|
Rowland Commission Destined to Help Families
By Alan J. Spatafore, Torrington
In fairness to the employees of the State of Connecticut’s family relations and family law offices, who are charged with protecting the best interests of our children and families during and after divorce, the staff of both systems have far too great a caseload to do their work as well as they would probably like. But an overworked staff is not the only problem with the family relations and family law systems. That is why Governor Rowland has established the Commission on Custody, Divorce and Children. The commission members recently held four public hearings in different parts of Connecticut to ask citizens, private interest groups and professionals how children’s best interests might be better served by the judiciary, family services and other state agencies. I have attended two of the public hearings, and both sessions were eye-openers for me. Following are some of the issues discussed at the public hearings.
The family relations system has an inappropriate—or, one should say, non-existent—feedback system. For example, when a family relations officer does an evaluation of the parents and child, there is no opportunity to even ask the family relations officer, or their supervisor, questions about how they came to their decisions. Perhaps the family relations staff are worried that if one person is allowed to ask questions, then every person who passes through family relations will want to question the reasoning behind each decision. Excessive caseloads and lack of family relations staffing are not the fault or responsibility of loving parents, however. Parents want and deserve to know how the most important "suggestions" in their and their child’s life were made.
Another important issue is the possibility of a "mother bias" within the family relations and family law systems. Many male parents at the two hearings I attended complained about direct or indirect coaxing by the family relations officers to accept the mother as the primary parent. Men who want to have a very active, meaningful and regular role in their child’s life are pushed to the side.
Connecticut’s family relations office frequently serves fathers this parenting schedule: every other weekend and four hours during a weekday afternoon. A little simple math reveals that fathers spend 17% of each week with their flesh and blood under this schedule! Does anyone else see a Jim Crow system of separate-but-unequal status afoot here? Family relations officers try to sell men on the idea that it doesn’t matter how much time you have with your child. They say what matters is the quality of time you share. As child pediatric specialist Karen Hull aptly put it, however, in The Mommy and Daddy Book, "The greatest gift a parent can give their child is time and attention … There is no way to quality time with a child without a sufficient quantity of time being around them." All of us cheated parents ask the family relations officers if they would like to spend only 17% of their week with their child. Think how much more cheated paternal grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins are when the father has only one out of seven days a week with their child.
Following this stereotyping of men is the unspoken double-standard regarding the changing roles of women and men in our culture. Many women no longer work only in the home. Thankfully, women have more opportunities to explore their full humanity beyond child care and domestic duties. As changes have occurred for women in our culture, the same is true for men. Many men have been raised expecting to have a significant and active role in their child’s life, immediately from conception. They look forward to being co-parents sharing the raising of their child. These men do not expect to interact with their child only on a weekend basis, through sporting events, entertainment opportunities, or only when the child reaches puberty. However, the post-divorce parenting schedules for mothers and fathers coming out of the Connecticut family relations office fall back on the notion that women will do the raising of the child, that women should be the primary parent and their home should be the primary residence. The father is the secondary parent with every-other-weekend visitor status and a token visit during the week. Men’s rights to life, liberty and happiness as defined in our Constitution are denied to them under such an imbalanced parenting schedule.
As psychologist John Guidubaldi wrote in his minority report to the 1995 U.S. Commission on Children and Families: "If either of the divorcing litigants feels they have an undue advantage during mediation, even the best efforts of the most skilled mediator may be thwarted." In other words, women who do not want to share custody of a child are at a distinct advantage in the Connecticut family relations system because all mediated agreements are off if "one of the parental litigants does not like the negotiated agreements." If the mediation services currently provided by the state are to have any weight, there must be the some consequences for male or female parents who do not bargain in good faith.
One of the great buzzwords and brakes on real, meaningful sharing of the raising of a child after a divorce is concern about "excessive jostling" of the child between the mother’s and father’s homes. The problem of jostling, however, must not supercede the opportunity for a child to spend meaningful time each week with both parents. Indeed, children from intact, two-parent families are often jostled between school, day care and home twice a day, five days a week. But the best advocates for children know that research shows that if kids come from a loving environment in the morning, are in safe environments during the day, and return to a loving environment in the afternoon, they will on average be happy. Why, then, wouldn’t this be the same for a child of a divorce going from one loving home to another loving home during the week? When loving parents are involved, the difficulties of jostling are overridden by the doubled love that is available to these children, who maintain a meaningful post-divorce relationship with both parents and extended families.
A super suggestion to the Governor’s Commission that I know the members have listened to with great attention is the P.E.A.C.E. Program (Parents Equally Allied to Co-Parent Effectively) offered by Beacon Behavioral Services here in our state. The psychologists and social worker of this private group help parents in conflict to begin focusing on the best interests of their child as equal, sharing partners. The P.E.A.C.E. Program’s success rate has been significant.
Co-parenting, or shared parenting, with legal and physical custody held jointly by both parents, is the bedrock upon which much of any effective change in the family relations and family law systems must be based. Governor Rowland’s commission members must know that co-parenting means exactly that—both parents are considered equal and essential to the happiness and well-being of their child. There is no presumption that a father or mother is more significant. Studies have shown that even with parents who are highly conflicted at the onset of a divorce, these parents and their child are better adjusted years after a divorce with a co-parenting plan that is based on dignity, respect, and mutual importance.
Alan J. Spatafore is a freelance writer and RN. He can be reached at <marmel59@msn.com>.
|
|
