When is Parenthood Dissoluble? Sole parental responsibility and restrictions on contact in an era of shared parenting

1. When is Parenthood Dissoluble? Sole parental responsibility and restrictions on contact in an era of shared parenting Patrick Parkinson Professor of Law University of Sydney

2. IThe Transformation in Custody Law

3. Understanding the tumult • Ongoing conflict in Australia concerning the law of parenting after separation • Very similar patterns all over the western world • Need to understand what is happening in a historical and comparative context • Finding a balance between competing policy concerns.

4. Trench warfare and the text of Part VII, Family Law Act

6. This paper • Reviews trends in the Western world concerning the law relating to parenting disputes after separation • Explains why these changes have occurred and are probably irreversible • Considers when sole parental responsibility orders, and orders for limited or no contact, are appropriate, in the context of an acceptance that for the most part the ‘family’ continues after parental separation.

7. The indissolubility of parenthood Major shift in the law concerning parenting after separation in the last thirty years across the western world. Conflict arises from the breakdown of the model on which divorce reform was predicated in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Model assumed that divorce could end the relationship between parents in such a way that people could get on with their lives with only residual ties to their former partners. Marriage may be freely dissoluble, but parenthood is not.

8. Divorce reform and the free dissolubility model • Giving dead marriages a decent burial • Allocating the property • Child support and spousal maintenance • Allocating the children – custody and access • People could start anew with few ties if any, to the preceding relationship • Eg Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) • Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act (USA)

9. The substitution model of post-divorce parenting • “Divorce dissolves the family as well as the marriage” (Braiman vBraiman 378 NE 2d 1019 at 1022 (1978)) • The marriage breakdown marks the dissolution of the nuclear family • Choice between two alternative households • Strong differentiation between custodial and non-custodial parent.

10. Adjudication processes in the substitution model Custody dispute was much like a contest about a deceased estate. “The parents' marriage, like the decedent, was dead. Parents, like the heirs, were in dispute about the distribution of one of the assets of the estate — their children…The goal of the proceeding was a one time determination of custody ‘rights’ which created ‘stability’ for the future management of the asset.” Andrew Schepard

11. Reconceptualising the post-separation family • Théry and the idea of the “enduring family” • Family remains a unit, but a bipolar one • Implies the refusal of a choice between parents in favor of joint parental authority • Ahrons and the “binuclear family’: limited partnership established for a single purpose – to be co-parents to the children.

12. The enduring family • Family does not go through a death so much as a metamorphosis • No longer a nuclear household • Often a family in two locations, with new relationships extending the range of adults and children associated with that family • Parents tied to each other by the continuing obligations of parenthood

13. II From Sole Custody to Shared Care

14. The demise of ‘custody’ • The joint legal custody movement (USA) • Joint parental responsibility as the default position: • The Children Act (England and Wales) • The principle of “coparentalité” (France) - joint parental authority • Gesetz zur Reform des Kindschaftrechtes, 1997 (Germany) • Scandinavia

15. Encouraging non-resident parent involvement • ‘Joint physical custody’ • Arguments about time • Legislative encouragement of shared parenting • France: alternating residence as an option • Belgium: Loi tendant à privilégier l'hébergement égalitaire de l'enfant dont les parents sont séparés (2006) • Louisiana, Arizona and other US states • Spectrum of choices on offer to structure post-separation parenting • Abandonment of binary thinking about ‘custody’

16. IIIThe Australian Reforms in Comparative Perspective

17. Parental responsibility • Family Law Reform Act 1995: Consistent with international trends. Parental responsibility deemed to continue after relationship breakdown subject to court order. • 2006 reforms: presumption of equal shared parental responsibility except where violence or abuse. • Requirement on the courts to consider specifically whether or not to make an order for equal shared parental responsibility has meant that joint parental responsibility is much less likely to continue as the default position.

18. The language of parenting orders • 1995: residence and contact • 2006: ‘live with’ and ‘spend time with’ • The price of greater sensitivity in the language has been greater prolixity • Consistent with international trends. Language of custody disappearing everywhere. • Language of ‘parenting time’ and parenting plans is emerging pattern in the USA.

