~
Borrowed from Lord Alfred Douglas ‘Two Loves’, Agatha Christie, C. D. Ridenhour, C. S. Lewis ‘A Grief Observed’ and with reference to my friend Sir Bob Geldof’s Sometimes Coherent Rant. …Updated, adapted and enhanced for the 21st century by the thoughts and actions of Angelos G. Agathangelou - For my children.
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The Real Love that Dare Not Speak its Name:
A Sometimes Coherent Rant
BOB GELDOF
PROLOGUE
BECAUSE OF STATEMENTSI have made on TV and elsewhere, I was invited by the editors to participate in the seminars convened by the CambridgeSocio-Legal Group, and to write what can clearly only be a lay view for this book.If my contribution is of any use, it will be, I suppose, in the shape of the ama-teur absolutist and iconoclast. The kicking up of an impassioned, but informed,fuss is the role Nature seems to have assigned me. Family law is not my field ofexpertise but it is certainly my field of experience and like many, many men inthis country, it left me feeling criminalised, belittled, worthless, powerless andirrelevant. I wrote this chapter very quickly, allowing those emotions to deter-mine the outcome.I had no idea, and did not even care, whether it made sense or had any basis infact but it was all true, and was what I and thousands more had experienced andfound wanting. I assumed that my eminent collaborators in this work would beembarrassed by me and unwittingly patronising. They were not. They were in facthugely tolerant, sympathetic and often, to my dismay, in agreement with myinchoate groping towards the dark heart of this matter. I learned much from them.They sent me papers which put solid, researched fact behind my assumptionsand observations. They argued amongst themselves, and with me, over parts ofthe piece. In the end, however, I have changed nothing because I believe still thatwhat I wrote is true and just. Its emotional tone is what is required to changethis hugely destructive assault on our personal lives, which in turn endangersthis society through an onerous and disgraceful Family Law and the system thatmust implement it.I have tried incorporating supportive texts and arguments into the body of thepiece to lend a greater credibility or weight—texts which my colleagues sent me, arguments which were thrashed out in the seminar—but it seemed presumptuous. I do not want to give the impression that I am an expert or
pseudo-professional. I am not. But maybe, unlike them, I am someone laceratedby this law, which contributed massively to the misery of my family. That isexpert enough. Instead, claiming, and being allowed privileged, non-academicand profoundly unprofessional behaviour by my weary editors, I have includedin an addendum the relevant texts, quotes, arguments and statistics (referring tothem in the main text by number, with the references I have come across). I hopethey serve three functions: firstly, they give credence to my uninformed thought; secondly, they make me appear a little less extreme or idiotic; and finally theymay help force the sure and soon day that these baleful diktats will be scornfullyshoved aside.* * *Family Law as it currently stands does not work. It is rarely of benefit to thechild, and promotes injustice, conflict and unhappiness on a massivescale.29,43,45This law will not work for the reason that society itself and society’s expec-tations have changed utterly.Law must constantly evolve in order to keep pace with the dynamics of thesociety within which it is framed.Social law, specifically that governing human relationships, will need toevolve ever faster particularly in an age of unprecedented and confusing change.Deeply cherished nostrums of the ages are as nothing when confronted with adifferent moral structure to that in which those beliefs took root.The endless proposed adjustments with Family Law will not do. Theydo not eliminate the injustices or aid the intended beneficiaries. An unthink-ing tinkering with Family Law becomes unjustified tampering with peopleslives.Adjustments imply satisfaction with the core structure, but in the case ofFamily Law, my view is that this is inappropriate on the basis that this same lawpromotes pain, hurt and broken families in direct and unintended contradictionto its purpose.33,43,44,45It serves merely to compound the self-inflicted damagedone to the individuals who come before it.Therefore, just as society appears to be in a state of fundamental and perhapsrevolutionary change, the professionals of the law must be prepared to thinkafresh, and act boldly.38,44This would mean new basic law.I understand few believe this is necessary, and that it is too drastic or danger-ously radical or just silly but I will try to give my, no doubt, poorly conceivednotions a rationale.Sometimes my attempt at being dispassionate will fail and I will be seized bythe actual deep rage I feel at what the system has done to my family, myself andmany others I know personally or from the over 70 plastic bin liners of letters Ihave received from individuals unknown to me. This amounts to thousands of
letters. Many more than I ever received during Live Aid or the Boomtown Ratsor at any other period of my ‘public life’. As Bob Dylan might have said‘Something’s going on and you don’t know what it is. Do you Lord Chief Justice Whatever-your-name-is?’We’d better find out.I will try and break down the factors that I believe have changed and which,as a result, require a change of law. Beyond that this is the story of those 70 binliners—the love of fathers for their children.1.SOCIETYGiven that the birth of children through the institution of marriage and thedesired end result of Family as the basic block of society is of cardinal import-ance to our stability and social coherence we must start here.60,61All of theassumptions in the above sentence however are now up for grabs.50,63Today, Government tries to deal with differing views of what is Family, andeach view insists upon equal validity. This is perhaps inevitable in an age ofmoral relativism, itself an adjunct to our secular times. This alone is a massivechange and something some members of the judiciary seem to be unable to grasp.The real and significant change that occurred however, the paradigm shift asan American might say, was of course, the ‘emancipation’ of women.1,34,36,38Financial freedom, and the end of biological determinism, produced an over-due and welcome balance in society. Its disruptive consequences to the statusquo however, could not be predicted but it has been massive and it has notstopped yet.Economics determine social arrangements. It has affected all areas of societybut most profoundly and inevitably in the relationship between the sexes and,as a result, Family. There have been other exogenous factors contributing tosocietal shifts but the effect of women free to enter the workplace has given riseto consumerism, altered production, home ownership and house building mod-els, and whole areas of law and sentiment within society itself. Very little hasbeen left unchanged by this huge and positive social movement and most ofthose changes have strained the old glues that bound the family into the bread-winner/nurturer/children model.38This model worked well enough for centuries and where it can still be sustainedworks well today. The cardinal and excellent difference between now and the pastis that it is not clear until it is determined by the couples in question who will do thebreadwinning and who the nurturing or whether it will be both simultaneously.And yet while individuals struggle with these difficult new conundrums thelaw governing the, if you will, ‘intimate’ parts of society, the ‘personal’ laws,remain (though some are fairly recently drafted) resolutely unaltered in theirpresumptions, save for the pathetic pretence that they are gender neutral. Thisis a grotesque lie that all Family Law professionals have tacitly agreed to be
