Putting
mummy in the stocks
The
Guardian - 19th January 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1393463,00.html
By
caving in to Batman, a real opportunity has been missed
Batman
will soon claim his first maternal scalp - to the good of no one, least
of all the children. Today three cabinet ministers, led by the education
secretary Ruth Kelly, will announce concessions to groups, such as Fathers4Justice,
campaigning for greater rights of access to their children.
Divorced
mothers who defy court orders will be tagged and kept to a night-time
curfew. They may be fined - a great help to children probably already
reared on a much reduced family budget. Or ordered to spend Saturday
afternoons doing community service while dad has the offspring (as if
mothers need to be reminded what it means to give selflessly).
Fathers4Justice
isn't happy because it still means mothers will escape jail, while its
demand for 50:50 custody has also been ignored. Still, in terms of children's
welfare and family law, these proposals are disastrous. Far from easing
the relationship between father and child, they will turn mothers into
martyrs, adding to a child's guilt. This policing of family life is
all the more reprehensible because a constructive alternative is available.
It is one that could genuinely improve life for the children of parents
who live apart. Except that the scheme, the Early Interventions project
(EI), has now effectively been buried as a result of Whitehall turf
wars and civil service infighting.
EI,
based on a successful model used in Florida, has three key features.
First, in families where the child is not at risk from a parent's behaviour,
it is automatically assumed that he or she will spend between 70 to
100 nights a year with the non-resident parent. Second, couples attend
mandatory courses that help them to understand the impact if a child
is turned into a weapon in a post-matrimonial war. Third (and rarely
employed), if a parent persistently refuses to comply with contact arrangements,
then punishment follows.
The
British version welcomed a new partnership between courts and child
development experts. Crucially, it also set a common baseline for contact,
of up to 100 days per year with the non-resident parent, backed by the
lever of the law and parental education.
In
October 2003, EI arrived at the Department for Education and Skills
as a pilot project with ministerial backing. But in the hands of civil
servants it underwent an Alice in Wonderland conversion. Without discussion
or review (in contrast to the eight years it took to formulate EI),
the scheme was renamed - it is now called the Family Resolutions project
- and the basic premise discarded.
It
now operates under the ridiculous maxim that "every case is different",
the very antithesis of the Florida philosophy. And, since every case
is different, the opportunity to ensure a real cultural shift towards
a child's right to maintain contact with both parents - who are also
required to behave like grown-ups towards each other - has been lost.
The
Family Resolutions project isn't all bad. It requires parents "to
refocus on the child's needs"; it is retraining the judiciary and
it teaches conflict management. But it has scuppered the chance to build
a fresh consensus in this divorce-prone society; to build a society
that acknowledges that it is best that a child maintains regular, good-quality
contact with the non-resident parent.
The
government claims that only a small minority of parents use the law
in conflictual contact arrangements. According to the most recent figures,
from 2001, 146,914 children in England Wales experienced the divorce
of their parents. That number is swelled by the children of cohabiting
adults who separate. In 2002, more than 65,000 parents issued contact
applications to see their children or see more of them - and at least
4,000 a year defy a court order. That adds up to a lot of conflict,
often prolonged in the courts for several years.
Is
there any chance of a happy ending? Caroline Willbourne, a family law
judge, has made the sensible proposal that the original Early Intervention
project be restored, under independent management and out of civil-service
control, and monitored in a pilot scheme alongside Family Resolutions
to see which is more effective.
The
map of family life is changing. According to recent research by the
Office of National Statistics, 17% of separated fathers have some form
of daily contact, 49% have weekly contact, and 69% have monthly contact.
Inevitably, some fathers - and mothers - will fracture a child's heart
by failing to turn up or by removing themselves permanently from the
family. But bad behaviour by the few shouldn't deter public endorsement
of the rule that it's better for a child when parental bonds are maintained.
Instead,
the government has opted to put mummy in the stocks. That will achieve
nothing except to turn matriarchs into militants and create needless
misery for yet more children. yroberts@dial.pipex.com