19. Encouraging non-resident parent involvement • Objects: • Children have the benefit of both of their parents having a meaningful involvement in their lives, to the maximum extent consistent with the best interests of the child. • the need to protect children from physical or psychological harm from being subjected to, or exposed to, abuse, neglect or family violence which may necessitate restraints on contact by one parent. • Consistent with international trends but duty to consider equal time was not in the mainstream.

20. IVReasons for the Demise of Sole Custody

21. Five factors • Cultural changes • Very wide support for involvement of both parents • Pressure from fathers • Children’s needs and wishes for more contact • The Government and child support

22. The preciousness of children • Declining birthrates and later starts to family life • “The child becomes the last remaining, irrevocable, unique primary love object. Partners come and go, but the child stays. Everything one vainly hoped to find in the relationship with one's partner is sought in or directed at the child. …Doting on children, pushing them on to the centre of the stage…and fighting for custody during and after divorce are all symptoms of this. The child becomes the final alternative to loneliness, a bastion against the vanishing chances of loving and being loved. (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim)

23. Attitudes to parenting after separation • 79% of fathers and 83% of mothers in 2009 agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that “children generally do best after separation when both parents stay involved in their lives”. • 86% of separated fathers agreed in 2009 v 77% of separated mothers. • Significant levels of support for the concept of shared care.

24. Children’s needs, and desire for more contact • Involvement of both parents beneficial in the absence of safety concerns or high conflict • Not frequency of time but closeness of parent-child relationship • The importance of authoritative parenting • The problem of the 12 day gap • Majority of children in studies want more time with non-resident parent • Young adults reporting on their childhoods say they grieve loss of closeness to one parent following separation.

25. The Government and child support • Massive efforts to enforce child support transfers • Concerns about child poverty • Protecting the taxpayer • Fathers’ dissatisfied with levels of contact • Hard for governments to enforce paternal responsibility and do nothing about law of parenting and enforcement of contact orders.

26. VOpposition to change

27. Resistance to law reform • None of these changes have been without controversy around the western world • Fierce resistance to change from some advocacy groups • Two main arguments played out in every jurisdiction: • Men just want to have more time with their children in order to reduce child support • Laws which support greater paternal involvement in children’s lives put the safety of women and children at risk • The argument is that the more that legislation supports and encourages the involvement of non-resident parents, the more it exposes women to the risk of violence and abuse.

28. The importance of safety • An absolute priority must be given to the safety of victims of violence and their children when there is a risk of serious harm • But the arguments against laws that support the involvement of both parents have been ineffective • The tendency to treat all violence as homogenous • Governments respond by bifurcation - strengthening laws on violence and abuse and greater involvement by non-resident parents • Occurred in 1995, again in 2006 and again in 2011 in Australia.

29. The way forward • Family law systems need to deal with dark realities of post-separation family life. • Need to recognise the enormous societal changes in the last 30 years but: • Recognition of the notion that families endure beyond the separation of the parents does not necessarily involve an assumption that all families can or should endure. • Sometimes, family law systems around the world try too hard to keep alive relationships which aren’t sufficiently healthy to survive without intensive care.

30. VIWhen is parenthood dissoluble?

31. The politicisation of domestic violence • One of the greatest problems in developing sensible policy in this difficult area is that there is a discordance between the rhetoric surrounding domestic violence in public policy and the more complex picture derived from social science research. • Domestic violence defined in a homogenous way as being perpetrated mainly by men, and characterised by a desire to control and oppress women. • To develop sound policy, it is necessary to move beyond the rhetoric and to differentiate between different patterns of violence within intimate personal relationships.