party to, as willingly acknowledged by nearly all the lawyers I have talked to onthis issue.26,28And regardless of whether the professionals acknowledge it to beor not, the vast majority of my correspondents, friends and others regard it tobe so. If this is the commonly held view then the law willchange. It is simply aquestion of when.The law appears unwilling or unable to accept the change in the way we nowbarter our relationships. The altered state of women has of course produced thealtered state of men. Men cannot be the same because women are not.5The lawwill not acknowledge this and it must.4It appears bewildered, as indeedfamously do the men in question. What is their new role? What is expected ofthem? How do they now define themselves in this more fluid brave new world?And if the world is more fluid, if it now flexes, bends and warps like moralityitself, why is the law so rigid, so inflexible and fixed that its application to indi-viduals binds them to an overweening and restrictive State of Orwellian pro-portions—the common experience of those who find themselves as victims ofthe secret world of Family Law.Divorcees are not criminals, women are not angels, men are not ogres. Recentrulings have produced two classic examples of the bewildering and blinkeredconfusion at the inflexible heart of the law. One ruling was given against theman who had successfully raised his children at home for 5 years while his wifewent to work. She got the children??? She got them because she was a woman.The eminent male judge in question said so.4Two weeks later, another rulingby the same judge was given againsta woman who sought potential lovers onthe Internet. The children were given to the man??? These rulings show nounderstanding of contemporary society, they appear flagrantly prejudiced anddiscriminatory in clear breach of any ‘gender neutral’ guidelines or law, and per-fectly illustrate the law’s inability to come to terms with the modern age. Thelaw must now root itself in reality and not social work theorising or emotive ortraditional notions of men and women’s roles. I am not the first to call for this:a recent report published by the Work Foundation, which argues for father-friendly workplaces, notes that:Older fathers—the dinosaur dads—are currently the ones in the most senior positionsand so have a disproportionate influence. Most continue to see the world through thelens of their own generation’s experience i.e. a world of bread winning men and child-rearing women. (Reeves, 2002).Something like 51 per cent of the workforce are women. The implication ofthis figure is staggering and yet does not appear to be considered in relation tofamily law. In addition men now hold a completely different view of the par-enting role than before. Again this is a huge philosophical shift which has enor-mous implications.11,16,28There are no studies which suggest that a child brought up by a man (as I was)display any marked psychological or emotional characteristics different to oneraised by a woman.3
The contention that women are inherently better nurturers iswrong.3,4,7,22,23,28Rulings appear to be based on the ‘sugar and spice and all things nice’ school of Biological Determinism rather than on anything more significant. The law to its eternal discredit stands in the way of great andimportant cultural and social progression and as such will be swept aside despitethe legal Luddites who opine secretly from their benches. Kimmell (2002) is entirely correct in asserting that if the later twentieth century saw the transformation of women’s lives then the transformation of the twenty-first century involves the transformation of men’s lives, and by definition the lives oftheir children.My complaints are not the moans of the unsuccessful litigant. I, in fact, was‘successful’. This was someone dismayed by the inappropriateness of the law tothe everyday.Nor is this the complaint of the proto-misogynist, indeed the law is so ineptit produces misandrists in equal measure, but rather the irritation and anger ofsomeone who sees exact parallels with women’s struggle against assumptions,bias and prejudice.2.LANGUAGEWe have indeed been here before. Female emancipationists of the 60s and 70sfound, as they set out their agenda for change, that the very language militatedagainst them. The issue of language becomes incredibly potent as attitudeschange. Words once used frequently become freshly freighted with meaning,emotion and unintended insult and need to be changed. This of course can esca-late to the realms of madness and the thought police (rather like the con-sequences of Family Law) but in the everyday use and their meaning, and therefore import, they carry whole ideas that when heard afresh from a different perspective need to be adjusted. This is never more true than in the lan-guage used in Family Law.In this new era of ‘Family Liberation’ as it were, where the law itself and itsofficers, attendants and practitioners are the instruments of reaction and dis-crimination, the language used to discuss the personal appears to have beendeliberately chosen to be as cold, deadening and hopeless as possible in the hopeof appearing neutral. In fact it becomes heartbreaking, hurtful, rage inducingand an instrument of absolute harm in the entire process.I cannot even say the words. A huge emptiness would well in my stomach, adeep loathing for those who would deign to tell me they would ALLOW meACCESS to my children—those I loved above all, those I created, those whogave meaning to everything I did, those that were the very best of us two and theabsolute physical manifestation of our once blinding love. Who the fuck are they that they should ALLOW anything? REASONABLE CONTACT!!! Is the law mad? Am I a criminal? An ABSENT parent. A RESIDENT/
