Sarah's Library

2/3 - I really enjoyed Blood Vows. I found Helen's story interesting and disturbing - especially the last couple of chapters that weren't so much about her and Stuart's story, but the Australian legal system and their belief that it's better for the child to have contact with both parents no matter what. I constantly found myself shaking my head at the craziness and outright 'head in the sand-ness' of the courts forcing children to make unsupervised visits with fathers who had been violent with their mothers. The argument that "oh, he was only violent with his spouse" had me so angry I was clenching the book with rage - does that mean that when he slapped her so hard he split her lip; or when he knocked her over causing her to break her arm that it wasn't worth worrying about? Is that not a criminal offence? If I didn't know any better I would think I was talking about pre-1980s thinking, but no these new laws (or positions the courts were taking) came into use in 2006. It was easier for Helen to escape her abusive husband in 1976 than it would have been in 2007. The book was published in 2011, and mostly written in 2007, so the laws may have changed again, but reading about what Helen saw working in the Family Court has made an even stronger argument for not getting married or having children. The idea that if I married, and had kids, with a 'Stuart' and tried to escape his reign of terror I would be forced by law to attempt to reconcile with him, or at least hand my children over to him on an equal visitation basis is unconscionable.

In Melbourne a couple of weeks ago, an 11-year-old boy was beaten to death with a cricket bat by his father soon after the end of cricket training. When the police arrived they found the father armed with a knife, they attempted to pepper spray him but he didn't surrender so they shot him once in the chest. He died in hospital the next day. The boy's mother witnessed all this from just a few metres away. The father had a history of mental illness, was estranged from the mother and was under an Apprehended Violence Order, but the order still allowed him to visit his son during cricket training. All this because the courts feel that children 'need' to be parented by both parents, no matter the circumstance of the separation. I feel the need to show whoever it was that came up with those new laws pictures of what this Melburnian father did to his son and say "This is your fault, this boy would probably be alive were it not for your decision that it's in the child's best interest to have equal contact with both their parents. The next time you decide to make a law like this, think about the consequences, not just those with the loudest voices (father's rights groups who were clamouring on social media about the loss of their rights as fathers and the fact that all those claims of violence within the family were brought about by spiteful women who just wanted to take everything they could away from the fathers because they were feminists - what a load of misogynist crap!).

It was also interesting reading this because it gave me some insight into a successful Australian, now working in America, actress - Sarah Wynter - Stuart and Helen's daughter. Also Helen's mother, Joy Cummings, was the first female Lord Mayor of Newcastle (a city I used to live in, although not in concurrent time periods).