Should “Grandparents Law” be introduced in Britain?

Many people believe in the important role that grandparents play in the upbringing of children, despite the fact that Western society has changed significantly over the past few decades, and that the idea of a connected family is quite different to that in many Eastern countries.

That being the case, there are still cases where grandparents are unable to see their grandchildren due to familial breakdown and a lack of communication, and it seems to be for this reason that the Conservatives have suggested that grandparents will be given greater recognition under a Tory government.

In cases where parents split and divorce, new laws could ensure that grandparents are still granted access to their grandchildren, or even be given priority in custody cases, depending on the circumstances.

David Shields, from the Grandparents’ Association, said that the current law means grandparents have no voice or say at all. “They have no more rights than a stranger. They don’t even have a right to stay in touch with their grandchildren,” he told the Daily Mail.

We hear stories of grandparents who, after sharing many happy times with their grandkids, and helping out their children and inlays, are told they can no longer see them because of acrimonious divorce and custody battles.

It seems a great shame that the only way for generations of a family to see one another is through the legal system, but perhaps that’s better than nothing.

In the ideal world, even in split families, children would naturally be able to see their grandparents on both the maternal and paternal side without the need for people to fight over them.

Children so often get used as pawns in messy separations, and grandparents could even provide some much needed stability in times of turmoil.

No separation is totally without mess. Perhaps a change in the law would help all those involved in particularly messy scenarios, while more amicable (or, at least, accommodating) families can sort things out for themselves.

What do you think? Does Britain need a change in the law to boost grandparents’ rights?

Pennsylvania parents reminded of safe haven law

Pennsylvania’s Department of Public Welfare yesterday reminded expectant and new parents that the State has a “Safe Haven” law which allows them legally and confidentially to ‘turn over’ unwanted infants to any hospital, up to 28 days old, as an alternative to abandonment.

While it sounds a very harsh way of putting things, it’s much kinder to both mother and baby in a situation where they feel they simply cannot keep the child, to be able to hand the baby, unharmed, to a responsible organisation without fear of prosecution.
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US CyberTipLine tops 500,000 suspected child exploitation/pornography reports

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) has announced that it’s received its half-a-millionth report of suspected child pornography or child exploitation crime.

The half-million mark comes nine years after the CyberTipline was mandated by the U.S. Congress to serve as the nation’s “9-1-1″ for reporting incidents of child sexual exploitation. NCMEC’s Exploited Child Division (ECD) personnel analyze and develop the leads, which are then referred to law enforcement for investigation and prosecution. Since its creation, the number of reports to the CyberTipline has shown significant increases in many of the reporting categories.

“Here’s what we know, an estimated 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 10 boys will be sexually victimized in someway before they reach the age of 18,” said NCMEC President and CEO Ernie Allen. “The constant growth in reports to the CyberTipline is staggering. Even more disturbing is that these figures don’t reflect the true number of children being victimized because sex crimes involving minors are grossly underreported.”

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Violence on TV: Legislation or parental responsibility?

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the USA has concluded that Hollywood isn’t doing enough to protect children from viewing violent programming on cable and satellite TV, and that Congress should authorise government action.

Unsurprisingly, the TV networks aren’t keen to bend to this kind of pressure.

There’s plenty of talk on both sides about what the right thing to do is.

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UK Conservative party say marriage is good for society

Last year, the British Cnservative party said that the church should promote marriage, and now former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith is heading up the social justice policy group and speaking out on marriage and society.

There’s a link between families breaking down and gun crime, he says
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Oklahoma ‘covenant marriages’ aim to lower divorce rate

The Daily O’Collegian has posted an interesting article questioning a new bill introduced into the Oklahoma legislature that recommends couples who are to be married go through premarital counselling, enter a so-called ‘covenant marriage’, and then be unable to divorce based on grounds of incompatibilty.
It doesn’t exclude other grounds for divorce, such as abuse, and presumably actual adultery, but it does suggest that couples who have undergone this counselling are somehow immune from problems later on in their marriages.

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