[QUOTE=Happy Scrappy Hero Pup]
The fact that the father is not the one making day-to-day decisions in the life of the child and is withholding consent for what could be seen as reasons of legal gamesmanship leads me to side with the judge in that it’s the mother that should be making the decisions without living in fear of the father’s veto power.
The fact that what the father did (in my eyes, anyway) is completely justified (ho-baggery in juveniles is grounds for grounding in MY world) makes the situation doubly shitty, because this is a case where situational ethics (which I’m not inclined to support) actually has a pretty good foundation.
[/QUOTE]
The case itself is a little bit absurd but its a sympton of a long term problem that will increasingly damage western society and along with it our quality of life.
There has been a substantial increase in the number of divorces where the couples have children and it looks to carry on rising indefinitely.
This in itself is not a problem if the parents are mature enough(and I’m not talking about their age here)to genuinlly want whats best for the children irregardless of which parent has custody.
There shouldn’t be any debate about whether its OKor not for kids to smoke,drink
or attend school regulary to give some non controversial examples.
But all too often thats not what the parents want,instead they want the kids to love THEM more then the other one or even to hate the other one.
So they try to buy the kids love with excessive presents,pocket money etc.and by not being strict enough to enforce boundaries,reinforce appropriate behaviour and instil a level of self dicipline.
If one parent says that the kid cant stay up after ten oclock on schooldays then when the child tries to play off that parent against the other as they most certainly will given even the least chance to do so then the other parent should back the first to the hilt and warn off any other cynical attempts at manipulating the adults.
But what often happens in practice is a parent will portray the other as an old stick in the mud.fuddy duddy etc. and themselves as a “Fun”,understanding older friend or sibling then a source of guidance and or direction.
The result is that the child comes to accept that what it WANTS rather then what it needs is the norm and that the whole world revolves around them.
They find discipline harder to take,their own self discipline is of a low order,failures are taken more traumatically and the stamina to carry on against adverse circumstances notably lacking.
As a result their level of maturity and responsibility for their own actions with regard to their age is diminished as is their self sufficiency.
Of course it would be ridiculous to blame ALL of this on weak parenting but IMHO it plays a big enough part.
The tragedy is that these not so adequate kids/teens grow into not so adequate adults who are much more likely to become parents younger,have larger families and more liklihood of marriage breakdowns so repeating the cycle on a larger scale.
Please note that I am not moralizing on the sanctity of marriage or how evil divorce is because I dont actually believe either of those arguments.
So our society has an increasing number of dysfunctionals of all ages resulting in more crime,more anti social behaviour,substance dependancy,poverty and I wouldn’t be stunned with amazement to find increased levels of mental illness also as a result.
Usual disclaimers here,I’m not religious or a moralist and my views are based on the large numbers that I have seen around me past and present with friends,colleagues and neighbours .
I hope that my opinion is based on dispassionate rationale rather then "My kids are Angels,its other peoples,its the schools fault,my ex is a bitch and all the other excuses otherwise adult and less then adult people trot out when found wanting.
