Benussi Blog

The riots that brought madness and mayhem to the streets of our cities last week laid bare fractures in our society that Prime Minister David Cameron has chosen to label “broken Britain.”

Inevitably, the disintegration of traditional family life has been singled out by politicians and commentators as one of the main triggers for the looting and violence.

Single-parent families – especially father-less families – have found themselves targeted in the blame game.

Not only is this a simplistic explanation, it does a great disservice to the thousands of single-parent families in Britain who do an amazing job bringing up well-adjusted, ambitious and responsible children.

It ignores the fact that there are more dedicated single parents than feckless ones. According to the Office for National Statistics, there are 2.7million children who live with a single mother and 200,000 with a lone father in England and Wales. Compare this with the figures of only 1,733 people arrested and 1,005 charged over the rioting so far.

Similarly, there are many children damaged by living with parents who remain in abusive and/or unhappy relationships rather than change their situation to remove the conflict for their children.

That said, it is also true that divorce and separation can cause children a great deal of harm if not handled sensitively, with the young people’s needs and feelings to the fore.

When relationship breakdown is dealt with poorly, children do not feel loved, cherished and supported by the people that should care about them the most – their parents.

Too often, as has been highlighted several times in these blogs, parents get wrapped up in their own misery and animosity and forget that they remain parents to their children, and should protect them from “fall out” of divorce by working together to ensure the children continue to have good relationships with both parents.

Anyone who has gone through a divorce or separation knows how painful it can be and how difficult it often is to put your own unhappiness to one side in order to ensure the wellbeing of children is paramount.

But there is such a thing as a good divorce; it is manifestly untrue that every child whose parents aren’t together will suffer lasting emotional damage.

It is how parents – together or on their own, depending upon the circumstances – manage the situation that makes the difference.

Dedicated divorce lawyers such as those at Benussi & Co support clients emotionally and practically as well as helping them through the legal process. There are many other sources of help and support too.

The demise of the traditional family didn’t cause the riots – but in the ongoing dissection of what has gone wrong in society, we must keep in mind how important it is that our young people always come first.