“I want to be clear about something,” Judge Hanley continued. “Custody decisions are not punishments. I am not interested in deciding who was crueler, or who said the worse thing, or who deserves to suffer for what happened in this courtroom. I am interested in one question only: what arrangement allows this child, Lily, to grow up safe, loved, and free from the burden of managing the conflict between her parents.”
He set the pages down.
“The guardian ad litem’s report makes it clear that Lily loves her father. It also makes it clear that Lily has been placed, repeatedly, in the position of evaluating her mother’s medical credibility — a task no seven-year-old should ever be asked to perform. She has heard herself, apparently more than once, that her mother ‘gets sick when she wants attention.’ I do not know whether that sentence was said maliciously or carelessly. I only know that a child should never hear it about her own parent.”