32. Typologies of family violence • Coercive controlling violence • Separation-engendered violence • Mutual aggression in intimate relationships • ‘conflict instigated violence’ • ‘common couple violence’, • ‘situational couple violence’ • ‘violence driven by conflict’

33. Australian Institute of Family Studies 2009 Family violence in general community (10,000 respondents)Fathers Mothers % % Physical hurt 16.8 26.0 Emotional abuse alone 36.4 39.0 No violence reported 46.8 35.0 Number of respondents 4,918 4,959

34. Current safety concerns Source: LSSF W1 2008

35. The new definition of family violence (s.4AB) • Helpful in identifying the pattern of violence. • Two categories: • violent, threatening or other behaviour that coerces or controls the family member or • violent, threatening or other behaviour that causes the family member to be fearful. • Subsection (2) provides illustrations of conduct that may fall within the definition of family violence. • Is this a wider or narrower definition than before? • The fact that behaviour constitutes an assault or battery is neither necessary nor sufficient for the behaviour to constitute family violence within the Family Law Act • Violence defined in terms of effects, not just actions

36. A history of violence • Many provisions focus on history even when no current safety concerns e.g. the requirement on the court to take certain steps promptly (s.67ZBB) • AIFS found that a history of family violence did not necessarily impede friendly or cooperative relationships. • 16% of mothers who reported being physically hurt by their ex-partner reported friendly relationships • 23.5% reported having a cooperative relationship • 18.5% reported a continuing fearful relationship

37. Focusing on Current Safety Concerns • Need for clearer focus on current safety concerns, as in New Zealand • NZ question: ‘will the child be safe if a violent party provides day-to-day care for, or has contact with the child?’ • Need to concentrate resources on the parents and children who are at most risk • If everything is urgent, nothing is urgent • Lack of clarity in Act about how history of violence or of prior family violence orders are relevant to decisions

38. The two safety priorities • Act after the 2011 amendments, identifies two priorities in cases where safety is an issue: • The priority of child safety: • greater weight is to be given to the need to protect the child from physical or psychological harm from being subjected to, or exposed to, abuse, neglect or family violence than to the benefit to the child of having a meaningful relationship with both of the child’s parents (s.60CC(2)) • The priority of parental safety: • In considering what order to make, the court must, to the extent that it is possible to do so consistently with the child's best interests being the paramount consideration, ensure that the order...does not expose a person to an unacceptable risk of family violence (s.60CG).

39. The relevance of history • Risk of abuse of children • children’s attitudes towards living with, or going on visits to, a violent parent • assessing the mother’s capacity for parenting: mothers may be misdiagnosed as suffering from various psychopathologies, when deficiencies and problems are reactive to the experience of abuse • assessing the mother’s attitude towards contact between the child and the other parent • Violence as a window on the soul • History of coercive controlling violence esp. important

40. The triumph of optimism over experience • Contact centres as the solution? • The institutional imperative to help the parents to ‘self-manage’ • Where there are ongoing issues of violence, abuse or serious dysfunctionality requiring professional interventions to sustain the parent-child relationship, questions need to be asked about the purpose of those interventions.

41. Intractable conflict • Every Picture rec. 2: “Part VII of the Family Law Act 1975 be amended to create a clear presumption against shared parental responsibility with respect to cases where there is entrenched conflict, family violence, substance abuse or established child abuse” • The effect of conflict on children • Reasons for entrenched conflict • Significant child protection concerns • Unresolved anger at separation or issues with new partners • When conflict is intractable

42. When the Parents Have Never Been a Family • About 11-12% of all births are to single mothers • Since 1975, entry of children born into lone-mother families has increased at a higher rate than due to parental separation. • The hard questions: • Is it realistic to expect parents to develop a cooperative joint parenting relationship when they have never known what it is to live together and raise the child as a couple? • Is it to be presumed that children will benefit from a relationship with a parent whom they do not know through the intimacy of the daily child-care tasks in an intact family?

43. The legal issues • Sec. 60B(2): • “children have the right to know and be cared for by both their parents, regardless of whether their parents are married, separated, have never married or have never lived together” • Children ‘have a right to spend time on a regular basis with both their parents.” • What if there has been conflict between the parents since birth? • The long-term prognosis – increasingly tenuous connection • Presumption of equal shared parental responsibility?

44. Conclusion • Massive changes in family law across the western world in last thirty years • Australian developments broadly consistent with international trends • The shift to recognise the indissolubility of parenthood is both appropriate and irreversible • Policy discussions need to both acknowledge this and recognise that by no means all parent -child relationships survive parental separation or should survive • Greater clarity is needed in legislation

45. Intensive care for dysfunctional families Thou shalt not kill; but need'st not strive officiously to keep alive.” (Arthur Clough)