NON-RESIDENT parent. This Lawspeak which you all speak so fluently, sounthinkingly, so hurtfully, must go.Indeed, like the law returning to a wholesale root and branch re-drafting as Ibelieve it must, we should look while we’re here at the two most basic wordsthat permeate this issue: Mother and Father.If a woman ‘mothers’ a child an entire warm universe of nurturing is con-jured. If a man ‘fathers’ a child it implies nothing more than the swift biologicalfunction involved in the procreative act. The importance of language is critical.It expresses whole ideas for us and, in the case of the above loaded examplescome with assumptions upon which laws are based and judgments made thatcan destroy people and their lives.So society, ideas, language itself has changed but the law has not. This lawframed by people, albeit ‘experts’, of other generations and classes have imbuedthe drafting with their own prejudices, theories and philosophies. Of course itwas done with benign intent but so were all laws of previous times which havesubsequently been abandoned.43,44Laws which no longer apply to society, notoriously become widely ignoredand therefore impossible to implement. Punishment is redundant in somethingnot recognised as a breach viz the current debate on drug legalisation upsettinggenerations of hitherto accepted nostrums.Some professionals within the law accept this or at least feel an as yet inchoatediscontent and anxiety towards the law on the part of huge numbers of peoplewho fall under its intolerable weight. They seek to tinker, modify, add or subtract and adjust but it is pointless. These legalistic tweakings are utterlyimpotent against this growing tide of ill-feeling and anger against the law itself.We have all moved on from its assumptions and the law must now be re-appraised and torn open to its heart, for it has no soul.It is the movement of society that determines law, not its draftees and imple-menters. Society will always move forward re-inventing the moral parametersin which it needs to operate in order to facilitate its new thinking and conse-quently different modes of behaviour. The law runs after society—a legalpooper-scooper—sweeping up its unasked for droppings and disposing of them.The law seeks to put a legal frame around where society has already gone inorder to protect it from the often unanticipated consequences of its moralbehaviour.44,46,48,503.MARRIAGEMarriage has become meaningless. It may retain its romantic ideal connotationsbut has it any import beyond the dress, the cake, the speech and the drunkuncle?60The law gives it no value whatsoever save the occasional and typical denial of a man’s parental rights when he is an unmarried father.59Some financial
considerations are taken on board but these can be augmented by the courts,generally in favour of the woman, should it be required. And . . . that’s it.41,46,60But if the law has devalued its view of marriage to be as nothing, what does itmean outside of that view. When during a long-term relationship your girlfriendannoyingly and inevitably raises the issue of ‘commitment’ she means it. Shemeans the commitment that couple will make to bring children into the worldand raise them as useful members of society. It is this that gives the man pausefor thought. If he decides to ‘commit’ it must be that, inherent in this compact,is the real, desired expectation that he, like the mother, will have the privilege ofraising that child to adulthood. She in turn desires the ‘commitment’. Simplyhaving a child isn’t a problem; but the commitment gives the sure and probablyinnate knowledge that the child will have better chances of survival with the twoparents and their respective roles than the one. This is the real weight behindmarriage which the law seems to have opted out from. How odd that we shouldhave to repeat the obvious and the commonplace. Except that this too can nolonger be assumed. Single parent families become a more frequent option.61With economic freedom some women feel they can now raise the child single-handedly. But so can men.3,8What’s sauce for the goose as they say is sauce forthe gander (except of course in the eyes of Family Law). However if theseassumptions are correct, then this removes the absolute rationale behind mar-riage.Nonetheless society accepts that the ideal of the two parents is more beneficialand we therefore try to encourage the continuation of the institution of marriagewhile doing nothing legally or economically to support it.41An act of grotesquemoral hypocrisy.44,48–50,54,61While we appear to encourage our young to get married we rarely explain tothem what its consequences will be. This has disastrous results. Bombarded aswe are with all sorts of cultural messages, we have learned, through TV, themain cultural arbiter, and its populist programmes, a childlike and naive viewof marriage with extremely high and unsustainable levels of expectation.The happiness of the wedding day will be assumed to continue unalteredthrough life, as we fondly imagine it once did. And still today most of us longfor and strive for a lifelong relationship with the one partner. We view this withmoral approval and we’re probably right. Unfortunately today with a near 50 per cent divorce rate, it is increasingly unlikely to be the case.We should support this institution and educate people again to the true mean-ing and nature of marriage. That which our parents had explained to them,those examples of a ‘normal’ marriage which were all around and clearly visibleto the participants in another age, has dissolved in our more fractured soci-ety.46,60Equally the law must stop pretending and insisting that the dissolutionof a relationship is fault-free—it never is.17,42,58This again is convenient but itis another disastrous moral failure on the part of the law. One understands whatthe law is trying to do, but in pretending it is non-judgemental (ie morally neu-tral) it lessens the importance of the institution and allows its dissolution to be
that much easier, which is not, as I’ve argued, in society’s interest and by exten-sion, not in the interest of the child.44,50,54This failure becomes full-blown whendivorce is embarked upon, which I will discuss shortly.The nullity of marriage becomes a Potemkin Village of the heart upon signa-ture of the marriage contract and the utterance of the oath.This is the great act of State betrayal. The moment the great pantomime orcharade begins. At this point the man ceases to be an equal partner in anythingbut name. And he’d better hang in there or risk losing everything he’s had andbe forced under pain of pursuit, prosecution and imprisonment, using the fullpanoply of the State, to be sometimes in effect nothing better than a wage slavefor life.For both the oath and the contract are void and meaningless. What are theyfor? In life when one signs a contract one reasonably expects the other person touphold their end of the deal. That is the contract’s purpose. A legal thrashing-out of obligations between the parties, failure of which to uphold results in sanc-tions. Certainly in business, should one fail in one’s contractual obligation, onewould face dire consequences.49,54,58,59,62And there’s the cardinal mistake—marriage has obligations and responsibil-ities. It’s a grown-up’s game. But if the consequences of marriage become tire-some why not escape them? Divorce for a large number of women, but not forthe man and children, is consequence free.42,62So what of obligation and respon-sibility? What of the oath, the contract? What of sanction? The law is silent.59At this point the initial moral failure of the law is compounded into a freefallof hypocrisy, gender- biased assumptions, discrimination, suspension of rightsand all the other baleful results