#family-breakdown

#family-breakdown

The campaign groups, The Dad Shift and Movember, said hundreds of thousands of families were falling apart as a result of a parental leave system described by MPs as one of the worst in the developed world. A survey commissioned by the groups found that 69% of single parents said the UK's two-week, low-pay paternity leave made it harder to share parental responsibility, exacerbating gender inequalities.

As the mother of a son who has cut himself off from his parents (blocking us on social media and not responding to letters), I can categorically state that the pain is year-round. Like the Beckhams, our situation appears to have started at the time of a marriage, followed by a gradual realisation that for unknown reasons we were no longer acceptable as parents or in-laws, then an abrupt (and inexplicable to us) termination of all contact.