Shared Parenting Information Group (SPIG) UK

- promoting responsible shared parenting after separation and divorce -

Quotes which are still true today

Too many people embark on the process of divorce without a realisation of what it will mean to them and, more especially, to their children.

Experience shows that most people need help to cope with the effects of divorce. Help from the legal profession, certainly. But there are many aspects of divorce and its aftermath where neither lawyers nor the courts can provide the answers. In the last resort it is only the parties themselves who can do this ....

Sir John Balcombe - Appeal Court Judge


A society which desires and allows divorce on the scale now experienced is irresponsible if it fails to provide a legal system which encourages and helps parents to fulfil their responsibilities to protect their children.

Susan Maidment


There is a popular belief that children are happier if their parents separate than if they continue to live in a family where the parents argue or fight.

This book shows that children do not share that belief. They would prefer to keep their parents together, even if they do not get on with each other.

Ann Mitchell

From this research an abiding impression remains of young people who have lost some of their childhood and have grown up sad and bewildered.

Separation might have been the right remedy for the parents, but not for the children.

``My mum didn't understand how I felt - she was too busy being angry''.

Ann Mitchell

By making joint custody orders the rule ... the law would give the right kind of message to parents and encourage, rather than discourage, as it does at present, sensible behaviour.

Only the principle of joint custody can emphasise the continuity of parenting and the child's right to have two parents.

Yvette Walczak with Sheila Burns

People are now realising that a father figure is essential as a strong fortress against delinquency.

If we debase the male in general and the father in particular for much longer, people will seek out an alternative value system to supplant the loss.

Dr Ronald St Blaize Maloney
David Cannon
First published - 1990

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