of a morally neutral law.58How can such a thingexist? It is impossible to have judgement with neutral consequence. Family Lawis a sophist’s delight. No law is morally neutral and when it pretends to be, andbehaves as though it were, it has, by definition, become a travesty of justice.43What may be done?The contract must have weight and meaning and it should spell out what isexpected of the parties in the case of children and also the terms under which amarriage may be dissolved.53At the point of misgivings in a relationship there should be mandatory discussions with an authority who cannot recommend the dissolution of thecontract.48,51,52,57It should spell out the consequences, which are null should it simply be twoindividuals who are involved, but if there are young children involved, the matter should be thoroughly dwelt upon, all help given to the participants andthe consequences of divorce spelt out and they must be equally onerous to bothparties. It would be helpful were this to be spelt out in pre-marriage meetingsalso.49,52,53It makes clear that this marriage is a serious thing, society takes it seriously.It is not to be entered into and dissolved on whim, making light of it is a profound mistake, this contract says so and this contract will be upheld.49,58,59
Again this process should re-occur before the separation of a partnership andthe dissolution of a contract. When the initial stage has ended and the parti-cipants still wish to proceed with divorce, fully cognizant of its consequences,then and only then at this point should it go to law with the judge being obligedto take full weight of the arbitrator’s view.51,52,57Marriage must become real and meaningful again.44,60,61It must be taught inschool as the relationship paradigm with good parenting being the desired peakof social approval, which it is not at present.21The durability or otherwise of the romantic ideal of love and its developmentto more profound emotional depths needs to be explained and illustrated. Thesocial dynamic between men and women talked about with regard to theirschool, family and the wider community and what its purpose is.61This is not social engineering—this is picking up the slack that modern soci-ety has thought unimportant. This is doing the job that was self-evident to mostpeople, pre-divorce meltdown.40,56It may not make much difference, but it may begin to alter the view of respon-sibility and re-introduce peer group pressure to behave in a certain way in orderto obtain societal approval.464.DIVORCESometimes, for whatever reason, Britain becomes the lightning rod for socialchange. Who could have predicted the disastrous levels of divorce unique to theUK?45What great failure is at work here? There is much hand wringing and soulsearching and everyone has their theories. I think it’s because we’re more stupid andour schools suck and as a society we no longer care enough . It’s called decadence.46Certainly from the once seemingly homogenous vertical society that once per-tained we have become more fissiparous and horizontal. (Like me really). Andit happened very quickly as things tend to do in small islands with large popu-lations.20,44In more coherent or classically homogenous societies like my homecountry of Ireland, only 11,000 people have sought divorce since it was permit-ted seven years ago, though this too is changing. Secularism, and its twins mate-rialism and consumerism, have not yet taken root so much there, extendedfamilies still play an important function, it is more of a child-centred society andparental authority is for most still considered absolute. Finally, the moral valueof promise and its concomitant social disapproval of separation is strong. ‘Yivmade yer own bed, now lie on it!’ is often heard and is ill-disguised code forGrow Up.46,58Other societies teach recommended relationship behaviour earlier and thisseems to have some effect but what is sure is that other modern philosophicaland moral ideas have become the motor of social change here.60The mutual dependency that was the glue to previous generations and theirmarriages no longer pertains in the financially independent world. So what is to
replace it now? Why not divorce when things get boring, sticky, sulky, difficult,predictable, you’ve changed, I’ve changed, you need to change, I can’t changeetc.?Why not divorce when there’s no downside? If I was a woman I would. Indeedwere I a woman and realised I could hop off with the new man/men, keep thehouse, keep the kids, give up work AND get paid . . . forever . . . well, HelloOpportunity Knocks!13,42,53,54,59,62,64If he becomes irritating about the kids I can have the courts stop him phoningthem. I can stop him seeing them without any consequence; even if the courtorders me to I’ll just refuse to do it and if he doesn’t pay, why I’ll just get thecourt to order the CSA to rifle his accounts and seize whatever assets he has leftand if all else fails they’ll put him in jail for me . . . And then maybe I’ll leave thearea and change the child’s surname while I’m at it. Yep the ol’ divorce-as-careermove.13,37,42,48,52,54,55,59,62,64No doubt some readers will view the above as ‘unhelpful’. That’s too badbecause that is what’s going on in too many cases. It’s true, we never talk aboutit, we know it’s going on, it’s become normal because of its ubiquity but weshould talk long and hard about it. We should drag it out into the light becausethat same ubiquity will never make it right and its reality makes it a hindranceto reform and a barrier to stemming the divorce tide.There is a very grave injustice happening here and I suggest it is high time thatit was addressed.Many will read Bob the embittered, abandoned husband in this. They will bequite wrong. My personal response to my situation was shock and dismay, pain,emptiness and loss. I was embittered only with the law and my consequent lackof rights as a man.This is not the right way to behave in supposed fault-free, gender neutral,consequence-free divorce law. I am only too aware of the pain and hurt and lossthat women suffer in divorce but it is equally and empirically true that it is asnothing compared to the physical, financial and emotional loss of men. She maylose her man, he loses the lot. There must be an equality of burden. Neither gen-der neutral nor consequence free but consequence balanced.37,39,42,49,52,59,62,64If he is the offending party people believe it’s right he should leave the houseand kids and pay for them. He has, after all, in effect abandoned them for hisown selfish needs and therefore he should pay. He even half thinks this is hisguilt.37But rarely does he think I’ve got a new woman, I’m happier, so I’ll just takethe kids and go off to this new life. Indeed society would view it askance if hetook the kids. Why? We don’t if she does precisely the same. Why? If he took thekids it would be viewed as abduction, but not if she does. Why?If she is unhappy she asks him to leave the house. We think that’s ok. If he’sunhappy and he demanded she leave we’d think it was weird and unmanly.Why? And indeed if she did leave we’d think she was a slut who’d abandonedher kids to that bastard. Why?
