Tag Archives: Child

Commentary

UK government aims to combat fatherlessness with shared parenting law

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Canadian Barbara Kay writes about a positive development across the pond. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

Two weeks ago the U.K. government announced its intention to amend the 1989 Children’s Act. Changes will include a “presumption of shared parenting” to ensure that children’s relationships with both parents continues after separation. Under the current adversarial system, as in Canada, legal custody battles almost invariably end with mothers gaining sole custody.

The decision was based more in pragmatism than compassion. Mounting sociological evidence confirms the terrible social costs of fatherlessness: triple the rates of truancy, teen pregnancies and drug abuse, to name a few.

Also proposed is a £10-million mediation fund. One spokesman enunciated what has become obvious to rational observers: “The courts are rarely the best place for resolving private disputes about the care of children.” In truth, no one but career stakeholders favours the status quo.

Let’s hope the U.K. example will hasten the inevitable arrival of equal shared parenting (ESP) as the default presumption, in the absence of abuse, in Canada. This is, after all, an idea whose time came decades ago. The 1978 Family Law reform Act interpreted the “best interests of the child” to mean: “where feasible, a child should have maximum access to both parents”; the “animosity of the parents should not interfere with this interest”; and the “needs of both parents should be considered.”

The in-depth 1998 Senate-House of Commons Joint Committee Report For the Sake of the Children also recommended ESP as a default presumption. But the report fell into a black political hole. Guided by feminism-inspired “social context” courses they take at the National Judicial Institute, unaccountable family-court judges with no expertise in children’s best emotional and psychological interests privilege mothers’ rights in hugely disproportionate numbers.

Indeed, fathers’ money is welcome, but the fathers themselves aren’t considered necessary to their children’s well-being at all, nor their children necessary to theirs. In 2003 justice minister Martin Cauchon stated, “Divorced fathers have no rights, only responsibilities.” He might well have added, “Divorced mothers have no responsibilities, only rights.” For fathers who fail to pay child support, even when they can’t pay, may spend more time in jail than a cocaine dealer and have their faces plastered on the Internet as “deadbeat dads”; but how many Canadian mothers have spent a night in jail for arbitrarily denying a father court-appointed time with his children?

Ideologues argue that fathers only demand equal parenting rights as a “patriarchal backlash” or to reduce their child support burdens or to punish their ex-mates. Some individual men are doubtless guilty of bad faith, just as some individual women seek sole custody for its material benefits or to punish their ex-mates.

Here’s an excellent lecture by Jennifer Roback Morse about the divorce issue.

If you don’t understand how divorce laws hurt fathers and their children, please read this excellent paper by Stephen Baskerville, published in Touchstone magazine, and this excellent paper from Touchstone magazine by Robbie Low, which explains how fathers are vital to passing on religion from parents to children. Every Christian should know as much about marriage as they know about abortion. Every Christian should have as much opposition to divorce as they have for abortion.  And every Christian should put as much effort into preparing to be convincing on the marriage issue as they are on the abortion issue. This matters.

Commentary

Are French parents superior to American parents?

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From the Wall Street Journal, a shocking story.

Excerpt:

Rest assured, I certainly don’t suffer from a pro-France bias. Au contraire, I’m not even sure that I like living here. I certainly don’t want my kids growing up to become sniffy Parisians.

But for all its problems, France is the perfect foil for the current problems in American parenting. Middle-class French parents (I didn’t follow the very rich or poor) have values that look familiar to me. They are zealous about talking to their kids, showing them nature and reading them lots of books. They take them to tennis lessons, painting classes and interactive science museums.

Yet the French have managed to be involved with their families without becoming obsessive. They assume that even good parents aren’t at the constant service of their children, and that there is no need to feel guilty about this. “For me, the evenings are for the parents,” one Parisian mother told me. “My daughter can be with us if she wants, but it’s adult time.” French parents want their kids to be stimulated, but not all the time. While some American toddlers are getting Mandarin tutors and preliteracy training, French kids are—by design—toddling around by themselves.

And:

Authority is one of the most impressive parts of French parenting—and perhaps the toughest one to master. Many French parents I meet have an easy, calm authority with their children that I can only envy. Their kids actually listen to them. French children aren’t constantly dashing off, talking back, or engaging in prolonged negotiations.

