Courts to consider making child access to both parents a legal RIGHT?

[HoudiniHissy]

www.telegraph.co.uk/family/8995395/Divorced-mums-and-dads-could-get-legal-right-to-see-their-children.html

Just look at the comments below! The misogyny!

This is BONKERS!

What about in abuse cases? The police, the SS, DV charities, HV are all screaming to get yourself and your children out of the abusive situation, and even now, when there is no legislation, the courts insist on contact with the perpetrator. sometimes even falling for their BS and awarding custody.

To make this a RIGHT means to trample all over the rights of the child and abused partner.

With rights come responsibility. It is all well and good expressing our right to free speech and all that (for example) but it denies the rights of others if we choose to use inflammatory or discriminatory speech.

Likewise, it's a great theory to enshrine equal access to parents in the event of a split, but when is the WELFARE of all involved taken into account. If we give perpetrators of domestic abuse rights they will use them to the letter of the law and beyond to inflict further damage.

Life as an ex partner of a violent/abusive person is hard enough, without giving these monsters a RIGHT to contact.

Abusers, IMHO, should have as little to do with their children as possible. Their poison should die with them, not pollute the next generation.

I do think though hand in hand with this needs to be a review of support for victims of DV so that DV is recognised in an official format somehow.

foglike, you've missed my point. Men need to share child-rearing equally during the relationship if they want equal residence/access/whatever you want to call it after the relationship. The fact that most children live with their mothers post-separation or divorce merely reflects the fact that most childcare is done by women. If men want to play a bigger role in the lives of their children, they shouldn't wait until the relationship breaks down. We have a society where women are the primary carers. If men want to change that, they are free to do so.

Excellent posts from Niceguy and Edam (way back up thread).

At the moment, men and women are not in identical situations as Edam says, and it is very often the woman who has less power in everything. Except that up to now, she has usually been able to rely on the courts being aware of her position and doing their best to make sure that they bear that in mind when making their decisions.

This legislation looks to me as if the law is going to assume that men and women behave in the same way in relationships and when parenting children, and if a law is based on a false idea, how can it be just?

As Niceguy says, the courts must put the interests of the children first, and up to now, I think they have done a good job. I know some men have really suffered, and some women have been truly evil in the way in which they have misused their power, and some couples have used their children as weapons against each other. No legislation can stop that. But this law is not going to make things better. It will just swap one set of problems for another.

In my experience it takes so much courage for a woman to leave a man, that if she thought the courts might decide that the children could stay with their father, she probably wouldn't go. And sometimes it is much better for her (and the children) to go. Of course this can work the other way round - it's just much less common.

What about a situation in which the mother removes the children from their father to get them out of a dangerous situation? She can't tell the police because she's too scared of him/she doesn't want her kids to have to visit their dad in jail/she might go down too. The man is very plausible in court, and the court decides to give him equal contact time. This legislation would make that scenario much more likely, I think.

Thing is solo, (and I consider my DH the victim of DV and am also a survivior so I am not knocking victims), you cannot have a situation where children can be removed from a parent, because one parent "says" something.

DHs ex used the children to continue her abuse of him, denying them a relationship with him, simply because she could, there were no allegations of DV on her side, she just simply prevented contact, when she wanted, even with court orders.

DSD is now "sneaking up" as her mother is so hard on her if she knows she is coming, sometimes so poor DSD never knows where she is.

Hi Zest01. This whole thing has nothing to do with gender. It's about "roles". Because you are the main breadwinner your househusband would be in a far stronger position, God forbid, if you ever split up.
Most of the tragedies of separation result in the houseperson calling all the shots in relation to childcare. The partner who works will essentially be expected to provide income, but little else. What this law proposes is an attempt to redress the balance, giving both parents adequate time with their children to allow a relationship to continue. Under the present system there are too many unscrupulous houseparents taking advantage and selfishly destroying the childrens relationship with the other parent.

On reading an earlier entry, of an adult whose parents split, I can see how their opinion has been mis-shapen by one bitter parent against the other innocent parent. I can recommend an excellent book by Amy Baker, Adult Children of Parental Alienation....

edam, I have recently had the same conversation, I mostly care for our children, but thats because one of us has to work, and my employer is family friendly, he would love to be home with the children and not me, but its not praticable.

If I had a magic wand Harry Potter esq. I would cast the RESPECT spell on both separating parents. Each would have adequate time with the children, that's some days and some nights. When with Mum they would be under the umbrella of her responsibility, and whilst with Dad shaded by his parasol. Mother and father inevitably would parent differently but each would respect each others ways, and not interfer. In fact they would be courteous, amenable and flexible and never critiscise the other parent in front of the children. This spell would be the next best thing to parenting classes.

Edam is overlooking the disparity in paternity and maternity leave or ignoring the fact fathers can't access care time off that's paid or indeed sanctioned legally by an employer.
Furthermore edams posts smack of excusism and highlight the reason why some posters on this thread are exasperated by the reasons 50-50 are being argued against.
I've noy missed your point you've just forgotten to remember some very important laws and help that mothers get in respect of actual leave to care for children that fathers don't.
How do fathers access that time to care for a child full time when paternity benefits don't exist?

I don't think men realise that they going out to paid work to provide financially for the family is not seen as an equal contribution when separation happens.

And they find themselves out of the house, paying maintenance and seeing their children two days in fourteen.

I think if more men new this they'd work less, and not agree to their partner becoming a SAHP.

