New report offers hope to grandparents

[Brent]

A  new report offers hope to grandparents, the often forgotten victims in bitter divorce cases.
By Carol Nader and Ian Munro.

Dian Underwood was almost cut off from her grandson, Blayne, now 10, after his father and mother separated when he was only seven weeks old. For many grandparents on a child's paternal side, that would have been the end of the relationship. The links between a child and the family of its non-custodial parent are often broken after divorce. But Underwood was determined this would not happen to her.

[img src=http://www.theage.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1072908911272_2004/01/02/dian_underwood,0.jpg]

"I took myself to court and represented myself and sought one week a year," she says. "If I took any more, I would have taken away the time from my son."

A seven-year slanging match in the Family Court and $120,000 in legal fees later - of which Underwood paid half - Blayne's mother agreed it was best he live with his father, and Underwood could see him whenever she liked. But, by then, her own 36-year marriage had ended under the strain.

"I became quite passionate to the point of obsession," she says. "I fought passionately for the acknowledgement of grandparents, for the relationship that should never have been taken away. I became so driven with it that perhaps I put that first."

The position of grandparents after the divorce of their children was highlighted this week by the report of the bi-partisan Family and Community Affairs Committee into child custody. It urged amendments to the Family Law Act, suggesting that sections of the act dealing with residence and contact orders specifically mention grandparents.

It also wants the Federal Government to devise ways to include grandparents and extended family members in family counselling and for grandparents to be considered when separated couples devise plans for parenting and contact.

Research suggests that grandparents are big losers following divorce. More than a third of mothers who had residence of their children said those children never or rarely saw their paternal grandparents, according to an Australian Institute of Family Studies report, the sole research into the topic in this country.

That research is more than 10 years old. A more recent British study, published this year, found that maternal grandparents were more likely to have close relationships and frequent contact with their grandchildren of a fractured relationship.

Trevor Bock, a family mediator at Sydney firm Michael Green Mediation, believes the majority on both sides miss out; he estimates that as many as 80 per cent of grandparents lose access to their grandchildren after their offspring's divorce. "It's heart-wrenching to the grandparents because they're part of the family," he says.

 
[img src=http://www.theage.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1072908911274_2004/01/02/bradshaws,0.jpg]
Mavis and Doug Brayshaw with photographs of their grandchildren.
Picture: Michael Rayner
 

As one close observer of family law said this week: "Contact is hard enough between separating couples who are closest to the action. Those family dynamics then bleed through the whole family structure."

The day that Doug Brayshaw's son, Geoff, a sales manager from Rowville, had to leave his family home, Doug and Mavis Brayshaw felt estranged from their grandchildren.

Later, Geoff, his money depleted by a bitter custody battle, had to move back to his parents' house in Forest Hill, relying on them for accommodation, meals and domestic, financial and emotional support.

"It caused us a financial strain because we had to look after him and we had to look after the children too when they came every second weekend," Doug says. This continued for two years until Geoff was able to buy his own house. Then Doug saw even less of "Paige", now 17, and "Bill", 11. It was not until Paige recently chose to live with her father that Doug began to see her more frequently; he still barely sees Bill.

Says Doug: "The Family Court is an adversarial, financially draining system and it comes down to how much you can afford to pay your solicitors. Grandparents can go to blazes, they don't count, and yet it's the grandparents who have to take the brunt."

While he was aware that he could apply for more access to his grandchildren, "I got very bitter about the entire system".

Any restriction on a parent's access is also "a de facto restriction on grandparents", he says. "I would not lower myself to spend huge amounts of money to go to the Family Court to see my grandchildren little more than once a fortnight or a month."

He believes that the grandparents on the mother's side are less likely to suffer.

"Why should I, as a grandparent on the paternal side, be put through all this trouble and expense when the grandparent on the maternal side doesn't have to do anything?"

In fact, the Australian Institute of Family Studies has reported that the difficulties stand, irrespective of whether it is mothers or fathers who have primary residence - custody - of the children.

In its submission to the parliamentary committee last August, the AIFS said: "In cases where children were living with their father, the situation was reversed: children were more likely to have contact with their paternal rather than maternal grandparents."

