that that was the status quo- writing dather a home writing between 5 and 7am before they got up but then doing the caring whilst his wife was away working.

Anyway the way for men to improve their lot is spend as much time with children as their wives and on housework when married, ideally never let her be a housewife either and then be pepared to compromise afterwards and play the long game. 3 of my chidlren are over 18. Most of the next 40 years if I live that long they will be over 18 and it's my relationships with them in that longer period which count and if people can keep up contact and use skype and facebook and go to school events etc and don't forget the ability to bribe teenagers awful though that may sound.... and then they choose with whom to live and life continues.

But it's not an all or nothing game. Most of us will remember Lady Meyer's story as sad if she had been a man as a woman whose husband basically got the sons to Germany and then she had virtually no relationship with them after that and a very high profile custody case. Those boys are grown up now. I wonder what happened long term - they won't know her but may things can be repaired later.

but I'm not against LDB's suggestion that 50% contact shoudl be the norm but that comes with responsibilities too - never changing the plan, paying half the cost of the nannies many of us full time working mothers who work full time have to engage, being utterly reliable and perhaps if there are allegations from the child the parent isn't nice to them (which allchildren say of all parents over time anywhere often without justification) perhaps letting things be filmed to prove the child is wrong even.

I agree. LdB is right to say that there shouldn't be an assumption (in law, or in life) that the mother is the primary carer or more likely to bond, or more important to the child. But fathers who don't take on 50% of the responsibility for their children when in a relationship with their mother, shouldn't expect 50% of the 'rights' to them when the relationship ends.

And anybody who wants to go public about their 'rights' in preference to a private dialogue with their ex about the best way to care for their children doesn't really have their best interests at heart, imo.

I am not against going public. I get cross every article in the press about big pay outs on divorce are men paying to women as if the a in 4 women who outearn their men don't exist, as if I am a non person in a category of zero so I think being public about the fact a good few women pay out to men on divorce serves a purpose.

And I suppose some parents of both genders might have been useless as parents when married but after suddenly have a conversion on the role to Damascus and want to be a happy little housewife/husband person and start their bonding then just when they realise the rug has been pulled from under their feet and their spouse has had enough of them... may be they ought to be given the chance to bond then but only if they do a lot to make up for past wrongs and past neglects.

But you're talking about going public on financial settlements between grown-ups that have already been decided by law - that's not the same as telling the papers that you think your children's mother is acting unreasonably, which is effectively what LdB is doing.

I agree that I dislike the way high profile divorces are treated in the press. The woman is usually portrayed either as the passive victim or the barmy money-grabbing harpy who insists that she can't live on less than £20,000 a month, and it's always accompanied by a comment piece about how rich men can't afford to get married. Which always makes me want to shout - "No - they can't afford to get DIVORCED!!" And they can probably avoid this by treating their wife nicely, allowing her to have a career of her own and remembering not to have sex with anyone else........

Philip Green in the Times today was quoted as saying that he can't afford to get divorced because all his assets are registered in the name of his Monaco-resident wife. Bet he behaves himself

I read the LDB piece and agree. There should be a presumption of a 50/50 split in terms of contact unless, as he said, there is a damn good reason not to.

The examples given here of ignorant oafs hurting their children are clearly examples of the "damn good reason not to".

As someone said earlier on, the Children Act 1990 places responsibilities on parents and rights upon the children.

Analysing the division of labour in terms of who did the ironing/nappy-changing/applying plasters to grazed knees etc is completely irrelevant because, as stated above, the rights remain with the children...not the parents.

So it is not a case of the Father deserving more contact because he was more attentive pre-divorce. The Mother's judgement as to his pulling his weight around the house is meaningless and, if I'm honest, smacks of spite and a desire to use the children as a weapon.

But remember the child has no right at all to apply for a reluctant parent to contact it and the non resident parent does have a right to apply. Thus in reality the children do not have enforceable rights. A toddler de B couldn't seek a court order forcing its father to spend 10 hours with it every Saturday but Mr De B could make such an application.

What the law does is look at your pre divorec status quo. Mine was we both worked full time and of course no presumption of either mother or father getting contact. Other cases you have a full time house husband very bonded to udner 5s and courts do not rush to break those bonds. In other words if you're Mr out and about and never there then you haven't bonded and the courts don't throw you the superglue and say as long as you promise to do 6 hours a day of childcare of the 3 under 5s you will get them living with you for 4 nights a week. I fyou have been there then that status quo is maintained.

So it's not so much a favouring of women. It's that men without too much of a brain or without an eye to a future divorce didn't nkow English law and set up thigns at home such that they'd be more likely to have contact after wards. They in effect shoot themselves in the foot every time they accept the convenience of the mother doing more.

But we're not disagreeing. A 50% after divorce is what a lot of mothers want and don't get and the courts won't force the men to take on those domestic responsibilities. LDB is as much helping divorced mothers here as fathers. His position is presumably if am an says I don;'t do 50% then you force that man and you make him stick to the arrangement and if he has a business trip abroad as I often have then he doesn't change the contact arrangements. He goes out there, finds the nanny, au pair, friend etc and deals with teh childcare and washing etc whilst he's away.