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Lisa Arends, Huffington Post 28 April 2012

My divorce certainly did not present itself as a gift, trussed up with a big red bow like a Lexus in a Christmas commercial. Instead, it was a big ugly box, filled to the brim with explosives. It was a present I never anticipated and one I never desired. But, as it came with a “no return” policy, I was determined to make the best of it.

I was with my husband for 16 years. Sixteen good years. Little did I know a tsunami was forming beneath the placid surface of our marriage. A tsunami that reached land one afternoon when I received the following text message:

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Huffington Post

As a matrimonial attorney, the very first thing I say to every new client is, “Shut down your Facebook account and stop texting immediately.” While not everyone necessarily follows this advice, the ones that do are in much better shape if the case goes into a courtroom.

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Christmas can be a difficult time for single parent and blended families. Trying to come to an agreement on where children will be and when, let alone where Santa will deliver presents, can cause otherwise amicable arrangements to fall apart.

Divorce lawyers, Centrelink/Child Support Agency, counselling services and helplines all report a flurry of activity at Christmas – most of it distressing for all parties. It’s also a time when domestic violence increases along with all other stresses.

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I’ve been re-reading some of the research about shared care and where, how and for whom it works. And where, how and for whom it doesn’t work.

The Social Policy Research Centre at the University of NSW did a report on Shared Care Parenting Arrangements since the 2006 Family Law Reforms. This was reported extensively when it was released in 2010, particularly the finding that both parents and children like shared care, and it’s good for children.

But, like most things, that’s not the whole story.

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I’ve been trawling through divorce statistics, and I’ve come to a conclusion.

Drum roll please …..

Most people think divorce is a bad thing.

Oh der, I can hear you saying. Tell me something I don’t know.

But I have to keep asking – why? Why is divorce so bad?

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I have been at a Family Law conference all day today.

OK, so that’s not everybody’s cup of tea. But there was some really interesting research that was presented.

Now, I’m sure most of you won’t be surprised to hear this – but the 2006 Family Law changes aren’t working. That’s the changes pushing shared care.

Yeah, yeah. I hear you saying. We knew that. Of course you did. We all did. Even the dads groups who were pushing for them to be introduced. So why is nobody happy?

First – shared care isn’t shared custody. The Family Court knows this and doesn’t award shared custody in most cases. But most other people – those who want to get shared custody – don’t know it. They go to court expecting that they will get 50% custody and they don’t. So of course they’re not happy.

Those parents who get threatened with a custody battle are not happy. They think if they go to court they will lose custody, so trade off property in order to avoid a court case.

And perhaps most important – children are not happy. Unsurprisingly, they don’t like feeling like they’re caught in the middle of a battle between their parents.

And just to add to all that – shared custody, even when it is awarded, doesn’t work. Most shared custody arrangements fall over within 2 years and go back to a primary care arrangement.

So why did all this happen? You’re guess is as good as mine, but I think it has a lot to do with trying to shut up some very loud, very disgruntled voices.

Politics in other words. What we’re hearing a lot of in this election campaign.

Sole Parents’ Union received the following story from one of our members. I thought it was worth reproducing, as I’m sure there’s more than one single parent out there in the same situation.

I am a sole parent and have been for a number of years now. My marriage left me in debt, with bad self esteem, low confidence in my abilities and struggling financially.

In the 12 years that I have been separated I have done a lot of work on myself, the children and been the lone ranger when it comes to meeting my children’s (and now granchildren’s) needs. My eldest (25) who has a mental illness is now married and making a life for herself. Raising her, I made mistakes like any parent but she is alive – which is a credit to both herself and her mother (me). She had her first child at 17 and I am now raising him – he is 8 (he has lived with me since he was 2). My other daughter lives at home with me and is undertaking year 11.

I consider myself a survivor. I have worked hard at being a good mum, buying a home, undertaking a social work degree and creating a community of care.

My concerns and issues regarding being a sole parent are as follows:

1. The low economic status of sole parents which is further exacerbated by the low social status that sole parents are STILL have

2. The lack of financial assistance out there for sole parents that want to improve their circumstances in terms of university education (research shows that better educated parents give their children better opportunities and lessen the likely hood of welfare dependency)

The second issue is one which really irritates me. I know numerous sole parents at uni who struggle financially, physically and emotionally trying to balance working, raising a family and studying. They are my heros. The University education system seems to support different demographics but there seems to be no specific support outside of menial centrelink payments and the commonwealth scholarship program to assist this group of people who have been clearly identified as disadvantaged (in terms of living in poverty, education and socially excluded). I admit that I haven’t looked into it at great length in systemic terms, but from personal experience – i.e. trying to find a sole parents specific scholarship program that would help take the financial pressure off so I can study full time rather than juggle family / work / study – there doesn’t seem to be anything beside the aforementioned financial assistance? Wouldn’t it make sense to invest in this group so that the individual benefits may also be generational benefits?

I know a number of sole parents who are investing in their future. They model good study behaviours for their children, they have conversations with their children about the modern world and influence their children’s view of the world by having a perspective other than that presented to them in the media, they teach their children to think critically and analyze their points of view, they show their children that an education is a way out of poverty rather than welfare, they are better equipped to find resources for their children when needed and they can sit and help their kids with assignments, and they show their kids that if they try they can do anything. Why are we not advocating for support for these parents more at the state and federal level? Or are we?

Thanks for taking the time to listen to my rant. I know everyone is out there pushing their agendas .. this is my bug bear at the moment .. and has been for a while. I really feel strongly that a little investment, understanding and support can make a difference .. not to just one person, but to a whole, sometimes broken family and the benefits are generational.

It’s inspiring stories like this that keep us going here in what seems an eternal struggle to get good policies and supports for sole parent families. But rest assured, we will keep doing it. So keep those stories coming in to help us in our advocacy work with government.

The Australian Institute of Family Studies is holding their conference in Melbourne this week.

Of course, as happens with research into families, much of this revolves around divorce and sole parenting.

But here’s the interesting bit. Research shows that women – mothers – are financially worse off after divorce.

So what’s new I hear you say. You already knew that. Many of the women who contact us are living that reality every day. And trying to raise their children.

Yet a lot of changes to family law, and child support in particularly, have been made on the basis that it’s fathers, at least non-residential ones, who are financially devastated.

One study by Belinda .. of the University of Melbourne concentrated on property settlements. A second study Relationship breakdown and social exclusion: a longitudinal analysis, by Matthew Gray, Lixia Qu and David Stanton is particularly interesting.

It shows that women are much poorer, but men are more emotionally fragile after a marriage breakdown. Again, many of you are probably going “der”.

But here’s the particularly interesting bit. Within fours years men on the way to recovering emotionally and their finances have improved considerably. Women’s incomes have gone backwards.

And of course, if the people looking after the kids don’t have any money, then the kids suffer.

As tends to happen when a group of single parents gets together, the conversation around the lunch table the other day turned to child support. We discussed exes, and children, and how expensive they were (the exes AND the children!), and how much support we got to raise the kids.  And it seems that it’s not much. Only one of the five us around the table consistently received the child support they were supposed to.

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