25 February 2022
Family law - Court orders and parental responsibility
Our client is apprehensive and uncomfortable with the other parent purchasing toys for their child which could be perceived as gender‑specific.
Does the court offer any guidance regarding what is appropriate?
Thank you for the question.
The court is unlikely to make orders that regulate the type of gift a parent gives a child. The court will only interfere with the exercise of parental responsibility if it is proper to do so. Parents differing in their views about day-to-day responsibility will not generally be sufficient. See VR & RR [2002] FamCA 320 where the court said:
29. Whilst the word "proper" connotes a very wide area of discretion, in our view it is clear from the legislative scheme that any intervention by the Court in the due performance of an aspect of parental responsibility, that seeks to interfere with or diminish the responsibility of either parent to care for the child in the manner that parent deems appropriate, should be made only where the Court is of the view that the welfare of the child will be clearly advanced by that order being made.
30. In our view it is not the role of the Court to identify and then seek to determine every matter that is in issue between two estranged parents who cannot agree on the way their child is to be raised. The Court should only interfere in the way in which a parent proposes to raise a child to the extent that the welfare of the child requires interference.
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