The Newsroom

Excerpts from the nation's press.

Back to Contents

The National Post
Saturday, January 23rd, 1999

Think twice before you marry a smoker
Advice from researchers

Corbin Andrews
National Post

New research from the University of Minnesota suggests that apart from being smelly and unhealthy, smokers are also prime candidates for divorce.

According to a new study by student Eric Doherty and his father, Dr. William Doherty, a family therapist at the university, smokers are much more likely than non-smokers to divorce.

"There is no question that smoking is an indicator for divorce,'' says Mr. Doherty. "Although we are not saying that it is the smoking itself that causes the problems. Smoking is a symptom of deeper problems that often end up in divorce if they are not addressed. You may want to think twice before marrying a smoker.''

The Dohertys studied 3,123 adults, aged 18 and over, using data collected by researchers at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. Their analysis revealed that 49% of smokers had been divorced, while only 32% of non-smokers had been. These results were consistent across all age, gender, class, and race groups.

According to Dr. William Doherty, it is not the smoking that is the trouble, though experts agree it can put a strain on marriages between smokers and non-smokers. Dr. Doherty believes that people who smoke have a predisposition to behaviours that can be damaging to their relationships.

Earlier studies by Dr. Doherty showed that most smokers pick up the habits as teenagers and are usually from broken homes.

"It appears that smokers have more psychological troubles than non-smokers,'' says Eric Doherty. "It may be that people with more anxiety are drawn to smoking.''

Dr. Jerald Bachman, senior research scientist with the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, agrees smokers probably carry more baggage than others. His own research, which monitored 33,000 young adults across the United States from their senior years in high school through to age 32, also showed smokers are more likely to divorce than non-smokers.

"We certainly found higher divorce rates among smokers,'' Dr. Bachman says. "And it is certainly reasonable to assume a correlation between smoking and psychological problems.''

Dr. Bachman's research also showed that it goes both ways. many of the subjects in his study who were light to moderate smokers began smoking more heavily once divorced. When these same people remarried a few years later, they returned to smoking less.

"It might show that being happily married may reduce the amount of cigarettes people smoke, and being unhappily married increases it,'' says Dr. Bachman. "Smoking is probably an irritant in a marriage but I think it's more the case that smoking is a symptom of a range of problems, rather than the cause.'' Related Sites

Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan
The institute where Dr. Jerald Bachman works.

Families, Systems & Health
The Journal of Collaborative Family Healthcare

Back to Contents

The National Post
Thursday, January 21st, 1999

PM contradicts justice minister over same-sex laws
Mixed signals in Ottawa: Chretien denies any plan to vet laws for gay discrimination

Tim Naumetz
Southam News

OTTAWA: Jean Chretien, the Prime Minister, yesterday contradicted Anne McLellan, his Justice Minister, over her claim that the cabinet is reviewing federal laws to eliminate discrimination against gays and lesbians.

After Ms. McLellan had raised the hopes of gay-rights groups early in the day by saying that Mr. Chretien's ministers are reviewing pertinent legislation to comply with recent court rulings, [N.B. See article following this] Mr. Chretien dashed them in the afternoon when he told journalists "it's not on the agenda of the government at this time."

The mixed signal followed reports about Liberal reaction to a 1998 court case involving pension arrangements for a same-sex couple, and a more recent court challenge of nearly 60 federal laws that allegedly discriminate against gay men and lesbians on the basis of sexual orientation.

Ms. McLellan said the federal government's decision not to appeal the 1998 Ontario court ruling -- which ruled it is discriminatory to deny survivor pension benefits to a spouse of the same sex -- has been followed by departmental reviews to ensure the decision is respected in all areas.

The 1998 court decision allowed Nancy Rosenberg, a staff member of the Canadian Union of Public Employees in Ottawa, to name her same-sex partner as the beneficiary of Ms. Rosenberg's pension benefits without penalty under the federal Income Tax Act.

"People have to understand the process we're involved in, coming out of Rosenberg and other decisions, is simply to review federal legislation, policies, and programs, in our respective area, to make sure that they are in accordance with the law," Ms. McLellan told reporters.

