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.

RP not NRP

Have you actually read the thread of the article foglike?

This isn't about advocating exactly how much time should spent with each parent; it will be done on a case by case basis.

The criticisms of the article aren't talking about pay per view. They are talking about a child's legal right to have physical, emotional and financial support from both parent, regardless of the parent's wish to commit to that child.

Preventing that process for no good reason should be made a criminal offence for both parents, not just the one with majority residency.

My answer was in reference to an earlier post COS.
Not to the OP.

When are they going to make it a child's right to see his or her NRP?

My children never see their father. He can't be bothered. He has the right to see them any time he likes, but he has no responsibility to see them whatsoever.

And like most NRP's, he doesn't pay a penny in maintenance. And he has no legal responsibility to do so.

So the state is going to give him yet more rights without responsibilities is it?

Righto.

Most NRPs don't pay maintenance?
Is that a fact?

If the courts granted fathers custody on the same numbers as they granted mothers the figures for non payment of CM probably still wouldn't change that much.
It's a red herring using the CM as a pointer because unless the RP's were split equally you could never tell who isn't doing what.

This link is old 2002 but it somewhat explains it.

www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,59963,00.html

I don't think this is about blaming parents but about making sure the child has rights. Regardless of the gender of the parent, they should support their child.

I also don't see how courts can grant custody to fathers who want no contact with their child whatsoever. The courts can't stop fathers walking away based on current legislation; it requires a change in the law.

where is the rights of the child in that report ? There seemed to be a lot of rights for the NRP will they be able to enforce the law to make the NRP see the child? Will the law force the NRP to be on time and not 2 hours late each visit? Will the law enforce the NRP out of the pub with their mates to see the child rather than cancel the visit as they had a better offer?

yes it is the child's rights that should be the centre and should be legislated - not the parents. especially not parents who take no responsibility for their children.

and no it's not the pay per view argument - that is such a red herring. fwiw children like all of us are kind of pay per view - if money isn't paid for food, a roof over our heads and our basic care then no one will be seeing us for long.

i don't know why people find the idea that parents should pay towards their children staying alive so shocking. is it such a strange idea that a man should pay towards the upkeep of his offspring? is it rocket science to say that a simple marker of whether a parent is responsible or not is whether they provide for the physical needs of their children eg. food and shelter?

i honestly don't understand how people think a man who is able but refuses to pay towards his children's upkeep is a 'good father'

the pay per view thing is just another way of backing women into a corner where they can't say logical, sensible things. the only people it is of benefit to is men who don't want to pay for their children so it is very odd hearing it peddled by women (unless they are married to/living with someone with previous children they don't pay for) and responsible men who do financially provide for their children.

foglike, you are really are clutching at straws now, trying to brand maternity leave as some sort of feminist conspiracy. In case you haven't noticed, it's women who give birth. And women who need time to recover from the birth and establish b/f if they wish to do so.

Men are entirely free to campaign for better paternity leave. Oddly enough I haven't seen much pressure on this - just whingeing from people who are bitter about their wives or partners having the gall to leave. If men want X or Y they should fight for it themselves, not bitch about women having Z.

And then they get called MRAs.

I'm just surprised that it's considered the norm and acceptable when a couple separate for the father, and let's face it most NRPs are men, to go from seeing his children every day to seeing then two days in fourteen.

Quite, Edam.

I also think that campaigning for more paternity leave, more flexible working for everyone and getting rid of macho/presentee culture which is detrimental to men and women including all parents would be a great focus for these groups.

YBW, I think the point here is that nobody here thinks it is acceptable for vast numbers of fathers to never, or hardly ever, see their children. It is nothing to do with giving non-abusive non-resident parents greater rights to decide if they want to see their children or not, it is about making sure that they do see their children, regardless of whether or not the failure to do this has previously been a consequence of their selfishness or the selfishness of the resident parent.

This law only seems to want to act on the selfishness of resident parents, rather than also acting on the selfishness of non-resident parents, so seems to be putting the rights of the child last.

yes and this law makes it look like the minority situation (father who wants to see children, contribute to their care etc but can't) is the norm whilst ignoring the reality of the majority of situations whereby father abandons any responsibility for the children.

which is because it's about getting men what they want rather than about children's rights or the well being of families.

'Children have a right to equal access to both parents' - you know, I think the problematic word in this sentence is 'parents'.

I think children should have a right to access to any adult who loves them and whom they love, who actively promotes the child's welfare, who safeguards the child, and from whom they get affection. So often in separation you get heartbreaking cases of grandparents, half-siblings, other relatives or close friends whose contact with a child is suddenly severed for no good reason.

If an adult can fulfil all of the above criteria, and the child wants to see them, the child should have a fully enforceable legal right to do so. The rest of it is much more about parents' rights/desires than children's rights or desires, and is stupid and cruel.

"Most NRPs don't pay maintenance?
Is that a fact?"

Yep. 60% of RP's never get any maintenance.

5% of lone parents are widows or widowers, so that leaves 55% who aren't paying a penny - not a penny- for their children. That's the majority.

