Priorities when separating...

It can feel like a battle of wills, a race for survival or a striving for one's own future hapiness but who or what should be our priorities when we make choices and arrangements at this testing time and going forward? Penelope leach comments:

"Everyone is entitled to look for their own happiness, provided that happiness does not come at a disproportiately high cost to someone else. So while of course parents are entitled to seek their own happiness with or without new partners (greater happiness for at least one person is the point of separating, after all), they are surely not entitled to allow their separation and seeking to cost their children one iota more misery than it need to. Parents (and indeed all adults) need to put children ahead of themselves, not only because it is nicer for the children to be happy but also because our children's happiness and wellbeing affects the kind of people they will grow up to be and therefore the kind of society they will make when its time for them to take over."

Something to reflect upon perhaps with over 17% of local children growing up in households headed by a single parent. For Asian families, the figures are much lower, at 7-11%. Black and Mixed Black children, however, are much more likely to be headed by a single parent, with almost 45% of Black Caribbean and Mixed White & Black Caribbean children living in a single parent household. (Source Hertsdirect.org Comparison of Districts in Hertfordshire).