The gross imbalance that leads to this manifestly, gender based and dis-criminatory injustice is based on the original sin of the Family Law, page one,chapter one.The law is currently heavily weighted in favour of women. This is acknow-ledged by most commentators and lawyers when they are being honest. I canaccept that this was not the intent, but it is the inevitable and unjust end logic toa set of prejudiced assumptions.2,5,28,30The first correct assumption is that the law should always act in the best inter-ests of the child. Fine, we can all agree with that. But, though it’s heresy to sayit and for fear of being thought a heartless, ill-feeling brute, I guess philosophic-ally there’s an argument as to why any one group’s rights and interests shouldhave paramountcy over another’s, particularly if those other parties’ rights areignored or denied in order to support the others. I raise the question herebecause at last the advent of the Human Rights Act legitimises a rights-baseddebate within the child welfare discourse (see Bainham, this volume).Extrapolating the logic of that into wider areas takes one to frighteningplaces. And again if we are to look at all aspects of this law we should particu-larly examine in detail its base assumption, especially if the group around whomthe assumptions were made, and the law framed initially to defend, may sufferas a direct result of the law’s intent. In other words the instrument set up to actin a child’s interests has the exact opposite effect.Certainly in centuries to come all our laws will appear fairly comical and nonemore so than those struggling to cope with social change and its consequences. Iwonder whether they will consider us dewy-eyed and emotional, blinding our-selves to reason to the detriment of all concerned and the benefit of nobody.Will they make a joke of this blinding of reason and contrast it with the emblem-atic portrayal of blind Justice itself and the absolute reversal of its meaning.Still we’ve agreed. Where we begin to disagree comes next in the unwrittenand unspoken but clearly understood corollary of that first assumption and thatis: that the law believes that the interests of the child are nearly always bestserved by the presence of the mother.24,28,30This is simply wrong. It is emotiveand traditional and does not bear scrutiny.2,3,7What flows from this well mean-ing but intellectually flabby cardinal mistake is a catalogue of injustice, miseryand cack-handed interference by an overweening state assuming for itself oner-ous responsibility over free born citizens.Obviously, though it is unspoken and unwritten, we know this corollary toexist because only in rare cases, and then in exceptional circumstances, will aman be allowed to raise his children,8,11,16,39something that outside the justicesystem and within society is assumed to be inalienable upon his child’s birth.The professionals will argue that this in fact pertains, and is indeed, their veryraison d’etre. This would of course be disingenuous nonsense.25,26,28The law inreality exists to favour and facilitate the mother-and-child construct, to the almosttotal exclusion of the father.24–28,30The father is viewed as being, and certainly isgiven the impression of being, a tiresome irrelevance.2,6,9,23–26,28,30Or at least of
tertiary importance. The hurdles that the courts put in the father’s way become sotortuous and painful to negotiate that most ‘good’ fathers give up within twoyears. For to continue is to invite chronic health problems to a futile end.The law must know it is contributing to the problem. It is creating vast wellsof misery, massive discontent, an unstable society of feral children and fecklessadolescents who have no understanding of authority or ultimate sanction, noknowledge of a man’s love and how it is different but equal to a woman’s, irre-sponsible mothers, drifting, hopeless fathers, problem and violent ill-educatedsons and daughters, a disconnect from the extended family and society at large,vast swathes of cynicism and repeat pattern behaviour in subsequent adult rela-tionships. So many of us are hurting and yet the law will treat the man in court(if my case is typical) with contempt, suspicion, disdain and hostility and not asits ally and the second leg of this now crippled corpus without whom the wholething falls over.11,24,28,30The further injustices of loss pertaining to men all flow from the above. Hehas already lost his wife—the person he loved, his children—prized above all,the house in which to keep the children, his home—that metaphysical place ofbeing, signifying rest and comfort and belonging, his right to be a parent and itsconcomitant authority—for that now goes to the State and, of course, hismoney, often his health and frequently his job. Good, eh? And still we believethis law works. It is a disgrace.When the marriage contract is a cynical worthless sham, when divorce for alot of women is either relatively painless or consequence-free, then marriage canbecome a one-stop shop to self-fulfilment and divorce a career move.53,62On theother hand, for men it is a zero sum game with (literally) a 50-50 gamble. Theresulting mess is the Family industry’s (of which this volume is simply anotherbranch) sole raison d’être.No doubt professionals will decry this view. But it is a commonly held one, itis certainly mine and my acquaintances, men and women alike, and I would besupported by the large bulk of the thousands of letters I have received. Indeed,if everything in the garden were so rosy why this book, why the LordChancellor’s report and the endless stream of surveys, studies and reports allcategorising the failures I have just articulated, So many of you out there tin-kering and foostering (as my father might say) Why? Rip it down. Start again.It’s broke. Get a new car.5.POST-DIVORCESeeing Your ChildrenEverything can be tolerable until the children are taken from you. I cannot beginto describe the pain, the awful eviscerating pain of being handed a note, sanc-tioned by your (still) wife with whom you had made these little things, withwhom you had been present at their birth and previously had felt grow and kick
and tumble and turn and watched the scans and felt intense manly pride andprofound love for before they were even born, had changed them, taught themto talk, read and add, wrestled and played with, walked them to school, pickedthem up, made tea with, bathed and dressed, put them to bed, cuddled and laywith in your arms and sang to sleep, felt them and smelt them around you at alltimes, alert even in sleep to the slightest shift in their breathing . . . a note thatwill ALLOW you ACCESS to these things who are the best of you . . . ALLOWmark you, REASONABLE !!!! ACCESS?!?!!! to those whom two weeks ago youcouldn’t wait for to walk in the door at home.23,25What have you done? Why are you being punished (for that’s what itappears)? How can she be allowed to dictate what I can or can’t do with regardto MY children? When did she assume control? Why do I have no authority anylonger?6,13,24,26What’s going on? She wants to leave. OK there’s nothing I cando about that. What’s that got to do with the kids and me? Were I to issue her asimilar note what would happen? What then the assumptions?I still ask these questions. Why is one treated as a criminal? Why is the lan-guage that of the prison visit? Why is the person (and I’m being restrainedbecause it is nearly always the woman but we’re actually not meant to say thatfor fear of being labelled misogynist and to maintain Family Laws fig-leaf of fic-tion) who has taken the children, or been left with them, suddenly givenimmense emotional, legal and financial power over the other party. Yes, yes Iknow in theory that until certain procedural moves have occurred one has equaldibs but in practice you don’t because they’ve gone.24,39It is easy to see why women resist intrusion in parenting by men.11Why giveup the one monopoly you have.6,16A key part of gender equality has to beimproving the deal on offer to men.1,2,39,40The children have immediately become the weapon and the shield. It is at this juncture that things spiral into acrimony, bitterness, loathing, hate and rage.It is of course the power that is the intoxicant. Where hitherto it had been apartnership of equals now the party with the children can largely control events.The resulting feeling of helplessness, hopelessness and powerlessness on theother side results in either withdrawal into weary defeat and supine acceptanceof being beaten—being raped actually, for it shares the symptoms of being over-whelmed hopelessly in the face of brute hatred and power—or like endlessexamples of powerless peoples you fight viciously, for you have nothing left tolose. There is nothing more desperate than the impotent. Losing control of one’slife is a desperate experience, having someone else being able to exert controlover it is worse.The Weapon and the ShieldThe Weapon: ‘Do as I say or you won’t see the children.’The Shield: ‘Don’t do that to me or you won’t see the children’.
