The legal question
The legal question in case תמ”ש 39157-01-10, presented to Judge Ela Meraz of the Family Law Court in the Haifa district, was: Who has the main obligation to keep in touch with the children after the divorce?
The plaintiff (the father) sued his children through their mother, asking the court to cancel his child support due to the fact that his biological children refused to have any relationship with him.
In her decision on 11/11/12 the judge answered that, although parents are naturally and necessarily responsible for keeping in touch with their children, the children also need to seek good and permanent relationships with their parents.
A parent can ask a court to lower the child support he pays if the children refuse to have a normal and permanent connection with him; but efforts to create a healthy bond with his minor children falls on the parent’s shoulders. As adults, parents not only have the responsibility but should also have the tools to handle situations of attrition where children, for whatever reason, refuse to have a permanent relationship with them.
Tools are not naturally found in a parent, but are learned through hard work
A parent is born as a child with no tools. He goes through the “school of life,” where he should acquire the necessary emotional tools to handle various life challenges, including parenthood.
We all lack the necessary tools to some extent, and as a result we must be aware of the imminent emotional dangers with regard to our children. It is a constant learning process; there are no winners or losers – we are all aspirants in the school of life. Some of us will have less difficulty learning the tools and how to use them, and others will never learn to use them or, even worse, be in eternal denial, not admitting they lack the expertise.
The collateral damage
The damage caused by a bad relationship between parents and children is felt not only in the present but also in the future, as the judge wrote in her decision:
“It seems that the key to renewing contacts with the minors / children is in the hands of the plaintiff, and will certainly not be achieved by cancelling child support. However, the defendants’ future is before them. As they also have an interest in renewing contact, they should close this chapter in their lives, move on and leave the painful past behind; since the past can affect their emotional and mental development and cause severe damage in their future relationships with their respective spouses, and the court wishes them to have good relationships in the future.”
Parents and lawyers keep repeating the same mistakes
The family courts in Israel often deal with the tragedies of lawsuits by parents against their children and vice versa.
Somehow, some parents have not yet understood that a courtroom is the last place on Earth to which they should turn to find solutions for a dispute between themselves and their children. It doesn’t matter how deep and sincere the differences are between them – the courtroom is never a solution and judges are never sympathetic to such cases.
Winning a case against a parent or a child also entails losing some extended family connections. Unfortunately, we find families separated forever as a result of a lawsuit that should never have been brought to court.
Lawyers are neither expected to solve these kinds of problems, nor are they supposed to be mediators or give any psychological assistance. However, with great reservation, I must state that I believe lawyers could do much more to prevent these cases from coming to court.
Apply common sense
Judges in family courts have more power than in most other courts; they are not really bound to procedure and can dictate the proceedings by imposing “rules” on the parties and by correctly managing the court’s “timetable.”
Because the law does not oblige the parties to enter mediation or therapy, there is no legal method to force contenders in such cases to solve their differences outside of the courtroom. The judge can help them by offering a variety of options, even some without costs, but cannot force them to accept any other method but a final court decision, resolving the case but leaving many casualties – sometimes “critically wounded,” with slim chances of recovery.
It is our responsibility
As parents, we are privileged to be able to serve as good examples for our children. We also have a moral obligation to teach our children the real meaning of one of the most significant of the Ten Commandments: Honor your father and your mother.
