What ails shared parenting

Twenty-one-year-old Pujarini Roy's (name changed) parents filed for divorce when she was four. By the time she was in the first grade, her father had moved out, and she and her elder sister were staying with their mother. Her father did not live very far away, and she spent her childhood oscillating between these "two homes".

Shared parenting, after a divorce, has always won the approval of counsellors and psychiatrists. But a new research at La Trobe University of Australia seems to turn the notion of shared parenting on its head.

Researching in child psychology, Smita Arora talks about how shared care arrangements may work well for separated parents but is often difficult for the kids to accept. The difficulty increases when either of the parents has a new partner in life. She borrows an example from the 1998 American film Stepmom: "The children Anna and Ben, already jeopardised by the separation in the family, find it difficult to accept that a woman other than their mother is a part of their father's life… Even if both the parents are single, it is often difficult for the children to adjust to two different homes. Studies show that children growing up under such circumstances often end up as unstable adolescents who are confused and torn apart by everything in their lives".

According to Kolkata-based counsellor Sharmsitha Mukherjee, divorced parents almost always continue to be antagonistic to each other. The parent who has the primary custody of the children fears losing them to his/her estranged partner and thus grows hostile to the idea of allowing the children in his/her company. Moreover, such an arrangement ensures that the couple is never completely free of each other even after the divorce, which keeps the bitterness alive. When the parents are psychologically unable to accept their shared roles, it worsens the situation for the kids and the concept of shared parenting becomes a practical failure. Pujarini recalls the perennial tension between her divorced parents: "My mother was always adverse to the bond between me and my father. My stay with him was never allowed to extend beyond a few hours on weekdays and a day during weekends. It was only the holidays during which I was grudgingly allowed to stay with him."

"My parents never dropped their grudges against each other, which probably furthered the split between me and my sister. My sister grew up believing and supporting my mother while I, my father," says Pujarini. According to Mrs Mukherjee, the spitefulness of the parents often makes them bad mouth each other to their children, thereby ruining the whole purpose of shared parenting.

While very young children become irritable and depressed, the adolescent ones often turn against one or both parents and feel alienated. Hena Mukherjee, married for 40 years and mother of a 20-year-old, says, "Young children are sensitive about the slightest things and security is the keyword for their well being. My husband and I have realized this while rearing our daughter. A separation between the parents is highly unwelcome as it wrecks the child's safe and secure world."

Separation is indeed a tricky decision for parents with young children. While they are caught in the tussle between their conjugal incompetency and the desire to continue being together for the sake of their kid, the child is likewise traumatised by the breakdown of the family. Psychiatrists insist on transparency between parents and children. For the sake of the children, they advise the couples to suppress their mutual bitterness. While shared parenting is the best possible way to help your children have the most healthy childhood, its efficacy is lost if the parents themselves cannot believe in it.


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