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.

Thinking older children here. With babies / preschoolers it wouldn't really make sense to have them in daycare 8-6 if the other parent was working less or not at all eg if they were on maternity leave. Although it can be done, obviously.

I suppose a question as well is, is it positive for children generally to have two homes that they live in equally? Is it good for them, not good for them, or neither here nor there? I don't know the answer to that, although instinctively I would have thought that one home is better for a younger child. I don't actually know though.

I'm simply not convinced that it is the law that is the problem here. Certainly there are problems, though, for an awful lot of people.

why can't a father working full time look after a child? Because a lot of children would rather be with their other parent than with a CM/nanny whilst daddy is working, the child often prefers to be home in their own surroundings after school than with a cm/after school club - so why force them to after school care when they could be happy at one of their homes

Based entirely on my own experience - I would say yes - my DS moves freely between 2 homes he is 16 and was 5 at time of split. He is happy with this.

Dsd also moves between 2 homes.

Surely its better that children are happy and secure where ever they are?

MJ do you think that the courts stipulating that neither parent is allowed to move out of the locality will work then?

I don't really see that there is a coherent argument as to why this law is going to be a good thing apart from WAH mummies are horrible.

No-one has said way it is a good thing to move from a child-centred court view to a parent centred one.

Hopefully these laws will be implemented and we'll see the fruit of them soon.
There can be no reason at all why the % of alienated parents shouldn't go down remarkably with this type of legislation.
Obviously the govt and courts seem to think that the system isn't working or benefiting children after a separation and courts may very well have to decide punishments for any parent who breaks the law.

Talking about decent NRPs - I don't think they would want to move away from their children anyway, and I don't think then it should be allowe that the children are moved away.

Nothing and no one will able to legislate against a crap parent who doesn't care enough about their children to want to stick around - this proposition is that shared care is the default position. There will be different scenarios as there are now. It won't be appropriate in every case.

foglike you never answered my question about whether you think a BF newborn should be away from its mother for half the week.

"Nothing and no one will able to legislate against a crap parent who doesn't care enough about their children to want to stick around "

?

So there are going to be laws that the RP has to stay in a certain location etc etc and that will be enforceable, and the NRP will have all these additional rights but there will be no enforcement of them?

Is this another con/dem policy where they haven't actually though about what it all means and how it will be implemented?

never answered my question regarding fathers and mothers suitability to parent SQ...

The situation involving BFing are in the childs early years naturally and the subject in discussion is about access to both parents through their childhood.

There is no reason why a father couldn't have custody of the child/children even from birth is there?

Why are you fighting against the right of the child to see both parents equally?

It was a different posters comments who you were talking about there.

Personally, in our situation, my DH is a devoted, patient and kind parent, and I believe that is true of many fathers. The same as it is true of many mothers. I think that there should be more flexibility in workplaces to allow families to arrange things to best suit them. It is a shame that at the moment when children come along everything is set up for men and women to adopt these very traditional roles that actually may not suit them and their circumstances.

"There is no reason why a father couldn't have custody of the child/children even from birth is there?"

Yes, if they are BF there is

What you need to do is sort out society so that childcare and work are shared more evenly, with women having access to work and promotion after children (at the moment having children knackers things for many women) and for men to be able to adjust their time at work to enjoy their home life and responsilities more.

Once that has happened then shared care on separation will be the natural way forward.

I know I was talking about your comments SQ that's why I addressed my post to you.

Your last comment suggests that's the scenario whilst father and mother are together. The recommendations from govt are based more on one parent either alienating the other parent or restricting access in one way or other.

Two completely different situations.

'What you need to do is sort out society'

Easy, I'll be back in 10 minutes.

So you're saying that an unsuitable mother should have custody of the child because the child is being breastfed?

Could you clarify that statement?

"the right of the child to see both parents equally?"

That's not a right!

That's a highly biased ideological pretend right.

The child has a right to whatever is in the child's interests in terms of seeing either of its parents at all.

What is best for a child can't, and shouldn't be fixed like that in terms of percentages. That is clearly about putting parents rights first.

This is the problem with anything involving putting children's interests first - it is extremely hard to know for sure what is in their best interests and it is very easy to hijack those interests in terms that suit your own argument.

I absolutely agree with your post ATYL.

Obviously allowing the court to apply the legislation through the family courts to implement any new laws designed for purpose.

Family courts need to be sex/gender blind and take each case on it's values.

This is obviously the situation we need eradicating and about time too.
But this isn't the norm and these new reforms will only affect parents who can't come to an agreeable resolve.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1455047/Three-months-jail-for-mother-who-kept-child-from-his-father.html

"Family courts need to be sex/gender blind and take each case on it's values."

Agreed.

So why tie their hands by insisting on a presumption of 50-50 child timeshare rather than the current situation where they just have to look at what is best for the child?

Of course, that does rely on the judgments of outside agencies that will have their own biases and blindnesses.

It's never going to be ideal.

It's never going to be ideal and there has to be a shift in how this is dealt with.

I should expect the default position to be adhered to until a complaint is made by the RP or NRP.

Most people wouldn't agree with a 50-50 timeshare (Horrible phrase) without first knowing the implications of this in their own family environment.

But the minority of bad parents on both sides of the divide have caused this situation for others.