Long overdue. Very sensible Proposals

This is why I didn't put my DCs Dads name on the bc. I'll decide what is best for them in the event of a split, not a court.

Ah, an advocate of the "fathers are second-class parents / children are the property of their mothers" school of thought.

edam - fathers can only physically share the same responsibilities as mothers, if either both parents are at home or both are working. As soon as there is a SAHP that balance will always tip. But this shouldn't mean that in case of a separation the SAHP should get to call all the shots.

Victoria - unless there is something fundementally wrong with the DCs dad - then that is a dreadful thing to do to your children.

Youllbewaiting, that's a very good point. Maybe there needs to be an advertising campaign making the point "Be the breadwinner for your family and kiss goodbye to your kids if you ever divorce!"

But they do need to be recognised for that though and not have it held against them.
Victoria's point of view is shocking isn't it?

Surely the law should be that the child has the right to a relationship with both parents? In fact, isn't that what the law says at the moment?

Rather than the parents have rights to the child?

It seems back to front to me. Why the change?

Also, what happens if the RP wants to move? Presumably the NRP can move when they like, but the RP can't? Does the RP have to follow the NRP?

I think at the moment if the NRP lets the child down there is no recourse, but if the NRP doesn't allow access they can go to prison? This will strengthen this situation presumably.

Where are the interests of the child in this? Surely rather than the parents getting rights over the child's time, the child should get the right to emotional and financial support from both parents?

On the DV point it is very hard to get a conviction for DV against someone, and even in cases where there has been DV the courts often seem to say that as the violence was against the mother and not the children (even if the children witnessed it) there is no reason to disallow contact. There are a lot of threads on here about it.

But regardless of whether the parent working out of the home wanted it to be that way, the point is that for the children one parent has been their main carer and it should be the priority to retain that stability for them as much as possible. I don't think large shares of shared residency (60/40 or 50/50) work in the vast majority of cases and I do have doubts that it is the best thing for children in many cases, particularly primary school age and younger. It is not about fairness for the parents.

The law should never ever give parents a right of access to their children, the rights should always belong to the children. And why should the rights only be enforced on one side? Why, if the law says my children have a right to a relationship with both parents, can I not enforce that on my XP? Why couldn't I stop him moving 400 miles away from them and not seeing them for the past 9 months? He can take me to court and enforce "their rights" to a relationship with him, but I can't do the reverse? To say it is about the rights of children is complete and utter bollocks, it is about parents' rights in all but name.

You cannot legislate for individual situations. For every story of a man refusing to have contact there is another of a man desperately trying to see his. There should be no legal default.

I agree that this should be about the rights of the child. The child should have a right to a relationship with both parents if both are not abusive.

People who stand in the way of that happening should then be dealt with by the criminal justice system. For parents who have majority residence to be punished for denying access to children while non-resident parents are allowed to walk away if they feel like it without any sanction is about giving more rights to parents to pick and choose whether they want to care about their child, and none to the child to be cared about.

we need to sort out responsibilities first before we give even more rights. when it is a legal and enforced responsibility to provide for your child then we can worry about rights being improved.

i want to see a child's rights to be provided for by their parents first on the agenda. we currently have a situation where men can walk away from their children and get away with never paying a penny to support them. we have a situation where men have the 'right' to access but no responsibility to actually keep up that access (all about the man's right not the child's right) so can not show up, show up when they feel like it, let the child down and prevent the mother from working or making any arrangements in a time where the children are supposed to be with him. and all this can go on with a parent who doesn't even financially support the child but just causes chaos in their lives.

the child's rights should be being promoted and that includes financial provision for them and where appropriate the right to regular, committed time with the non resident parent (not as and when the parent feels like it).

as a single parent i would have loved every other weekend child free and for my child to have had a relationship with his father, so would my son i'm sure but his father has chosen not to see him. a non resident parent should have responsibility for their child, not rights to them. with one comes the other. when you are at a point where the vast majority of men pay for the children and take a responsibility for their care and well being then the culture will shift. sadly we don't have that and stamping around about rights of parents won't get us there.

all the single parents i know would have loved the NRP to contribute more to their child's care, to have them more often and take on more responsibility. it's a hard job raising children on your own.

where women are fighting tooth and nail for their children not to see the NRP i think we can assume that in most cases there will be a very good reason for them to be willing to take on 100% care with no respite or help.

Sorry I don't think we can assume that at all - divorce and death, bring out the worst in people.

And not everyone fighting to stop contact is doing 100% of the care - I know people who would rather leave kids with next doors cat than acknowledge they have a relationship with the NRP.

I disagree that divorce and death bring out the worst in people; sometimes they bring out the best in people and help them gain a sense of perspective.

I think it seems a very punitive attitude to suggest that there is something wrong with a parent (regardless of whether they have majority residence or the child is within their care a minority of the time) or that they are somehow doing less care because they allow other people to spend time with their child or give that child freedom to spend time alone or with friends.

It is part of child rearing to allow the child to spend time with people other than the parents. It is a classic of bad divorces that either one or both parents accuse the other parent of being uncaring/irresponsible/abusive because the child spends time with and is supported by extended family and friends.

But the issue surely is how we ensure that children have a right to see both parents, rather than putting the focus on the parents' rights.

It's the old pay per view scenario rearing its ugly head again.
And the assumption that in most cases where the NRP denies contact is valid is quite frankly shocking and shows what's up with the system as it is.

It shouldn't be one parents right to take on 100% of the care for a child that's ridiculous,each case is different from another.