Toy shops are not the only places this Christmas where you will find stressed and overwhelmed parents. Due to Australia’s climbing separation rates, services like Anglicare Victoria are also busy supporting families that are facing, often for the first time, the dread of a separated Christmas.
Each year, nearly 50,000 children under the age of 18 will experience the divorce of their parents. Thousands more children will experience their parents separating. With Australia’s divorce rate edging 50% – nearly one in two marriages – well over one million children will have a natural parent living elsewhere.
The process of a relationship breakdown can be the most painful experience encountered in life. Any dreams of working together to create a happy family, sharing the joy of raising the children and finally growing old together are dashed. In its place there is often much bitterness, hurt and resentment, particularly for the partner who did not want the separation.
Children are distressed and confused as one parent leaves the home. As much as we might want to shield them from the reality of separation, inevitably they react to mum or dad’s personal turmoil.
It is a time when emotions run high and money runs low.
But it is not only a relationship break-up that many children are grappling with. There is the ‘missing’ parent – 26% of separated children do not see their fathers, many only have contact with a parent at this time of year. There are also 3000 children who have been removed from their parents in the last year due to neglect or abuse issues. These are also the realities that loom large at this time of year.
Christmas can be a difficult time.
Coping with the fall out or facing a different Christmas with unfamiliar and often clunky arrangements can be emotionally overwhelming for all concerned.
Whilst the Christmas message is universally of togetherness and sharing, it can also magnify the opposite, where togetherness or sharing once was. Thus Christmas can also highlight the grief, sadness and dreams lost from a separation or family split. The juxtaposition of the message of Christmas and a family facing a separated Christmas can be hard to traverse, and steering the children through this emotional maze, whilst coping oneself, is for many a tall order.
For Anglicare services and many services like us, the lead up to Christmas with such families can be about ‘time planning’ the day or days of the Christmas celebration. Planning new routines so they are as good as they can be for the kids, discussing the likely emotions (and coping options) of the parent and making sure the expectations placed on everyone are achievable, are just some of the issues that may be covered. And of course ensuring the day is not lost to regret, grief or anger is often paramount to some of these discussions.
For many it is the time where sharing and celebrating with those we have around us in this life is looked forward to. But not for everyone. For some, Christmas can also highlight the realities and regrets of a separation.
However Christmas is also a message of help and support, and this will be needed in getting through tough times for the many families who are finding themselves split and fractured.
Paul McDonald
Chief Executive Officer
Anglicare Victoria
