A big part of your first consultation with a family lawyer is the lawyer trying to explain something that sounds simple, but actually isn’t – the legal concept of parental responsibility. 

Deceptively Simple

As parents, we instinctively understand that we are responsible for our kids.  And then you walk into a lawyer’s office and they start talking about “parental responsibility” like it has all these other meanings. 

And it does. The term “parental responsibility” is used in the Family Law Act (FLA) to describe the legal relationship parents have to their kids and the legal relationship parents have with each other when caring for and making decisions about their kids. 

But here’s the problem, and here’s why family lawyers spend so much time trying to explain what ‘parental responsibility’ means….

Like a walk-in maze, but less fun

The FLA defines parental responsibility as “all the duties, powers, responsibilities and authority which, by law, parents have in relation to children”. Helpful, right? 

So you might ask yourself, then, where’s the list of “duties, powers, responsibilities and authority” that I have? Yeah, there isn’t one.

And this is why lawyers spend so much time trying to explain this concept. What it means is drawn from all over the law, and our understanding of how it works in practice is developed over years of being exposed to the kind of things people argue about when their ‘parental responsibility’ is in dispute.

Start Here

If you’re not a lawyer, you can at least start with looking at the FLA, taking what guidance you can from what the legislation says about parental responsibility. 

Here’s my pointers on where to look: 

• s65DAC – This tell you what the expectations are if an order has been made for two people to share parental responsibility. It talks about the need to make decision in relation to “major long term issues” jointly.
• s65DAE talks about it not being necessary to consult on anything that is not a “major long term issue”
• “major long term issues” is defined in s4 (spoiler alter: the definition doesn’t list everything that is a major long term issue, but it gives you some examples).

When things go wrong

What I’ve written above is a  good starting point to give you an idea of what parental responsibility is and how you should approach decision-making when you share parental responsibility with another parent. 

What it doesn’t tell you is your options when you have a dispute with the other parent about exercising that parental responsibility or what to do if you no longer want to share decision-making. 

That sort of disagreement falls within what the Family Court deals with and it can be resolved by asking the Court to make a decision, if you’ve tried Family Dispute Resolution and it hasn’t worked out.