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Why new changes to family law won’t make a difference for dads

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New laws governing the role that mums and dads play in their children’s lives in England & Wales following separation will not make a difference for dads, says Nick Langford.

—This is article #15 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys 

October 22nd 2014 marked the introduction into Section 1 of the Children Act 1989 of what for brevity we can call the presumption of parental involvement.

Judges are now advised that a parent’s involvement is likely to further their child’s welfare; “involvement” means any kind of involvement, direct or indirect, but not any particular division of a child’s time.  Since the division of time is about the only thing a court can rule on, this doesn’t offer desperate parents much hope.

This reform represents the culmination of decades of family campaigning and the end of the road for the presumption of equally shared parenting.

Lest we are in any doubt why reform was necessary, let’s remind ourselves of a few facts.  More than half of children will see their parents separate before their 16th birthday and more than half of those will lose contact with one parent. Absent parents are overwhelmingly fathers and residence is overwhelmingly awarded to mothers.

Campaigns for 50/50 shared parenting are doomed to fail

Most applications for contact are by fathers, and while a mother’s parental responsibility (the official recognition of parenthood) depends on her relationship to her child, a father’s depends on his with the mother, and can be taken away again by the court.

It isn’t surprising fathers wanted this situation to change.

While the effect of reform remains to be seen, it seems likely it will merely increase delay, while misinformed parents try to assert rights they do not have, and may hand the courts further justification to disenfranchise parents.

Many will continue to campaign for a 50/50 presumption, but they won’t succeed, for two reasons.  First: as the progress of the Children and Families Bill proved, opposition is just too strong, too well-funded and too well-organised.  Second: however desirable such a presumption might be, it is inseparably associated with the hectoring and intimidation of the less savoury fathers’ groups, and no government can afford to be seen to surrender to them.

Family breakdown costing UK £46bn 

Sadly, there’s no simple legislative solution: no quick fix.  The reality is that the courts have become increasingly irrelevant: applications have fallen by a quarter.  Contrary to government intention, the take-up of mediation has also fallen by 45%.

The vast majority disputes were once settled by negotiation between lawyers, but since the loss of legal aid this option, too, has evaporated.  Most parents will need to resolve disputes themselves.

Not all of the £46bn cost of family breakdown can be laid at the door of the courts.  As a society we need to treat fathers better, to value them more; to learn that a couple of nights a fortnight isn’t parenting, that mothers have no place to “allow” fathers contact, that a father can care for a sick child as well as a mother, that staying overnight with Dad won’t cause a child any harm, that Mum’s level of child support is determined by her child’s need for contact, and not the other way around.  Only then, only when this has been learnt, can we expect the courts to catch up, and by then perhaps, just perhaps, they won’t be needed quite so much.

—Picture credit: Flickr/Steven Depolo

You can buy Nick Langford’s new book, An Exercise in Absolute Futility: Whatever happened to family justice? from Amazon.

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com. 

  • karen Woodall

    it can feel like the end of the line for those of us who have been in this a long time already but it is not. it may be the end of the line for parliamentary campaigning, (let’s face it, the government knows what the problem is but the swing vote is more important than the reform that we know will bring a better outcome for children and the swing voters are women who won’t accept the changes that are needed) but it is not the end of the line for the issue itself which is an equalities issue and one which will be brought to the attention of the wider world one way or another. I think you are right to put the focus on the way we as a society value men as fathers, only when we home in on that issue and make it impossible for men to be discriminated against for being men will we shift this. This will take a variety of creative strategies as well as creation of the ways of working that are fair and just for all. This may or may not be a long haul but it is not over, not by a long chalk, not whilst humanity strives for equality and fairness and justice as a universal truth. It is up to us who know to take this issue and find new ways to package and present it. Whilst the world is made of women AND men and girls AND boys, the challenge to find equality will remain, we just have to find the right combination of people at the right time – just not parliamentarians and definitely not any of the charities who feed from the blind disregard of the parliamentarians. The appeasers in the system uphold it, only when we step outside and fight from the outside and build new ways will we change this. Courage, determination and sheer bloodymindedness are what are required – for our boys and girls of the future and the relationship between them.