"That's what we're doing, individual ministers are doing that. You will have to speak with them as to where the work is at in their respective departments," she said

The statement drew immediate praise from John Fisher, executive director of Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere, and from Robert Gallagher, a director of the Foundation for Equal Families, the organization that launched the recent lawsuit challenging 58 federal statutes.

But, at a brief news conference winding up a two-day caucus retreat, Mr. Chretien scotched any suggestion that sweeping amendments to federal laws are imminent.

"We passed some legislation on that," the prime minister said in reference to an earlier government decision to extend spousal benefits to same-sex couples in the public service.

"There was some decisions of the Supreme Court and we're looking in the applications of these decisions. But I don't know if there is a need for legislation on that.

"There was a story about it, but it's not on the agenda of the government at this time."

As Mr. Chretien was speaking in front of the caucus room, an impatient and terse Ms. McLellan was around the corner in a Centre Block hallway, insisting the government will amend any discriminatory laws.

"We're very aware of what individual judgments have said, the general orientation of the law in this area, and we wish to be respectful of those judgments," she said in a second encounter with reporters.

"There are no directives. I presume that all departments and all ministers are respectful of the law. I would find anything else an amazing proposition."

She added, however, it is up to individual ministers to enforce policy in their own departments.

Ms. McLellan's suggestion that the government plans to act on all areas, including federal pension benefits, tax laws involving exemptions, and the Criminal Code, was opposed by at least one Liberal MP as well as the Reform party.

"I don't agree with it," said Scarborough East Liberal Tom Wappel, who has proposed a private member's bill to make marriage legal only with opposite-sex couples.

"I think that most Canadians are quite happy with the way things are now, with the way they have been for 130 years. I see no reason to have this foisted upon us by the courts.

"Why does it have to be based on sexual relations? These are decisions that must be made not by the courts, but by the House of Commons, in my view."

Eric Lowther, Calgary Centre Reform MP, said taxation and pension benefits, as well as other government programs for heterosexual couples, are intended to support the "procreation and rearing of the next generation," and should not be afforded to gay couples.

"Are we going to extend benefits to anybody who has an emotional attachment?" asked Reform's critic for social and family values.

Mr. Gallagher said he was disappointed by Mr. Chretien's remark, but said he believed the prime minister had not been briefed on the subject.

"This is not a matter of regulatory change," said Mr. Gallagher. "He will find it does require the introduction of legislation."

Related Sites

Department of Justice

Foundation for Equal Families
Their proclaimed mandate is mandate is "to achieve equality and recognition for same-sex relationships and associated family rights through legal action and education." Look for updates on their court battles.

Back to Contents

The Globe and Mail
Wednesday, January 20th, 1999

Ottawa to enshrine same-sex rights
Facing a court battle, the government
plans overhaul of legislation

Wednesday, January 20, 1999
ERIN ANDERSSEN
Parliamentary Bureau

Ottawa -- The federal government is planning sweeping changes to dozens of pieces of legislation to extend equal rights to same-sex couples.

Pre-empting a losing battle in the country's courts, government sources say, Ottawa has decided to proceed with amendments that will treat homosexual couples the same as heterosexuals in everything from pensions to bankruptcy law to the Criminal Code.

The government's political will to make the changes was strengthened by the fact that there was little evidence of a backlash when Immigration Minister Lucienne Robillard announced two weeks ago that her department will open the door to same-sex immigrant couples.

The major policy shift has been prompted by a growing stack of court cases that say certain existing federal laws violate the Charter by not treating homosexuals and heterosexual couples equally.

"The government has to deal with this sooner or later," a government source said. "It's unavoidable."

A gay and lesbian rights group has launched a massive lawsuit against Ottawa, seeking changes to 58 federal statutes. But David Corbett, lawyer for the Foundation for Equal Families, said the group has made it clear that it is willing to drop the court action if the government proceeds with changes under a set time line. Ottawa has not yet responded officially to the lawsuit.

While the decision has been made to make the changes, sources said the government is still debating how to do it, either with one omnibus bill amending a mass of legislation together or by proceeding individually through each department involved.

