As of now, the Joint Judiciary hearing begins at 1:00 PM and many, many bills are under consideration The hearing’s list of bills
As some may recall, I spoke at the Democratic Convention in favor of access to both parents for children as a Children’s Rights issue.
My 25 years experience in family law has taught me that children do best when they receive as much love, support, and acceptance as possible. Children need both parents, whether those parents are the same gender or different genders.
Children also need grandparents, cousins, and a sense of their ethnic and historical identity.
When parents in a divorce or other family law case put their children first, the children are relatively unharmed. It is possible to have a “good divorce” through the Collaborative Law Process
My conclusion is that divorce should be treated like the fair dissolution of a financial partnership; courts cannot act like “King Solomon” and rule on who is good and who is bad and shared parenting better facilitates a fair process that avoids harm to children.
Having a child, from age 1 week to adult to be force to manage life weekly between two homes, with different rules, different atmosphere, different dining habits, different everything, is the worst thing you can enforce on a child.
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p>Children thrive on consistency, routine, and sense of security. There are so many scenarios that could play out that would make this a disruptive and uncomfortable upbringing for a child. Anything from using different formulas for babies, diffent feeding and sleeping schedules, different support with homework, and so many other differences.
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p>You will raise many confused and dysfunctional children with a forced shared custody arrangement. It is a bad idea.
when she was trying to deny me all visitation with my son. She threw out all kinds of justifications. In the end, the judge told her to cut it out, and gave me visitation.
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p>If you think forcing one parent out of a child’s life is ever good for a child, I don’t want to hear any more of your good ideas.
Please explain what you did mean.
Where the child might be at Mom’s on Sun, Mon,Tues night and at Dad’s on Wed, Thurs, Fri night, with a rotating Saturday night schedule.
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p>Or, Week 1 & 3 at Dad’s, Week 2 & 4 at Mom’s.
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p>Visitation, which is a ridiculous term, is more like at one parent’s house Sunday-Thurs, and at the other parent’s house on Friday and Saturday night.
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p>Two totally different experiences for the child.
I fail to see how the difficult schedule you mention is clearly superior to a childhood with two loving parents fully present. I’ve seen a lot more children laid low by lacking a strong mother or father figure in their lives than by a complex schedule.
Two loving parents fully present would be the absolute ideal. They would still be married, in love and sharing that wonderful experience with their children. Unfortunatley, way too many divorcing parents are on a mission to use their offspring to hurt the other party. An example noted in kirth’s comment above, where his ex-wife was trying to remove him completely from their lives.
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p>The rule for primary custody should be that the primary care giver during the marriage should maintain that status after the divorce. In other words, if the mother has always cooked for the kids, given them baths, taken them to the MD, helped them with homework, etc, that routine should remain. If that was the father’s role during the marriage, then that routine should remain. If both parties shared those responsibilities, then that would definitely be a case for shared custody.
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p>But it should not automatically default to shared custody, when shared caregiving was not the norm during the marriage.
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there is no easy answer.
if the parents are mature enough to work together to maintain consistent schedules, have an amicable relationship, and put the children’s best interest before their own. If the parents have those qualities, then there is nothing stopping them from having shared custody.
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If both spouses [could be two women or two men – not necessarily a Mom and a Dad, after all] go into court not assuming that whoever used to do bedtime “owns” primary custody, but rather that the presumption is shared – an attitude of equality and compromise rather than entitlement is more likely.
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p>What upsets children is rejection, abandonment, lack of affection, and being forced to “take sides”. A rebuttable presumption in favor of shared custody could often lead to parents acting like adults rather than engaging in “tit-for-tat” battles and wasting their money.
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p>Similarly, I also practice in the field of collaborative law divorce – it is possible to have a “good divorce” and not engage in wasteful battles over a desire to control or punish.
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p>However, a set up where one gender or role or parent feels entitled to own children sets the stage for wasteful litigation rather than collaborative dissolution of a failed marriage.
So in your practice, what is the ratio of “good divorces” to not-so-good ones.
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p>Exactly right!
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p>It could often not lead to parents acting like adults.
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p>This bill is a bill to enforce the rights of parents, not to enforce what is in the best interest of the children. Nice try though, and who knows, it just may pass eventually.
