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This week's "virtual visitation" ruling by a Massachusetts court
points to a new and dangerous trend in family law--judges
permitting mothers to move their children hundreds or thousands
of miles away from their fathers, and justifying the separation
by ordering Internet video conferencing as a purported
substitute for a father's time with his children.
In her ruling, Judge E. Chouteau Merrill awarded a Boston-area
woman sole custody of her three small children, and gave her
permission to move the children 225 miles away. Merrill granted
two weekend visits a month to Paul, the ex-husband and father of
the couple's five year-old son and twin two year-old daughters.
The children will be moved to Long Island, New York.
Paul's standard weekday visitation was replaced by ''virtual
visits'' on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6 to 7 p.m. Merrill
explained that the computer conferences are relatively cheap and
will allow Paul to read to his children and help them with their
homework.
According to Tom Harrison, publisher of Lawyers Weekly USA,
virtual visitation is the "cutting edge of divorce law" and will
"become accepted and possibly even commonplace over the next few
years."
Hundreds of thousands of divorced dads like Paul are victims of
"Move Away Moms" who either do not value their children's
relationships with their fathers, place their own needs above
those of their children, or use geography as a method of driving
fathers out of their children's lives. The misplaced use of
virtual visitation as a rationalization for the troubled
consciences of both move away moms and family court judges will
exacerbate the problem.
In one highly publicized case, a self-deluded mother said that
virtual visitation allowed her to "feel more comfortable that
I'm not destroying my son's relationship with his father" by
deciding to move away. It seems unlikely that, were the
situations reversed, she would be happy with biweekly virtual
visitations.
Even if one accepts the Merrill ruling's dubious rationale,
virtual visitation opens up endless opportunities for
interference by custodial parents. Today many divorced dads
endure the heartache of being told that they cannot see their
children because they always have "dentist appointments" or
"birthday parties to attend" during their scheduled visitation
times. In the era of virtual visitation, there will be an
inordinately large number of technical problems with custodial
parents' web cameras, and the repair shops will be operating at
an unusually slow pace.
When such interference occurs, divorced dads' only recourse will
be to scrape together the money to go back to court. However,
it is doubtful that many judges will be willing to hold a mother
in contempt of court for not fixing her computer.
In addition, for Paul (and other fathers of young children), the
video conferencing will be almost impossible to do without the
presence and assistance of Paul's ex-wife. No doubt he does not
want to share what few precious moments he has with his children
with the woman who took them so far away from him.
Nor can Paul and men like him easily move to be closer to his
children. Paul bears a child support burden of nearly $2,000 a
month (perhaps he should ask Judge Merrill if he can pay
"virtual child support") and could easily fall behind if he
moves to New York and cannot quickly find a well-paying job.
Because Massachusetts noncustodial parents with past-due child
support are assessed interest at 12% annually, as well as
penalties at 6% annually, arrearages mount rapidly. And even if
Paul does move to New York, there is no guarantee that his
ex-wife will let him see his children, and getting courts to
enforce visitation rights is often difficult.
Despite the approval of many judges, legal experts, and women's
advocates (who oppose laws restricting a custodial mother's
right to move her children), this Orwellian Massachusetts ruling
serves only to divide fathers from their children. As one
divorced dad noted:
"I want to hug my children, not wave to them through a computer
screen. Virtual visitation sounds a lot like visiting from the
inside of a jail cell. No--in a jail cell you can stick your
arm out between the bars and hold your child's hand. A ‘virtual
dad' can't even do that."
This column first appeared in the
Boston Globe
(7/12/02)
Glenn
Sacks' columns on men's and fathers' issues have appeared in dozens of America's
largest newspapers. Glenn can be reached via his website at
www.GlennSacks.com or
via email at Glenn@GlennSacks.com.
Dianna Thompson is a founder and executive director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children (www.acfc.org). She can be contacted by e-mail at
DThompson2232@aol.com.
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