That's without the ones who miss payments when they want to, blackmail RP's by saying they'll miss a payment if s/he doesn't do as they say, pay less than they're supposed to, etc. - missed payments which are never recovered.

I wonder if the loving father here will get rights to see his children, one of whom he could have killed when he beat his girlfriend up?

I wonder how many people think he and men like him should have any rights at all to see anyone, let alone children.

Youcandothecube, I think the problem with this is that any random can undermine parental authority and values, by demanding contact with children.

Many people grow up in really toxic families. They don't realise how toxic they are, until years after they first hit adulthood. To give grandparents, who may have abused the parent legal rights to see their grandchildren, makes me feel very uncomfortable. Most child abuse, emotional or physical, goes completely undetected and unrecorded, so there will be no record of the fact that toxic grandparents are abusive people and I suggest that if a parent who is otherwise reasonable, sane and loving, decides that s/he doesn't want their child to see an aunt, grandparent, cousin, etc., for whatever reason, it's not for the state to undermine that decision, which may actually be based on extremely good, but unprovable reasons.

It has always struck me that the separation of maintenance and contact, is in nobody's interests but that of deadbeat parents.

If you love and care for your child and want the best for them and put their interests first, you bloody well financially support them. Non-payment of maintenance should be recognised for what it is - a form of child abuse. Financial abuse. But it's not, because it's mainly men who perpetrate it. (90% of lone parents are women.) A system which refuses to recognise financial abuse of children as being an indicator of a shit parent, really is not putting children's interests first. If you don't recognise that financially supporting your child is a basic of being a decent parent, what other basics don't you understand? Anyone who does this, should be treated with deep suspicion by the courts - but their not. They, their ex, their children and everyone else in society, is told that it's irrelevant. Whose interest is that serving? NOT children's.

Good post basil

I'm going to say one more thing and then I'm going to piss off because I can't be bothered to get drawn in to fights with handmaidens and MRAs.

MRA's - where are the MRA's who are fighting for increased, paid paternity leave for men? Where are they fighting for the right of ALL parents, fathers and mothers, to take part time work as a standard? Where are they telling each other, to do their fair share of housework and childcare, so that they build up decent loving relationships with their partners and children? Where are they constructing domestic arrangements which enable them to do 50% of all the childcare and domestic work in the house including planning, school lunches, getting PE kits ready etc., so that if they do split with their partners, they have done just as much work as she has, they've put their career on hold just as much as she has, they've taken part time work or downshifted just as much as she has and therefore they are totally morally entitled to have 50 50 custody on the break up of the relationship with their partner? Where is their campaign? Point me to it, and I'll sign up.

Excellent posts Basil, that last one in particular.

Because men and women follow societal norms.

The man goes to work and the women reduces her hours or stops work.
I've even read this where the women earns more. And men find it very difficult to get flexible working.

This does amaze me about MN. If you're a father and think the system of RP and NRP is unfair you're called a MRA. I've never met a MRA.

I'll be advising my son don't have children with someone who wants to give up her career and become a Sahp. And the same for my daughter.

And also to both don't give up your career and be financially dependent on someone else.

Fortunately for me I married a feminist, who wasn't in anyway going to sacrifice her independence, but as I was the main-carer it meant the children have ended up living mostly with me.

Do you think if men did do 50-50 of everything, women would want to see their children half the time after separation?
As I've never met any.

Youllbewaiting - I think women would be a lot more prepared to see their children only on a 50 50 basis if they have been sharing childcare on a 50 50 basis with the father of those children, because they would know that when their child is spending time with their father, they are spending time with someone who knows that child, cares about them, puts their interests first, gives a shit about their stuff and will generally look after them as well as they look after them themselves - they've put their money where their mouth is and proved it. And they will know that truly, they have no moral right to prevent that and that there's no reason to be concerned about it. Women reconcile themselves to not seeing their children when they have to go back to work, as long as they are certain their children are being cared for properly. I think it will be the same for 50 50 custody, as long as the men have been 50 50 involved previously.

In too many cases, that isn't something women know, because as you say people follow societal norms and men distance themselves from their children as soon as the far-too-short paternity leave is past. Plus, I actually think the rate of family break up would be lower as well, because partners wouldn't have such divergent lives - women's lives change enormously when they have children, men's lives are slightly disrupted for a while and then get more or less back to a slightly different normality.

Also, MRA's are quite happy to try to change societal norms when it comes to custody arrangements; not so much when it comes to trying to shoulder the proper amount of housework and childcare and changing the structures of the workplace, while they are actually living with the mothers of their children. Women fought to change societal norms so that they could earn their living; it's up to men to fight to change societal norms so that they can parent more fully than most of them do atm. But they don't want to do that on the whole. Where are the campaigns? When did anyone ever scale Buckingham Palace to demand the right to six months paid paternity leave and the right to part time work for fathers? They just want to get the right to see their DC's without the obligation to see them at the times they've agreed, or to look after them properly when they do see them.

Sorry am posting and running, got loads of stuff on today.