Laws governing custody & support are destroying relationships; what’s your story?

In 2004, a man in England put on a Batman costume and climbed up onto a ledge at Buckingham Palace to draw attention to the fact that he wanted to see his children. Jason Hatch, who separated from his wife Victoria in 2001, was granted access to his children for two hours every three weeks by a judge. But Hatch, a national co-ordinator of “Fathers 4 Justice”, claimed he had only seen his son, aged five, and daughter, four, for a total of six hours in the three years prior to his superhero stunt.

In March, 2005, after a bitter custody battle, Alnoor Amarsi, a distraught father, threw his 5-year-old girl off the Don Mills bridge onto Highway 401 in Toronto. Then he jumped over 60 feet to his death. Miraculously, the girl survived and recovered – physically, anyway.

On December 4th, 2006, a mother threw her young son from a similar overpass on Highway 401. She jumped, too. This time, both parent and child perished.

There is a graveyard at a site for men called MESA (www.mesa.com), the Men’s Educational Support Association. There are 34 names of the 34 fathers who committed suicide. Names like Luke Hovland, who committed suicide 4 years ago, eight months after spending 43 days in a Strafford County jail for failing to pay more than $16,000 to his ex-wife to cover half of their daughter’s tuition at Tufts University. Then there was Darrin White, a man on medical leave, who was forced to return to work to make the over $2500 in monthly support payments he couldn’t afford. The judge had already given the ex-spouse the children and the house. Although it was illegal, his ex-wife denied him access to his children. He killed himself eight years ago.

The legal system is not to blame, per se. The legal system is simply a system and the way it operates reflects the way the law is interpreted and manipulated by lawyers and judges. Can the system be manipulated? Even a parent with a proven history of abuse can win a custody battle by paying enough money and engaging a powerful legal team.

It will be a long time before anything changes. The laws are outdated and do not serve a society where, in most cases, 2 parents have to work in order to survive. The law is such that divorce and custody lead to emotional battles that destroy relationships and kill people. Terms like ‘custody’, ‘access’, ‘visitations’ and ‘enforcement’ paint pictures of prisons and incarceration, rather than relationships between parents nad children. The suspension of rights and freedoms dictates a bitter coping process for those who must live in a world that defines itself by these terms.

Many years ago, when a divorce changed my life with 2 small children, I was devastated to the point where, at times, I could hardly breathe. I am sure there are also many mothers who can say the same thing. Yes, I contemplated suicide. I attempted suicide. Obviously, it didn’t work. Finally, one day, after reaching out to everyone and everything, I connected with a man who eventually directed me to the MESA web site. He said, “Remember only one thing. Fathers who love will always be loved. The only thing that matters to your children is that you love them.”

It is not always easy to keep one’s eye on the goal, to love through adversity, disrespect and constantly changing values. If parents could respect the fact that children love both a mother and a father, it would affect the decisions and the manner in which those decisions are carried out. If one could take money out of the equation, or if two sensible adults could assess economic resources realistically as a shared issue on some levels (not all), that would go a long way to providing a lifestyle for everyone that is acceptable.

The reality is, the current, outdated laws enforce a transfer of wealth from one spouse to another and do not take into account the increased costs that arise from living 2 separate lives. There have been some shifts in thinking in some US states wherein the custody paradigm is looked at from the perspective of “residential scheduling”.

In 1999, Canada decided to fully investigate the current issues around custody and access. The Report of the Special Joint Committee on Child Custody and Access, dubbed “For The Sake Of The Children” (www.justice.gc.ca/en/ps/pad/reports/sjcarp02.html), is replete with hundreds of suggested reforms. The committee recommended that the Divorce Act be amended to:

- repeal the definition of “custody” and to add a definition of “shared parenting”;
- to require that parties applying to a court for a parenting order must file a proposed
parenting plan with the court developed by the parents on their own or with the help
of a trained mediator or through some form of alternative dispute resolution;
- recognize the expenses incurred by support payors while caring for their children.

Parents do not receive divorce training when they get married. Society cannot expect individuals to step up equally to the task of coping when “I do” becomes “I don’t”. Until the system is changed, more family relationships will be destroyed and more people will die. Until parents recognize that all children have 2 parents, coping will always include warfare. If parents truly love their children, then love should be the mediator and coping mechanism. Love – and not the 401 – should be the road we travel.