BY FRANK HAVILAND
Today is my youngest daughter’s fifth birthday, but I am not allowed to see her. I begged my ex-wife – then the court – for five minutes, at any time or location she chose, so I would not let Isabella down on her big day. Neither replied. The phone calls I make this evening will be blocked, as they always are. So Isabella will not get the presents that she hoped for; they will stay unopened on my table. Instead, she and her sister will have to wait another ten days for the fortnightly five hours the court allows me to be with them. This, the family court has ruled, is in “the children’s best interests”.
Regrettably, this comes as no surprise. Both myself and my daughters are victims of ‘parental alienation’, a process whereby one parent seeks to damage the child’s relationship with the other. Manifestations of this include blocking contact, denigrating the other parent, erasing the other parent (e.g. by removing photographs), punishing the child for showing affection towards the other parent, emotional blackmail, forcing the child to choose between the parents, asking the child to spy for them, and throwing away gifts. I have experienced all of these (and more) over the past year.
The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) prefers the term ‘alienating behaviour’, which it defines thus:
An ongoing pattern of negative attitudes and communication about the other parent or carer that have the potential or intention to undermine, manipulate or even destroy a child’s relationship with their other parent or carer. Alienating behaviours range in intensity, duration and their impact on children.
Alienation is not uncommon. Of the 3.8 million children in separated families in Great Britain, only 56% see their non-resident parent (usually the father) at least fortnightly. A self-report survey suggests that allegations of parental alienation are made in up to 70% of family court cases in England and Wales. In practice, fathers are the primary targets of parental alienation (around 75% of cases), in part because the resident parent – almost always the mother under current custody norms – holds the practical power to limit or sabotage contact. Alienated fathers experience significantly higher levels of depression, anxiety, PTSD and suicidal ideation compared to non-alienated counterparts. With the suicide rate already 4:1 male vs female, factor in divorce and that becomes 9:1. As suicide remains the leading cause of death for men under 50, it is disturbing that alienating behaviours – which Cafcass itself says can ‘undermine or even destroy’ a child’s relationship with a parent – are still so frequently treated with less urgency than physical abuse. It is hardly surprising that almost half of parents who have been alienated from their child have considered committing suicide within the last year.
In my own case, the divorce was finalised earlier this year. But we have gone to appeal, because I believe accepting the terms would have meant surrendering any real place in my daughters’ daily lives:
- Visitation was to be granted twice monthly, not as per the formerly weekly basis.
- Visitation would last five hours not six.
- There would be no overnight stays.
- There was no mention of holiday arrangements.
- There were rights to phone calls (never enforced).
- The mother was supposed to bring the children to my home (never enforced).
- There was no response to the copious evidence of alienation.
- Blocking of access would only be subject to punishment if it lasted ‘a long time’ – when I asked my lawyer what this meant, he said “at least a year”!
What the court appears to deem not only acceptable but in the children’s best interest, is that they get just 24 afternoons a year in their father’s company. In other words, the judge has reduced the role of a father to just 120 hours per annum – less than six full days out of 365. That is 1.4% of their childhood. Excluding cases of extreme abuse, how is it appropriate (or morally acceptable) to eternally deny a father the right to come home to his children’s welcome; to cook them dinner, or to read them a bedtime story?
Court decrees however, are often at odds with reality. Extensive research, including meta-analyses and longitudinal studies, demonstrates that the absence of an involved, loving father – often through divorce, separation, or family disruption – has profound, long-lasting negative effects on children’s development. These impacts span cognitive, emotional, social, behavioural, and health domains, persisting into adulthood. While family structure alone isn’t deterministic (factors like income and conflict play a role), causal evidence from rigorous designs (e.g. twin studies) shows father absence independently harms outcomes, even when controlling for pre-existing risks. Removing a loving father severs a unique source of emotional security, cognitive stimulation, and behavioural modelling that is not always fully matched by maternal involvement alone. Studies emphasise that maintaining contact with an involved father often outweighs the risks of family disruption, except in cases of severe abuse.
The persistence of these outcomes raises a difficult question: despite the overwhelming evidence that children need both parents; that fathers are equally as important as mothers, and that father-absent households correlate with the highest risks for poor child outcomes across education, health, and behaviour, why then is primary residence still routinely awarded to mothers in the overwhelming majority of cases? For many fathers, meaningful contact becomes something they must fight for, year after year, often with little success. The result is a system that – perhaps unintentionally – continues to treat committed fatherhood as optional rather than essential.
What I would genuinely like to know, particularly from those who believe in gender equality, is what one ought to do when access to your own children is denied, and all legal routes to resolve this are exhausted? One can only push the ‘nuclear’ button once, before that ends in tears; it’s what my father would have done, but I can’t see it as a viable option. Rolling over and accepting the unacceptable however, is not much of a response either. In each case, I cannot help the overwhelming feeling that I am letting my daughters down – failing to protect them from what I consider extreme abuse, or getting myself sent to prison and therefore unable to protect them at all.
It is often said that ‘possession in 9/10 of the law’. That may be so. But some possessions, while less tangible are no less important. Being denied the daily hugs and kisses, the mealtimes and bath times, picking my daughters up and swinging them around, the horseplay, the tantrums, the films on Sundays, the country walks, the Christmases – no price can be put on that. I still get a taste of this of course, during our wonderful Sundays together. I have the stickers and hearts on my phone; I have the kisses on my cheek ‘because Daddy didn’t get any birthday presents’; I have the fantastic moments where they show and teach me things – things you can’t believe they’ve learned so quickly, because you rarely see them. It’s not the same though.
As I have written previously, there is absolutely nothing in the world that compares to turning the key in the door at the end of a long day, and hearing the cries of “Daddy!”. I will keep fighting for that right. It sustains me when I am at my lowest point – when I can feel the precipice where despair and suicidal thoughts begin; thoughts I can never entertain, because of my duty to my daughters. In an ironic way, my duty to my children protects me more than it protects them.
It just shouldn’t be this hard to love them.
Frank Haviland is the Editor of The New Conservative, and the author of The Frank Report.
*This article was published first by TCW here. With many thanks to our friends there.