Jill Thompson, policy director with the Council on The Ageing, says grandparents can be used as a weapon in a couple's custody skirmish.

"They can say: 'I'm not going to let you or your parents have anything to do with my children. You're out and so's your whole family'," she said.

This can be damaging to the child, who not only experiences the trauma of losing a parent but often a whole extended family. It can also lead to insecurity, says associate professor Linda Hancock, Deakin University's director of public policy.

"Grandparents are often the kids' anchor back into extended family," she said. "That helps with the kids' sense of belonging."

Often, grandparents had been closely involved with bringing up the children pre-divorce. A recent COTA report quotes statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showing that in 1997, of those households that received informal care for children aged up to 11, grandparents provided the care in two-thirds of the households - a total of 537,600.

If a mother wishes to work, cannot afford child care, or is only receiving the minimum $5 a week in child support from her ex-partner, the role of grandparents becomes even more important, says Monash University demographer, Dr Bob Birrell.

"One of the reasons why a relatively low proportion of single mothers are doing anything but part-time work is because of the cost of child care," he says.

But sometimes the role of grandparents goes even further than helping out with child care. The COTA report says ABS figures suggest there are 12,000 children aged 0-14 living with their grandparents.

There are many others, such as Phyl Doolan, who provide enormous support. She came to her daughter Louise's rescue when her marriage ended, leaving her with two children.

Phyl has also come to the financial aid of Jessica, now 14, and Jack, 7, contributing more than $60,000 for clothes, school uniforms, books and food, even at times paying Louise's rent. Says Louise: "She's always provided me with somewhere for the children and security and stability."

The 1975 Family Law Act has always made provision for grandparents to make applications for contact or residence. In 2000, the act was amended so that grandparents were specifically mentioned among those who may apply for a parenting order.

But the committee proposed that grandparents be specifically mentioned in parts of the act dealing with residence and contact orders because it believed their rights were not widely understood.

The committee said: "Recognition of (grandparents' significant) role is already explicitly set out in several sections of the Family Law Act and implied in others, and can be considered by judges in making decisions on the best interests of a child. However, this is not well known."

Even when it was known, the committee said, many grandparents were reluctant to pursue their rights for fear of making matters worse.

"Other grandparents did not act because of a belief that they should not interfere in their own children's lives. In cases where the parent was subject to abuse or domestic violence, no action was taken by grandparents out of fear of exacerbating that situation," the committee said.

"Some grandparents reported having AVOs - apprehended violence orders - (or worse, allegations of sexual abuse) taken out against them by the resident parent, which was a significant deterrent to further action. And in other cases, the stereotypes of problematic relationships between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law came into play."

Dian Underwood, who was heartened by the acknowledgement of grandparents in the committee's report, has used her experience to become a campaigner for grandparents' rights. She wants to set up a national grandparent register to allow those who have been cut off from their grandchildren to list their names in the hope that the children will one day come to find them.

She has founded GRaNS, Grandparents Rights Need Support, and has provided emotional support to many suffering the grief of their children's divorce from her home in Sydney, where she moved to be near Blayne and his father.

She says of her callers: "We support them with empowerment and courage not to give up on their grandchildren. There are stories like the case where the daughter was killed in an accident and the son-in-law alienated the maternal grandparents from the child. That's heartbreaking. You get to the point where it gets so emotionally draining."

For her, it has been worth the battle. Blayne's Christmas card to her says it all: "Dear Nan, thanks for being so special."


From: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/02/1072908904222.html

[nerd]

Brent this is a very helpful post.  I know I am not the only grandmother here and some of the things this article mentioned is of great importance to grandparents who have lost contact with their grandchildren because of divorce.  We watch our grandchildren being born, see them grow and learn, fall head over heels in love with them and they with us, and most times, these innocence children come to depend on their grandparents for some resemblance of stability, and familiarity in the wake of all the turmoil of divorce.  Then, sadly, they are gone.  
It is encouraging to this old woman to know that there may be hope afterall .  Thank you.