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ABSTRACT
Custody law systems across the Anglo-West are increasingly characterised by the overt and covert use of parental alienation (syndrome) as an aid to the governance of post-separation mothers. Difficulties with care arrangements within PA(S) inflected custody law systems are often regarded as evidence of mothers’ alienating behaviours, resulting in a range of remedial, coercive and punitive censures, including losing resident parent status. I argue here that the synergistic interaction between custody law and PA(S) creates an affective burden for post-separation mothers. Drawing on the voices of mothers in contested custody cases, I show that their affective burden consists of negative emotional states for themselves and their children, emotion work in relation to these states, and court required emotion work in support of father-child relationships. The latter mitigates the risk of being found to be an alienator and losing what matters most to them – their children.
Acknowledgments
My thanks go to the women who shared their often very painful stories with me. This is for you. I am also grateful to the reviewer for their helpful comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Although the gendered underpinnings of parental alienation are not always acknowledged, it is used in gendered ways and has gendered effects (Lapierre et al. Citation2020, Meier Citation2020, Rathus Citation2020. See also: Milchman Citation2017b, Neilson Citation2018, Zaccour Citation2018). For this reason, I describe mothers as the alleged alienators and fathers as the supposed victims.
2. Pākehā is the name given to white New Zealanders by Māori, New Zealand’s indigenous peoples.
3. This notation is used throughout this article to reflect that although Gardiner’s theory of parental alienation syndrome has largely lost favour, the distinction between parental alienation syndrome and parental alienation is blurred (See Meier Citation2009, Citation2020, Milchman Citation2017a, Lapierre et al. Citation2020).
4. Considering the affective burden of fathers is beyond the scope of this article. The argument herein is not that only mothers experience an affective burden but that the ongoing gendered nature of parenting prior to and after separation means this burden is likely to be different.
5. For readers looking for insight into the women’s loss stories see: Elizabeth (Citation2019a).
6. While many mothers across the studies I have conducted shared similar stories, mothers who dropped off and picked up their children from pre-school or school were much less likely to talk about such vexing incidents. Presumably this is for two reasons: first, children’s separations from their mothers is part of their daily routine and not intermingled with going to their father’s; and second, children are not being removed from environments they are enjoying but are transitioning to their father’s care at the end of the school day.
7. For further elaboration of the dilemma that arises for mothers because of the tension between the best interests principle and the protection from harm principle see: Rathus (Citation2020).