This BBC story blew my mind. It's about mothers who have died, usually suicide or in some cases through stress and grief, due to losing custody of their children.
What struck me was wondering why mothers are always the people that the media side with. Yes I'm sure there are injustices against some mothers. I'm sure some fathers lie. The story says that five mothers have died through suicide or illness because of losing access to their children. It's a tragedy for even one person, whether a mother or father, to lose access or to die as a result. Every example in the article needs to be looked at and, if appropriate, custody corrected. But the family court system has been biased in favour of the mother for as long as I can recall. Fathers4Justice has been fighting for years to try to get an even approach for fathers. Fathers4Justice even estimate the number of fathers committing suicide over the loss of access to their children is around four per month. I know of several fathers who had a terrible time trying to keep access to their children during divorce.
The real victims of this story are not the mothers or the fathers, but the children, some of who do appear to have been assigned custody to an abusive father. I'm sure mistakes happen. I'm also sure mistakes happen the other way around with abusive mothers. I would hope that courts only assign custody with a sole parent if there is evidence to do so, and that if new evidence comes to light then they correct any mistakes. I'm not saying this as an estranged father. I'm still married after 23 years and we have two lovely children. But I do know fathers who have had a terrible time when getting divorced including lies from the mother such parental alienation instigated by the mother (obviously I only see one side of their story and there are always two).
The article says there are calls for reform of the family court system. What am I misunderstanding or missing about this article as fathers have wanted reform for years. But when it is realised that this also affects mothers there is suddenly a news article and calls for reform of the system.
So GD, have I missed something or misunderstood something? I'm happy to be corrected on this and am genuinely asking if I've missed something. But on the face of it, it appears to be a case of "Family courts tend to side with the mother more than the father. Mothers most affected".
Family courts: Mothers dying after 'abusers' claim access to children
One death came after family courts ordered a child to live with a paedophile, a BBC investigation finds.
www.bbc.co.uk
What struck me was wondering why mothers are always the people that the media side with. Yes I'm sure there are injustices against some mothers. I'm sure some fathers lie. The story says that five mothers have died through suicide or illness because of losing access to their children. It's a tragedy for even one person, whether a mother or father, to lose access or to die as a result. Every example in the article needs to be looked at and, if appropriate, custody corrected. But the family court system has been biased in favour of the mother for as long as I can recall. Fathers4Justice has been fighting for years to try to get an even approach for fathers. Fathers4Justice even estimate the number of fathers committing suicide over the loss of access to their children is around four per month. I know of several fathers who had a terrible time trying to keep access to their children during divorce.
The real victims of this story are not the mothers or the fathers, but the children, some of who do appear to have been assigned custody to an abusive father. I'm sure mistakes happen. I'm also sure mistakes happen the other way around with abusive mothers. I would hope that courts only assign custody with a sole parent if there is evidence to do so, and that if new evidence comes to light then they correct any mistakes. I'm not saying this as an estranged father. I'm still married after 23 years and we have two lovely children. But I do know fathers who have had a terrible time when getting divorced including lies from the mother such parental alienation instigated by the mother (obviously I only see one side of their story and there are always two).
The article says there are calls for reform of the family court system. What am I misunderstanding or missing about this article as fathers have wanted reform for years. But when it is realised that this also affects mothers there is suddenly a news article and calls for reform of the system.
So GD, have I missed something or misunderstood something? I'm happy to be corrected on this and am genuinely asking if I've missed something. But on the face of it, it appears to be a case of "Family courts tend to side with the mother more than the father. Mothers most affected".
