This user-friendly and practical book is a step-by-step guide for fathers seeking contact with their children after separation and divorce, and all those connected with a father in that situation. Divided into three parts, it explains with clarity and compassion how the law affects fathers and navigates the reader through this increasingly complicated area of family law, and potential areas of conflict.
Part 1 deals with the family, and the effects of separation on children and fathers; Part 2 deals with the current law, the workings of the family court system and recent important changes. In this thoroughly revised and expanded second edition, the author has included additional sections on paternity; civil partnerships; grandparents; the separate representation of children; litigants in person; disclosure, confidentiality and publicity; and appeals. Part 3 deals with the issue of reform and considers proposals for change.
Celia Conrad’s indispensable best-selling book remains essential reading for anyone interested in issues of concern for fathers and offers invaluable insight into the plight of loving fathers separated from their children.
Celia Conrad sets out her reasons for writing Fathers Matter in the first paragraph of the preface to the first edition and in the introduction.
“The idea for this book was conceived as long ago as 1999, while I was still working full time in private practice. One father, for whom my then firm was acting, asked me if I had considered writing a book to help address fathers’ issues.
After a chance encounter with a father in my local gym – my firm had ironically represented the mother – and to whom I subsequently spoke at length about his own predicament, I felt compelled to write this book.
The content of this book stemmed from a number of conversations I had with male clients during the course of their relationship break-up and in relation to their respective roles as fathers. Several clients told me that, on separating from their wives/partners, they searched the bookshelves in their public library and all the major bookstores in order to find some information for fathers going through a divorce, or who were ‘splitting up’ with their partner. The only guides they could find were for mothers.Essentially what they were looking for was a user-friendly guide, which provided a thorough overview of the issues they now faced and addressed ways of dealing with those issues constructively. They indicated to me that they needed a comprehensive guide dealing with both the emotional impact on and legal implications of separation and divorce for fathers and their children…
I did not write this book because I am pro fathers and anti mothers, but to highlight the areas of concern fathers expressly requested I address, to provide information they need and to help raise their profile…”
This book is equally of interest to fathers, mothers, grandparents and the extended family because the information it contains is essential to anybody going through this process or going through it with them.
