I've said it before and I will say it again: while shared parenting is a noble aspiration and certainly something we should promote and support as a concept, the fact of the matter is that as a public policy issue, shared parenting is a fart in the breeze to the government of Canada. As much as I like the idea of shared parenting as a child's right, the simple fact is that a significant number of divorced parents are complete idiots when it comes to guaranteeing that child's right.
We talk a good talk in Canada about "the best interests of the children", but the reality is that it's simply talk. It looks good to say "don't do this in front of the kids" but it's another thing entirely to practically apply that skill and frankly, in my experience, most divorced parents aren't prepared to separate their differences with a former spouse from their child's right to be raised by both mom and dad.
We can talk about feminist organizations and their wholesale opposition to shared parenting until the cows come home. The reality is that a change in behaviors has to occur at the parent level - regardless of what the law might be on a given day. Right now, it simply doesn't happen. We can point the finger of blame at the law for promoting adversarialism, at lawyers for applying adversarial tactics and judges for not giving each parent what they believe is their right until we are blue in the face: it starts with the parent - it has to.
From the government's perspective, this is a non-issue: shared parenting is "negative integer moot" as something that any government in Canada is going to address. Yes the laws are unfair, but parents are unfortunately more unfair in their dealings with each other for reasons known only to them. Very simply, it's easier to hate your ex-spouse and stick with the court order than it is to attend family mediation on a regular basis, participate in divorce education, separate your crap with your ex from the child's right to grow up with two parents who can stand being in the same room with each other.
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