The Knesset has passed an amendment eliminating the term “single parent family” from the lexicon of the legal system in Israel.
Instead, the One-Parent Family Law of 1992 will now read: “Family headed by an independent parent” to clarify the status of a parent with custody and who is head of household.
The amendment proposed by MK Meir Sheetrit replaced “single” parent with “independent” parent in order to avoid the implication that a lone parent was a widow or widower.
A family with a parent who is divorced or separated, who has custody of a child, cannot be classified as a single parent family under current law since both parents are alive. “Once the mother is defined as a ‘sole parent’ the father is, metaphorically, dead,” according to the bill’s explanatory notes.
Sheetrit told reporters, “This definition skews reality and in effect renders the parenthood of the other parent, usually the father, null and void in perception and in practice – not just in the eyes of the mother and child but in the eyes of society as a whole.”
Yesh Atid MK Aliza Lavie, chairperson of the Committee for Advancement of the Status of Women and Gender Equality, meanwhile, noted Tuesday morning that the committee reviewed the issue and found the amendment to be “only semantic.”
Lavie said the change “does not harm the rights granted to these families by law” and noted the point of the amendment was to “affect legal and public discourse in order to strengthen the perception that even in cases of separation between partners, their child has two parents who want his benefit and contribute to his growth and development.”