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p>In reality, a forced shared custody agreement, where one party is doing it as a way to “get back at” or control or continue to antagonize the other party will end eventually anyway. It is damn hard to raise children. If one party was already not participating in caregiving during the marraige, they aren’t likely to have interest in caring for the child after the divorce either. It won’t be long before the primary caregiver during the marriage ends up primary caregiving again. It will end one way or another, sometimes in a terrible way.
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p>And my apologies to Mom’s and Mom’s, and Dad’s and Dad’s everywhere. I did not mean to offend. Similar to the he/she him/her issue discussed on another thread. Working on getting it right.
because if I were in a situation where, my children were primarily cared for by my husband, they were comfortable with and essentially attached to his style of all of the aspects of daily care, I would not or could not in my heart pull them away from that and confuse their whole life. It would be in my own self interest to do such a thing, not in their best interest.
….and thousands of lives, the data-set I draw on as sometime GAL, sometime parent counsel, and sometime child’s counsel is that children are not uncomfortable with parents who have different styles – and revel in love and attention from not only both parents, but grandparents, aunts and uncles – it is the adults who are uncomfortable with other adults who do not do things their way – and set themselves up for children to tell different things to each adult, and manipulate or play to adult neurosis!
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p>It is parental – and family – alienation depriving children of the adults who love them that is not in a child’s best interest.
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p>Even in my intact family, where my spouse and I raised children, our own backgrounds and styles were wildly different, but we were comfortable letting one another have different styles. It just depended which adult happened to be the “parent in charge” whether there were [for example] three meals that day – or daylong grazing. There is not “one right way to do everything” and children who learn they are loved and that there is more than one style to parent are the richer – and far less anxious. Again, my data set is easily greather than 1000 children and families!!
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p>Children benefit from love and attention. There need not be one adult in control of everything at all times, truly that is in my view almost always a neurotic situation related to an unwholesome need for control.
for shared equal custody. Since your children are accustomed to having alternating styles in caregiving, have felt the love, care, and sense of security from both parents, they probably would have an easier time adjusting to a back and forth, split-in-two life.
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p>So you are trying to make the case that when one parent has the primary responsibility for caring for the children, it is because it is “almost always a neurotic situation related to an unwholesome need for control”. WOW!!! But in a way you are right, not in the way you are trying to imply, but perhaps right that if one person in a marriage is the primary caregiver, it is because the other is trying to control the caregiver. What if one parent fails to step up to the plate during a marriage, so the other must accommodate. It’s not a matter of “three meals that day – or daylong grazing”. It’s a matter of meals or no meals, or meals vs. candy bars for dinner. Such abuses would have to be proven before a parent could make the case for primary custody, because shared custody would automatically be granted without actual documented proof.
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p>I am happy for you that you that you are able to shut out in your mind the horrible situations that forced shared custody arrangements can create for children. I’m sure those children who went without dinner last night will thank you.
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p>Honest to God, you must be kidding.
…is why each case isn’t simply considered on it’s own merits. I doubt any two divorces are exactly alike and there are a whole host of factors to consider. I say whatever is best for the child in the particular situation, sole custody (whichever parent), shared custody, visitation should be the determining factor.
However, starting with the presumption of a level playing field, and having to show WHY it is not in a child’s best interest for both their parents to have liberal, equivalent involvement in the child/children’s life would, based on my data set, lead to a fairer appraisal on a case by case basis.
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p>No two families are identical, nor are any two homes. So when I talk about shared, I am talking about liberal, equivalent involvment and a judicial adjudication that does not start from a belief in “one psychological parent” or with the rigid concept that all children need exactly the same treatment or cannot flourish and accept equivalent but not identical homes and the love of two parents. I am not sure just why I have pushed “liveandletlive”‘s buttons as he/she certainly cannot take a “live and let live” approach to the idea that no one parent – absent actual unfitness of the other parent – should control a child’s life and render the other parent a peripheral visitor.
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p>Note: I have not said, nor would I, that an unfit or dangerous parent should have even unsupervised contact with a child – however it truely is that in my experience the “unfit” parent is a small minority.
