| "If more divorcing couples used mediation, Rose Hill said, they would
achieve better relations faster and at less personal and financial
expense and be in better shape to raise their children afterward.
"Mediation, she said, involves neutral, third-party help in resolving
divorce issues. As director of the New Hampshire Meidation Program, she
sees about 60 couples a year through the often tempestuous process
of separating property and children.
"In New Hampshire the presumption of joint legal custody of the children
breaks down when a divorcing couple disagrees. Because mediation stresses
the compromise rather than the adversarial relationships fostered by
the divorce-by-lawyer process, couples using mediation are more likely
to end up with joint legal custody of their children, she said.
"Campbell Harvey, a Manchester family law attorney active in feminist politics,
disagrees. 'In divorce, there is a shifting of the power balance: that's
one reason divorces are so acrimonious,' she said. 'The person who had all
the control doesn't like letting go.'
"One type of mediation whose object is to get both parties to agree, merely
perpetuates the power imbalances in marriage she said. Another kind, in
which external standards of fairness are applied, creates an invisible
judge, she said. 'Unless you're working with standards everyone knows
about, this means you have secret judges and, they're not appealable.'
"Hill said that its ease is what's good about mediation. A couple still has
to schedule a court hearing, pay a court fee and appear before a marital
master after achieving a mediated settlement, but this is relatively
inexpensive compared to divorce-by-lawyer, she said.
"Based on income, the price of mediaton never rises about $50 an hour
for a person earning $50,000 a year, she said. On average it takes
about seven one to two hour weekly sessions, she said, to achieve
a settlement."
|
| "Fatherhood is this country's most wasted resource,said Jack
Kammer. This. acording to the president of the National Congress for men -
a six year old Washington based organiztion with more than 800 members
nationwide and about 300 loosely affiliated local groups - is because
society does not recognize fathers as nurturing people.
" 'We're concerned with general discrimination against men,' he said.
'We're involed with men's health issues, like the fact that men die
younger than women: ...and with society's general disregard for
fatherhod.
"Over the last decade or so, a raft of groups such as Father United for
Equal Justice of New Hampshire, and new publications such as 'Father's
Forum' and 'Nurturing News' have sprung up to promote a different view of
fatherhood.
" 'We're not trying to establish something that used to be; we're trying
to establish something that never was.' Kammer said.
" In some areas, he said this means that women will have to move
over. ' we don't want to put women back into the kitchen, we want women to
share the kitchen, because the ktichen is the heart of the family. Historically
men have been dominant in money, government, politics and careers, that's easy
to see and easy to measure, but it's not all life is about.
" Women have had the advantage of being entrusted with other important things
in this society - love, nurturance, emotions and children. To the extent that
men have needed to change to let women into business, women need to change
to let men into the family.' Kammer said."
" But he charged that women are tring to maintain a monopoly on parenting.
If men are seen as irresponsible parents, he said, it is because mothers
posessive of their role as primary nurturers do not give them anyting to
care about. 'Men might drop in or drop out, but we ought to take a look at
whether men are made to feel unimportant, secondarily, unappreciated,
undervalued,or demeaned.'
"Barbara Tsairis, a lobbyist for the New Hampshire Woman's Lobby, said this
is absurd. 'That just doesn't jibe with what I know women's experience
to be, I think, by and large, women would welcome any further efforts
by men to take more responsibilityfor the care of home and children.
" ' Women have no desire to maintain a monopoly on parenting.' she said.
'Most women I know would like to share taht responsibility more than
they are now.
"Kammer also maintains the bias against men is exploited in the courts.
'In the courts, phony allegations can be made and believed because of
all the prejudices and biases that exist against men. Many men don't
apply for parenthood after divorce because they are told they're not
going to get it. They're told they should leave it to women because
it's women's work.'
"As women have become more liberated in recent decades, fathers have
become more involved with their children, Kammer said. But as the
'divorce epidemic' has broken up families, the courts have held onto
an antiquated view of parents' roles, he charged. 'The new fathers
are being treated like fathers under the old rules.' he said.
"Many disagree with Kammer's claims. 'The biggest sexism in the courts'
said Bruce Friedman, director of the Civil Practice Clinic at the
Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, 'is nonenforcement of child
support.' The statistics on who gets custody of children he said, merely
reflect the division of labor that existed in the home before a divorce."
|
| .0
<<Page NH13 - "Violence is called double-edged issue"
About the use and abuse of violence and abuse charges
for leverage in custody situations.>>
Could we have some more info?
This particular item seems to be a trend. Many mothers will, when
faced with a custody battle, resort to charges that the father is
abusive, especially sexual abuse. Witness the Lalonde case.
?
|