The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Your View

May 9, 2012

Your View: Every child deserves two parents

By John Hurd, North Mankato

— We have a divorce/custody system that pits parents against each other, vying for major control of their child’s life and the concomitant benefits that accompany that responsibility. It involves lawyers, psychologists, guardians-ad-litem and judges, all trying to decide the “best interest of the child”.

It’s a costly affair that takes money away from a family that probably needs money more than ever to set up a second home. It sometimes puts the children in the middle by actually asking them which parent they prefer. It makes a presumption that the custody deciders can actually tell whether one parent is incrementally better than the other.

It also presumes that parents are going to be honest about their relationship. Persons associated with the process, including lawyers, have been regularly found to have encouraged false accusations of domestic or child abuse in order to influence the custody decision. Psychologists, without fear of accountability, have been complicit in false accusations of sexual abuse of children.

In the meantime, as the lawyers and psychologists pocket their misery money, the first “best interest of the child” is ignored. That interest is that each child deserves two parents. Both parents have many, but different, gifts to offer the child.

So, why should a child be denied the opportunity to gain from the presence of both parents? Why should “well-meaning” strangers determine the best interest of the child? Let the parents work out what is in the best interest of their children.

It appears that the present system doesn’t trust the citizenry to work out its own solutions. A system that encourages adversarial conflict and single-family benefit over cooperation and shared parenting is clearly the wrong way to go.

 

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