The Portrayal of Post-Separation Parents in the Speeches of the Principal Family Court Judge of New Zealand

AbstractThis article examines the ways in which parents negotiating care and contact arrangements for their children following separation are portrayed within speeches of the New Zealand Principal Family Court Judge (2005 to 2012). Our analysis finds the speeches to be marked by gender neutrality, and promote prescriptive normative 'ideals' of cooperation and an orientation to the future uncomplicated by the past. We suggest that these texts set out an informal philosophy surrounding the court, and that they construct parents in ways that may work against the interests of mothers, and do not necessarily align with achieving solutions that are in the best interests of children. Our findings suggest the need for professionals working in the area of family law to bring to their work a nuanced and contextual consideration of separating parents and their situations, including recognition of gendered power dynamics.Key wordsfamily law, custody disputes, gender, power, speechesIntroductionThe Family Court touches the lives of parents and their children in profound ways, beyond the letter of the law and the formal proceedings and judicial rulings within the courtroom. As scholars of governmentality would argue (e.g., Ewald, 1990; Rose & Valverde, 1998), the conduct of citizens in a country like New Zealand is governed not only by the law directly, but also by norms which co-exist with the law in interdependent ways. Thus, when mothers and fathers are faced with negotiating post-separation care and custody arrangements for their children they will be guided by the dominant norms of conduct within the society as much, or more than, they will be by the law directly. Such norms are, of course, formed and reproduced within broader cultural contexts, but they are also shaped directly and indirectly within specifically legal contexts.If we think about a 'legal complex' as an 'assemblage of legal practices, legal institutions, statutes, legal codes, authorities, discourses, texts, norms and forms of judgement' (Rose & Valverde, 1998, p. 542), we can see the many avenues that exist for influence. Through efforts to educate parents or to inform the public at large, for instance, agents of the Family Court (judges, lawyers, court officials and delegated professionals of various kinds) provide information and ideas about how separated mothers and fathers should be and act. Carried out in the shadow of the law, however, with the implicit backing of legal authority and supported by scientific truth claims from the psy disciplines (e.g., psychology), statements made in this context hold considerable power to influence commonsense ideas about what is right and wrong, and what is an appropriate resolution to conflict over the care of children following parental separation. The cost of flouting the norms promoted in these contexts is not merely the risk of being judged unconventional, eccentric, or odd; but rather the risk of having one's family life rearranged by a stranger, and possibly losing the care of children or even the ability to protect them from identified sources of emotional hurt and physical harm. Thus, even ostensibly benign or helpful interventions proffered in the service of 'education' or public commentary in this context can have a harsher side to them. Bearing this in mind highlights the potentially coercive way in which the norms embedded within the legal complex can operate.At the same time as the Court's 'voice' - enacted through its policies, patterns of practice, and proclamations - is influential in shaping cultural expectations and normalising particular social formations, that voice is itself shaped by the cultural values and assumptions of its key actors. Unlike laws which are explicit, forged through some degree of public consultation and debate, and documented with precision, the mundane non-legal underpinnings of the Family Court's operations are rarely acknowledged, let alone open to critical examination. …