High-level discussions are under way in a number of government departments to decide how best to implement the changes.
Beyond the obvious complication of drafting a massive omnibus bill, there is concern that it would create a focal point for opponents of gay rights. As well, cases against some elements of federal law have advanced further than others in the courts and may have to be amended sooner than the time it would take to draft one overhauling bill. A more practical alternative -- and certainly more manageable in terms of writing new legislation -- may be to proceed case by case. The timing of the changes will depend on how the government makes them, since a piecemeal approach would likely get specific legislation amended faster than one large bill.

Either way, with the courts ruling consistently in favour of same-sex rights, the government is seen to have little choice but to make the amendments.

In 1995, when the Supreme Court of Canada said that the Old Age Security Act discriminated against same-sex couples, Ottawa acknowledged that the laws would have to change to reflect a new view of families, but nothing was done.

Last year, however, the government tipped its position when it didn't appeal the Rosenberg case, which declared the definition of spouse in the Income Tax Act was unconstitutional. The ruling from the Ontario Court of Appeal cleared the way for a pension system that allows widowed same-sex partners to collect survivor benefits.

The majority of the legislation that would have to be changed has to do with pensions -- including the Canada Pension Plan and the pensions of a wide range of federal employees, from the Canadian Forces to the RCMP to the federal public service. Under the current CPP, for example, same-sex partners are not eligible for survivor benefits when their partner passes away.

Back to Contents

Ottawa Citizen
Tuesday, December 15, 1998

Committing 'data rape': Radical feminist notions about male violence reflect a misuse of statistics based on eugenic assumptions.

Column by Tana Dineen

The word "eugenics" connotes evil. It evokes images of death camps and more recent "ethnic cleansings." But the term did not originate with Adolf Hitler's anti-semitism. It dates back more than a 100 years to the work of Sir Francis Galton, who established the science of eugenics based on the notion that society could be improved by selecting and encouraging its brightest citizens to flourish.

Dear to Galton, and others of his social class, was the belief that intellectual greatness was inherited. His studies, in which all of the subjects were eminent members of the aristocracy, bolstered arguments for lowering the birthrate in the lower classes. One result was the imposition of harsh sterilization laws in the early 1900s in both England and North America.

Decades later, spurred by similar eugenic values, psychologist Cyril Burt began publishing data to support his genetic inheritance theory. His work, for which he was later knighted, had far-reaching impact. Throughout the Commonwealth, governments mandated the measurement of "innate intelligence." Based on their test scores, generations of children were streamed into unequal educational systems. Only after a journalist noted contradictions in Burt's writings and exposed his faked data were these laws challenged.

Nowadays, we condemn eugenics, oblivious, it seems, to the ways in which it is once again having a pervasive influence on our society. The underlying belief that individuals, grouped by some common factor, share genetic features which are either good or bad, has not disappeared. Prominent researchers promote the bias. And laws are put in place which, by discriminating against one group, promise to make society better.

A case in point, currently shaping Canadian law, is a body of quasi-research premised on the belief in female superiority The much touted 1993 Statistics Canada survey on Violence Against Women claims that 51 per cent of Canadian women have been the victims of rape or attempted rape and that 98 per cent have personally experienced sexual violation.

In reality, in their efforts to portray women as innocent victims of male violence, the researchers looked at the numbers through a "a feminist lens" and committed what has rightly been termed "data rape."

Likewise, in another study supporting this image of men as violent, researchers reported that 11 per cent of Alberta women were assaulted in one year, 1989, by their partners. But the public was told only half the story; the rest of the data revealed that men were being assaulted by their female partners about as often.

There are dozens of studies worldwide which report virtually identical rates. When researchers look fairly at both sexes, it is the similarities between the genders, not the differences, which are remarkable.

But this is not what we are told. A study of "woman abuse" on Canadian college campuses shocked the public when it was reported that "81.4 per cent of women said they had been victimized by at least one form of physical, sexual or emotional abuse during the preceding year." What was not made clear was that the "abuse" may have been nothing more than a swear word or insult.

Regrettably, these widely reported studies are having a profound influence in the political arena. Men are being successfully portrayed as the violent sex. Federal and provincial ministries spread the propaganda. Canadian laws are rewritten in response to the cry: "Women must be protected."

What really needs to be acknowledged is the eugenic underpinnings of the anti-male data. This is the type of data which Hitler used to justify the extermination of the Jews. It is the type of data which the British upper classes used to justify sterilizing the retarded. Now, it is being used to condemn men.

