Divorce hurt for children blights own weddings

NO MATTER how civilised a divorce is, it always makes children unhappy, says Penelope Leach, hurling a grenade into the cosy liberal consensus on the matter.

The veteran child psychologist has infuriated fathers with her new book, Family Breakdown, in which she suggests that very small children whose parents separate should not stay overnight with the absent father (or mother).

‘‘You get situations,’’ Leach says, ‘‘where children are spending a week in mum’s house and a week in dad’s house and all kinds of horrible arrangements. I call them horrible because we do know that they are desperately wrong for children, who need the security of a place called home and who, when very little, shouldn’t be taken away overnight from what is usually the mother – the person they are attached to.’’

Leach’s view flies in the face of evidence which shows, consistently, that it is better for the child to have regular contact with both parents, though she is right and brave to point out that divorce, which now affects nearly half of all marriages, is too often about the selfish interests of the parents, with children seen as property to be haggled over.

A friend of mine found out, shortly after her daughter’s second birthday, that her husband had a longstanding girlfriend. Aggressively, the man pursued joint custody of the little girl; though, after a long and bitter legal battle, Vicky was able to hang on to Tilly for the majority of the time.

During the weekends with her dad, Tilly often regressed, wetting the bed, pinching and lashing out. Vicky hated what the custody arrangements were doing to her child, but she tried to remain civil, even when her ex failed to return Tilly at the appointed hour.

It was not about his love for the child, but exerting power over his former wife. Mothers, too, can use small children as pawns in a strategic battle of The Ex Files.

As a bruised child of divorce myself, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about its long-term effects. This year I’ve attended two weddings where the parents on one side were divorced and it was telling how marital schisms that had taken place years earlier were still a source of pain and difficulty. At the first wedding, it was the bride’s father who had walked out on his family to live with his secretary; at the second, it was the groom’s dad who was a serial philanderer.

Both fathers were glad to preen and grandstand at the weddings of their offspring and both caused varying degrees of embarrassment and awkwardness.

What is the poor groom supposed to say about his father-in-law in his speech – ‘‘And thanks to Richard, who abandoned Sally when she was 12, causing anorexia and lifelong heartbreak and insecurity"?

While the errant fathers were keen to play a leading role on their daughter’s/son’s big day, the children themselves seemed mainly concerned to protect their mothers. At the first wedding, the bride walked down the aisle on the arm of her fiance, rejecting the tradition of being given away by her father. Watching his slumped, bulbous figure in the pew ahead of me, I wondered if he felt slighted and, if so, did it cause him to reflect on the conduct that had caused his beautiful daughter to reject him so publicly?

At the second wedding , I noticed that the adorable groom found the bare minimum of things to say about his father. ‘‘Thanks to Jerry for being here’’, was about the extent of it. He admitted afterwards that he was desperately sad not to be able to acknowledge Nick, his mum’s partner of 17 years, who had been more father to him than his own flesh and blood.

At the end of both weddings, slightly the better for champagne, I turned to Himself and said that the main reason we must never, ever split up is because it would cause such tension on the children’s wedding days.