Many of our colleagues across Minnesota are familiar with the compassionate and thoughtful voice of Hennepin County’s Judge Bruce Peterson. In a March 2010 article in Tikkun Magazine he describes a cooperative approach to family court – an approach that would attempt to remove the conflict, anger, and winner-loser and replace those elements with cooperation, compassion, and mutual decision making.
As Peterson states, “Given the raw emotional power generated in family court and the sheer number of Americans experiencing this public institution firsthand, I have become convinced that it is a logical place to start building a workable spiritual agenda for families.” Peterson explains a spiritual agenda as one that offers opportunities for growth and healing. He continues, “What’s needed is to do away with the adversary nature of family proceedings and instead offer opportunities for deeper communication.”
Peterson describes family court as anathema to the needs to co-parents who need to find ways to cooperate in raising their child. He states, “The problem, of course, is that if the litigants are parents, for the next fifty years they will still be interacting and making decisions about their children. Courtroom combat may be fine for people who never have to see each other again, but for families, destroying whatever remains of a parenting relationship is the worst possible outcome. After seeing what some people do to each other in court, I am amazed they can bear to lay eyes on each other again, much less cooperate in parenting.” Thus, family court’s adversarial approach needs to be replaced. He concludes, “By replacing adversary proceedings with processes that encourage mutual concern, healing can become an increasingly important function of the courts.”
The full article offers a deeper exploration into the ways that family courts could change to encourage cooperation, healing, and growth for families that are divorcing or for never-married parents who are deciding the outcome of child custody and other issues. His premise is one of hope. It would require massive shifts in expectations, policies, and funding in the nation’s court systems. The benefits for families and children could be equally massive.