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| Family Justice Review |
"A minority of children will live in shared care arrangements, spending roughly equal amounts of time in each parent’s household. One study showed that around 90% reside mainly with one parent. Of this 90%, children typically lived with their mother; only 12% lived with their father following divorce or separation".
"When making their decisions, many British judges still shy away from the ideal of shared parenting as described in the Children Act and are guided by the 'tender years doctrine'. Dr Hamish Cameron, a consultant child psychiatrist who has served as an expert witness in many cases, describes this as the belief that young children are best off with the parent with the closest resemblance to the Madonna. Where judges sees their first duty as preserving the mother-child dyad, their solution in some intractable cases will be to remove the father from the picture."(Guardian, 'Children first', 27 March, 2002).Although family proceedings are supposed to be objective and impartial because of this theory many fathers such as the former Home Secretary, and dad, David Blunkett, feel they are discriminated against. As a result he wrote to a personal message, "I am very grateful to all those, like yourself who have written and particularly where you have been able to demonstrate your own thinking from the experiences you have had. Congratulations on your battle.
Bowlby’s theory of attachment led him to believe that there was a critical period for attachment formation. If a separation occurs between mother and infant within the first few years of the child’s life, the bond would be irreversibly broken, leading to severe emotional consequences for the infant in later life. He referred to this disruption of the bond with the mother as Maternal Deprivation. Formal justice requires consistency and Bowlby's theory of Maternal Deprivation provides the framework for the Tender Years doctrine as it is applied by judges who make Case Laws such as,
"It has also been said that it is not a principle but a matter of observation of human nature in the case of upbringing of children of tender years, that given the normal commitment of a father to support the family, the mother, for practical and emotional reasons, is usually the right person to bring up the children". (Per Sir Roualeyn Cumming-Bruce in Re H (a minor) 1 FLR 51, CA.1990)
In many cases limited access to children makes a parental relationship impossible and eventually fathers lose contact altogether.
In 2011 the Family Justice Committee of the UK Houses of Parliament reviewed the operation of the family courts in the UK and considered the proposal for a legal presumption of 'Shared Parenting'. However it was decided that;
9. We do not see any value in inserting a legislative statement reinforcing the importance of the child continuing to have a meaningful relationship with both parents, alongside the need to protect the child from harm, into the Children Act 1989. Such a statement is not intended to change the current position as the law already acknowledges that a meaningful, engaged relationship with both parents is generally in a child's best interests. The Panel has concluded that the family court system is allowing contact in the right cases; in our view nothing should be done that could undermine the paramount importance of the welfare of the child. (Paragraph 71)
Because there is no legal definition of 'reasonable contact' the present status quo remains.
