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- Author or Editor: Margaret Robinson x
This chapter examines the range and extent of support that grandparents provided for parents and grandchildren, particularly after a marriage breakdown. It explores parents’ assumptions about grandparents’ support roles and considers the views of grandparents and their grandchildren about the help that they provided. It discusses how far grandparents are considered to be under an obligation to provide support, and how they responded to a ‘a sense of duty’.
This chapter discusses the minority of cases in our study in which the grandchild-grandparent relationship is seriously disrupted after parental divorce. It notes that such cases can be seen as lying at the extreme end of the third continuum. It shows 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. It also draws on interviews with members of the Grandparents’ Association, the leading support and pressure group for grandparents. It turns first to the grandparents in the Cardiff study who could be described as ‘excluded’.
This chapter notes that this study discovered grandparents, parents, and children often viewed grandparenting from very different perspectives. It observes that the role is extraordinarily diverse and the extent of that diversity in a sample of forty-four families is surprising. It notes that when it considered the effects of divorce on the grandparent-grandchild relationship, it discovered that grandparents’ approaches and attitudes to grandparenting usually survived the impact of divorce. It concludes that the evidence of continuities in grandparents’ pre- and post-divorce behaviour is more compelling than the evidence of change as the result of family break-up. It notes however, that maternal grandparents often experienced an intensification of their childcare role and some paternal grandparents discovered that contact after divorce was more difficult or, in some cases, no longer possible.
This book is the first in-depth exploration of grandparents’ relationships with adult children and grandchildren in divorced families. It asks what part grandparents might play in public policy and whether measures should be taken to support their grandparenting role. Do they have a special place in family life that ought to be recognised in law?
This ground-breaking book is intended for a wide readership. Grandparents and parents in divorced families will identify with many of the thoughts, feelings and experiences reflected here. Academics in social science and law departments will encounter new thinking about the nature of the grandchild-grandparent relationship. Policy makers will find out more about recent policy initiatives and their strengths and limitations.
