A Father's Rights

On Sunday, Father's Day, a divorced father spent the day with his children, and when the day was done he dropped them off at two different foster homes.  While he has remarried to a woman who has legally certified to be willing to be a stepmother to all three children, the mother faces impaired driving charges and had the children taken by Durham CAS after suspected drug use.

The reason this is all happening, the reason why the father has not been granted custody of his children by Durham CAS?  The mother lives in Durham Region, while the father lives in northeast New York State.  Apparently, a Canadian citizen living in the U.S. cannot have custody of his own children.

Generally speaking, foster care is to be used for children who do not have a relative willing to take them in.  That is not true in this case.  The Durham CAS would prefer to fund foster care for the three children rather than allow them to move to the U.S.

What is the purpose of this regulation, that the custody of children under the care of CAS cannot be granted to non-Regional residents?  Is Canada so desperate for population growth and/or maintenance that it would rather let those kids stay in foster care rather than with their biological father?  Of what benefit is that to the children, the primary clients (and supposed charges) of the CAS?  How can living in local foster care be an improvement in quality of life over being with their father and a woman who wants to help raise them?

In the past, the Canadian family courts system has been severely biased in favour of the mother; the father was some sort of second-class parent.  While the situation is nowhere near as bad as it used to be, it still has a long way to go before a father is viewed as a parenting equal to a mother in the eyes of a judge.  This case is just another example of how fathers often get the short end of the stick.  I would even go so far as to argue that if the roles were reversed, the U.S. resident mother would already have custody of her kids in the wake of everything they have gone through.

But he's not a mother.

Comments

[heather]

What a sad situation for all of them. This story emphasizes yet again that we have a "legal" system and not a "justice" system. I sincerely hope that the next judge to hear this case gives his or her head a shake and makes the decision to act in the best interests of the children!

[One lone adoptee]

So now you are deleting comments you don't like?

Way to manipulate the adoptees who disagree with you. I pity your kids.