Some folks prefer comedies or reality shows, but when it comes to my limited TV time, I’m a Judge Judy fan. She’s got her abrasive moments, sure, but if you watch for long enough, there are elements from all the above, especially when it comes to family law.

Time and again, Judge Sheindlin can be counted on to school meddling grandparents, admonished wayward adult offspring and cautioned vindictive exes against using mutual children as pawns.

It’s a topic I’ve tackled here before: women who decide that because they no longer like their child’s father, he is officially a non-factor and shouldn’t see or spend time with them. A 2009 column of mine solicited dozens of grateful emails from dads as well as author Bill Dotson, who included a portion in his 2011 book, From Faith To Faith: Fathers, Are You Absent Or Abiding?: “Without fathers, our sons may look like men, but they follow the warped examples offered by entertainers….Our daughters end up hungering for male attention and give their hearts—and bodies— to the first man with sweet talk and a smile.”

Fathers matter and their right to actively participate as such isn’t a privilege mothers can arbitrarily deny, a lesson learned in two recent high-profile child custody battles.

Danielle Schreiber, the ex-girlfriend of actor Jason Patric, solicited her ex for a sperm donation to conceive a son. Academy-Award-winning actress, Halle Berry, conceived a daughter during a relationship with model Gabriel Aubry. Both mothers later decided to restrict or outright remove the father’s visitation and involvement.

Schrebier, a massage therapist, ended her sporadic decadelong partnership with Patric in 2012, when their son, Gus, was two years old. In a June CNN report, the 41-year-old claimed that Patric was never a father to Gus and declared to CNN that she’d always intended to parent alone. “I entered motherhood prepared to undertake all the necessary responsibilities: the emotional, physical, financial, practical and logistical aspects,” she told CNN. “Becoming a single mother was not only an informed decision, it was the right decision for me.” Last month, a California appellate court reversed the decision of a lower court that his parental rights were preluded by his contributing via in vitro fertilization, and Patric is now establishing paternity and visitation rights.

Berry’s case isn’t the groundbreaker that Patric’s is, but it’s just as messy: after five years together and a two-year-old daughter, Aubry’s attempts to co-parent with Berry in 2010 were not well-received. If Aubry wasn’t being accused of brandishing racial slurs or child endangerment (both unfounded), Aubry was reeling from exclusion on Nahla’s birth certificate and, later, a physical altercation with Berry’s then-fiance, Olivier Martinez. A final court decision in May netted Aubry joint custody and $16,000 per month in child support.

I’m no legal expert, but in my opinion, these situations have become textbook examples of parental alienation. Some women try to re-purpose the exes as deadbeats and/or sperm donors, forgoing adoption agencies or anonymous sperm banks to facetiously encourage, then annihilate, pre-existing paternal bonds.

What exactly was accomplished? Are moms prepared to justify the excuses they used as reasons to bar the fathers from their kids’ lives?

Judge Judy didn’t preside over either case, but as she so often says, parents have to love their kids more than they hate each other.* Many tasks can be accomplished alone, but parenting, especially when the other party is loving and legally entitled to participate, shouldn’t be one of them.

*Please click here for further reading and a psychological perspective on the damaging effects of child custody disputes.