| By :
Lee Smith
Shared parenting and fathers' rights are hot topics, but what is a fair amount of contact for a father to have with his children? Some people think that every other weekend is a suitable arrangement and sure, for some parents this suits their working arrangements or their social life, but for many parents this simply is not sufficient contact and they believe that this is also not in the best interests of the child. Family law in Australia seems a much fairer system of justice, with an automatic presumption of shared parenting. After divorce or separation, there seems to be much less conflict and lawyers rarely ask for contact to be every other weekend due to the legislation which appears to work well. In France, although no presumption of shared residence exists, it is recognised within French family law as a legitimate and child-friendly option. France adopts a more grown-up approach where parents tend to care for their children for longer blocks of time, for example two weeks on and two weeks off. In the UK, sadly, our family laws are inadequate and fall behind those in other democratic countries by a long way. Court proceedings in Family Law are often extremely slow and riddled with delays due to insufficient legislation in place and CAFCASS having poor resources and funding. The new coalition between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party promises to change this by introducing new legislation by winter 2011. For the sake of our children we hope that this new legislation is delayed no further as our current family laws are providing instability and a lottery of court results for most fathers. Fathers represent a huge proportion of the UK population, yet they are still unfairly discriminated against. As a society we have to campaign to correct the imbalance currently in our society. We have integrated a diverse range of nationalities in the UK and there are rights for gay couples but millions of fathers are being treated as second-class citizens, which is a disgrace in our supposed democratic society. For a healthier family life, shared parenting is essential and provides children with the stability they need to grow up in a safe and loving environment. In 1992, the United Kingdon signed up to the United Nations Convention on The Rights Of Children, which states that children deserve both their parents and that parents should be treated equally by the state, so why eighteen years later are dads being denied access to their children with the state seeming to sponsor the mothers who are trying to alienate their children from the biological father?
|
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.articlesbacklink.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