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p>I have seen far more parents determined to own their children, and unable to understand that children can actually love both their parents than I have seen of parents who are a danger to their children!
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to an amazing degree. Much more than most adults I know. Living in two houses, even ones with wildly different rules, is something they can handle. Having one parent not in their life, or just barely in it, has got to be harder to deal with.
“Live and let live”. I do not believe in live and let neglect.
how each parent will provide care to the children in their own homes. In the case where one parent has always been the care provider, and the other has never stepped up to the plate, there is no way to “prove” the non-participatory parent has the desire or capacity to do it. This opens the door to the non participatory parent being able to request 50/50 custody for reasons other than a true interest in having shared custody.
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p>As it stands now, the judge will make a decision to award custody based on what is in the best interest of the child.
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p>If this bill passes, references to “the best interest of the child” will be stricken
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p>The new standard will be
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important change…”if written findings are made…supporting a determination that the child would be harmed”
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p>This could have serious consequences.
For one thing, it will be assumed that both parents are capable of providing physical and emotional care to their children. So therefore, if one parent provides food for their children, while the other, hands Jr. a candy bar for dinner it will not matter. Unless this can be proven, the child could potentially spend 50% of their time eating candy bars for supper. If one parent finds it important to have a quiet house after the kids go to bed, while the other thinks it is great to blast loud music until 2AM, keeping the children awake and sending them to school obnoxiously tired 3 days a week it will not matter, because it will have to be proven that one parent keeps a loud household throughout the night.
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p>Now some may say, it’s perfectly OK to blast loud music all night, the child will adjust and thrive, and what’s wrong with candy bars for supper. I think if you talk to any child counselor or psychologist or nutritionist, they will tell you that this would not be OK. But, a child would be forced to live in this environment if the loud music loving, candy bar dispensing parent wanted custody, and the other party could not prove that the child would live like this.
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p>While I’ve used loud nighttime music and candy bars as examples, the potential for even more serious issues is far reaching.
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p>So while currently in Massachusetts, courts making best interests determinations are directed to consider all relevant factors, this will no longer be the case. The judge will no longer have to consider whether or not the child’s present or past living conditions adversely affect his physical, mental, moral or emotional health, because the following will be gone.
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p>and the presumption will be that the child should live in both households until proven that this arrangement will harm the child.
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p>I do believe it is important for a child to have contact and shared life experiences with both parents. But you can’t just drop kids into situation where there will spend large amounts of time with no indication of what kind of care they will receive.
Why is your assumption that sharing the care of a child in two households will lead to neglect?
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p>Why is a presumption that is rebuttable by any evidence of actual unfitnessn so repellent – to you?
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p>The “best interest” standard remains, also, in the read of the whole statute but is, unfortunately, so subjective that what occurs is regrettably a matter of each judge and each county leads to a differing result at present.
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p>Obviously, my experience of more than a thousand families cannot function as an opening to the possibility – for you – that your single painful experience may not be the norm, whatever your personal experience was.
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p>In some counties, in fact, the shared approach is the norm and judges begin the case by explaining that both parents are going to work together in his/her court. PERIOD. One of those counties, I am told, is Brisol county; certainly this was true of the two Bristol cases in my data-set.
based on the fact that I have witnessed neglect so many times. As a matter of fact, in my life experience, neglect from the formerly non-participing parent who demands a lot of custody time is the norm. They are asking for 50/50 custody or even full custody not because they really want it, but because they really don’t want the other parent to have it, or because they don’t want to pay child support.
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p>I was talking to my daughter tonight about this issue, and it just so happened that she was talking with her friend tonight who is getting a divorce. They are a very young couple with a 2 year old daughter. Certainly they were married too young. My daughters friend, the mother, has always been the primary caretaker of the little girl. Not because she is “controlling or neurotic” as you put it, but because her husband was not interested in diapers, bottles, or even interaction with the child. It seems that when the little girl would approach her father to play or interact, he would push her away. Now this young man has decided he is going to ask for full custody. Why would he do that when he never had interest before? And can you imagine how the mother will feel, the one who has dedicated her life to this child, nurtured her, held her when she cried, played with her when she asked, carted her around everywhere with her for the last two years. Can you imagine how this mother feels, knowing that potentially 3 to 4 day a week, or even more if he gets full custody, instead of being greeted with love, this child will be greeted with a nice little shove, to get her out of the way.
