Jayne Dowle: It’s good that grandparents have their rights, too

Their paternal grandmother lives in Surrey. But she is a quiet, dignified lady in her eighties who would never dream of interfering in the lives of her only grandchildren. We visit two or three times a year, speak on the phone every week, and all of us seem happy with the contact we have with each other.

As I said, I am lucky. We’re a fairly harmonious family. But I know plenty of people, mothers, fathers, and of course, grandparents, who have experienced the heartbreak of estrangement. Almost half of grandparents lose contact with their grandchildren after divorce, with parents of sons faring worst. Under current legislation, they have no rights whatsoever, however close their previous relationship with the children.

But it doesn’t have to be just divorce that rends a family apart. I remember one friend of my mother’s who fell out spectacularly with her son-in-law. In retaliation, he upped the family, his wife and a boy and girl of primary-school age, and moved them 60 miles away, cutting off all contact. The only way the grandparents could see them was to drive to this distant town, and park outside their school, peering through the railings to get a glimpse of their grandchildren.

We shouldn’t judge. There are always two sides to every story, and who really knows what goes on in other people’s families? I know that there are plenty of parents out there who would recoil in horror at the thought of their battleaxe mother-in-law exercising the legal right to see her grandchildren for the rest of their lives. I know too that should a marital relationship break down, there is often plenty of poison to spread; the unwitting victims all too often the children caught up in the middle.

This new ruling could leave parents feeling extremely vulnerable and you can see why many have reacted with horror. The last thing a divorcing couple probably needs is grandparents weighing in from all sides, demanding their rights. And, much as I support the decision, it does imply the creeping interference of the state into private family life. But sometimes, you have to step back from all this, and put the needs of the children first.

Not all grandparents are paragons of virtue. But remember, children are not daft. Especially these days, when even the youngest ones are taught at school to recognise and react to their instincts and feelings. They know when they are being manipulated, and are likely to withdraw emotionally from anyone who tries to use them as a pawn in inter-family power games. If granny decides to vent her frustration against her former son-in-law by slagging him off every time the kids go for a sleep-over, they will pretty soon draw their own conclusions about who has their interests at heart.

And conversely, if grandad’s house provides a safe haven where the grandchildren feel loved and protected, then who are parents to prevent them from benefiting from this? More than a quarter of teenagers, according to research by HSBC, say that they can share things with their grandparents which they wouldn’t dream of telling their parents. It is the ultimate sanction of a frustrated mother to deny all access to the grandchildren, but sometimes, having witnessed this in the midst of divorcing friends, I can’t help but think that it is supremely selfish behaviour that achieves nothing except heartbreak. If the worst ever happened in my family, I hope that my husband and I could be big enough to get some perspective on our own emotional turmoil and have enough self-control to respect the feelings of our parents, and the fragility of our children.

I happen to think that the decline of the extended family has been greatly exaggerated. If you ask me, grandparents, in general, seem to play a far more active role in their grandchildren’s lives than they ever did when I was a kid; society was rather more formal and less demonstrative then, grandparents tended to be “older” sooner, and often, they suffered with ill-health at an earlier age, and frankly, died younger.

So in wider terms, isn’t it time to formally recognise the contribution that grandparents provide to modern society; emotionally, financially and simply by being there?

I’m sure that every single one of us knows of a mother who couldn’t go out to work unless grandma took care of her children. It is estimated that grandparents provide more than 40 per cent of childcare for parents who are at work or studying. We parents can’t have it all ways. And we can’t have our own way all the time. Should we insist on it, then we are in danger of behaving like children ourselves.