The radical feminists are using their version of eugenics research as a weapon. Feminist Marilyn French declares that "All men are rapists." Andrea Dworkin defines romance as "rape embellished with meaningful looks." Sally Miller Gearheart writes that the number of males must be reduced to 10 per cent of the population, with this low number to be maintained only to allow for the propagation of the species.

While such extreme opinions may not be officially endorsed, the stereotyping of the male as violent and beast-like is widely accepted. Consider the bias in favour of mothers in custody disputes. The outrage if one dares to question a woman's accusation. Or how a woman can take a rifle, murder her husband and, then, manage to convince the courts that she was the victim.

These eugenic manipulations have gone too far. Such acts of violence against men should be identified for what they are: crimes against humanity.

Tana Dineen is a licensed psychologist in Victoria, and the author of Manufacturing Victims.

Back to Contents

Ottawa Citizen
Wednesday, December 16, 1998

Wife's 'hissy fit' starts domestic court hell

Dave Brown The Ottawa Citizen

Chris John is not a violent man. As arguments with his wife Katey escalated, he would respond by withdrawing, not by physically abusing her. But he was charged, and convicted, of assaulting Katey after she called police in what she says was a fit of temper. Both Chris and Katey, above, deny he was violent, but he felt the easiest way to end the immediate crisis was to plead guilty and get an unconditional discharge.

On Oct. 18 last year Katey John, in the middle of what she calls "one of my hissy fits," called police. "All I wanted was for somebody to come here and talk to us."

What she got was a SWAT team in battle fatigues with machine-guns and all the accompanying shouts and threats. Over her objections, she watched as her husband Chris was handcuffed and hauled off to jail.

"I no longer had input. Nobody would listen to me. When I tried to talk to anybody, I felt totally intimidated. The police and prosecutors took over my marriage and my life."

Chris and Katey John were celebrating on Dec. 2. It marked the end of his year as a convicted criminal, when he was pegged as a wife-beater, and his restoration as the gentle man he always has been. He still doesn't feel totally safe in his wife's company, but he's working at it. They have been living apart since the raid.

Mrs. John is one of a dozen women who have complained to me about their experiences in the new domestic court system. Chris John calls it "women's court." After the SWAT team handcuffed him and placed him in a police cruiser, he says, "everybody I talked to after that, with the exception of my lawyer, was a woman."

Louise Dupont is one of the court's two prosecutors. Since its startup in February, she says domestic court has proved itself as an effective way to control male violence. She rejects the suggestion that her role as prosecutor is to prove the charge, not help the couple. "My job is to present the evidence, fairly, to a judge."

Defence lawyer Karen Ann Reid works the same court. Her view? "It's an insult to women everywhere to assume that they are always victims."

The state, in a well-intentioned move to stop violence against women, has taken over the domestic dispute. Zero tolerance has become the battle cry, and although Staff Sgt. Tim Armour, head of the Ottawa-Carleton police spousal assault unit, says arrests are not made without reasonable and probable grounds, many disagree.

One of those is lawyer Reid, who says she sees many cases where grounds for arrest were, "let's say, suspect."

Police officers not connected to the spousal assault unit say when they answer a domestic call, they go with the intention of arresting the man. They ask for anonymity because their jobs would be at risk. The safe course, they believe, is to bring the man in and let the detectives in the special unit sort it out.

It almost always means that the man is going to spend a night in jail, and that has to be justified. Moving them to court and formally charging them provides that justification.

"He threatened me" is probable grounds for arrest if said by a woman. If a man tells an officer that another man threatened him, and he denies it, the officer doesn't have reasonable and probable grounds unless there are witnesses.

An argument can be made that the Charter rights of half the population are being violated.

Katey John called the police general number and wanted to talk to an officer. "Chris isn't a violent man. He's the opposite. He refuses to fight. We were arguing and he went to a room and wouldn't open the door. I didn't know what he was doing there, except it was his way of fighting, and I wanted somebody to come and help end the fight."

She says she doesn't remember details in full, because she was upset and angry. She realizes now she answered questions that triggered the armed response. In the over-protective temper of the '90s, the dynamics changed from a request for a referee in a domestic dispute to justifying a full-fledged armed raid that terrified the John family, including their three children.

