Dear LPG readers,  

Something vindictive is happening among the younger generation.  It’s not right, I can’t remember it happening in my time as a man and father.    
I am of the older generation.  I am not only a grandfather but I am now eligible to be known as great-grandad too.  But when it was my time to be a father, I never encountered the hassle some fathers are having with the mothers of their children these days.   

I have a question.  Why are so many young mothers using their children as a weapon to punish those children’s fathers?  I know it’s happening all over the place because it happened to my late grandson making me wonder if that child could be among the reasons why he took his own life. 

For most families that become estranged in this way it is really hard, especially if you have been allowed to form a really close relationship with a child which is suddenly broken.  I am thinking of all the grandmothers and grandfathers who babysit so that their kids can go to work or have a night out.  But for the relatives of the parent of a child who has died, whatever the reason, and no matter what happened during their child’s lifetime, that child’s child will be the closest tie to his or her father that their grandparents have left.  

In a world where marriage has been replaced by common law, and people drift in and out of any partnership so much more easily, commitment becomes less of a legal bond and more a daily choice to stay, and when times get hard, it is so much easier to make the decision for a couple to part company.   For all that, young parents have been deciding to go their separate ways for centuries, and although the situations and circumstances that produce such results change, so many young parents now use the other parent’s love as a weapon by way of revenge.  It is as if they are using young children to exploit the relationships breakdown and that was the case in my grandson’s situation.  Even now we can’t see our great-granddaughter.  I cannot be the only grandparent who cannot bare to be faced with the reality that I might die never seeing her again. 

Most grandparents in this position would be happy for the odd telephone call from such a child because it only takes a year or two and a change of address to leave a really big void in a grandparent’s life.  

I hope that, in time, my great granddaughter will grow and want to know more about her father’s side of the family.  Perhaps I might be able to find her through one of those television programmes that trace family members, but waiting until she is old enough to be found will take time which is something that people of my age have less of.  A parent who is being denied contact has at least some legal rights to fight while grandparents still have none at all.    

The parent with custody might well have good reasons for wanting a child’s other parent to not be a part of their life while they are young but, as those very parents will find out as their child grows, no one can be held responsible for the way that their children navigate parenthood. Perhaps they need to see past any anger or animosity they may have for the other parent of their young one and question why extended family members should be punished as well.   

I suspect that my message illustrates an emotive situation that most probably affects quite a few readers and while I also understand that parents always have, and always will continue to have differences, I would ask those young mums to take into account just how destructive these vendettas can be.    

I, for one, am witnessing it in real time.   

Rudy Morgan. 

 

LPG took a look at what the internet has to offer and the answer appears to be mediation.  While grandparents and extended family members have no specific legal right to contact with estranged children.  We also found a few agencies that might be able to help anyone in a similar situation by starting on the road to reconciliation…

 

 

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