Our fathers are still failed by the law

The Government is cranking into action on behalf of fathers, by setting up a working group to look at how to protect the right of children to see their dads in the event of a divorce, and vice versa – a right which, in all too many cases, is crumpled up along with the marriage licence. I support the Government’s aim, but I do not envy its task, which is akin to moving through a minefield on roller skates.

Many of the current problems arise, not from the law itself, but from its subsequent enforcement. In a typical divorce case it is often agreed that the child, or children, will live with their mother while the father is granted access. In many cases, the relationships will proceed thereafter in a broadly workable fashion, for which we should raise – for those concerned – an appreciative hurrah.

But sometimes they don’t. The mother, irked by the continued presence of the father in her life now that they are no longer a couple, may seek to thwart his visits. It’s a bit of a bore always to be

stuck at home, so she might be going away one weekend, busy the next, or simply not in when he rings the doorbell – perhaps claiming some confusion – until the father has to make a fuss about his “rights”.

There will be acrimonious phone conversations, a dramatic scene or two, and the child will associate the mere mention of the father with a raised level of tension. The mother may supply a running commentary on the father’s flaws and conduct – true or not – until finally the child realises that some kind of definitive choice is implicitly demanded, or even believes that the father simply no longer cares about the family.

So goes the drip-drip of estrangement. The child gradually comes to concur with the mother’s view that life is simpler without the father around, not least because of the mother’s own openly hostile attitude. And then comes the painful moment when the child says, perhaps even to the court, that he or she has no desire to see the father at all.

At this point, there is very little that a loving father can do, except hope that his offspring might be persuaded to review the decision when he or she reaches adulthood. If he had gone to court to protest at being denied access, the judge might well have agreed – but what would actually have been done, beyond the issuing of more court orders? Judges are reluctant to send such a mother to jail, even though she might be flouting the law: such a decision would, once again, impact upon the unfortunate child.

This is not a fanciful scenario: I know personally of at least two fathers who have been estranged in similar circumstances from children whom they love very deeply, and think about constantly. Their cases are far from unusual.

I am not, of course, pretending that all fathers are saints, and all mothers are villains. A small minority of fathers are violent, threatening, drug- or alcoholaddicted or abusive, and it will be in the best interests of their children not to have them around. In such cases, the mother would be right to withhold contact and a court correct to back her up. In extreme circumstances, the ideal of access to both parents cannot be upheld.

Yet most of the time, we are not talking about extreme circumstances. Nor does the principle of “shared parenting” have to translate into “equal time”, which would be tricky and vexing to enforce. But children have a right to some meaningful relationship with their father, quite independently of their mother’s arrangements. Adult relationships fail for all sorts of reasons, but it is quite possible for a man to be deemed an unsatisfactory husband and a perfectly decent dad.

We want men to take responsibility for their children, to be involved in their birth and early years, to help with the night feeds and the homework and the cost of child-rearing. Yet all of that strengthens the bonds of parental love, that most awkward and stubborn of emotions. It cannot suddenly be dismissed as pointless, like a kind of emotional appendix, when one half of a marriage deems it inconvenient.

I can imagine the ferocious pain of being prevented from seeing my own children. Why should I be so arrogant as to assume that divorced fathers do not feel a similar pain, in circumstances in which their conduct towards their progeny is blameless? And that is why I wish the working party good luck, when it begins its deliberations on Monday. God knows it’s going to need it.