The tactical unit that hit the home searched it and removed anything that could be considered a weapon, including camping equipment. Chris owns a bow, and it would appear in records twice as a "crossbow."

Chris was off to spend a night in a police cell. "I was in my bike shorts and freezing. I didn't get a blanket or mattress. I was supposed to sleep on a sheet of steel."

Meanwhile, back at the Bayshore home, Const. Kim Brigden sat with Katey and helped her get it all down on paper. "I was blathering," says Katey. When finished, there was enough to lay five charges, including assault (with a deodorant stick) and being a public danger with a "crossbow."

During the blathering, Katey mentioned an earlier incident when Chris, backing out of an argument, went into a room and pumped up the volume on the stereo system. She went into the room and cranked up the volume beyond capacity, trashing the system. He then threw a deodorant stick that hit her hand. That's assault.

There were delays in getting Chris in front of a judge, and he had to make a second trip to the courthouse. As a teacher, a computer whiz and a man never in trouble before, the ride in the police wagon was his only experience around real bad guys.

What he remembers most is the smell. "There were six of us jammed in and the huge guy beside me had fought with five police officers." The man had worked up a sweat and hadn't had access to deodorant.

When asked about this case, Sgt. Armour replied: "Be careful. You're dealing with a man who pleaded guilty to a criminal charge of assault."

Chris John says he had no choice. His lawyer was able to get the charges down to one of assault. The choice now was a trial that would cost $5,000, or a guilty plea that would get him out and home with an unconditional discharge. The cost would be $1, 200. "My guts were in knots and I was living on antacids. I had to get it over with."

Six weeks later, on Dec. 2, 1997, he stood before Judge Jean-Marie Bordeleau and was given an unconditional discharge. The judge took the unusual step of eliminating one of the conditions. He said Chris John was obviously not in need of the usual mandatory anger management courses.

Up to this point he was under a restraining order and had to stay away from his home and family. It was lifted, but he was afraid to go home. For one year he would carry a criminal record for assault. It would be struck from the record after a year.

Another hissy fit and he could expect an even tougher response, because a police computer check would see a violent man.

"When you've had a machine-gun aimed right at your face by an angry man screaming at you -- well, it leaves an impression."

He's still not comfortable. Although the criminal record disappeared Dec. 2, he knows it's likely he's still in police computers. He's afraid of another over-reaction.

Part of the domestic court plan is the Partner Assault Support Team (PAST). When we talked, neither Chris nor Katey had heard the term, or were aware they had dealt with it. Its members include the two prosecutors who work that court, Ms. Dupont and Cathy Kehoe, and Cossette Chaffe, who heads the victim assistance program. The couple says each was individually advised to seek counselling, but not together.

Says Katey: "Cathy Kehoe told me we could not be in the same room together and if we were, we could expect further charges. I was beginning to see the whole process as something intended to make my husband, a wonderful guy, look like a monster, and tear apart our marriage."

"We found our own counsellor," says Chris. "I learned my method of walking away from a dispute was passive-aggressive. In any marriage there are bound to be flare-ups, and I think we've learned how to handle them. Number 1 is stay away from the telephone."

They also went through medical examinations and believe an adjustment to Katey's prescription drugs will ease or eliminate the hissy fits.

Now that he's officially no longer a criminal, Chris admits they broke the restraining order that was supposed to keep them apart until the court process concluded. The night of the day he got out of jail, using an intermediary, they met in a dark playground. They decided then to work through the crisis.

There's one more step to take. Chris is looking for a new job in a new city. His criteria: "Any place that doesn't have a women's court and zero tolerance."

Prosecutor Dupont says the domestic court is just like any other court. The same rules apply.

What nobody in the system seems to see is that if men want to go home, they must plead guilty. It saves time and money and lifts the restraining order. That guilty plea will go into statistics as another case of male violence against women.

The Johns weren't the first family to be raided by a SWAT team. Sept. 17, 1997, I was invited to a home on Northwestern Avenue by an angry mother who asked me to "come and see what they (CAS) have done to my daughter." The girl wasn't in the room when I arrived at 8:30 p.m., and her mother outlined the problem.

