Guess who claims divorce is good for children – divorce lawyers, of course!
UNHAPPY parents should divorce because that is what their children want them to do, lawyers said yesterday.
Eight out of ten children think their parents should split up rather than try to patch up a rocky marriage, it was claimed.
A report carried out by family lawyers’ group Resolution and supported by Consensus Collaboration Scotland (CCS) said an overwhelming majority of young people felt it was ultimately better that their parents divorce than stay together unhappily.
The findings drew a furious reaction from supporters of marriage. Former High Court family judge Sir Paul Coleridge called the conclusions shocking and irresponsible.
Sir Paul, head of the Marriage Foundation pressure group, said: ‘Every child who has been confronted by the spectre of family breakdown wants above all else for their family to remain intact or to get back together.
‘Family breakdown has to be confronted for the real and lasting damage it does to children and not massaged away by superficially comforting and, from the family lawyers’ point of view, self-serving platitudes.’
The Resolution report was based on a survey of 514 people aged between 14 and 22 whose parents separated or divorced. They were asked if they thought that ‘despite my feelings at the time, I would rather my parents separated or divorced than stayed together if they were unhappy’. Sixty per cent said they strongly agreed, a further 22 per cent said they tended to agree. One in ten disagreed.
Asked what advice they would give divorcing parents, one young person said: ‘Don’t stay together for a child’s sake, bet- ter to divorce than stay together for another few years and divorce on bad terms.’
Another suggests children will be upset at the time ‘but will often realise, later on, that it was for the best’.
Cath Karlin, a founding member of CCS – a network of Scottish lawyers, family consultants and financial specialists – and a partner at Edinburgh-based BTO Solicitors, said yesterday: ‘This research confirms what family lawyers have known for a long time – it is far better for both the parents and children to remove themselves from relationships that are unhappy.
‘In extreme cases, staying in a toxic relationship can go on to affect children in later life. It can also normalise for them unacceptable behaviours which can go on to affect how they go on to conduct themselves in their own adult relationships.’
Divorce, however, is expensive whether fought out in court or settled by agreement.
The Government’s Money Advice Service says a couple who agree their divorce can expect a solicitor’s bill of between £2,000 and £3,000, or £30,000 plus VAT if they cannot agree and go to court.
If they choose a collaborative family lawyer, the Money Advice Service says costs ‘could be in the region of £8,000 to £15,000’.
A Government guide to divorce launched in 2012 noted: ‘It’s not the separation itself that can cause harm to your children, it’s the level of conflict that they see or hear between parents.’ But evidence from academic studies suggests the opposite.
The last major inquiry in Britain, the Exeter Family Study for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in the 1990s, said that while fighting between parents was bad for children, family breakdown leading to the loss of a parent from the home exerts a greater influence.
‘Realise it was for the best’