By Howl Jenkins

Every morning for more than four years, my day has begun the same way.

My thumb hovers over the “Call” button. Sometimes I pause for a second before pressing it, as if staring long enough might make the call place itself. That call—five minutes on some days, twenty-five on others—has become the thin thread that keeps my children and me connected.

At around 7:00 a.m., I can hear the clinking of cereal bowls and spoons through the speaker. My son tells me about his Dungeons & Dragons club at school. My daughter bursts onto the call like a banshee, asking if I’ve seen the new baby rabbits at Grandpa’s farm. My role in those moments is simple: be there. Not with lunches packed or shoes tied, but as a steady presence in the fragile space between waking and the rest of the day.

For years, I have not missed a morning.

The calls are not just sentimental. They are structural. They are what remain when a father is physically separated from his children by court orders, schedules, and silence. To an outsider, it might sound like small talk. To us fathers, it is life support.

What I didn’t notice at first was how quietly everything else began to erode.

School notices stopped being shared. Appointments happened without my knowledge. Pickups became vague. Requests for holiday planning were delayed or ignored. Offers to help—care for a sick child, handle a school drop-off, attend a medical visit—were met not with refusal, but with “I’ll let you know.” Then silence. Days later, I’d learn someone else had stepped in.

From the outside, it all sounded reasonable.

“I’m just being cautious.”
“I’m following legal advice.”
“I don’t want more conflict.”

Inside the family law system, this is how exclusion hides. Not through dramatic accusations or criminal findings, but through omission, delay, and speculation. Fatherhood doesn’t end with a bang. It frays.

The word alienation felt too clinical when I first encountered it. Too dramatic. But over time, the pattern became impossible to ignore. Parenting time narrowed. Conditions multiplied. I was told where I could see my children, for how long, and under what circumstances—always framed as concern—never backed by evidence.

I did what the system tells cooperative parents to do. I adjusted my work schedule. I paid child support to the best of my ability. I used a court-approved parenting app to document everything. I proposed schedules around school, activities, and childcare. When my mental health was questioned, I voluntarily provided a psychiatric report. Then another. I even provided seven years of unredacted medical records, hoping transparency would settle the matter.

Instead, it made things worse.

What the system does not account for is this: some fathers do not disengage. Some fathers keep showing up, even when the cost is high and the returns are small. Some fathers document every call, every email, every unanswered message—not to weaponize, but to survive.

I am one of those fathers.

This is not a story about divorce. It is a story about distance—the kind created not by geography but by fear, control, and silence—and about a legal system ill-equipped to protect cooperative parents without lawyers.

Family court is full of parents like me. Mothers and fathers who are told to “be reasonable” while reason is used against them. Parents who follow the rules while others exploit delay. Parents whose presence is treated as optional, negotiable, or conditional.

This is not a call for vengeance. It is a call for recognition—and for courage.

Where the System Breaks

The most damaging failures I have witnessed in family court are not dramatic or obvious. They are quiet assumptions—embedded in the system’s structure—that consistently disadvantage parents who represent themselves.

The first is the court’s reliance on the presumption that lawyers are always telling the truth.

Lawyers are officers of the court. They swear oaths of candour and honesty, and courts depend on those oaths to function. In theory, this makes sense. In practice, it creates a profound imbalance when one party has counsel and the other does not.

When a lawyer speaks, their words are often treated as fact unless immediately disproven. A self-represented parent, by contrast, must prove they are not lying. This asymmetry matters. It allows skilled counsel to frame narratives—sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly—that shape perception long before evidence is tested.

I have watched allegations be introduced not as questions, but as character assessments: that a parent is “unsafe,” “unstable,” or “concerning.” Sometimes these claims rest on nothing more than speculation.

Sometimes they lean on prejudice—religious belief, mental health history, or lifestyle choices—none of which are evidence of parental unfitness.

Once such labels are introduced, they linger. A self-represented parent must then spend months, sometimes years, disproving an implication that should never have been made without evidence in the first place. The system rarely corrects this imbalance in real time. By the time the truth emerges—if it does—the damage is already done.

