Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- one Introduction
- two What do we already know about grandparents?
- three Grandparents’ relationships with grandchildren: continuity and change
- four Activities with grandparents
- five Discipline and favouritism
- six The main grandparents
- seven Grandparenting in divorced families: rights and policies
- eight Communicating in divorced families
- nine Taking sides
- ten ‘Being there’: grandparents’ financial, emotional and childcare support
- eleven Excluded grandparents
- twelve Conclusions: grandparents and family policy
- References
- Appendix The families and the research methods
- Index
- Also available from The Policy Press
eleven - Excluded grandparents
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- one Introduction
- two What do we already know about grandparents?
- three Grandparents’ relationships with grandchildren: continuity and change
- four Activities with grandparents
- five Discipline and favouritism
- six The main grandparents
- seven Grandparenting in divorced families: rights and policies
- eight Communicating in divorced families
- nine Taking sides
- ten ‘Being there’: grandparents’ financial, emotional and childcare support
- eleven Excluded grandparents
- twelve Conclusions: grandparents and family policy
- References
- Appendix The families and the research methods
- Index
- Also available from The Policy Press
Summary
Introduction
This chapter discusses the minority of cases in our study in which the grandchild–grandparent relationship was seriously disrupted after parental divorce. Such cases can be seen as lying at the extreme end of our third continuum of grandparenting styles – the ‘grandparent as partisan supporter’ continuum, discussed in Chapter Nine of this book. By this, we mean the extent to which grandparents took sides after the break-up, and assumed attitudes and behaviour reflecting what they saw as the ‘rights and wrongs’ of their divorced child’s situation. In some cases, grandchildren had been used as pawns in the conflict between the two sides of the divided family. We ask why some grandparents in our study were deprived of contact with their grandchildren and why some parents thought their children’s relationships with their grandparents should not survive the break-up.
This chapter also draws on interviews with members of the Grandparents’ Association, the leading support and pressure group for grandparents. We turn first to the grandparents in the Cardiff study who could be described as ‘excluded’. Why had they encountered difficulties in remaining in touch with their grandchildren?
The families
Bitter divorces
It has long been argued that parents of divorced sons can become the victims of the fall-out from their ex-daughter-in-law’s anger. Kruk and Hall (1995) and Drew and Smith (1999) found that maternal grandparents’ relationships with grandchildren were generally unaffected by divorce, but noted that paternal grandparents need to ‘tread cautiously’. Drew and Smith (1999, p 194) commented:
If the grandchild resides with the mother who moves away from the father, or if there is unresolved conflict between the former spouses, then access may be withheld from the father, and thereby from the paternal grandparents.
In six of the 44 families in our study, a mother had prevented her ex-husband from contacting the children after the couple had separated and divorced. In five of these cases, there was at least one paternal grandparent alive who was no longer able to maintain contact with his or her grandchild. Perhaps the most difficult of these cases was that of Annabel’s father and paternal grandmother who had been denied contact with Annabel.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Grandparenting in Divorced Families , pp. 121 - 130Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2004