All, I am really sorry to say that Dr Penelope Leach is up to her old tricks again. Her views undermine Shared Parenting because she believes that mothers are naturally better parents than fathers in the first few years of a childs life. She says that mens brains are wired differently to womens although they can adapt to the role of primary carer. (I hope other fathers groups will take note). Anyway she is following the same path trodden by Jenn McIntosh PhD in Australia and enlisted the help of Dr Allan Schore who is described as the American Bowlby. Dr John Bowlby stated, What is believed to be essential for mental health is that the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate, and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment. The mother cares for and comforts the child whereas in the young childs eyes father plays second fiddle(Maternal Care and Mental Health 1952). Professor Sir Michael Rutter in Maternal Deprivation Reassessed Second Edition (1982) contradicted this research. Lady Justice Hale, in my own proceedings before she became Baroness Richmond Deputy President of the Supreme Court, described the difference between the two approaches in the following way; 15. Sir Michael qualified the original theory of maternal deprivation which had been developed by John Bowlby and expressed for popular consumption in a book called Child Care and the Growth of Love. That theory was that children were damaged by separation from their mother or mother figure. Sir Michael Rutter pointed out that children were not invariably so damaged and that, in any event, other people, including their fathers, are also very important to children. At the time I contacted the Australian Attorney Generals department with the support of the Shared Parenting Council of Australia SPCA to complain about Dr McIntosh and Dr Penelope Leach is repeating the same flawed narrative. Her organisation which is called the Mindful Policy Group have organised a conference in London for September. I will include LINKS below for further information. Many thanks, kip mindfulpolicygroup/mpg-projects/september-family-law-reform-conference/
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 06:27:15 +0000
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