The family's 15-year-old daughter had announced she was pregnant and wanted her boyfriend to move in. After a stormy shouting match, she went to the CAS and reported she was being abused.

A social worker passed that information to police. The father has a criminal record. At 11 a.m. July 17, two SWAT teams hit the house, front and back, and dragged out dad.

After an interview at police headquarters, detectives accepted his explanation and released him. He was home two hours after the full bore raid. Nobody said oops, sorry about that. He wasn't even offered a ride.

The fact that police couldn't make a case didn't deter the social worker. On Sept. 5, he went to the children's school and picked up the six-year-old daughter. Teachers and the social worker assured her she was just going for a little ride, but she went into a foster shelter for four days.

Her 13-year-old brother recognized the CAS worker and got chippy. He said, in effect: Nuts. If he needed help he would ask for it.

He refused to go. It took two uniformed police officers to wrestle him down and cuff him in the busy lunch-break school yard. He too was home in four days.

After giving me that information, mother told her son to get his younger sister. When the girl walked into the room and saw a strange man, she flew sobbing into her mother's arms.

The CAS has declined an invitation to open and discuss this file.

With Ottawa-Carleton police feeding 120 men a month into the domestic court process, and with restraining orders keeping them away from their homes, the flow of women in need of shelters should be slowing down.

Instead, shelters are reporting they are busier than ever. But who checks that information?

Back to Contents

National Post
Thursday, December 17, 1998

Plan for divorce as for war
Backlash feeds backlash, and now advice for women going through divorce is getting more militant and strategic

Linda Matchan
New York Times News Service

Meet today's new divorced woman. She is tough, aggressive, and armed to the teeth with ammunition on how to get what she wants in divorce court. It all comes courtesy of a profusion of new books, videos, and workshops geared to teaching women how to go for the jugular when their marriage breaks up.

The language of this material is not just militant but militaristic. It urges women to use "psychological warfare" to trump their husbands. It recommends espionage, furtive behaviour, even, in one book, "enemy reconnaissance."

Many lawyers interviewed say such tactics are not unreasonable. Over the past decade or so, they say, the divorce landscape has changed in ways that have made the legal process more unkind and less gentle than it's ever been for women, particularly mothers seeking custody of their children. They describe a variety of factors, ranging from a feminist movement backlash to a strong lobby by father's rights groups, that make it necessary for today's divorcing woman to fight harder than ever to win in court.

Consider the new book, What Every Woman Should Know About Divorce and Custody by author Sally Abrahms and Philadelphia lawyer Gayle Rosenwald Smith.

"You have to assume you no longer have the edge in custody," the authors caution. "Up until now, women have assumed that they will prevail in court." But "this overconfidence and resulting lack of preparation is tripping them up."

"You will need to view custody as a mind game and position yourself to win," they warn grimly in an opening chapter so disillusioning it's enough to make any mother think twice about leaving.

Other writers contributing to this new genre are even more aggressive, such as lawyers Sharyn Sooho and Steven Fuchs, author of Tao of Divorce: A Woman's Guide to Winning, which they published on the Internet. The book integrates Eastern philosophy with divorce, and urges women to adopt such strategies as "enemy reconnaissance, strategic information, covert planning, and the element of surprise" to get what they want in court. (They do not rule out, for example, ransacking the house for secret places in which the husband might have hidden assets or using his secretary's diary to retrace his whereabouts when investigating adultery.)

Then there is the even more combative Divorce War! 50 Strategies Every Woman Needs to Know to Win by Kansas lawyer Bradley A. Pistotnik. Among the tactics he recommends are "control your husband by being alternately loving and indifferent to keep him in a state of continual concern" and "hire a detective to prove your husband has a bad character, and pay for the services with your husband's money.

"No matter how nice your husband has been, once he has caused you to seek a divorce, it is time to fight," Pistotnik maintains. "Loss of love is a catastrophe. Revenge is all that is left to you."

Advice comes in other forms as well. Lawyer Isabella Jancourtz, author of The Massachusetts Women's Divorce Handbook, teaches a course with a psychiatric social worker at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education designed to help women through the divorce ordeal "by taking their fate into their own hands and by becoming emotionally empowered," says Jancourtz.

