There are good parents out there that truly put their children’s needs above their own when they are separating from an ex-spouse. Other parents may start out battling, but are able to sort out their emotions shortly afterwards, and ultimately put the children’s needs above their own. Then there are those that never are able to get past those feelings of resentment and betrayal, and put the children in the middle of a long, drawn out custody battle, where ultimately, there is never any chance of anyone winning.
The family courts are bogged down with this last type of parents. Sometimes, it comes from both sides. Often, however, the fighting is pretty much one-sided. One parent cannot get over the divorce, and although they may claim to be over it, their actions show otherwise. They are more concerned with proving how horrible the other parent is than they are with being a good role model for their children. They come back to court over what amount to petty grievances. Their motions are for things like returning the children 5 minutes late, or calling at the wrong time. Maybe they don’t agree with the other parent’s rules. Whatever the issue, it’s not very likely to have very much merit.
The children are caught in the middle of an epic battle between two people that just simply don’t belong together. Often, the children are left thinking that it’s somehow their fault. While it may reach a point that the children participate in the bashing to please the parent that they are with, it is still not their fault. The only way in some cases to finally stop the fighting is for one parent to let go. The parent who is truly willing to put the needs of the children above their own is going to be the one to do this. The person least deserving of having to give up the children will often be the one who is forced to in the end.
There is a story in the Bible about two mothers who are fighting over the same child. The king gets so fed up with their fighting that he offers to cut the child in half. At this time, the real mother offers to give him to the other. She is then given the child because only the real mother would care more about the welfare of the child than her own. This is a lovely story, and illustrates how things should be. However, this is not how things are. Walk into a courtroom and tell the judge that you are willing to give up custody to keep your children from being torn apart. They’ll let you. They don’t care if you’re the better parent.
The courts need a way to keep these long drawn out battles from happening. These are a few things that I believe would work in helping to curtail these overly litigated divorce and custody cases. The first thing is to take money out of the equation. If the person fighting for custody cares more about money than the children, it would be exposed quickly by doing this. They’d probably stop fighting if they realized that child support was not going to be an issue. Never ever favor one party over the other. Even though the courts say that they don’t favor one party, it seems inevitable that they do. Some courts favor whoever filed for the divorce. Some favor the mother over the father, although more often nowadays, any father that files for custody is awarded custody because the courts don’t want to be caught favoring the mother. Make both parties prove any allegations against the other party or throw out the motion. More often than not, one parent is filing more frivolous motions than the other. If the motions are frivolous, give custody to the parent not filing the motions. If both sides are filing motion after motion and can’t seem to stop fighting, take custody away from both of them.
Last but not least, ask the children where they would like to be and why. Be careful with this last one, though because the children may be unduly influenced by the parent they are with the most. Make sure that you have a clear understanding of parental alienation syndrome before doing this. Make sure that the children have a clear understanding of what it means to stay with each parent. The things we have to remember is that children need a loving and nurturing environment. Constant litigation does not help with that.