The second failure is more uncomfortable to name, but no less real: in family law, lawyers represent their clients’ interests—not the children’s.

This is not a moral judgment of individual lawyers. It is a structural reality. Family law is adversarial by design. Counsel are ethically bound to advance their client’s position zealously, even when that position conflicts with cooperation, proportionality, or long-term outcomes for children.

Courts routinely affirm that the best interests of the child are paramount, and lawyers are formally bound by professional obligations that reflect this principle. The problem arises not from the absence of such duties, but from how easily they can be diluted in practice.

In an adversarial system that places significant weight on counsel’s representations, a skilled litigator can advance a client’s objectives by framing positions in ways that appear child-focused while effectively serving adult interests. Because courts generally presume counsel to be acting honestly and responsibly, these narratives are often accepted at face value—especially when the opposing parent is self-represented and lacks the procedural tools to immediately rebut them.

The result is that parenting time, decision-making, and delay can be strategically leveraged without overtly breaching professional rules. Conflict becomes normalized. Prolonged litigation becomes financially viable. Children bear the consequences—not through dramatic rulings, but through incremental loss of time, stability, and certainty.

The third failure is access to justice itself.

Family court demands strict compliance with rules of procedure, evidence, formatting, and deadlines. These rules are complex even for lawyers. Yet self-represented parents are held to the same standards without training, guidance, or meaningful accommodation.

This creates a two-tier system. Those who can afford counsel navigate the process with support. Those who cannot are told they have access, while being held to standards they were never equipped to meet.

The outcomes increasingly reflect resources, not merit.

Why This Matters Beyond One Case

This experience is not isolated. Research consistently shows that following separation, fathers are far less likely to retain primary caregiving roles, even in the absence of findings that would justify such outcomes. Many become peripheral figures in their children’s daily lives through incremental restrictions rather than formal determinations.

At the same time, separated and divorced men face markedly higher rates of depression and suicide than their married peers. These realities do not point to a single cause, nor do they assign blame—but they do underscore what is at stake when systems treat parental connection as negotiable rather than foundational.

What We Owe to Children, Parents and Each Other

If there is one thing I hope readers take from this, it is that these failures are not rare—and they are not abstract.

Across Canada, parents are navigating family court without lawyers, without guidance, and without meaningful protection from tactics that exploit silence, delay, and imbalance. Many are doing everything they are told to do: staying calm, documenting carefully, complying with orders, and prioritizing their children. Still, they are losing ground—not because they are unfit, but because the system is not designed to recognize quiet persistence.

This is not a call to attack judges, lawyers, or institutions. It is a call to stop looking away.

If you are a parent living this reality, you are not imagining it. You are not weak for finding it overwhelming. You are not failing because you cannot afford representation. Your presence in your children’s lives matters—even when it is minimized, delayed, or treated as conditional.

If you are a friend, family member, teacher, or neighbour watching someone slowly disappear from their children’s lives, speak up. Ask questions. Offer support. Do not assume that silence means safety, or that the court has everything under control. Often, it does not.

And if you are a co-parent—especially one with legal representation—pause before using the system as leverage. What may feel like protection in the short term can become lasting harm. Children do not benefit from one parent being diminished, erased, or portrayed as dangerous without evidence. They benefit from honesty, proportion, and connection.

Family law does not need more outrage. It needs more integrity.

It needs professionals willing to resist the temptation to exploit assumptions. It needs courts willing to intervene earlier when narratives lack evidence. And it needs communities willing to support parents who show up quietly, consistently, and without theatrics.

I continue to show up for my children—not because the system makes it easy, but because they deserve nothing less. I know there are many others doing the same, unseen and unheard.

This is for them.

And for anyone reading this who still believes that fairness is possible—not just in principle, but in practice—now is the time to speak, to support, and to refuse to normalize a system that quietly breaks families while insisting it is helping them.

Every morning phone call I make says the same thing, again and again: I’m still here.