Staci Smith Writing 102

Staci Smith
Writing 102
Dr. Koster
April 15, 1997

Choosing In Child Custody

"Mama, please don't make me go. I don't wanna go. You always make me go, and I hate going over there." This situation is what many parents face when the time comes for visitation. The rate of divorce is rising rapidly in the United States and becoming an epidemic. Mary Ann Mason, author of From Father's Property To Children's Rights, says "a child born in 1990 had about a fifty percent chance of falling under the jurisdiction of a court in a case involving where and with whom the child would live" (121). As a child of divorce and a custody battle, I know what children go through in these cases, and it is not easy. The state has in some cases taken over the role of the parent and forgotten about the child. Instead of the government choosing where the child is going to live and which of the parents will retain legal custody of the child, it should first ask the child what he/she wants. After all, the child is the person most affected by the decision. Greater measures need to be taken to ensure that children's opinions and feelings are involved in the decision making process of custody cases.

Because of the increase of custody cases over the past thirty years, the courts have had to come up with new ways for awarding parents custody of their children. According to lawyers, here are now two types of custody. Sole legal custody is when only one parent has rights and responsibilities to make decisions concerning the child's health, education, and welfare. The second type is joint or shared custody, which is the mutual responsibility and involvement of both parents regarding the child's welfare (Buehler and Gerard 440) . 86% of custody cases result in joint custody unless a parent expresses no interest in having responsibilities for the child (Maccoby and Mnookin 107).

From experience, I have found that most children do not like bouncing from one parent to another, because many times, the parents use the child as a messenger when they are having conflicts. They even downgrade the other parent in front of the child. This usually tends to have a harmful effect on the child because he/she feels torn between the two parents. That is the way I felt and some of my friends who went through the same experience also felt the way I did. Garrity and Baris agree with me in saying, " [children] are forced to make too many compromises in their own development in valiant efforts to cope with parents' hostility" (29).

The contempt that one parent has for the other can have very harmful effects on a child in many ways. Sometimes, the child can grow up and not ever want a relationship with anyone or, become "depressed, withdrawn, uncommunicative, and aggressive" (Garrity and Baris 37). A woman that I know named Amy has two children, a boy and a girl, ages six and nine. She is divorced from their father and every weekend she has to take them to see him. The children kick and cry every time they have to go because their father always tells them how awful their mother is and how he hates putting up with them. This verbal abuse has caused her to start taking the children to a psychiatrist because they have stopped interacting with the other children at their school. With problems such as these that can arise from joint custody cases, it is not always in the best interest of the child to award custody to both parents.

To deal with these problems, there are always alternative solutions like sole custody for the qualified parent or therapy for the children. Either way, a divorce is almost always very hard on the child. When deciding to award a parent sole custody of a child, there are many things that should be taken into consideration. Where or with whom does the child want to live? Which parent would provide economic stability? Which parent has more of a bond with the child? Where would the child be happier and safer? Which parent is more likely to help the child do well in school? All of these questions should be answered before awarding a parent sole custody of his/her child. The first question should be the most important. If a child is thrown into a home where he/she does not want to be or is unhappy, then he/she is more likely to rebel or become depressed.

During my high school years, I was very unhappy because my father had custody of my sister and me. I never got along with my father because he never supported me or ever told me that he loved me or was proud of me. This is a very important part of a child's life. A child needs to feel love and support from his/her family. I became very depressed and rebelled by sneaking out and acting like I didn’t care about him or anything else. This happens to many teenagers that go through divorce. For example, in high school, I had a friend named Chevy who always thought that she had a perfect family. Her parents separated after her first year in college and now she has become so withdrawn that she doesn't eat. She has become depressed and anorexic. In ail of the frenzy over who will get what, no one has thought about Chevy's feelings and now she is suffering.

Courts can incorporate the children's feelings and opinions into the trials which would make the trials less traumatic for the children. Allowing the children to voice their opinions is the most obvious thing that could be done. Courts should listen to what the children have to say because they all have many ideas on how to make the process of custody trials much easier. Lee Robinson, a lawyer who has practiced in South Carolina's family courts to help the children, says that courts could design court facilities with children in mind, discourage "anti-child" behavior in the courtroom, establish a local bar committee on children in the courts, and give cases involving children priority on the docket (76). All of these ideas would help the cases become easier and make the children more comfortable. After all, they are the ones being thrust out of the two-parent home that they are used to and placed into a brand new, one-parent situation.

Many people are against allowing children of young age to voice their opinions with regards to where they want to live. For many years, "children remained the silent party in custody disputes, rarely given voice until adolescence" (Mason 122). Until recently, courts automatically awarded mothers custody of their children unless they (the mothers) were proven to be unfit. Children had no say in that decision because it was said by the lawmakers for many years that children have a special bond with their mothers. I feel that children have bonds with the parent emotionally closest to them. People have used the clichés “daddy’s little girl” and “mama's boys” for many years, but I don't always find that to be true. I personally have a bond with my mother because we have always had a relationship where we talked and shared feelings and ideas (some people do this with their fathers ) which would make that bond stronger. So, I don't think that most children are born with a bond to their mothers.

For years, people have been fighting for children's rights as individuals and people, not property. However, Lee Robinson points out, in custody cases the BIOC standard (Best Interest Of The Child) is used without evaluating the feelings of the child/children involved. Children are allowed to make decisions concerning where they want to live at the age of twelve but children who are in their tender years have opinions that aren't as valued as those of adolescents in the court systems (Robinson 76). In this day and age, children cannot be ignored. A child has divorced his parents and the rates of depression and withdrawal are increasing among younger children. These problems cannot go on. The system has to change.

I feel that with all of the problems occurring in families these days, the process of divorce and the following child custody battle would be much easier if children had more rights in the cases. Judges should start taking the children's feelings more seriously and make their decisions based on what the children want. The children are the people who will have to deal with the new homes and new families if their parents remarry. Children are torn from their happy homes that they know and are bounced back and forth from one parent to another. Instead of the state taking over the role as parent, they should let the parents be parents and tried to take over the role of the child in order to see and feel what the child is going through. Maybe if the court could see through the eyes of the child, there would be a decrease in the damage caused to children by a stressful trial.