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p>It’s stunning to me that out of all of those cases you have not seen an incident of a panicking mother terrified for the emotional welfare of her child. Or perhaps you have seen it and just brushed it off as being a “neurotic situation related to an unwholesome need for control”. My problem with this bill is that it takes off the table the importance of who was the present, nurturing, supportive parent and make shared custody automatically what is in the best interest of the child. So often this is not the case, and so many children are going to suffer for it.
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p>I truly respect you for all of the hard work you do to support children in need, the disabled, and all of the other good causes you work for. I am literally stunned that you cannot see the other side to this coin.
I hope that you will rethink how you view this. The next time you see a panicking parent wanting to maintain their status as primary caregiver, you will consider that perhaps they are not neurotic, but truly concerned about the welfare of their child.
Why would your daughter’s friend’s husband want full custody? There’s no way of knowing the answer to that, for any of us. If you believe any story coming out of a marital breakup without being on the scene, especially a third-hand story, you’re inviting trouble. The truth is usually the first thing sacrificed in the turmoil of a divorce.
my daughter is friends with this mother and has spent plenty of time at her house. She does have eye witness knowledge of the care of this child. I don’t believe my daughter is a liar. Although I’m sure someone will call her that during the course of this divorce. And there will probably be a few that call this mother a controlling neurotic during the course of this divorce.
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p>Maybe her husband could answer the question of “why?” in court? Why he had no previous interest in caring for the child but now wants to be the primary care provider? I think that should be a standard question asked at all temporary custody hearings when a previously non- participating parent suddenly wants full or even 50/50 custody. Maybe it’s already asked. Maybe it won’t be anymore, since shared custody will be the new standard and automatically considered in the best interest of the child.
While it is true sometimes the noncustodial parents [in your stories, always male] may need to be taught, I have seen such young men, given respectful treatment, become fine parents.
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p>To me, your examples seem to reflect gender bias, whether unconscious or not.
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p>The “panicky women” who clutch their children and cannot conceive of being part of a team, in my view and experience, are in need of therapy, and most parents benefit from some family work even in intact families and it is the strong that are open to family therapy, behavioral coaching, and change.
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p>I stand by everything I have said without qualification and consider that what I have said is based on 25 years of experience and solid sociological research.
I agree that therapy is essential for the parents, and the children in order for them to understand the impact of their behavior on a child. Perhaps both the
“panicky women” and the uninvolved men or the “panicky men” and the uninvolved women should have therapy, not just the panicky women.
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p>I am done. I would hope that you will find another way to fight for what you believe in other than using ridicule and name-calling. So far, you have called primary caregivers of children (male or female)neurotic, controlling, and gender biased.
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p>I am not going to continue to state my case only to have you come back with name-calling to state yours.
I am pleased to say that many divorcing parents do put their children first and do not feel that sole control must remain in only one pair of hands.
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p>Not every description constitutes name calling! But it is quite true – you have not succeeded in making your case or convincing me and it sounds like I have not succeeded in convincing you or my views either.
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p>So, by all means, we agree to disagree and I shall continue to believe that fair, liberal, equivalent access for both their parents is best for children absent actual proof/track record of abusive or unteachablably neglectful behavior.
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p>Most parenting is learned through “on the job training” after all.
…is not the fact that AmberPaw and I vehemently disagree on this issue, but that the time for shared parenting is while you are still together.
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p>Parents, men and women, gay or straight, should be actively involved in all aspects of parenting while they are living in the same home with their children. From diapers, to ballet and karate lessons, from cleaning up messes, to comforting a scared or sick child. Both parents should have the same goal in creating a safe and loving environment. Both parents should help with homework, cook the meals, and read that story at bedtime. The time to decide you are going to learn how to parent is when your children are born. The time to decide you are going to commit to your children is also when they are born.
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p>When both parents have been active and committed participants in raising their children, then it would naturally follow that if a separation occurred, the same shared parenting would continue, and be a true benefit to the children.
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