Court practices of chilld custody started applying new doctrine - will it affect romantic relationships and how? (surrogacy, guy)

[nald]

I've read news on a case form Michigan, where the local judge applied the new model of "child's best interest" doctrine after the old one was in effect in USA for over 60 years.

Introduction to the case:

Spoiler

Regardless of what or however people want to make it politically correct, relationships do break down and mothers are getting either sole, or "shared", "residential" custody - by default. This is how the laws and court practices are deliberately made.
The practice of shared custody usually doesn't involve equal footing either, but despite having a number of states enacting some ground rules for potential punishments due to obstructing the parent-child relationship, i.e. taking the children away from a custodial parent who deliberately abuses the position of children's residence to alienate young children from other parent... these guidelines simply not applied due to current general guidelines and practices regarding "child's best interest".

Currently dominant doctrine basically follows the guideline in these cases that mother's best interest is children's best interest as well. For this reason solely, judges are encouraged and even demanded to overrule or disregard any opinion for enforcement of child custody cases through some sort of penalties.

These legal practices are a reason why relationships usually end in a way where a parent whose capability or parental role never got questioned prior to relationship breakdown - suddenly gets to be deemed as an optional parent or a weekend nanny, while this role can also be revoked or denied on a mother's whim, regardless of court's decisions - unless she's discredited as a parent herself. If a mother wants to cut ties with her ex and wants to alienate children from ex parent, courts were unable to stop it and were generally unable to penalize such practice.

Not until recent, seemingly irrelevant legal changes occurred some months ago in Michigan, which guideline judges to resolve the blatant abuse of child custody and deliberate alienation of young children from non-custodial parent by taking the children away, deeming it a bad parenting practice on part of residential parent. It can, in effect and, result with courts literally taking the children away from custodial parent and i.e. declare the mother as unfit for parenting, or even switch the custody case without the need to discrediting the mother's parenting skills - since the way to discredit the parenting skills would be desire to diminish, alienate or otherwise facilitate hostile relationship between the children and a father.
Legal mechanisms of "proving" such actions are left in a very ambiguous way indeed.
But in theory, the new practice follows the guideline where the child's best interest is to have both (biological) parents willing to parent as part of child's life and it allows the judges to revoke custodial arrangements or even take the children away by declaring that deliberate parental alienation obstructed child's best interest, thus making one into a bad parent. It is a dubious way of reasoning on many counts indeed, primarily for cases where some folks may solely desire to be single parents from a get-go, paying the medical procedures (donor material, IVF, surrogacy) to achieve it.

This ambiguous and largely undefined legal change came to a first test when the judge decided to take what she deemed as "the most severe case" and exercise new legal changes.
In an atrocious break-up, children ended up with the mother, all under 10 y/o. Over the course of years, the children grew up to be alienated from the former father. The word "former" is used by me deliberately, since a guy was couldn't establish contact with the children over the course of five years, despite using his time, money and an attorney to achieve it. Ultimately, judge concluded that "it may be too late already", but still decided to exercise the new rules by taking the children to Child's Village - a rehabilitation program for misbehaving children. This is a verdict which blamed the breakdown of parent-children relationship on children's mother, effectively declaring her as bad parent and ruling that that children's best interest was violated through her actions. Due to an impossibility to make children want visit their father, children are now sent to the Children's Village and may spent their vacation in a summer camp as well. This is done as a guideline for dealing with the practice that is now deemed as "against children's best interest" and thus declares the custodial parent responsible for deliberately obstructing the link with the other parent willing to play a role in children's lives.

Judging the way articles were written across various new media, you can clearly see that the wording they use in the news title is coinciding with the practice they support: the old one or new one. The outcome of this new practice is already put at odds with this, as well as judge's future career.


This topic can easily be steered into one that fits Great Debates, regarding various things that it addresses, including court practices or what practice makes one a good parent, however this is a relationship forum and I'm primarily interested in the following, assuming that this practice becomes widespread:
1. How will it affect romantic relationships and primarily the post-breakup behavior
2. Will it have the same effects on relationship stability, primarily the likelihood of breakups for couples with children

I do realize that the change in legal practices on "determining a bad parent" weren't only or primarily about parental alienation and that the main focus (and also most controversial for many) was about vaccination practices that it got generally packaged in, but the vaccination practices are NOT something I want to discuss in this topic. It's solely about the effects on general relationships stability (and post-breakups) in case if this practice becomes a new standard.

[dysgenic]

The way to solve the problem is to make 50/50 residential custody mandatory in all divorces.

[2mares]

I think at its base this is a good doctrine. I'm not convinced that it will work in practice.

I really don't believe it will have much affect on romantic relationships though. IMO these mothers who alienate their children from their fathers are flawed to begin with. They will continue to push the envelope until dragged in and out of court until they eventually lose custody then they will move on to the next victim. Or they will realize that the court no longer puts up with that behavior and they will follow the parenting guidelines. I do not think it will change the way some people go about relationships and reproduction.