Parental Responsibility Essay Example
Parental Responsibility Essay Example

Parental Responsibility Essay Example

Available Only on StudyHippo
  • Pages: 8 (1962 words)
  • Published: November 23, 2016
  • Type: Essay
View Entire Sample
Text preview

To what extent is this an accurate summary of the law on parental responsibility? Consider whether compulsory joint birth registration in the case of unmarried fathers would be a helpful reform. The Children’s Act defines parental responsibility as “all the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities and authority which by law a parent of a child has in relation to the child and his prperty”.

The law does not tell us exactly what this means but in a broad sense it is fairly clear what is meant by this. It is much easier to define a ‘normal’ family – a husband and wife and the children of their marriage – than it is to define the powers and responsibilities of the people in it’. Even though the law does not give us the exact meaning of paren

...

tal responsibility in a list, it does tell us that all parents receive parental responsibility on conception of a child except unmarried fathers who do not. There is also no clear understanding on why unmarried fathers do not receive parental responsibility but we can look at different factors in which help us understand why that may be the law, and how if possible we could improve on this law.

From the point of conception the mother of the child has responsibility over that child. The mother has complete control over whether to carry on or terminate the pregnancy. From this fact it becomes quite obvious that unmarried fathers have no automatic parental responsibility, if they did then the future of the child would not just lay in the hands of the mother, but in both genetic parents.

View entire sample
Join StudyHippo to see entire essay

Parental responsibility lies differently in different cases of parentage; there are different circumstances in which it would be a problem if the unmarried father was given parental responsibility automatically.

Improvement of the law with such thing as the compulsory joint birth registration could cause problematic towards single mothers with children conceived in difficult life conditions. Even though an unmarried father has no automatic parental responsibility they can acquire parental responsibility. The simplest way an unmarried father who is living in a family home with the mother and child can obtain parental responsibility is if he is registered as the father of the child on the birth certificate of that child, this is covered under section four.

This option of obtaining parental responsibility may be the simplest for some unmarried fathers, but when it comes to unmarried fathers who are not in a relationship with the mother or have fathered a child in complicated situations they could struggle for an agreement with the mother to be registered on the birth certificate, therefore they do not receive parental responsibility.

Other ways which an unmarried father can obtain his parental responsibility include entering into a parental responsibility agreement with the mother or obtaining a parental responsibility order from the court also covered in section four. Section twelve gives parental responsibility through a residence order and section five states it can be given when appointed to be a guardian. In 2008 there where around 45,000 children registered without the name of the father. There is however no way to tell exactly what percentage of those parents are living in a happy nuclear family just unmarried.

justify">If the reform to the law brought in automatic parental responsibility that percentage of fathers wouldn’t have an issue. At the same time we don’t know how the reform would affect the other percentage who have fathered children outside a nuclear family unit. When parental responsibility is brought up in court judges will pay respects to the parent’s wishes but they will decide what is best for the child in the process. ‘The welfare of the child is paramount consideration’.

Judges will follow the law in allowance with fathers who show an interest in taking up the responsibility of their child, if the father is more interested in taking responsibility over their child then the court can trust that allowing that father parental responsibility that he will follow through with his parental responsibility as well as the parental rights that come with that – ‘whenever possible the law should confer on a concerned father the stamp of approval because he has shown himself willing and anxious to pick up responsibility of fatherhood and not to deny or avoid it’ If a child s sufficiently mature the courts will take into account also how that child feels. A case of a four year old that did not want contact with their father and was fearful of him this was taken into account and the order for parental responsibility was refused. Following from the two cases it shows that courts will take into account both the child and parents view but they will almost always decide what is best for the child. ‘The latter are usually described as social parents’. When it comes to parentage not

all parents are genetically inclined with their parental responsibility.

There are both genetic and non-genetic families; both will have the same parental responsibilities as each other - ‘both have distinctive contributions to make to the life of a child’. Whether the parents are genetic or adoptive they still care for a child in the same way and should not be judged any different from each other. Whether you are an adoptive parent or a genetic parent they all fit into the concept of a nuclear family. ‘Being a parent is not just a matter of language but something which confers a legal status’.

