‘Misguided campaign’ is being waged to outlaw parental alienation

By Paul Russell, LegalMatters Staff • Parental alienation is a reality in many families after a marriage breakup and “woke feminists” cannot simply dismiss it as a legal defence to hide family violence, says Toronto family lawyer Gene C. Colman.

“There is a robust academic literature on parental alienation, says Colman, principal of the Gene C. Colman Family Law Centre. “I’m talking about peer-reviewed articles, social science literature. I’m talking about a healthy body of case law authored by respected judges. It is widely accepted that it is real. It happens.”

Not everyone agrees. As the Toronto Star reported, a coalition representing more than 250 feminist organizations recently took to Parliament Hill, calling on the federal government to stop people in divorce proceedings from claiming they have been alienated from their children by their former partner.

“This concept is leading courts across the country to separate children from their mothers and force minors, against their will, to live with their fathers – even when there is a documented history of family violence,” a letter from protest organizers states.

“Woke, radical feminists are trying to outlaw parental alienation. They believe that moms always tell the truth and dads always lie and are violent,” Colman tells LegalMattersCanada.ca. “Sexist myths and stereotypes about men drive this misguided campaign to excise parental alienation discussions.

“It’s a very simplistic argument that has unfortunately won support with some at the United Nations, who refuse to consider why researchers and lawyers such as myself and others (such as family lawyer Brian Ludmer) have to say on the issue,” he adds.

UN rapporteur calls it a ‘pseudo-concept’

According to the article, the UN’s special rapporteur on violence against women and girls has “warned against the use of the ‘pseudo-concept’ and urged all member states to prohibit its use in family courts.”

“The newspaper reporter ignored most of what Brian told him,” Colman says. “And Brian is the premier expert on parental alienation in Canada, if not the world.

“Lawyers like Brian are intimately familiar with the social science in this area and can tell you with great confidence that parental alienation is real, despite what woke feminists have to say,” he adds.

Colman says he has written extensively about parental alienation and has represented male and female clients experiencing it.

“In most cases, the female is the alienating parent, but our office has experienced cases where dad was the alienator,” he says. “And those dads who engage in parental alienation are particularly effective in most cruelly and unjustly demonizing the children’s mom. The radical feminists who strive to cancel out ‘parental alienation’ are doing a huge disservice to many distressed and forlorn mothers.”

Colman explains that alienating behaviour involves trying to turn the child against the other parent.

“It happens. To deny the stark reality of the phenomenon is beyond belief,” he says. “I hope that our government will not be fooled.”

Look at the behaviour of the parent and child

“Sometimes the child resists contact with a parent. When you are assessing if there is parental alienation, experts and judges must consider the behaviour of both the parent and the child,” he says. “You have to do a deep dive to really find out what’s going on.”

One indication of parental alienation is to show the child pictures of them with their father from the past when they both looked happy, Colman says.

“If they are just conflicted about how they feel about their father, they will respond with something like, “That was fun to go fishing. We had such a good time,” he says. “But if a similar photo is shown to a child that has been alienated, they will say they faked having a good time when the photo was taken.” 

“Alienated children will also say they hate their former beloved pet that now lives with dad,” Colman adds. “They will not want to see their former beloved grandparents, paternal aunts and uncles or even siblings in cases where the parenting responsibility for the offspring is split between the parents.”

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Colman says alienating mothers will convince the child that “everyone associated with dad is bad. And if the struggle for parenting time and parental decision-making ends up in court, woke feminists will say that dad is just using parental alienation as a shield against his own abusive behaviour. What utter nonsense! What gender stereotyping!”

Another sign of parental alienation occurs when a young child uses words that sound scripted and are inappropriate for their grade and age level, he says. “The child’s advanced vocabulary belies the nefarious influence of the alienating parent.”

Family violence is a serious issue

Colman says he agrees with the groups on Parliament Hill who say that courts must take family violence seriously.

“We must protect people who are the victims of abuse within a family,” he says. “If we can identify someone engaging in it, we have to help them to see the error of their ways, ameliorate their behaviour and give them a chance to become better parents to their children.”

Colman says that some children may have legitimate reasons for refusing or resisting contact with one parent and “in some cases, this could include abuse. But that’s no reason to outlaw parental alienation across the board.

“Maybe mom or dad is not a good parent. Or the child could be angry about a parent’s new relationship with someone else,” he says. “There can be many reasons that a child resists/refuses to spend time with a parent. It could be parental alienation. It could be something else. It’s complicated.”

‘It’s a complicated dynamic’

“It’s a complicated dynamic,” Colman continues. “Social scientists doing research in this field now try to avoid the term ‘parental alienation.’ It has gotten too emotional. The discussion now centres around what we call the ‘resist/refuse dynamic.’”

“And resist/refuse can be for reasons that dad may be able to repair. Or maybe we get mom on board and she can help repair it,” he adds. “It depends on the facts of the case.”

Even if the father is a bad parent, the resistant child “who is not truly alienated” will want some sort of relationship with him, says Colman.

“Most fathers will want that too, but they are being shut out of their children’s lives if the mother is engaging in parental alienation,” he says. “People must realize that this movement to ban parental alienation is evil incarnate. This movement derives from a visceral hatred of men and certainly not from a love of children or from a true concern for their well-being.” 

Colman urges courts to allow parents to raise the issue of parental alienation, “and to examine each claim on a case-by-case basis.”

“Parental alienation is child abuse. Parental alienation is family violence within the meaning of the federal Divorce Act and the provincial Children’s Law Reform Act,” he says. “Excising parental alienation from our toolbox essentially amounts to facilitating child abuse. Will everyone agree with me? No, they will not. But am I right? Yes, I am.”