Its not shared parenting: Its dads getting full custody

Some may wonder as to why members of the shared parenting council often celebrate, commend and applaud   the removal of a mother from a child's life.  That's because if they straight out said that they want all fathers to get full custody, no one would support them.  Shared Parenting is merely a tool for that and does not reflect the consistency in care that was provided for the children before separation.  Shared Parenting is a pathway for full custody.  

The expectations on mothers are exhaustive and so we are naturally set up for failure. Then there are those who look at our gorgeous children as if they are window shopping for mantelpieces to trophy in their lounge room.  In a world where money can buy everything(or so they market people to believe), they begin to calculate how they can wear down that mother so she will hand over that child. As though we are merely pedigree show dogs that are breeding the next batch of wonders. Today's favorite sport is not football or tennis as society bores of the ballgames – It is "who is going to get that baby." Its an intellectual sport where the player must convince the lawmakers that it is a morally superior act and should be done for the sake of the child. It is an unfair sport perhaps no different to the rabbit on a greyhound course flighting a group of dogs gone wild. The rabbit of course is the mother and the greyhounds are the team that works together in competition to rip the child away from the mother. 

Some gnaw away at the emotionality of the cruel process, pointing at every turn, "She is not mentally fit to be a mother, she is crying – She must be depressed!". The usually the crowd goes wild as they scramble in to seize the moment grabbing the child whilst the mother is still weak. The umpire in the game turns his head whilst the bribes are pushing at the seams of his back pocket. How many times have you heard a radio station offer a contestant large sums of money to lie for the audiences amusement? Since the alienation craze spread through the family courts, mothers have been losing children left right and center. They actually call protecting – "Maternal gate keeping" and thats a reason for a mother to lose a child.

In UK, mothers who have had history of violence used against them have their children not only removed -but adopted out. Its a nice little system where social workers are paid $3000 when the child is adopted. Not only do they play a sport that contemporary society considers, "Fun", but they get paid to do it. De-mothering is sadly not restricted to the UK, but everywhere and as the enthusiasm drives this culture, justifying it for empty reasons – We are going to need an Olympics devoted to the entire sport. Why we don't have it on television already? Perhaps just seeing it would expose how barbaric some members of our society truly are.

Posted via email from australiansharedparentingdebate’s posterous

Australia’s Family Court Triage System

We don’t get much news on the Family Court because of the secrecy provisions. Few researchers are allowed access to court records. Fewer statistics are made publicly available and are often selective no different than the climate deniers research where years were purposely removed to convey propaganda. What we do know is that there is a very small portion of children being protected from child abuse and an even smaller portion of women protected from family violence. “No Contact” cases are as low as 6%, despite 98.5% of fatal crimes committed against children were by a family member.

The acknowledgement that violence against women is disproportionate to violence against men in intimate partner relationships, is outside the confines of the family law research community.

Fused with a male dominated court culture where women lawyers obtain few positions and opportunities to appear before the court, the culture creates an atmosphere of contempt for mothers and a proprietary view of children. The court deals with both property and children within the same venue as if there were little difference. Psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers are internal and external experts are dismissed as the court contains patriarchal views.

A paper called, “Bad Mothers and invisible fathers” is correct to challenge the courts ignorance and negligence towards children and mothers experiencing family violence. The last two reforms have only made these cases worse and the consequences less visible to a public that would challenge them. The hierarchy of priority in Family Court cases is clear within its judgements as it is in the picture this article accompanies. The most important thing to the courts is funding and this is reflected in the way its programs are presented. For instance, the Magellan program is renown for its “efficiency” in dealing with child abuse. In other words, like the federal magistrates court the focus is to cut as many corners as possible with more cases and the exorbitant amounts of money that accompanies it. There is of course a great need to ensure that there is adequate funding for necessary luxuries such as fine bone china that costs 60k alone. The next level of importance is to serve the gender that is more likely to preserve their expensive taste and of course the gender that a male dominated culture can understand and relate with. The angry men’s groups rhetoric is well served amongst this culture and in fact the differences are only in the dressing up of the language.

The mothers and children are of course at the bottom of the family court food chain. If the child does not support the fathers wishes, then their voice is unheard. If the mother raises violence, her claims are often treated by the courts as a ‘nuisance”, rather than something to be aware of.