  • Nigel

    Well Karen as I read this I was thinking of you as one of the beacons of hope in this . I agree with all you say. I note also that on the anglophone world some states have gone further in stating a presumption of shared parenting( US states and Australiasia ) so it’s not impossible.
    All I would add is that it is not just the state funded “charities” but the Social Work Professions idea of ” anti oppressive ” practice which infuses the whole system with the notion that men are always oppressive and therefor are deliberately marginalised by those who should help the child to know their parents.
    I do so agree this is an issue of equity and justice. A common injustice is the Courts’ unwillingness to uphold their own orders by applying sanctions against errant mothers frustrating contact orders. A question for the system to answer is why is it unwilling to address this contempt of court. The answer I’m sure would be revealing. Quite apart from the negative effects on children( and fathers) this is a regularly occurring injustice in the justice system in which courts effectively show contempt for the existing law.

  • Darren Ball

    This issue is one of the most blatant examples of the contradictions in our society’s narrative on gender roles. How often are fathers berated for not doing their “fair share” of parenting? But their “fair share” is whatever the mother decides it is and can be anything between half and nothing at all.

    If it’s okay to say that fathers have a responsibility to equally share childcare responsibilities, as many would argue, then surely they also have that as a right. Why is it okay for fathers have responsibilities but no rights?

    Another familiar statement is that women cannot be equal in the workplace if they’re not equal in the home. This equality also has to be present if and when the relationship terminates. If men are given no rights over their children, and their marriage will quite likely end in divorce – which usually results in them losing their home and very often access to their children too – then big surprise if men invest their effort in their careers. Big surprise if this means more men in top jobs and a pay gap in the over 40s.

    The contradictions are screaming out but politicians are deciding not to acknowledge them.

  • Nigel

    Darren unfortunately it will be a long job. Sir Bob Geldoff has again told his story wherein his desire to be an active father was completely frustrated by antiquated attitudes. The ensuing tragedies in that family were certainly made more likely by the sidelining the ex husband and father . The man who then looked after the daughter of his adulterous wife and her lover! Clearly not a “dead beat dad” to be cast aside by the courts as he was.

  • Nigel

    I grew up in a single parent family. My father died suddenly when I was small. I was a “latch key kid” (mine was on string round my neck) for those old enough to remember that particular moral panic. My father was present in my life through my mother’s stories about him and comments about what he’d make of my doings. The point being it isn’t incompatible with valuing single parents to value both parents . Yet fathers appear all too often to be banished, even by the very term “single parent” where the other parent is in fact very much alive just not “resident” . In truth not single parent at all in most cases.  This sidelining can happen to mothers but it is fathers to whom it happens en  masse . Yes it’s about equitable parental rights but in truth the victims of this in- equity are children . I have never met anyone whose parents split up who did not wish it could not have been so ( even those whose first comments are “it was for the best”) and their feelings are borne out by all the research. Equitable rights means equitable responsibilities and both also mean responsibilities to children, the next generation of adults who then have to be responsible adults in their turn. 

  • http://redpilluk.co.uk William Collins

    Perhaps Nick’s pessimism is justified and the opposition is indeed “just too strong, too well-funded and too well-organised”. But I note a parallel between the government being unable to surrender to “the hectoring and intimidation of the less savoury fathers’ groups” and the identical position of the government in respect of the suffragettes in the period 1910-14. But that did not stop the less militant suffragists being represented at the crucial 1916 Speaker’s Conference and women’s enfranchisement being achieved in 1918. So, maybe not so futile?

  • nongenderbias9

    Don’t worry Nick. It will soon be all over. An ambitious young woman on daytime TV last week said she would like to freeze her eggs so she could pursue her career and then have a family at a later date, perhaps in her 40’s. When asked if a man was required she just said it was a possibility but not a necessity. There are after all sperm banks and the child need not know who their father is.
    So this is the world of the modern progressive woman; I see labour are trying to recruit more of them into their party. They even have their own Government Department for equality and women. So equality is something men can never achieve; it’s all about women’s interests. The males best chance of survival is to persuade the women who freeze their eggs to at least have mercy on them and choose a boy as their offspring. But then why would someone so obsessed with their own sexual prowess want to give birth to a boy? Just a thought………..