A Pennsylvania lawyer has produced a four-hour video -- Navigating Divorce: Women in Control -- teaching women how to get equal control of the family assets. A California woman is in the process of launching Divorced Woman Magazine, which will debut in March. Among the subjects covered will be "shared stories from others who have been there, including financial custody issues," says executive editor Tina Stassis Gustave. "There are millions of women who need help."

"When I started law 18 years ago, the viewpoint was that men made out better with money and women with the kids," says Boston lawyer David Cherny, president-elect of the Massachusetts chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

Two working parents are now "more the norm than the aberration," says Cherny, and judges are much more willing to regard fathers as equal and adequate caretakers -- especially since babysitters are doing so much of the caretaking anyway. "Things aren't as automatic as they were."

There have been a lot of changes in the financial arena, too, Cherny says. "Years ago, one spouse was the wage earner and one wasn't, and the rule of thumb was that about one-third of the income was paid as alimony." But now wives often have their own income or the educational ability to earn one. "You find the courts looking at earning potential and saying there isn't as much need for alimony," Cherny says. So women -- despite their hard-won gains in the workplace -- "are almost being penalized. . . What's developed is almost a backlash. It's made for a lot more aggressive litigation over money."

Back to Contents

National Post, with files from The Daily Telegraph
Saturday, December 19, 1998 The new childcare answer: super-grandparents

Olivia Hart

Deva Gajic has taken early retirement to babysit her children's children.

Starting out retirement changing diapers, heating up bottles, and soothing teething children isn't what most people view as a reward for years of hard work. But according to researchers from the Centre for Family Studies at Newcastle University in Britain, a new generation of super-grandparent is emerging, taking over babysitting, shopping, and housework duties in households vacated for much of the day by dual-income parents.

And even though grandparents are willingly accepted into dual-income households, their advice on upbringing is frequently rejected, the study found.

Mrs. Gajic, who lives in Mississauga, says she belongs to a network of grandmothers who have retired early or taken severance packages to help their children by babysitting the grandchildren.

"Some of us were friends before, but most of us are neighbours who have met on the street while taking strolls with the kids.''

But Mrs. Gajic and other Canadians like her say the early retirement package her company offered, and her daughter's exorbitant day care costs, made the decision easy. There is also a trust issue.

"I have to work and there is no one else I could trust more to look after my child than my own mother,'' says Bianca Edmonds, Mrs. Gajic's daughter.

It's also better value for her babysitting dollar. She pays her mother $100 a week and sometimes dinner is included. But Mrs. Gajic does get some help. After 30 years working days, Mr. Gajic has switched to an afternoon shift to help his wife look after their grandchild.

"We love it,'' they say. Adds Mrs. Gajic: "We haven't been this happy in a long time; we can't wait for more [grand] kids.''

Alice Garcia didn't want to quit her job and babysit her grandchild, but then she "fell in love with the little fella'' and even took in her sister-in-law's grandchild.

Joe Bush retired early to help his wife babysit their grandchildren. They drive from Scarborough to Pickering each day to look after their daughter's growing family.

Joan Norris, professor of family relations at the University of Guelph, has studied the moral importance of grandparents in the family. However, she says the grandparents interviewed have mentioned they "don't want to be permanent babysitters, but that they would help if they had to.''

She also says that to her knowledge there isn't a study addressing the issue of grandparents leaving work to become babysitters, and admits that if studies were done, cultural and social-economic backgrounds could produce very different results.

The Newcastle study found that the rise in double income families, combined with increased longevity, had led to the increase in grandparents' involvement. Grandparents that became fulltime babysitters thought they played a much more valuable role than their parents had, the study says. However, there was "considerable negotiation'' over what constituted support and what was considered interference. Most grandparents found it difficult reconciling the heavy support they gave with the little input they were allowed over decisions.

When asked whether her son had any objections to how she looked after her grandchild, Mrs. Gajic said: "Oh yeah, every day. But I just ignore her. I mean, I raised four girls and she thinks I'm doing things the wrong way . . . we fight, but then she comes over and says, 'Mom, let's go shopping.' ''

Back to Contents

If you know of newspaper articles which should be posted, please send in an email message giving the name of the paper and the date the article appeared. Thanks, Joel Miller.