Join us on twitterChristmas 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.
Tara Fass, Huffington Post, 28 October 2011
The bifurcated child — shuttling between the homes of his or her separated or divorced parents — is, by definition, caught in the middle. Imagine the child as a bird migrating from one place to another, essentially homeless until you provide a safe perch. How can you help this child glide in for a smoother landing?
Hello again everybody, and welcome back.
Our apologies for the website being down for so long. Hackers are the bane of our existence. Our various websites have all been hacked over the years, but I’m sure we’re not the only ones.
Being a very small community organisation, with few resources, it’s very damaging when we do get something like this happen. Unfortunately we don’t have an IT department to call on, so a big thank you to the people at Lumonata who fixed things for us and are currently working on updating it and getting information back up there.
In the meantime, keep your stories coming. We don’t always get back to you (and again, our apologies) but the stories are a great help in our work with government to get better policy and administration practices for single parents and their children.
Marriage has been in the news a lot lately, with a release of a report into the benefits of marriage by the Australian Christian Lobby. This report, written by Professor Patrick Parkinson, found that parental marriage acts as a protective factor for children, improving their life outcomes.
Sole Parents’ Union has a number of concerns about the report. On reading the report in the Sydney Morning Herald we wrote a response which you can read in full in our news section.
Apart from the misrepresentation of previous research, Sole Parents’ Union would point out that marriages which don’t end in divorce would be expected to be better for children than those that do, after all people would usually stay together for a reason – they get along well so they have low levels conflict and therefore less reason to separate. As we pointed out in our letter, it is conflict rather than divorce per se that is the problem.
But where divorce leads to an end in the conflict then outcomes for children also improve. A good divorce really is better than a bad marriage.
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.
The lament you often hear from non-residential parents is that they want to see their children more, while residential parents often say they want the other parent to see their children more.
If this is the case, you have to wonder why it doesn’t happen.
“Your claim for Youth Allowance has been rejected.
“Our records show we did not receive the information we requested from you, and as a result a decision has been made that your claim for Youth Allowance has not been successful. Information about what to do if you think this decision is wrong is on the back of this letter.”
That’s the letter my son received from Centrelink. Part of it anyway. The part that says he’s been rejected and all the information it gives about about why.
Sole Parents’ Union opposed the changes that were introduced in 2006 to encourage shared care.
Don’t get us wrong – we’re not against parents taking responsibility for their children, we think that’s a great idea. And we think most parents are capable of at least giving it a go.
But we are opposed to putting women and children (and men) at risk of violence and abuse by a de facto presumption of equal custody.
Some days are diamonds, others you just want to curl up in a ball and not get out of bed.
And this week has been one of those – coals that is, not diamonds.
Christmas can be a difficult time for single parents – and their children. First there’s the question of who buys what presents or how you can afford any presents at all, especially if you don’t get child support.
And of course, the always vexed question of where the kids will spend Christmas day, and how to not make them feel like they’re being split down the middle.