WHY DO FATHERS HAVE TO FIGHT TOOTH AND NAIL TO SEE THEIR CHILDREN?

The following is probably the most regular scenario I come across when acting for fathers of young children.

A father (we will call him Stephen) comes in to me and says that his daughter is 3 months old but he separated from her mother (we will call her Anne) and she will not allow him see his daughter. I issue a summons and the case comes to court. The other side will not negotiate with me and they say that baby would not be safe with their father because he has never changed a nappy and he wouldn't know what to do with an infant. The judge agrees to some extent but orders that access will take place for two hours on a Saturday supervised by mother. Stephen comes back to me on a fairly regular basis, generally once every six months or so looking for further access. He hopes to get overnight access but after a year and a half he has only managed to increase access to four hours on a Saturday unsupervised by the mother. 

Stephen then looks for overnight access. Anne says that the child is too young but that she will consider it when the child is 3 years old. The judge agrees.

It is at this point that I would not blame Stephen, given that he is 22 years of age and given that he is now in a relationship with someone else, if he were to simply say that he does not want to continue to fight to have a relationship with his daughter particularly given that he will shortly have a new family. However, he does not want to give up on his daughter and he continues to press for more contact.

Fast forward to last Monday. We were in court six months ago and we got one overnight every two weeks. 

On this occasion Stephen was looking for two overnights every two weeks and the mother said that she thought this would be too disruptive and that her daughter was only just about able to handle the current access arrangement being one overnight every two weeks. 

Eventually the judge made an order granting my client an increase in access but less than he was looking for and mother was very unhappy leaving the court.

What is the problem with young mothers? I have known my client for the last three years and he is clearly entirely devoted to his daughter. Not one complaint has ever been made about him not turning up for access or about anything happening during access. The only time something acrimonious happens is when mother refuses to agree to a further access. I really would like to know what is it in mothers that make them act in this way. It happens so regularly and the arguments used are always identical. “Access is too disruptive”; “she is too young to be spending so much time away from her mother”; “she is always upset and disturbed when she returns from access”. It’s always the same. Fathers like Stephen have to fight tooth and nail to have any sort of relationship with their sons or daughters. And I have yet to come across a situation where I have had to review my thinking about these fathers. 

All they want to do is have a relationship with their infant sons and daughters. Their sights are low. They do not tend to look for joint custody or 50 50 joint parenting. They just want to have a reasonable relationship with their child. Is that too much to ask?

Kevin Brophy

Brophy Solicitors