EDITORIAL NOTES

• Date: 01 July 2003
• Published date: 01 July 2003
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.174-1617.2003.tb00890.x
• Author: Andrew Schepard

EDITORIAL

NOTES

JULY

2003

The husband and wife team of guest editors for this special issue on fatherhood and the

family court are prime examples of the thoughtful and innovative people

1

get to work with

who keep me excited about being the editor of

FCR.

Marsha Kline Pruett is a research scientist in law and psychiatry at the Yale University

School of Medicine. She currently spearheads The Collaborative Divorce Project, one of the

major goals of which is to promote and sustain father involvement with young children

among never married and divorcing parents. She has conducted pioneering research on the

impact of the adversary system

on

young children and their parents and is the coauthor

of

Your

Divorce

Advisor,

along with Diana Mercer.

Kyle Pruett is a chica1 professor in psychiatry at the Yale Child Study Center. He is an

intemational authority on child development with

a

special interest in fatherhood. Kyle has a

distinguished record of fathering advocacy: research, consulting, lecturing, and

two

books

on the topic. Most recently, Kyle was part

of

a United Nations delegation to discuss father-

hood issues from an intemational perspective.

The seed for this special issue was planted when Marsha and Kyle did a joint presentation

at the AFCC Convention in Chicago in May of

2001.

Fomer AFCC president and active

AFCC Massachusetts member Arline Rothman then asked Kyle to speak to the family court

judges of Massachusetts because she felt the topic of fathering was

so

relevant to the bench’s

work. That talk was such a success that Arline proposed the special issue idea to me.

1

agreed

and urged Marsha and Kyle to do it. Despite numerous other commitments and an adorable

ncw child, Marsha and Kylc agreed to share their passion and perspective on fathcrhood with

FCR

through this issue.

And what a wondcrfd job they have done. Marsha and Kyle assembled authors from dif-

ferent disciplines and backgrounds and from al1 over the world to inform and inspire

FCR

readers on the importance

of

fathers and how family courts can strengthen the connection

between fathers and children. The authors provide perspective and enlightenment about

fathers in a wide variety of not traditionally thought about contexts in which there are barriers

to fathers performing their vital functions: unmarried fathers in custody disputes, substance-

abusing fathers, fathers released from prison, fathers in the minority community, fathers

against whom a child abuse allegation is made in a parenting dispute, and fathers who do not

see their children often but still spend substantial amounts of money on them. Their collec-

tive work reminds

us

that political slogans and media stereotypes about deadbeat dads and

irresponsible men who abandon their children are just that.

We

need more, not less, under-

standing ofthe kind described in this special issue to make our family courts more responsive

to the complexities of

21

st-century family life. Thank you, Marsha, Kyle, and the authors in

this special issue for providing us with some direction as to how to accomplish that task.

Jamie Rowsell’s student note on postmortem reproduction and inheritance rights fits in

with the special issue’s theme. She deals with a class of fathers who have a very special difi-

culty in performing their role-they are dead. Their sperm is used to father a child postmor-

FAMILY

COURT

REVIEW,

Vol.

41

No.

3,

July

2003

285-286

O

2003

Association

of

Family

and

Conciliation

Courts

285