Court Opinion

ID: 9737985
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:39:18.297026+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:03.006855
License: Public Domain

Heffernan, J.
(concurring). The court concludes that the trial judge committed an error of law in awarding custody of the now seven-year-old John to his working mother.
The legal error,1 the opinion contends, became apparent when the trial judge in the following words (excerpted *769from the majority opinion) revealed that he was preferring the defendant mother solely on the basis of her motherhood:
. . the court feels that the sociological impact of the mother’s care, of a mother’s interest . . . overcome the other considerations . . .
“. . . The child needs care, maintenance, and discipline. When the child is sick and running a fever, he needs the mother along side of him. You [the father] are not there. You will not be there and you cannot substitute for the mother of a child, the natural feeling.”
“. . . You know that isn’t possible, Mr. Scolman. 1 don’t care how well intentioned a mother still has the role of being parent, patient, compassionate, humane with the child. Raising of a child is a skill . . . and ... in this day of women’s lib, I don’t think men are built for that. I think it is primarily a woman’s responsibility to raise the child.”
From these quoted portions of the record, the majority opinion (ignoring other portions of the record in which the trial judge gave careful consideration to the financial capabilities of each of the parties, the hours of their employment, and past social histories, and specifically concluded that he was awarding custody because it was in the best interests of the child) appears to conclude that the trial judge based his decision on the mistaken view that the law compelled him arbitrarily to award custody to the mother if she was not “unfit.” A review of the record casts doubt upon the majority’s conclusion, for other factors than biological motherhood were indeed considered.
Nevertheless, the writer agrees that the trial judge gave undue consideration to the biological fact of motherhood — by definition an attribute that in humans at least is reserved to the female sex.
*770Thus it appears that what the majority says is that the trial judge, by his emphasis on the qualities of motherhood, has given preference to the mother “solely on the basis of the sex of the parent,” contrary to sec. 247.24 (3), Stats.
Yet the court quotes with apparent approval the language of the three-generation-old Jenkins Case. Reasonably read, it appears to this writer that Jenkins, in rather maudlin terms, mandates an absolute preference for the mother in custody cases involving children of tender years. The language favoring the custody in the biological mother is far more sweeping and arbitrary in Jenkins than the language used by the trial judge in this case. Why then condemn the trial judge here for the legal standards employed, if the standards of Jenkins are approved.
I am puzzled, moreover, at the legal significance of the dicta, “The role of mothers who stay home and give meticulous care and abundant love to their children of very tender age is one of womankind’s noblest and most rewarding functions.” This perhaps is true, although, as one of the male sex, the writer is not sure that any of his gender should mouth such aphorisms on behalf of the female gender. Certainly, child rearing and child care, by and large, has worked out very nicely for the males. A substantial portion of parental responsibility has thus been transferred with good conscience to the female, because by it she is “rewarded” and “ennobled.”
From the male point of view, it is indeed satisfying to find this attitude now enshrined in a supreme court opinion. If a woman stays at home and cares for her children, she is noble. Indeed, she well may be. But what has that to do with this case?
The mother in the instant case is employed. She will be required to have her child cared for by a baby-sitter or a nursery school. Is the majority paying mere lip *771service to the statute, but intimating that it is less noble to be a working mother than a stay-at-home mother. True, there is an instant disclaimer that such is the intention. The ignobility of the working mother is to be forgiven, but only because, parenthetically, she has the “right” to work. What is the relevance of all this in the majority’s opinion?
The opinion gives lip service to the statute, but seeks to circumvent it.
The majority opinion concludes that the statute passed in 1971 merely codifies the law previously determined by this court. I do not agree. Welker v. Welker (1964), 24 Wis. 2d 570, 578, 129 N. W. 2d 134, relied upon in the majority opinion, states that “The rule of preference in custody cases in favor of a mother is a strong one.” (Emphasis supplied.) For that proposition, Welker relies on Jenkins, which is quoted in the majority opinion. Yet the majority opinion states that, under Wisconsin law, there is only “a slight preference for the mother.” (Emphasis supplied.)
It is clear, therefore, that what, before the passage of sec. 247.24 (3), Stats., had been a “strong preference” has now, by a process not made clear, become a “slight preference.” The law indeed has been changed — and the change was made by the statute. This court should recognize that the legislative change is greater than that conceded in the majority opinion.
Because of legislative action, this court can give no sex preference in custody cases. It may indeed, and perhaps usually will, give subjective preference to the maternal parent over the paternal parent, not because of the biological difference, but because of the likelihood of better performance, in a particular case, of the mothering function. The Oxford New English Dictionary gives as a second definition of the verb, “to mother,” “To take care of or protect as a mother.” Funk & Wagnalls New Stan*772dard Dictionary gives the example of homes (for children) “where [they] find temporary home and food and rest, and the mothering which they need more than all.”
Hence, it seems clear that the mothering function, i.e., the giving of love and attention to a child, is not a function of the female parent alone. In a united family, a part of that function can well be, and should be, performed by the father.
In each case where a court is confronted with a question of custody, it must look to the mothering function— where in the best interests of the child will it receive the love, the care, and the attention that will best serve the child’s interests. This is, of course, but one factor that a trial court should consider.
In the exercise of judicial discretion it may well be determined that in a particular case the father can better perform that function than can the female parent. No preference at all should or can be given under the law merely because of sex. True, the facts of a particular motherhood — the nursing of an infant child, for example — would compel, except in the case of an exceptionally unfit person, the award of custody to the female parent.
I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the cause should be remanded “for a new child custody hearing in which both parents face an equal burden, in light of present circumstances, to show what is in the best interests of the child.” I can agree, however, with little of the language or reasoning by which that conclusion is reached. The expressed rationale is too frequently inconsistent and at odds with the salutary result. The rationale of the authorities cited, if followed to its logical conclusion, would have mandated the court to insist that- a “strong preference” be given to the maternal parent in a custody dispute. The mawkish, and legally incorrect, language of Jenkins should not be afforded a place in modern Wisconsin jurisprudence.
*773I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Beilfuss joins in this concurrence.

 More properly denominated an abuse of discretion. State v. Hutnik (1968), 39 Wis. 2d 754, 763, 159 N. W. 2d 733; Miller *769v. Belanger (1957), 275 Wis. 187, 81 N. W. 2d 545; Estate of Baumgarten (1961), 12 Wis. 2d 212, 107 N. W. 2d 169.