Christmas comes with a sting for families separated by Covid
Some parents fear a long-term impact on their bond and their children’s mental health as Covid restrictions keep them apart, finds Serena Solomon.
Mikaere Rapana, 29, doesn’t know when he will see his 11-year-old son again. Rapana lives on the Gold Coast and his son lives in New Zealand. Although they talk on the phone constantly, they are separated by the $3500 cost of New Zealand’s Covid19 managed isolation facilities. Plus, there’s the lost income from four weeks of missed work to quarantine in New Zealand and self-isolate on return to Australia.
To make matters worse, Rapana’s partner, Emily Taputoro, cannot get her 10-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son to New Zealand for Christmas with their father near Hamilton. Taputoro said he is missing his kids as much as Rapana misses his son.
‘‘You think there would be some sort of priority or exemption for fathers to see their kids but as far as I am aware that is not the case,’’ said Rapana, a Kiwi from Tauranga who works as a casual labourer.
‘‘I’m sure there are a lot of fathers out there who would understand the struggle of not being able to see your kid for one reason or another.’’
This is one example of families with young children divided by what some parents call the uncompassionate nature of New Zealand’s Covid19 quarantine system.
Many of these international visitation agreements, whether formalised through the courts or arrangements between parents, were working fine before the pandemic, according to families.
Now, with upended plans for Christmas reunions, parents and children do not know when they will see each other again. The forced separation has caused heartbreak for both sides, and parents fear a long-term impact on their family’s bond and their child’s mental health.
‘‘It is about attachment, and children need a secure attachment to both their parents,’’ said Jill Goldson, who has more than 30 years’ experience dealing with separated families as the director of the Family Matters Centre in Auckland.
Toddlers will likely be less impacted by the separation, provided the child has a secure attachment figure physically in their life, she said. However, older children might feel the sting of distance more deeply.
‘‘I think school-age children are very vulnerable because a lot of them are already quite anxious about the pandemic,’’ said Goldson. ‘‘They worry about the parent who they can’t actually see.’’
Goldson is working with a number of clients who are separated by the difficulty and expense of travelling to New Zealand during Covid-19. Some parents are alienating the absent parent by stifling meaningful contact with the children.
Sharon Chandra, a lawyer who specialises in family law, has numerous clients involved in international custody disputes or agreements impacted by New Zealand’s Covid-19 travel restrictions.
One client in the United Kingdom spent thousands of dollars finalising a custody agreement for his toddler in New Zealand. With a plan finally in place, Covid-19 made the agreement unenforceable.
The client isn’t a New Zealand citizen or resident and would require a special exemption to travel here during Covid-19. Chandra said the client applied for an exemption but was denied.
That bar for special permission to travel here is set high to stop the spread of Covid-19, an Immigration New Zealand spokesperson told
‘‘When you add Covid to the mix, it means that this child is missing out on actually being able to build an attachment and a relationship with his father,’’ said Chandra, who works on about a dozen international custody agreements each year. ‘‘These are years that you’re not going to get back so you have to manage it the best way you can, but you miss out at the end of the day and it is going to be this child who suffers the most.’’
Stephanie (not her real name),
38, is in Spain. Her 11-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son live
20,000 kilometres away with their father in Wellington.
Although she was able to visit her kids from June through October, her plans to be with them at Christmas and to take them back to Spain for their summer holiday are out the window. This is due to the lack of space at quarantine facilities over Christmas as well as the cost of managed isolation – she wasn’t charged for her last visit – and the steep price of airfares, she said.
New Zealand citizens who are returning to New Zealand for less than three months are liable for the $3500 quarantine fee, according to a Managed Isolation and Quarantine spokesperson. Those facing financial hardship can apply for an exemption to the fee, but these are judged on a caseby-case basis.
Through social media, Stephanie said she has followed cases of other parents in similar circumstances who applied for fee exemptions, but they were unsuccessful, so she has not tried herself.
The uncertainty of when Stephanie will see her children is taking its toll on them, she said. Their interest in school is dropping and so are their grades. ‘‘My kids are generally resilient, happy kids, but they are heartbroken,’’ said Stephanie.
Like other parents Stuff spoke with, Stephanie’s reasons for living in a different country from her children are complex. She was born in the UK to Iraqi parents before moving to New Zealand as a teenager and becoming a New Zealand citizen.
Stephanie never felt at home in New Zealand, where she experienced racism. When her marriage ended, she moved to Spain in 2016, where she feels accepted. Until Covid-19, she saw her children at least three times a year.
It has been almost 12 months since Dorothy, a Kiwi living in London, saw her 11-year-old son, who lives in New Zealand with a grandparent. She didn’t want her last name used because she feared online abuse from other New Zealanders upset about her criticisms of the country’s quarantine strategy.
If it were a normal year, the son would have visited her in July, and she would have hopped on a plane to New Zealand for Christmas and the school holidays. Now, she doesn’t think she will see him until the end of next year.
‘‘And he turns 12 at the end of the month,’’ said Dorothy, choking up with tears. ‘‘We have this beautiful relationship and I fear as he comes into his teenage years, if he doesn’t see me, and we don’t have that connection, it might have some damaging effects,’’ she said.
Dorothy said the film industry roles she is employed in require her to be in the UK where she has worked consistently since the pandemic started. She has also established a life there – friends and a flat with a room for her son.
Technology such as video calls is one saving grace of long-term separation, said Goldson, from the Family Matters Centre. Parents can read young children books over the phone, help older children with homework and send regular text messages.
‘‘The most important thing is that a child and parent have a sense of involvement in each other’s lives,’’ she said.
This can be harder to do for young children whose attention span and ability to hold a conversation is limited, according to lawyer Chandra.
As for Rapana in the Gold Coast, all he wants is to introduce his son to his new half-brother, Crown, who Rapana and Taputoro had last year.
‘‘Little things like that, for us, make it feel like there is just a missing piece,’’ he said.
Lawyer Sharon Chandra, above
‘‘These are years that you’re not going to get back, but it is going to be the child who suffers the most.’’