One Sunday morning at the park, my neighbor Frédérique witnessed me trying to cope with my son Leo, who was then 2 years old. Leo did everything quickly, and when I went to the park with him, I was in constant motion, too. He seemed to regard the gates around play areas as merely an invitation to exit.

Frédérique had recently adopted a beautiful redheaded 3-year-old from a Russian orphanage. At the time of our outing, she had been a mother for all of three months. Yet just by virtue of being French, she already had a whole different vision of authority than I did—what was possible and pas possible.

Frédérique and I were sitting at the perimeter of the sandbox, trying to talk. But Leo kept dashing outside the gate surrounding the sandbox. Each time, I got up to chase him, scold him, and drag him back while he screamed. At first, Frédérique watched this little ritual in silence. Then, without any condescension, she said that if I was running after Leo all the time, we wouldn’t be able to indulge in the small pleasure of sitting and chatting for a few minutes.

“That’s true,” I said. “But what can I do?” Frédérique said I should be sterner with Leo. In my mind, spending the afternoon chasing Leo was inevitable. In her mind, it was pas possible.

I pointed out that I’d been scolding Leo for the last 20 minutes. Frédérique smiled. She said that I needed to make my “no” stronger and to really believe in it. The next time Leo tried to run outside the gate, I said “no” more sharply than usual. He left anyway. I followed and dragged him back. “You see?” I said. “It’s not possible.”

Frédérique smiled again and told me not to shout but rather to speak with more conviction. I was scared that I would terrify him. “Don’t worry,” Frederique said, urging me on.

Leo didn’t listen the next time either. But I gradually felt my “nos” coming from a more convincing place. They weren’t louder, but they were more self-assured. By the fourth try, when I was finally brimming with conviction, Leo approached the gate but—miraculously—didn’t open it. He looked back and eyed me warily. I widened my eyes and tried to look disapproving.

After about 10 minutes, Leo stopped trying to leave altogether. He seemed to forget about the gate and just played in the sandbox with the other kids. Soon Frédérique and I were chatting, with our legs stretched out in front of us. I was shocked that Leo suddenly viewed me as an authority figure.

“See that,” Frédérique said, not gloating. “It was your tone of voice.” She pointed out that Leo didn’t appear to be traumatized. For the moment—and possibly for the first time ever—he actually seemed like a French child.

There’s a young woman I was very impressed by and I was spending some time with her last year. One day she and I were over at a friend’s house and they have 3 kids. The lady was paying attention to the eldest boy – smiling and being gentle. He decided to start wielding a bean bag around and there was a danger of knocking things over. The lady leaned forward and said to the boy “NO” sternly. He sat there staring at her for a few seconds defiantly, and all conversation in the room stopped. He was trying to decide if she was in a position to command him, and if she was serious about her command. She kept looking sternly at him, right in the eyes. He never looked at his parents. Then he put the bean bag down, and his parents laughed. They were delighted. And so was I – with her. It was such a joy her to see how she paid attention to the boy and set boundaries on him – and he listened to her.

News

Liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rules traditional marriage unconstitutional

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Here’s the news from Big Government.

Excerpt:

Today, the 9th Circuit upheld the absurd ruling of Judge Vaughn Walker of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California, striking down Proposition 8, the voter-approved constitutional amendment that would uphold traditional marriage in the state. The ruling itself was highly political and in no way legally oriented. “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians,” wrote the Court, “and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior… the Constitution simply does not allow for ‘laws of this sort.’”

National Review assesses the decision to overrule the will of the people with the feelings and intuitions of two judges.

Excerpt:

2. For [Judge] Reinhardt, “‘marriage’ is the name that society gives to the relationship that matters most between two adults.” (P. 37.) The right to marry that the state supreme court conferred on same-sex couples “symbolize[d] state legitimization and social recognition of their committed relationships.” (P. 5.)

Notice what’s missing from Reinhardt’s description? Any recognition that the very institution of marriage arose and exists in order to encourage responsible procreation and childrearing.

