Family Law - it sure ain't easy

I am not at all sure why, but sometimes bullies just burst puss at everyone and it can be an appalling job to scrape it all off.

So imagine if someone told your kid that they had the RIGHT to determine where they live when they are 12. You figure that this could not possibly be the case. FFS they can't vote til they're 18, and can't leave home til they are 16, so how could it possibly be right that they can decide where are gonna live at 12?

Trawling through the Family Law sites seems to give you cause to celebrate, except that there is nothing definitive. Kids are sometimes asked their preferences and sometimes this is considered important and sometimes not and sometimes kids are not asked at all. So there are no LAWS as such, only applications applied by mediators and judges to individual cases and that seems reasonable. Each case on it's merit, consideration for what is best for each kid.

Except that I reckon it encourages people to follow their fear and not apply for court orders in case something untoward happens and they lose everything. After all it would not be unusual that someone lies in court and if they are very good at it they could come out victorious. And maybe it's better to have some influence rather than none. And maybe it's possible to counteract the damage done by the other parent during YOUR time.

As I guess is always the case, there are no guarantees so a good deal of bravery and faith in the system is needed just to have a go.

But there's the rub. I have long thought that the trouble in our society is that you get the justice you can afford, so if you are skint, you are a bit buggered. Yeh there are freebie avenues which are very tardy and not at all reliable and so you would need to be even braver to go down that route. At least if you were paying someone they might be on your side, stand up for you, take time to listen and have a vested interest in the outcome?

What happens when one parent has the cash and the other doesn't?  Does the money win? And stats would show that it is usually the woman in that scenario without the cash. It really is all quite a gamble.

And the idea that you just have to have faith in the ability of the mediators and judges to see through the bullshit and find the truth, scares the hell out of me.

We watch good old Judge Judy and she seems pretty wise to me, though I reckon that she gets it wrong sometimes.

Zig's father has told him that he has the right to decide to come and live with him when he's 12. And he's conned Zig into believing that living at the arse end of buggery and sorting himself to and from school miles away from his mother will be a hoot. And worse still, he's convinced Zig that all his little friends at his Mum's place, well they just hate him and that he needs to go to a different high school so he can make new friends.

He has convinced Zig that it is his turn to have him, that his Mum has had him long enough, but the truth is that Zig just always feels that his father needs some looking after. Hardly the job of a kid - but that seems to be the way of it.

And for all these years the bastard has bullied Bell and has so eroded her confidence that I am not sure she will be up for the paper warfare. I have nothing good to say about him. I can't help feel that this latest bombshell is yet another way of having a good slap at Bell. If he considered what is best for Zig, he'd have disappeared years ago.