CHILD CUSTODY

I am not a lawyer but I investigate a fair amount of child custody cases.  If I assess a situation where a potential client comes to me with false allegations, vindictiveness or no legitimate reason I can see or believe to limit the other parties access to children, I refuse the case.  I have counseled clients to work with the other party as much as possible on the issue of their children.  Children suffer so much when they cannot spend equal time or as much time as they need or want to with the both of their parents. 

Except in the case of abuse or active addiction, I see no reason why children should not have access to both parents.  Usually this comes down to power, control and money.  These have NO PLACE in the health and well being of children except that the children should understand both Mommy and Daddy have equal authority and that both will provide for them to the best of their ability.  It is so bad for children to know that one or the other parent has to "obey" the other parent in order to have access to their children.  Sure the court made the ruling but the children often don't understand this, they somehow know that the custodial parent could let them see the other more often if they wanted to. 

If parents only knew how in most cases with holding a child from another parent without serious case will damage their children for life, maybe they would care.  We have wounded, damaged people having children who use them as pawns to act out their own frustrations or anger from their own childhood.  I am for shared legal and physical custody and for parents to be forced to work together by the courts.  I am also for mediation where people have to work out their differences in counseling and only in rare situations have to fight in court for the safety or well being of their children.  As a private investigator I believe no judge should rip any child away from shared custody unless there is hard evidence of abuse or addiction.  Even  adulterers have rights to parent their children in as close as possible to the way they did when the family lived together.  I am passionate for children.  I grew up in an imperfect home where divorce was not an option and in spite of things I wished could have been different, my parents presented a united front to us six kids and that developed some really good ethics and habits in our lives.

Gladys Brierley

Accurate Investigations, LLC

601-480-3181

accurateinvest@bellsouth.net