Despite consistent global research supporting the fact that child abuse and family violence allegations are mostly true, the family court treats every allegation as though it were false. Evidence is routinely overlooked, no matter what the members have gone through to acquire it and most disturbing is the restriction of children to have access to specialists that can determine either way. The court in fact refers to such investigations as, “medical abuse”. It is beyond clear that there is a crisis in Australian Family Courts. It is obvious that key stakeholders must be proactive in changing the culture to provide a safer standard to both the children and mother who is enduring family violence.

When family violence occurs, the focus needs to ensure that all victims are safe from harm. This is the only circumstances where the child and the parents best interests should be considered on the same level. Finding ways to stop family violence in the therapy area, is the job of the therapists and simply making orders of contact for all but the perpetrator to endure is not going to make the problem go away. The choice to cease those behaviours is the choice of the perpetrator alone. All members of society have tried different antidotes to convince the perpetrator to cease the violence to no avail. Most of the time attempts that have involved continuing the relationship has only exacerbated the situation. The power to abuse is what needs to be removed and considering some of the positions perpetrator’s pursue, it can be a very difficult task at that.

The Family Court Could Save Lives

Asia (from left), Jarius and Grace Osborne with their grandmother. The family wants the children returned to the Waikato for burial. (source: nz herald)

A recent tragedy in Melbourne could have been avoided, but victims of family violence know that they cannot be protected by the courts. Only a tiny fraction of family violence victims were given the grace to go into hiding and provide a stable upbringing for their children.

In the Sunday Herald Sun, the mother of the victims in the Melbourne Murder suicide broke her silence when articles on the father portrayed him as a saint and the tragedy as, “unforeseen”.

She was a victim of domestic violence who was forced to leave without the children. She told of how she secretly watched over her children and how authorities failed to intervene.

“My heart breaks because . . . he had tried to commit suicide with an overdose of tablets (six months ago). Weren’t they concerned about the welfare of the three children if the father was doing that?”

“I was threatened from him. He had threatened me when I moved to Australia that if I was to take the children back to New Zealand – he took their passports, everything away from me,”

In some cases, emergency court proceedings have been made to protect children and others have been made to pursue children when the parent has absconded with the child. When this mother raised this with the police six months ago, an emergency order could have been made.

Unfortunately Family Courts routinely deny children and mothers the right to be safe and protected from this. Some proceedings even undermine restraining orders. The system must work together to prevent future occurrences like these tragedies from happening.

Court Like Communist China

Australians are well aware of Chinas censorship laws among other human rights atrocities committed in China. The Department primarily responsible for censorship in China is called, “Central Propaganda department”. All information that is against Chinas communist beliefs are censored and those who speak out are persecuted for such actions.

As demonstrated in Samantha Gratwick’s article, “The Secrecy Law Scandal” media that is aligned with the beliefs of the Australian Family Court is not restricted, but media that is against the Family Courts are censored and persecuted.

Amnesty International widely publicized a case where China had forcibly confined a blogger to a psychiatric institution for expressing opinions against the beliefs of communism.

In Australian Family Courts most cases where children have lost most or even all contact with their mothers is due to mental illness and reasons not specified:

In a thesis by Amanda Shea Hart, “Children Exposed To Domestic Violence: Whose ‘Best Interests’ in the Family Court?” are some disturbing revelations contrary to Chisholm findings. In the Chisolm report, he stated that no research has found a gender bias in family court proceedings and based a lot of his assumptions upon the Wingspread family violence conference, a conference highly recommended by mens groups. Her findings are consistent to anyone who takes the time out to read more than ten judgement of family court cases involving family violence. The following common statements are used towards mothers who raise abuse or family violence in Family Court proceedings:

The next are common statements about violent fathers effect on children after contact is forced upon the child:

Children who resist contact are also pathologised:

This is also consistent to global findings in other Family Courts that are often used as a platform for male hegemony and continuing the prevalence of violence against women and children. As demonstrated on the selective statistics provided on the family court page, where the mother does not consent she is less likely than the father to have contact with the children.

The Chisholm report did reveal that most consent cases were made under coercion and the family courts did overlook these cases. A recent news report recently demonstrated that mothers who raise child abuse were being unfairly labelled as mentally ill by the family court.

Where there is evidence of post traumatic stress disorder, the court is more likely to focus on the effectiveness of care that the victim could provide rather than what created the illness:

In a sense survivors of family violence are people who have experienced human rights violations and actively seek to defend human rights. The court in turn reacts as the Chinese government by suppressing and instigating further violations until the victim has accepted the violence and in compliance to the political doctrine. Whilst there are different levels of violations in both comparisons where both have produced extreme experiences, one is well known to the world as a violation, but the other remains unseen with a potential for ongoing danger if not properly addressed.