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6-Year Divorce Case Comes Down To THIS?

By John Mesirow

After 6 years of litigation, everything else was settled in this divorce, which began just 4 months after the birth of the child at the heart of the controversy. Just what is the controversy? Whether the birth mother can prohibit her daughter's stepmother from calling the stepmother "Mum" or a variation thereof. Really. This was the only issue left for a Judge in Australia to decide. Per the Australian:

The woman, who cannot be named, argued that her ex-husband was deliberately undermining her role as their child's mother, by encouraging his new wife to answer to the terms "Mum" and "Mummy" and "Mummy-D" (D being the first letter of the stepmother's first name).

Biological mum's argument:

... the stepmother should not be permitted to refer to herself "as a motherly figure".

Biological dad?

By consent, her ex-husband agreed that his new wife should not be "Mum or "Mummy" but thought "Mummy-D" was fine.

Sounds like a reasonable compromise. Mum?

Ms Klement [mum] was "adamant that the child should only call her Mum" or any variation of "Mum".

Judge, please, put an end to this.

The court declined to make an order that the child not refer to her stepmother as "Mummy-D" in part because the judge was concerned that such an order would lead to further litigation "where it would be up to the court to determine whether the father had breached the order in relation to encouraging the child to use the term Mummy-D".

Well done, sir. Here's the source.

Full post as published by Legal Juice on March 09, 2010 (boomark / email).