Sharing custody is often the best way of ensuring your child feels loved and secure
WHEN A relationship between two parents breaks down, there is still a general presumption that the children will stay with the mother and that the father will have visiting rights.
This outdated view is one that the National Federation of Services for Unmarried Parents and their Children, Treoir, is working to challenge. The much more positive and modern concept of "shared parenting" is the focus of its Family Links: Steps and Stagesbooklet which was launched in Dublin yesterday.
"Instead of the old formula where one parent has one custody and the other visiting rights, the idea centres on the concept of the original home dividing and multiplying like a living cell into two new families," it says.
"Each parent feels that s/he is heading a family and the child feels loved and a happy member of each."
No longer is there a "broken home", but rather two homes for the children, who then have time with each parent and the security of a stable arrangement between them.
"It is an idea we have to sell," says Treoir assistant chief executive Margot Doherty, author of the 95-page booklet, which was funded by the Family Support Agency.
"It is the more mature - for want of a better word - couples who can make it work."
It can be highly problematic, both on a practical and emotional level. Parents really have to be living close to each other, with children able to go to school from both homes, if it is going to be a week on, week off arrangement.
But shared parenting does not have to be 50/50 in terms of time or place; it is more about an attitude of mind.
Even if one parent is having the children only for a night or two at weekends, it is important to see it in terms of them "living" there at the weekends, not "visiting".
However, people coming out of a broken relationship are often so hurt and angry that they cannot even contemplate shared parenting.
Putting the child first is essential for devising any arrangement where the parents no longer, or never did, live together. "Everything flows from that," says Doherty.
The idea of two homes might seem disruptive and confusing for children, but experience shows that they cope well. They easily adapt to different rules in two different family settings.
"The main thing for them is knowing that both parents love them to bits," says Doherty.
The "real killer'' is when one parent puts the child in the position of being a spy in the other camp. What was your mother/father doing? Who was her/his friend in the house? What is he or she spending their money on?
A common flashpoint is when a new partner arrives on the scene, and Family Links advises on how to make step-families work. It requires a lot of maturity, on all sides.
For the other parent, and the children, it is a reminder that the original relationship really is over and that everybody has to move on.
Frances Byrne, chief executive officer of Open, a network of lone parent groups, has seen a "palpable shift" towards shared parenting, at a time when children's rights have come up the agenda. However, "with the best will in the world, it is very difficult and fraught", she says. For a start, it is often hard for both separating parents to get suitable accommodation.
For parents on social welfare, the fact that only one of them can claim the one-parent family payment, even if their time with the children is divided 50/50, does not support the notion of shared parenting.
However, where both parents are working, each can claim a one-parent family tax credit, provided the children stay overnight with them during the year.
Another organisation that works with one-parent families, One Family, anecdotally sees shared parenting as an increasing phenomenon, says its director Karen Kiernan. But there is no way of measuring it.
While shared parenting might be the ideal, she says it is what works for the children that matters and that you cannot be prescriptive about it for different families. In Sweden, she points out, there are cases where the children stay in the one house and the parents take turns to live with them.
One Family would always advocate mediation and negotiated settlements rather than letting a judge decide on the future parenting of children. It runs a parent mentoring service for individuals and a helpline, as well as providing group parenting training.
"We would like to see greater investment in helping parents to separate well," says Kiernan, "to support families going from a two-parent family to two one-parent families."
• Copies of Family Links: Steps and Stagesare available free from Treoir, tel: 1890 252084, or see www.treoir.ie
No legal rights for unmarried fathers
MANY UNMARRIED fathers do not realise that having their name on their child's birth cert means nothing in this country when it comes to parental rights.
"In the UK, if a man puts his name on a birth cert, it gives him parental responsibilities.
"In Ireland, putting your name on the birth cert does not give you any legal rights relating to the child. It is a presumption of paternity, but nothing more," says Margot Doherty, assistant chief executive of Treoir.
She urges all unmarried fathers, whether in a stable, co-habiting relationship or not, to apply for guardianship rights.
If the mother is in agreement, it's a simple process of signing a form in front of a peace commissioner.
Where there is disagreement, the father can apply to the local District Court for joint guardianship rights for his child.
"It is making a commitment to be around until the child is 18," Doherty points out. It can be "messy" if the father then decides to head off to Australia when, at the very least, his signature is needed as joint guardian.
Positive pointers for shared parenting
Parenting is a job for life, and for children there is no such thing as an ex-parent.
Forget that you were a couple; your only relationship now is as a united parenting team.
Don't let any unresolved hurts get in the way of your children's relationship with their other parent.
Children need to know that it is all right for them to love both parents and to like or love step-parents.
It is not adding people to children's lives, but taking important people away, that is difficult for children to accept.
Try to come to terms with the fact that your children may have a relationship with their other parent over which you have no control.
Even though your relationship with the other parent did not survive, this does not mean that either parent is a failure as a person.
From Family Links: Steps and Stages published by Treoir
