"It's 1836 and the French writer George Sand is swimming in the River Indre with her clothes on, weighed down by layers of ankle-length fabric. To anyone passing by, she must look mad or worse driven by a death wish. But for her there is the relief of cool water sluicing hot skin, after walking for hours in 30C heat. She's been moving all day because if she stops she'll remember how frightened she is:"
"Maternal care is, we are constantly told, the most natural of functions. But for century after century, women who transgress the expected norms of what a mother should be have battled for their children and been found wanting. Maternal care comes at a price when the law is involved. And all too often custody can be more a question of restraint than care."
"These cases happen now in blandly carpeted municipal rooms, and with less fanfare than they did in Sand's day she won her case against all odds, only for her husband to kidnap their daughter. But I thought of her when I fought for my children in the dull desolation of the winter of the pandemic, and discovered what it means to subject your capacity for love and care to a legal test likely to leave one parent high on the power of a win"
In 1836 a French writer swims fully clothed in the River Indre to cool herself before a court hearing about her children. Maternal care enjoys cultural assumption as the most natural function, yet women who deviate from maternal norms have long been judged unfit and punished by custody law. Custody disputes increasingly emphasize restraint and control rather than caregiving, often played out in bland municipal rooms. Contemporary legal tests can transform love and care into evidentiary trials that empower one parent and vilify the other. The pandemic amplified these conflicts, producing traumatic divisions that split children between parents.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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