Åsne Seierstad - One of Us

The conclusion was that ‘Anders needs to be taken out of the family and into a better care setting because his mother is continually provoked by the boy and is locked in an ambivalent position, making it impossible for him to develop on his own terms.’

Mother and daughter were probably better able to live together, the centre thought. But Elisabeth’s progress, too, should be carefully monitored, as there were some danger signals, such as the fact that she had few friends and tended to get very wrapped up in her own fantasies.

The Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry reported in a letter to the local child welfare office: ‘The profoundly pathological relationship between Anders and his mother means early intervention is vital to prevent seriously abnormality in the boy’s development. Ideally he should be transferred to a stable foster home. The mother is however strongly opposed to this, and it is hard to predict the consequences of enforced intervention.’

As Anders’s mother had requested respite care in the form of a weekend home, the centre suggested an initial effort to build on this, with foster parents who understood that the arrangement might become permanent.

The Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry emphasised to the local child welfare office that this was a matter of importance, and that work should start at once on finding a suitable weekend home. The centre offered its assistance in evaluating foster homes, mediating between the family and the respite home and remaining involved to ensure things were moving in the right direction.

Then something happened that botched the plan. Jens Breivik, who was now stationed in Paris, received the report from the Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Through his lawyer, he demanded immediate transfer of Anders’s care to him. The diplomat wanted an interim injunction that would give him emergency custody of the boy straight away, while he explored permanent custody through the courts. Wenche, who had welcomed the prospect of weekend respite care, now refused point-blank to accept any help at all. It might give her ex-husband an advantage in court. Wenche again hired the lawyer who had helped her with the divorce and dividing the assets. He wrote that ‘respite in the form of a foster home for Anders is a solution that my client finds utterly objectionable. Furthermore, the need for respite ceased to apply a long time ago.’

At that point the Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the child welfare office stood back and awaited the outcome of the case at Oslo City Court. In October 1983 the court ruled that Anders’s situation did not require urgent action and that the boy could live with his mother until the main court case started.

As Jens Breivik understood it, the court had concluded there was no serious negligence on Wenche’s part and he therefore had little prospect of winning custody of his son. In the early 1980s it was in any case unusual for a court to find in a father’s favour in child custody cases. The mother generally took priority.

Jens Breivik had not seen his son for three years. Now he gave up his demand to take charge of Anders’s care and the case was never brought before the court. His lawyer wrote to the Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry that Jens Breivik and his current wife had begun to have their doubts after they learned about the preliminary meeting at Oslo City Court. Initially, ‘their impression had been that Anders was in a critical state, and they had not hesitated to open their home to him. Now, however, they feel they will have to fight to get Anders. This is a new development and they feel they have been thrust into a situation in which they had no intention of becoming embroiled.’

But the young psychologist at the Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry did not want to give up on Anders. Just a month after the City Court ruling, Arild Gjertsen asked the child welfare authorities in Oslo to instigate standard proceedings to have Anders taken into care, that is, to separate him from his mother by force. Gjertsen emphasised that ‘We stand by our original conclusion that Anders’s care situation is so precarious that he is at risk of developing more serious psychopathology and we hereby restate our assessment that an alternative care situation is necessary for Anders, which we consider to be our duty under The Children’s Act § 12, cf. § 16a. Since the father has withdrawn his civil action, child welfare authority should take up the case on its own grounds.’

In November of the same year, Wenche’s lawyer accused the psychologist of ‘monomanic victimisation’.

‘Admittedly I am not a psychologist, but in my thirty years of practice I have acquired something young Gjertsen may be presumed to lack, namely a wide-ranging and detailed knowledge of human behaviour. On this basis I can express my firm conviction that if Wenche Behring is not qualified to look after Anders without the intervention of child protection agencies, then there are in fact very few, if any, mothers in this country qualified to raise their children independently,’ he wrote to the child welfare authorities.

There was no more the specialists at the centre could do. They were not authorised to take any formal steps; only the child welfare department could take such action.

The serious concerns of the Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry now had to be weighed against a new assessment from the Vigeland Park nursery, which referred to Anders as a ‘cheerful, happy boy’. Jens Breivik complained that the assessment had come from the pen of a nursery employee who was a friend of Wenche’s.

When the Child Welfare Board held its hearing to consider whether Anders should be taken into care, Wenche arrived well prepared at the Vika social services office, along with her lawyer. He stressed that Anders’s mother had now recovered from the short-lived crisis that had resulted from her difficult divorce. The officer originally handling the case had left, and the young replacement had scarcely any experience of child welfare issues and had never been called before the board before. When she attended the meeting she had not worked on the case beyond reading the papers. It proved an uncomfortable experience for the young welfare officer, who felt she had been thrown to the wolves.

It was only on specific and very serious grounds such as battery, abuse or obvious neglect that legal authority could be granted under the Child Welfare Act for the enforced placement of a child in a foster home. Social services suggested a compromise. The family would be monitored for the time being.

Three checks were carried out, one with notice and two unannounced, in the winter of 1984. The social welfare office report of these visits to Silkestrå ran as follows: ‘The mother appeared organised, tidy and in control, easy to talk to, calm and unruffled regardless of the subject under discussion. The girl was calm, well behaved and watchful. Anders was a pleasant, relaxed boy with a warm smile that immediately makes one like him. During conversations in the home he sat up at the table, busy with games, plasticine or Playmobil toys.’ The report also said that not a single cross word was exchanged between the family members. Anders was never whiny or obstructive. ‘The mother never changes her expression and does not get upset if difficult situations arise with Anders. She speaks calmly and Anders accepts her instructions and does as she says.’ The only reservation expressed by the home visitor from social services was that the children’s mother had sent them out for pizza, although they were ‘possibly a bit young to run that sort of errand, and one might add that pizza can scarcely be called a nutritious meal’.