The toxic cycle of bad parents has to end

In a world full of absent fathers, the ones who choose to be present seem to have to jump hurdles before they are allowed to be actively present.

When parents resort to courts to adjudicate matters relating to their child, we must accept that when two elephants are fighting, it is the grass that suffers.

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Mothers will speak of fathers who fail to meet their financial obligations. As a result, father and child relationships are strained, because finances supersede an emotional connection.

Perhaps if the father was allowed to foster a relationship, that relationship would obligate him to financially provide for someone he knows and loves – just a thought?

Fathers on the other end of the spectrum, have abdicated responsibility in so many spheres, that as we mark them present in some spheres, we struggle to hide our shock – their presence shocks us.

More common than those that are present are those that are not and, therefore, their absence defines the way in which we treat those who are present.

A warped way of doing things but if we are honest, it is the way in which things are being done. Kept under a hawk’s eye, because fathers disappear.

And when fathers are now forced to frequent courts in order to exercise their parental rights, while held to their obligations in the form of maintenance, we ask ourselves who truly holds the cards and who really knows and understands the best interest of the child?

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At the centre of it all are people, unbeknown to the personal situation of the child, the individual who will declare that the mother or father’s rights are paramount – forgetting that what may be important for the mother or father may not be best suited for the child.

Sometimes, the toxicity of a parent infiltrates so far that it rots the relationship that they could, or should, be building with the child. In all of this, while the parent has worrisome behaviour which may affect the child.

How is their right to access more important than the sanctity of the children’s environment? It is important to remain gender-neutral because it is not just fathers that are questionable, mothers are, too.

When courts sentence a mother for parental alienation, before we make Jenny’s story applicable to that of Caroline, let us ask questions as not all alienation is maintenance-driven.

The toxic cycle of parents has to end with our generation, by any means.