In our meetings and private group pages we have been discussing how a change in the law would help estranged grandparents.
It was a subject suggested by a member.
There has certainly been an open and frank discussion and the debate continues.
As with all these things there is a difference of opinion, and of course as things stand at present it is something that many grandparents feel the need to campaign for, as they feel it is the only way forward.
Here are some quotes from grandparents:
Experience has shown me that Parliament will never pass a Law which forces one person to like another and that going to Court can be painful and widens the division.
Sometimes I think back on the number of Ministers of Justice who have promised to support Grandparents, yet nothing happens. I remember, too, those who have been reconciled only to become estranged again.
I don’t believe that a change in the law would make my daughter allow me contact with our grandchildren.
I haven’t seen my GC for five years, a change in the law wouldn’t help my situation, I know what my son would say if I said to him that the law says I can have contact, and it wouldn’t be positive.
There has to be a change in the law to give grandchildren the right to see their grandparents.
Our family have tried everything, there has to be a change in the Children Act.
I learnt that broken relationships cannot be mended in Family Court, even with a change in the law.
The family court system should be scrapped and replaced with something that helps deal with family breakdown and issues that seriously affect the lives of children. You can’t mend relationships in a family court, only push them further apart.
I’ve always been open about having my doubts about how a change in the law would work. We can only really refer to our own situations and in my case I think forcing my son & DIL to grant me access would have estranged us further.
I asked my GC when she came back in to our lives if we should have gone to court, she said no and that if we had she would never have been reunited with us.
These are just a flavour of views.
I am sure we all know that within the Children Act we already have a presumption, for non resident parents, of Parental Responsibility which include a continuing relationship with their children, and yet hundreds of thousands of non-resident parents do not have contact with their children.
How would that differ for grandparents?
Child Arrangement orders are breached frequently, excuses made to prevent contact, the child has a Doctors appointment, the child is not well, the child is with a friend, the list is endless.
Those who breach CAO play the system, they know that there is rarely a consequence.
Social media plays its part as well, websites that tell people how to exclude a family member from their lives, how to remove ‘toxic’ members. It often feels cult like.
So the question remains unanswered, how would a change in the law help me?
