Post divorce 1 in 3 dads lose contact with their DC and 68% parents admit to using their children as bargaining tools

[spicemonster]

Article on the BBC here. Hugely depressing

yes I saw that. Those figures are horrifically high, esp considering they've got to be suppressed right?

I think the idea of a contract between children and their separating parents might help to focus the parents' minds. Would have to be drafted and delivered v sensitively though, wouldn\t it?

I dunno how accurate those figures are. I've been practicing as a divorce lawyer for over 20 years now and the vast majority, I'd say 90plus% of fathers are still in touch with their children.

Half of my clients certainly do NOT go to court. I'd say the figure is maybe one in 10.

interesting mumblechum - why the discrepancy dyou think?

Partly because the article would not be so interesting if it were more accurate, partly because I don't do public funding work.

It's harsh but true that when I did public funding, ie mostly unemployed people, rates of continuing contact were considerably lower than with middle class parents.

I suspect the figures behind the article are either based on a public funding demographic or are seriously exaggerated. I do about 60 divorces per year and this year, contact has broken down on what looks like a permanent basis on just one of those cases. Of course, it may break down over the years on several more.

My experince of divorce (as one of the children involved) led me to think that - for us children - it would have been better if one parent had died. That is not to belittle the pain of bereavement - just how it was. An acrimonious divorce means you lose a parent plus have ongoing (sometimes never stopping) pain and bitterness.

Mumblechum, perhaps dads are still in touch in the early stages - when you are most likely to be involved - but that contact diminishes as the now separate lives move on.

Interesting that mumblechum doubts the figures. And that the study goes back as far as 20 years - I'd like to know what the figures are now.

Also wonder how many of the ones who do lose touch do so by choice, whether overt or just being crap (letting children down, not turning up when they say they will).

And it's hard to see what tactics would work in terms of making both members of a divorcing couple co-operate to benefit the children - by definition these are couples who are rowing, who dislike or even hate each other.

But how many parents are accused of using their children as bargaining tools by a bitter ex (all over the UK, not just in England)? Only last week I was being moaned at because ex "never sees them" yet it has long been the case that all he needs to do is phone and arrange (and turn up which is the hard part for him.)

If some parents disappear from their child's life surely it is up to the adult to remain in touch. Not the resident parent, not the child but the adult non-resident parent.

Sorry, it is a sore issue. I hate being accused like that when I have been so accommodating to him despite all the crap he threw at me and I know I won't be alone in that.

Aren't you missing the fact that a large proportion of "sepaparating parents" aren't married? I think it's sadly true that umarried fathers are less likely than married fathers to keep up with their children once separated from the mother.

I think they asked people if they had used their children as bargaining tools, rather than their ex.

That's interesting mumblechum. I don't know where the figures came from, just that they were laughing at the woman from Mishcon de Reya for basically asking people to avoid using lawyers wherever possible