Is shared custody becoming a reality?
September 10, 2009
“After divorce fathers do not get help in caring for their children, as if they only have to care for themselves and have no relation with their children as caring parents”. Those were the words of unemployed Eugen Hockenjos after a ruling by the Court of Appeal that awarded Mr. Hockenjos, who shares the care of two daughters, five years of backdated childcare benefits.
Mr. Hockenjos was presented as a victim of a Child Benefit system which creates an “all or nothing” situation, where the “reality of shared care arrangements was not recognised”
Five years on from the ruling, it would be premature to imagine that shared parenting is about to gain a substantial foothold in the UK. In Sweden 35% of the children of divorced families live equally with both parents. This is affected through generous statutory leave entitlements to fathers and a requirement for parents to discuss shared care of children.
For Jack O’Sullivan of Fathers Direct who, following the trial, stated: “the ruling could open the door to fathers struggling financially to look after their children”, change could be on the way with the creation of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission. The commission will assume the monitoring powers of the Child Support Agency in 2010. The aim of the new body is to “ensure parents take responsibility for providing financial support for their children” and opens the way for parents to opt out of the CSA and make voluntary arrangements.
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Many argue that it is extremely important that children of divorce enjoy regular contact with both parents, so it might be a good idea to make joint custody the default arrangement following a divorce.
Saying that, such an arrangement might not always be in the children’s best interest so it’s nowhere near as easy as just awarding each parent joint custody following a divorce. Some pretty serious question will need to be asked of each parent first.
It’s our experience that shared custody, or even regular contact, is very rare. Fathers seem to have very little rights with regard to access to their children and, even if they have a court order granting and ensuring access, they’re still at the whim of the mother. There’s very little that can be done to ensure contact.