3. On pages 56-63, Reinhardt does confront the argument that Prop 8 advances California’s interest in procreation and childrearing, but his analysis is badly flawed:

a. Reinhardt first undertakes to address the argument that “children are better off when raised by two biological parents and that society can increase the likelihood of that family structure by allowing only potential biological parents—one man and one woman—to marry.” But he somehow finds it dispositive that Prop 8 “had absolutely no effect on the ability of same-sex couples to become parents or the manner in which children are raised in California.” What he utterly ignores is that it is eminently reasonable to believe that the less marriage is centered around the concerns of responsible procreation and child-raising, the less well marriage will serve those goals. That’s an elementary lesson about mission confusion.

The redefinition of marriage to encompass same-sex couples fatally severs the link between marriage and procreation. That’s why Reinhardt has to misdescribe marriage (see point 2).

Over at Caffeinated Thoughts, Shane has the reactions from the two social conservatives still running in the Republican primary.

Excerpt:

Rick Santorum while campaigning in Missouri today said:

Today’s decision by the 9th Circuit is another in a long line of radical activist rulings by this rogue circuit – and it is precisely why I have called for that circuit to be abolished and split up. Marriage is defined and has always been defined as ‘one man and one woman.’ We simply cannot allow 50 different definitions of marriage.

The people of California spoke clearly at the ballot box that they wanted marriage defined in the traditional manner of one man and one woman. And for a court, any court, to usurp the power and will of the people in this manner on an issue this fundamental to the foundation of our society is wrong.

We need to have a Judicial Branch that acts within its Constitutional bounds. We need to have a President that is willing to stand up to the Judiciary. We need to have a President who will fight to protect marriage once and for all with a federal marriage amendment. I am committed to being that President.

Newt Gingrich blasted today’s decision as well:

With today’s decision on marriage by the Ninth Circuit, and the likely appeal to the Supreme Court, more and more Americans are being exposed to the radical overreach of federal judges and their continued assault on the Judeo-Christian foundations of the United States.

I was drawn back into public life by the Ninth Circuit’s 2002 decision that held that the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance were unconstitutional. Today’s decision is one more example that the American people cannot rest until we restore the proper rule of the judicial branch and bring judges and the Courts back under the Constitution.

The Constitution of the United States begins with “We the People”; it does not begin with “We the Judges”. Federal judges need to take heed of that fact.

Federal judges are substituting their own political views for the constitutional right of the people to make judgments about the definition of marriage.

Ben Shapiro thinks that defending marriage will be a winning issue in the general election for Republicans.

Excerpt:

President Obama has been able to elude the question of same-sex marriage overall. His slippery rhetoric indicates that he’s pro-civil unions but anti-same sex marriage but is “evolving.” This ruling will force him to take a side. He will likely attempt to suggest that this is a decision best left to the courts, but he’s never taken that position before – see, for example, campaign finance reform. It’s unlikely that the gay community or the religious community will allow him to get away with that.

If Obama is forced to answer for his position on same-sex marriage, he will be in serious trouble come election time. He is already suffering from low approval ratings among religious groups, and just this week he alienated Catholics with the Health and Human Services announcement that birth control coverage would be required from Catholic employers. Minority voters, especially Latinos and blacks, are anti-same sex marriage as a rule (which is why Prop. 8 passed in the first place – many blacks showed up to vote for Obama in California and voted in favor of traditional marriage at the same time).

While the press likes to complain about the right wing on social issues, the fact remains that same-sex marriage is not a popular movement in key states for Obama. In Florida, for example, 53% believe that same-sex marriage should not be legal, as compared to 37% who believe it should be; in Ohio, that split is 53% to 33%; in Pennsylvania, it’s 51% to 38%. Overall, Americans are moving in the direction of same-sex marriage (a Pew poll showed that Americans now approve same-sex marriage by a 46-44 margin), but older people and nonwhites are particularly against it (just 39% of nonwhites support same-sex marriage). In short, this is not a winning issue for Obama.

I think Rick Santorum is more persuasive than Newt Gingrich on the marriage issue, because marriage is Santorum’s core. He forms his economic policy around marriage and parenting. Mitt Romney actually has a record of opposition to traditional marriage. Ron Paul has a record of opposition to traditional marriage. Neither of them could be counted on to defend traditional marriage at the federal level.

My secular case against same-sex marriage is here, in case you find yourself debating the issue.