‘Behave well or I’ll report it. Don’t telephone, it’s harassment. I don’t care youwish to say goodnight. I don’t want you to and neither do the children. Stop nowbefore I have it forbidden. If you do it again I’ll call the police. Don’t write tothem. It upsets them. They think it’s weird.’17–19‘You look a mess. It’s not my fault you’re not sleeping, obviously you’re inca-pable of looking after them, no, you can’t take them. I know we agreed but I’mnot having them see you like this. Stop pleading it’s pathetic. Go home or I’ll callthe police.’And so you turn from your own door. Dismissed peremptorily like a penitenttramp. Inside—inches away, is your family, the key to the door is still in yourpocket. It still fits. Your key, your house, your family. That night you must seethem. You must touch them and smell them. You drive, fear rising to hystericallevels near to the house. Not too near—she’ll see or hear. You walk to the door.Utter panic rising. Fear of this girl you loved beyond reason. Everything’s weird.Disconnected. Unreal beyond imagination. There’s the door. In front of it youpause. You raise your hand. You feel like a madman but you only want to saygoodnight to your babies. You lift the doorknocker and listen hard. Inside—inchesfrom you, you hear them laughing. Your family. That you made. You worked foreverything they’re sitting on, sleeping in, eating. They’re telling some story or jokethat you can’t hear. A joke that two weeks ago you’d have been laughing at too.They’re inside. You’re outside—why? Too scared you gently lower the knockerand retreat to the car. You park near the house and turn off the lights and engine.You sit and wait ’til all the bedroom lights go out. As each one goes you whisper‘goodnight’ to yourself like a madman. After the last light has gone you sit and sob,hoping no-one sees you, waiting ’til you’re able to drive again.Why is that allowed to happen?29This disgusting law that imposes that fear and panic on people must bedestroyed. In your loss and grief how is this supportable? And why should it beso. Who are these people that impose this law and how dare they?16,25,26,30Some readers will know better than I the incidence of serious illness in men aris-ing from divorce. It is far higher than in women. Why is this? Everyone knows theeffect of divorce in terms of employment and homelessness. Again far greater thanfor women. Why? Everyone knows the relationship between alcoholism anddivorce, again greater for men. Why? Don’t you think this is serious enough toinsist on change?41Count the economic and social cost if that means more to youthan the human, but when you finally achieve a negative sum, ask Why?What more is required to make men the same in the eyes of the law as they arein the eyes of their children. To avoid all the foregoing is relatively simple. Menmust be accorded equal status under the law. Currently they are not andpresently they must be. No bromides or platitudes should be acceptable fromnow on.2,30,38,40The first way to achieve this, to put meat on the marriage contract and render divorce as significant for women as it is for men, is to give men the samestatus as parent immediately upon separation.
There must be an immediate presumption, as there has been in Denmarksince January 2002 that the children, where possible, will live with the father 50per cent of the time. Should this prove impossible the children must be free to bewith their dads 50 per cent of the time or allow a mutually acceptable arrange-ment to be arrived at by both parties. Isn’t that eminently civilised?In the course of the seminars which informed this book, we discussed a cul-tural, and therefore legal, bias that men shouldn’t raise their children if they’retoddlers. Why not?3,14,15,23,33,63Who do you think looked after them whenMum was at work or otherwise out? Who changed their nappies or did the bot-tles. What period of time do some of you live in? And if a man doesn’t know howto do it initially, like most first time mothers, it is easily learned.20,22,23Relationship courses within school and during the mandatory pre-marriageclasses could helpfully incorporate babycare and parenting skills within theiragenda.3,20,21Clearly there may be difficulties with breast-fed babies but theseare not insurmountable, and some allowances would have to be made in thisand several other circumstances, but these are details in the overall concept andcan be dealt with. The principle remains and it is that principle of equality thatmust be central.40Herring (this volume) reports cases in which women who wished to move outof the area or even territory or jurisdiction were allowed to, because, well it’sobvious innit, she’ll be-unhappy-if-we-don’t-let-her-and-that’s-clearly-not-in-the-best-interest-of-the-child-now-is-it? . . . and therefore she should beallowed!!!30,33Am I the only one who reads this and thinks this is a world gone insane? Evenif I take the utterly warped logic of the courts, how can they believe that thechild never seeing their father again until they meet a stranger some day as anadult is in the best interest of anyone. While of course he pays for this child whohe will never see. A particularly futile way of living I would venture—I don’tthink I’d bother.29Herring also reports judicial disapproval for a man who objected to a womanwho wished to change the child’s surname.30‘A poor sort of parent’ is what thisunfortunate was called, whose child would at least know who she and her fatherwere before the past and her identity were stripped, like a Stalinist photograph,out of her family’s history. He was not allowed even to give her his name. Herfamily name. So a man is to be stripped of even that. He is to be utterly expungedfrom the past. The past and he never happened. The child was a miracle birth.The father of no consequence. A figment of a time. Best forgotten. Let’s moveon. Year Zero is now and forever.24,29,30,33,38It is unfortunate in these people’s eyes, but ultimately academic, that childrenare genetically 50 per cent of the man and perhaps that selfish gene which drovethis man to express genetic infinity with his partner through their childrenshould just go away and conveniently disappear. But I doubt he will. The con-tempt shown to the father is nonetheless, you will agree, utterly breathtaking.Or will you?
