Grandparents are an unspoken success story, a hidden army of child carers that helps to keep families intact and to stabilise those that break down. An older generation that is physically and mentally younger than ever before is offering extraordinary amounts of advice, childcare and financial support. The importance of this role has now been recognised by the Family Justice Review, whose interim report recommends that grandparents should continue to be involved with their grandchildren when parents split up.
That is important, for research suggests that almost half of grandparents never see their grandchildren again after their children separate. The old suffer heartache and the young miss out on the love and stories that help to make sense of who they are and where they came from.
That grandparents have lobbied so hard for recognition reflects the dramatic increase in family breakdown. A generation ago, one in five couples divorced before their fifteenth anniversary. Today it is one in three. The country is increasingly divided between families that rely heavily on older relatives and ones that have cut those relatives out of the picture. Some local authorities have seemed institutionally hostile to grandparents, preferring children to be looked after by strangers than by willing blood relatives. One Edinburgh couple in their fifties fought for two years against social workers who said that they were too old to keep looking after their grandson and granddaughter, while their own daughter tried to overcome heroin addiction.
The Children Act 1989 gave step-parents the right to apply for contact if they had lived as part of a family for three years. But it did not extend the same right to grandparents whose own children separate. The Family Justice Review says that separating parents should ensure that grandparents continue to have a role in their lives, by drawing up parenting agreements that set out contact arrangements. These would not be legally binding, but could be used as evidence in a civil court if a mother or father reneged on the deal.
The separation of parents is always disruptive and will often be distressing for children. It is right to urge divorcing parents to think hard about what is best for their children. Too often, children become pawns in a game of revenge. And it is also a good principle to give grandparents greater formal recognition in the welfare of children.
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Grandparents are not always right; and to provide what is almost, but not quite, a legal right of access for them to their grandchildren will throw up anomalies and complications that may add to the pressures on the justice system at a time when ministers are having to close courts and slash legal aid. Who would assess a grandparent’s fitness for contact? Would this be done behind closed doors? How would the access rights of grandparents be set against parents’ right to raise their children as they see fit?
But it is a question of balance. The role of grandparents in the lives of children whose parents have separated is overwhelmingly beneficial. Their presence provides continuity and comfort in children’s lives. It is visible evidence of stability amid emotional turmoil. Grandparents deserve not only respect for that role but formal recognition of its value. Social welfare and the quality of family life can only be enhanced through the engagement of grandparents in children’s lives.