With
the holiday season upon
us, legions of noncustodial
parents across the country
are entering what is for
them the most difficult
time of the year.
The pain of separation from
one’s own children can be
particularly acute during
that time of the year traditionally
spent with families and
loved ones.
Our state
legislators will soon have
the opportunity to do something
about this. Following an
astounding 85 percent statewide
approval of a non-binding
ballot initiative on Nov.
2 favoring shared custody
for children of divorce,
the Statehouse will have
the opportunity to pass
meaningful shared parenting
legislation this session.
With
respect to child custody
following a family breakup,
everyone agrees on one thing:
custody battles are bad
for the children involved.
Unfortunately, that is where
the agreement ends.
Presently, custody of children
is decided in a winner-take-all
contest between the parents.
This environment encourages
parents—already suffering
impaired judgment because
they’re going through what
is often the very worst
time of their lives—to disparage
the other parent and convince
the court that the “best
interests of the child”
are served by eliminating
or severely restricting
their access to the child.
|
The
courts have to stop
playing God, employing
all sorts of self-styled
'child experts'
to determine the
'best interests
of the child.' |
|
The “best
interest of the child” standard
encourages this kind of
behavior by the parents.
The solution is to change
our present mindset from
this winner-take-all contest
into one where parents are
encouraged to cooperate
with one another, and thus
serve the true best interests
of their children.
It makes
no sense for two good, loving
parents to be forced into
a position of trying to
show that they are better
than the other parent. It
produces the worst of all
possible worlds for the
children involved, as well
for the parents themselves.
This is a case where children
know better than adults:
The best parent is both
parents.
Take
the extreme example of a
parent who most reasonable
people would consider to
be unfit--perhaps an alcoholic
father or a mother that
severely neglects the child:
Even in those cases the
child will typically beg,
cry, and scream not to be
taken from them. Blood is
not just thicker than water—it’s
richer than money and all
the better things that money
can buy for the child.
The bond
between biological parents
and their children is the
strongest of all human bonds—even
marriage—and it must now
be treated this way by our
family courts. The first
step is to change the law
by passing the new shared
parenting bill supported
by the Fatherhood Coalition.
The courts
have to stop playing God,
employing all sorts of self-styled
“child experts” to determine
the “best interests of the
child.” Children are not
served when the state rules
that one of their parents
doesn’t pass muster consistent
with some “expert’s” notion
of a good parent, or either
is simply not as good as
the other parent.
The solution
is for the law to recognize
that unless a parent is
proved to be seriously harmful
to his/her child’s welfare,
every child has an inalienable
right to the love, care
and companionship of both
their parents, as do the
parents to the child’s.
The law
must reflect this by establishing
a rebuttable presumption
of shared custody. Besides
establishing such a presumption,
the shared parenting bill
removes the present statutory
language that practically
encourages each parent to
demonize the other in order
to show that only they are
worthy of their child.
For example,
Ch. 208, section 31 presently
reads in part: “When considering
the happiness and welfare
of the child, the court
shall consider whether or
not the child's present
or past living conditions
adversely affect his physical,
mental, moral or emotional
health.” This may sound
good, but in practice it
serves as an invitation
for divorce lawyers to employ
all sorts of costly behavioral
professionals to provide
“evidence” of the harmful
effects of the other parent’s
parenting, often relying
on the flimsiest of anecdotal
incidents that, under this
present wording of the law,
are sufficient to demonstrate
harm to the “emotional health”
of the child.
The bill
replaces this wording with
language that requires evidence
of serious harm to a child
before a parent’s custodial
rights can be abridged.
Establishing such a minimum
standard for ending a parent’s
custodial rights is the
only way to stop the present
practice of eliminating
a parent form his/her child’s
life for spurious reasons.
Shared
parenting will also make
re-litigation less likely.
Often, fathers who lose
their children after divorce
spend years fighting Herculean
legal battles to restore
their relationships with
their children. The only
beneficiaries of these protracted
legal battles are lawyers
and family specialists who
derive income from the never-ending
litigation. Ensuring an
initial shared parenting
judgment that respects the
parental role of both mothers
and fathers—and thus puts
the true best interests
of the children first—is
the best guarantee that
children will be spared
these tragic battles that
can consume the best years
of their lives.
# # #
Mark
Charalambous of Leominster
is spokesman for CPF/The
Fatherhood Coalition