While say being a teacher can’t be used against you in an argument saying you should be a better parent, it can however be used against you to further bolster the argument that you should have known not to be a bad parent and erode at your credibility.
We don't have to look any further than the summary on this legal argument in Phong v. Nguyen, 2023 ONSC 514 (CanLII) to see how the court may weigh in on this issue.
[38] Here, the fact that the mother in this case is a veteran public-school teacher does not elevate the law’s expectations of her as a parent in her private life. (E.g., an engineer is held to the standard of an ordinary homeowner, when performing work in his own home: Lambert v. Lastoplex Chemicals, 1971 CanLII 27 (SCC), [1972] SCR 569, at 575-76.) At school, a teacher would be expected to have “supraparental expertise” in the supervision of pupils: MacCabe v. Westlock Roman Catholic Separate School, 2001 ABCA 257 (CanLII), at para 26; Adams v. Halifax (City) Board of Education, 27 M.P.R. 232, [1951] 2 D.L.R. 816, 1951 CanLII 694 (N.S. C.A.), at 264 M.P.R.; Linda McKay-Panos et al, “In Loco Parentis,” LawNow Magazine, 2019 44-1, 2019 CanLIIDocs 3769. When she is off-duty, the teacher should be expected to be an ordinary parent with ordinary parenting skills. In considering the mother’s claim to having taken “all reasonable steps to comply with the order,” the standard of an ordinary parent must apply. We therefore rule out the use of skills only expected of professional educators, because the law of contempt in family cases must guide the observance of court orders by all parents who have come to court.
[43] The relevance of the mother’s professional qualifications and experience as a teacher is not their effect on the law’s expectations in her role as a mother. Rather, it pertains to the lack of credibility in the steps she took to comply with the 2022 court order. She was a seasoned professional trained to regulate a classroom of children, but she tried to cast herself as overwhelmed by the stubbornness of one child. I therefore do not accept her claim to have made a true effort to make the father’s parental visit happen. Moreover, the inconsistency and half-heartedness of the mother’s efforts have made it harder for the child to accept her father back into her life. Children do not come with user manuals. More importantly, children do not have a parental vantage point to know what is good for them when their choice is harming them. Parents have to take cues from the avoidance strategies employed by their children to turn the behaviour around.
Comments