When an unmarried father has a child the father becomes the legal parent but still has no parental responsibility, even with that status of legal parent. How do we determine the difference between the legal parent and the genetic parent? There are many different situations in which could complicate the status of legal and genetic parent. ‘Mother and unmarried partner produced a child together with the use of a donor sperm, the partner would not be the genetic parent but the sperm donor would, the partner of the mother would be the legal parent but have no parental responsibility.

The mother separates from the partner and marries another man and acquires a joint residence order with the new partner. The father is the legal parent, the husband is neither the legal or genetic parent but shares parental responsibility with the mother. There could not be a more difficult situation bringing together all of the problems of genetic and legal parents and the problems of parental responsibility. So how do

these problems fit in with lesbian couples or donor children? ‘Public awareness of lesbian mother families dates back to the 1970’s when reviously marries lesbian mothers began to fight for custody of their children when they divorced’. There are still two parents and a child which fits into the nuclear family. There could still be the same problems with obtaining parental responsibility that unmarried fathers would depending on the situation in which they have had the child. The case of a lesbian couple (M and P) who used one of the partner’s brother’s sperm (F) as donor so that the other partner could have a child (B), in which the lesbian couple would raise in a nuclear family. The biological father/uncle (F) requested parental responsibility.

It was decided in court that giving F parental responsibility of B would undermine M and P as parents. The courts did not find this in the best interest for B. If the reform in the law came into power how different would this case have turned out? F would automatically have parental responsibility over B which would have affected the nuclear family that they wanted with B. As mentioned, children can be conceived in all different life conditions. Whether the mother and father has been together unmarried for years, in an unhappy relationship, or the mother stays with her partner because there is no way out.

Both these factors can make for a very unhappy and unstable family life for a child. Each year there are around 13 million incidents of physical violence or threats of violence against women from partners or former partners. What if all

of these women or even half of them had children with their partners and because of compulsory joint registration those fathers received parental responsibility over their children? What would happen to their children? If the father could harm their mother then what is to say that because the father has responsibility over that child they will harm the child just like they do the mother?

Would any child born in a domestically violence relationship ever be safe? ‘the law has known for a long time that people are capable of treating children badly, although its notions of what is bad for children have varied with those of society at large. ’ What about children which are conceived through rape? We know that mothers have the right to decide once conceived if they choose to keep the child or not, but what happens if they choose to keep a child conceived by rape and then have to carry on a relationship with their rapist because he has been given automatic parental responsibility to that child?

If they choose to keep a child conceived by rape that is their decision, but they do not choose to have a relationship with the child’s father. A case in Massachusetts in which a rapist is asking for visitation rights to his child in which he conceived whilst raping a 14 year old girl. Deciding to keep a child at 14 is a tough choice on its own let alone being worried about the fact that the man who raped you may want contact with that child. Like domestic abuse how much would it affect this young girl if

that father was given automatic parental responsibility?

Joint birth registration comes about from figures mentioned in 2008 showing around 45,000 children each year are registered and do not include the name of the father. The idea of compulsory joint registration was brought in, in the hope that more single mothers would make the father aware of their responsibilities that they now endure for the child. It would also give the single father a new right to insist that he be registered as the father of the child. Both parents registering would mean both parents then would have parental responsibility of their child. When it comes to the reform in the law we have to consider absent fathers also.

What happens to the future of a family if and unmarried father is given automatic parental responsibility and is then absent from the child’s life for a period of time? How would the mother feel if the father came back into their child’s life all of a sudden and because of automatic parental responsibility could make changes in their child’s life? We have to consider all good and bad points of such a reform before we even consider it. Considering all of the information how can we tell that reforming the law for automatic parental responsibility can be a good idea?

There are ways for an unmarried father to gain his parental responsibility in court, where there is someone (a judge) who can differ between whether giving that father parental responsibility is a good or bad thing. If it is given automatically how can we know that that father will not abuse his parental

responsibility if not in a nuclear family unit, or that the child will not want it following from Re G (A Child)(Domestic Violence: Direct Contact) [2001] 2 FCR 134. We cannot expect that automatic parental responsibility will be a good reform for the law we can only expect that the law as it is now is doing its job.

Get an explanation on any task
Get unstuck with the help of our AI assistant in seconds
New