"If we can get this attempt at family reform right,

the lost generation may be the last to go so astray"

Recently, numerous problem hot spots such as housing, education, environment, lack of police stations and officers, crime, drug abuse and taxes to name a few were highlighted via election platforms. What is the common denominator? Or more importantly what is the solution to many of the island's dilemmas? The answer may be right under our roofs – the family.

"Its takes a village to raise a child" is not my favourite saying. Why not? Because parents, Mom and Dad, together with siblings and grandparents etc. make a family and unquestionably the family is the authentic child raising structure and the natural remedy for a myriad of social ills.

That's not to say that the village does not have value, wherever this village is, but surely in 2008 our hamlet has long since turned into a concrete and crane community of stressed out individuals intent on getting "theirs" before "it" runs out, far too involved in themselves to ever consider assisting wayward children who have strayed from the accepted behavioural blueprint. Most "villagers" are hesitant in this day and age to offer any elder advice to our youngsters for fear of an earful of foul language at best, so sorry, but the village ain't cutting it in this era. A rare opportunity looms. The public has been invited to make submissions on family law reforms (as reported on The Royal Gazette's front page on February 21) to a committee set up to review and consider concepts from those interested in a Bermuda that can handle divorce and separation in a more updated, pleasant and hopefully child-orientated manner. It has been 34 years since family law received a full examination.

Most concur that marriage, divorce, separation, and indeed how we raise our children has metamorphosed since 1974. By 1999, I had listened to so many horror stories pertaining to child abuse via parental alienation that ChildWatch was conceived because few were willing to stimulate change. Endless despair and disillusionment expressed by parents gave way to a conduit of hope, a dream of being able to raise your own flesh and blood, to love your child in a meaningful way, even if the love had departed from the other parent.

ChildWatch, aided by the Hon. Minister Dale Butler went about educational programmes aimed at law changes that would allow any child the right to be raised by both parents if, Mom and Dad were fit, willing, and able.

More recently the Children's Act was amended in 2002. While being debated in the House, the Shadow Minister of Social Services, the Hon Kim Young, made a statement that she feared the wording was somewhat loose. The intent of the law could be lost via the wide latitude of this act and the extensive power of the judge to interpret within the act to encompass a multitude of rulings without grounds for appeal.

Government MP El James stated the bill was what men (fathers) had been waiting years for. It wasn't! In fact the prediction of Kim Young came horribly close to reality, so much so that one judge even used the precedent of a case prior to the reform to send children out of the country, away from the father, even though a report recommended the mother not be allowed to remove the children.

If we can get this attempt at family reform right, the lost generation may be the last to go astray. We as a country can support the Government in addressing all the social ills listed at the beginning of this article by allowing children to be cared for by the two most instrumental people in their lives. A parenting plan brokered by a panel trained in dispute resolution and mediation without a court setting would be a winning combination. Seems simple, although some may say it won't work. Is the present system working? Or will it go down in history as the most adversarial costly system ever to put all our children at risk?

Edward (Eddie) Fisher is the president of ChildWatch.

Submissions are to be sent to ambugua@gov.bm or the Hon. Justice Mrs. Norma Wade-Miller c/o Mrs. Anne Mbugua, Secretary Sub Committee on Family Law Reform, Supreme Court, 12 Parliament St Hamilton HM12 by Friday, February 29. A request has been made for more time to be allowed for submissions.