The principle of 50 per cent of everything, the same for mother and father,must pertain. We have seen the rise of dual-career couples; now we need dual-carer couples. The best people to provide this care are almost always par-ents. And we mean parents—not just mothers,3,14,15Indeed the reality of thiswould help to neutralise the divorce advantage I describe above. Advantage is,of course, a non-issue where there’s economic equality between the parties. Inpoverty, divorce simply exacerbates the penury, in wealth it is academic. But,whether in cases of poverty or wealth, an equal child-sharing arrangementwould be advantageous. Hopefully, it would help both parents to be free to earna living and pursue their independent lives, and achieve and maintain greateramicability bewteen them, which will in turn benefit their children. I am notblind to the impact this will have on the demand for affordable housing, but thisis essentially no different to the already huge housing crisis caused by divorceand other factors now busily chewing up the green belt. Seven million people live alone today as opposed to 1.5 million 50 years ago.This change has been driven partly by the fivefold increase in divorce during thesame period and which, in turn, has driven the huge demand for housing and theconcomitant rise in price. 80 per cent of all new social housing is for single par-ents. The government must address this core feature of the housing crisis and aidthose who care for their children to do so, especially in lower income cases,whether it be through more shared ownership schemes run by local authorities,greater investment in housing development, or tax relief, etc. The detail of thiscan come later. However it is clear that the social and economic cost benefits ofsuch policies will far outweigh the current price of social disintegration.As to those who can’t or won’t or don’t want to participate in this arrange-ment, then the parties can work out something of mutual convenience andbenefit to the children.Work patterns have altered considerably: flexi-time, work-from-home, the 35hour week, and, with increasingly aware employers, will alter further. Shouldnew legislation be enacted allowing equal time as a norm, as increasingly hap-pens elsewhere, it would become necessary for employers to accommodate this.Working hours are stuck in the industrial era. They are also stuck in an agewhere few employees had to worry about school runs or nursery pick-ups. TheWork Foundation (2001) has already called for legislation giving all employees theright to request a change of working conditions (which will be granted to the par-ents of young children from April 2003). It is now time the government recognisedthat granting employees more control over their hours increases productivity(Knell and Savage, 2001), and that, according to a recent survey of respondentsviews about their ‘work-life’ balance, fathers want flexitime, a compressed work-ing week and the chance to work at home (O’Brien and Schemilt, 2002).Obviously I have not dealt with domestic violence or abuse of any kind.However it should be understood as a given that there will be a small minorityof circumstances in which the 50-50 presumption should not apply and may noteven be safe—we have a child protection system which should and must deal
with those cases – but in all others, the presumption should prevail. However,even in such cases, as with many aspects of family law, it should not be over-looked that the assumptions and biases pertaining to abuse and violence—thatperpetrators in the main are men—are often overwhelmingly contradicted byempirical and surprising fact which I have cited in the Addendum.32–36So the marriage contract is meaningless. Divorce is consequence free. The lawis biased and its premise discriminatory. What is left of this hollow sham? Thething that makes any law a laughing stock and worthless—the utter moral fail-ure or lack of will or inability to implement its own orders or impose its author-ity with all the powers and sanctions it has awarded itself. Except in the case ofmale non-compliance of course.The Reality of ‘Contact’The implication of any order determining the father’s allotted time with his chil-dren is that he was always of secondary importance within the house-hold.2,8,9,10,11,28Indeed this would appear to be again the unspoken assumptionunderpinning the whole farrago. The weasel words ‘gender neutral’, and the oftstated pieties of equality occur so frequently one would be forgiven for thinkingthat if one says them often enough we could convince ourselves we actually areadministering a fair system. But these words, like all the other alibi utterancessuch as REASONABLE CONTACT, will never disguise the underlying realityof painful discriminatory practice.Reasonable contact is an oxymoron. The fact that as a father you are forbid-den from seeing your children except (like a visit to the dentist) at State-appointed moments is by definition UNreasonable. The fact that you mustVISIT your family as opposed to live with them is unreasonable. I supposeCONTACT as an idea works. One does become like a visitor from Mars, infre-quent and odd, making contact with strangers in an alien landscape with all theconcomitant emotion of excitement, fear, anticipation, suspicion and disloca-tion. But hardly the ideal emotions involved in being with your children or themwith you. In the end there is emptiness, loneliness and an overwhelming sense offailure and loss. This wasn’t a Dad with his kids. This was an awkward visitingUncle in false fleeting situations of amity.A man (like a woman) must be allowed to LIVE with his children where possible, to raise them as he should, and as he desires, in co-operation with his ex-partner. Once what the court deems appropriate orders (orders?) have beenmade, the man enters the emotional marathon that is trying to retain your sense offamily and fatherhood with your children. It may well be that he was the type ofperson who read his Sunday paper throughout the morning apparently obliviousto anything but what was in front of him. (‘He was never a very good father’.) Thechildren would come in playing some game or other scrambling over him. He con-tinued impassively reading. The children climbed over him and then buggered off.
This was the Dad they knew and loved. Now the Sunday morning papers andthe games are gone. Forever. There is no house. There’s an embarrassing bedsitor small flat. ‘Well they can’t stay there can they. It’s not suitable. Don’t be stu-pid, there’s no space’. The children are embarrassed for their Dad. They don’twant to see him down on his luck. They feel somehow guilty, like they’re partlyto blame. Dad should be in a big house again. Then they’d like to come over.Come over. Like a visit to another person but not a Dad. Dad looks sad in thisplace; they don’t want to see that. He looks like Dad, a little tired, a littlecrushed, still he looks like him but he doesn’t feel like him. There’s nothing todo here. It’s boring. It’s weird Dad playing Monopoly and stuff . . . and draw-ing and . . .What’s going on?In Battersea Park on Sunday. Watch the single men with the children dragthemselves through the false hours in a frantic panic of activity. The build-up.The excitement of being with them. The all-week anticipation. The fear of thepick-up. The coldness. The stranger’s voice. The peremptory instructions. The ‘have them back at . . .’ It’s Sunday. You remember the quiet papers and thetumbling bodies about you. The serenity. But they’re here and the other thinghas gone. Not now the excitement, its not now the couple of hours together,now it’s only the 2 hours and 58, 57, 56 etc, minutes left. Time dripping too fast,decaying. Every second measured and weighed in the balance of loss, losing,going away and fading. Everything must be crammed into this space. Life in anhour. Love in a measured fragment of State-permitted time.Now, oh boy, yeah you’re Action Dad! Yessiree kick that ball, push thatswing higher than those other Dads. You’re much better than them aren’t you?Feed them ducks...again. Go to that movie...intheafternoon? MadameTussauds, the London Dungeon, the Eye, the Circus, Funfair...HeyJohnnyevery day with Dad is Treat Day. Birthday party time. They’ve finally forcedme into being...Hurrah for the State...New Model Dad!!!!!!!! and maybeif I keep it up they’ll let you stay just one night...Just one night. ‘But don’ttell them we’ll share the bed like we used to before...they think it’s differentnow, they won’t like it.’ Weird minds. ‘It’s the best thing that’s ever happenedto him. He’s a much better Father now. He used to do NOTHING before.Nothing’. McDad in McDonalds. Sunday lunchtime. Where else do you go?Contact centres?Long benches and institutionalised coffee. ‘I want to go home Dad’. So doyou, but unlike him you can’t. You don’t have one to go to, remember? Whatdo you talk about? The silences must be filled. So much to say. Your heartbursts with things to say. But shut up. It’s too much. Too grown-up. Tooheavy. Too burdensome on someone so small. ‘How’s school?’ brightly, cheer-ily. ‘Fine’. ‘Great’. ‘How’s Pete?’ ‘Pete? Who’s Pete?’ ‘Y’know Pete. Your mate’‘Oh Simon, yeah he’s good’. ‘Good’. Everything to say, no way or nowhere tosay it. Those easy silences, that casual to and fro talking of the past gone. Nowthere must be subjects to fill in the spaces. And never get angry, or cross orraise your voice or shout...it’ll be reported. No discipline whatever you do.
‘Why, Mum lets me.’ ‘Yeah well I’m telling you not to.’ ‘You’re not the boss.Mum is’ ‘You still must do as I tell you.’ ‘Why?’ Yeah he’s right...why? Nextweek. ‘Don’t you ever speak to him like that again. Who do you think youare?’17–19None of this is working. It is not the best we can do. The law itself is to blamefor these consequences of divorce. It is the clumsy, cack-handed law thatimposes this life on people. It is not right.I note in the Lord Chancellor’s report, Making Contact Work, the desire tocreate even more layers of State administration, tax money and bureaucracy bycreating a network of ‘Contact Centres’. Of course this is as nothing to theirsolution for non-compliance with contact orders. Vast areas of advisors, mediators, consultants and persuaders are to be set up to please ask the ‘resident’ parent to go on . . . oh, go on, please let him see his kids. Don’t be somean. Don’t be so horrible. Pretty please.It is a cliché that the bureaucrat when confronted with a problem of his ownmaking will seize upon the opportunity to create even further layers of bureau-cracy and contribute to the State apparatus even further. As the man said ‘It’llend in tiers’—it always does. But that seems to be the sum total of their creativ-ity. That’s the big conclusion of the Lord Chancellor’s report: in principle every-thing’s ok but could we have more money please to set up lots more levels ofinterference. Thank you everyone who has contributed. Your comments havebeen noted and duly ignored.6.STATUS QUOUpon separation, the system is slow and delay occurs immediately. This allowsthe status quoto be established. As the process labours on it becomes impossi-ble to alter. This is unfair. It is nearly always possible for the resident parent(let’s face it, the girl) to establish a pattern. It is then deemed in the child’s inter-est not to break this routine. But at the cost of losing sight and touch of theirfather, we must really examine all our assumptions without fear. Then we canmove to building a more equitable system benefiting all equally.Again a presumption of 50-50 rids one of the status quoproblems.Equally, 50-50 deals with the non-compliance issue. There would be no needfor sanctions under this regime. And no need for the laborious and unjust pro-posals in the Lord Chancellor’s report which is a reductionist brief in a bid tomake CAFCASS into the overarching State implementor of Family Law. Perhapswe should call it KAFKASS. This provides for an interminable round of increas-ing sanctions to a recalcitrant parent who will not allow access to the childthough so ordered. Under the proposed regime it would literally take monthsand possibly years before the other parent could see his child. At which point hewould meet a virtual stranger, possibly poisoned with prejudice (also a problemin thestatus quoissue) against him.17–19Why is this permitted?
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