When Parents Separate: Children Should Not Carry Adult Pain
A child wellbeing, whanau wellbeing, and social wellbeing issue — not a “mum versus dad” issue.
Parental separation is not just an adult issue. It affects children, whanau, schools, communities, and wider society. This is not about ethnicity, age, gender, or blaming one parent over the other. It is not a “mum versus dad” issue.
It is a child wellbeing issue.
It is a whanau wellbeing issue.
It is a social wellbeing issue.
At Fathers For Families, we understand that some relationships do not continue. In some situations, separation may be necessary for safety, healing, and a better future.
But one thing must remain clear:
The pain of Mum and Dad should never become the burden of the children. The Reality every year in New Zealand, many children are affected by parental separation.
Stats NZ recorded 7,887 divorces in 2025. These figures only include legal divorces. They do not include parents who separate from de facto relationships, parents who were never married, or families who separate informally.
Reference: Stats NZ – Marriages, Civil Unions, and Divorces 2025
This means the real number of children affected by parental separation is likely much higher. The 2023 Census also showed there were around 138,000 sole parents with dependent children in New Zealand.
Reference: Stats NZ – Families and Households in the 2023 Census
This does not mean sole-parent families are broken. Many sole parents provide safe, loving, and stable homes. The concern is not simply whether parents live together or apart. The concern is what children are exposed to when parents separate — conflict, blame, fear, instability, poverty, emotional pressure, or being forced to choose sides.
The Pressure on Families:
Recent child poverty data shows that many families in New Zealand are under serious pressure.
Stats NZ reported that 14.3% of children were living in material hardship in the year ended June 2025. Material hardship means children may be missing out on basics such as food, warm clothing, heating, transport, medical care, or stable housing. Reference: Stats NZ – Child Poverty Statistics 2025
RNZ also reported that around 50,000 more children were experiencing material hardship compared with three years earlier. Reference: RNZ – 50,000 more children suffering from material hardship
This matters because family conflict does not happen in isolation. When families are under financial pressure, emotional pressure often increases. When one household becomes two, costs can rise. Rent, food, power, transport, school needs, childcare, and basic living costs can become harder to manage. This does not excuse harmful behaviour. But it helps us understand the pressure many families are living under.
Some children are not only dealing with their parents separating. They are also dealing with cold homes, food stress, housing instability, worried parents, and the shame that can come with poverty. That is too much for any child to carry.
When Children Are Caught in the Middle:
When parents separate, children need safety, stability, and reassurance. They should not be used as messengers. They should not be asked to take sides. They should not be made to feel guilty for loving both parents. They should not be exposed to adult arguments, insults, or blame. They should not become the emotional support person for Mum or Dad. Children are not responsible for fixing adult pain. They are children. Their role is to be loved, protected, heard, and kept safe.
Understanding Parental Alienation Carefully:
Parental alienation is often used to describe situations where a child is influenced to reject one parent unfairly. This can happen when one parent speaks negatively about the other, creates fear, applies pressure, or makes the child feel guilty for wanting a relationship with both parents. However, this issue must be handled carefully, Not every child who pulls away from a parent is being alienated. Sometimes children pull away because of real harm, fear, unsafe behaviour, family violence, neglect, or broken trust. That is why the focus must always be on the child’s safety, voice, and wellbeing. The question should not be, “Which parent is winning?”
The better question is: What does this child need to feel safe, loved, heard, and connected?
The Wider Impact, High-conflict separation can affect more than the home. It can show up in schools through behaviour, anxiety, tiredness, or poor attendance. It can affect mental health and emotional development. It can increase pressure on Family Court, social services, housing, income support, and community organisations. It can also shape how children understand relationships as they grow older. This does not mean separation automatically harms children. Many children do well after separation when adults provide safety, respect, and stability. The bigger risk is ongoing conflict. When adult conflict continues, children often carry pain that was never theirs to carry.
A Father’s Responsibility:
At Fathers For Families, we work with men to take responsibility for their behaviour, their healing, and their role as fathers. For some fathers, separation brings grief, anger, shame, fear, or confusion. But a father’s pain must not become his child’s burden. A father does not protect his children by turning them against their mother. A father protects his children by becoming safe, consistent, respectful, and emotionally steady.
This means asking honest questions:
Have my actions affected my children?
Have I spoken about their mother in a way that protects their heart?
Have I made my child feel responsible for my emotions?
Have I used anger, guilt, silence, or blame?
Am I rebuilding trust through patience, humility, and consistency?
At FFF, we do not begin with entitlement.
We begin with responsibility.
A Message for Both Parents:
This is not about blaming mothers or fathers. Both parents can carry hurt. Both parents can speak from pain. Both parents can unintentionally place pressure on their children. But children should not have to carry adult grief, anger, fear, or financial stress. Your pain is real. But it cannot become your child’s burden. Your story matters. But your child must still be free to feel loved, safe, and connected where it is safe to do so.
The Discipline of James 1:19:
One of the scriptures that guides our mahi is James 1:19:
“Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” (An emotional regulation tool)
In separation, this is more than a verse. It is a parenting practice. Quick to listen means hearing your child without forcing them to choose sides. Slow to speak means not speaking harm over the other parent in front of the child. Slow to become angry means not allowing adult pain to control the child’s world. This is where faith becomes action. This is where parenting becomes protection.
What Children Need:
Children need safety.
They need routine.
They need reassurance.
They need adults who can stay calm.
They need permission to love both parents where it is safe.
They need to know the separation is not their fault.
They need food, warmth, housing stability, and emotional security.
They need connection to whanau, culture, faith, identity, and belonging.
Most of all, they need adults who put the child’s wellbeing ahead of the need to win.
Final Summary
Parental separation is not only a private adult matter. Child poverty is not only an economic statistic. Family conflict is not only a relationship problem. Together, these issues reach far beyond the home and affect children, whanau, communities, and society as a whole.
This is not an ethnicity issue, an age issue, or a “mum versus dad” issue. It is a child wellbeing, whanau wellbeing, and social wellbeing issue.
Separation may change the structure of a family, but it should never destroy a child’s sense of belonging. Poverty may place pressure on a home, but it should never take away a child’s dignity, hope, or identity. When adult pain, financial hardship, and family conflict are not managed safely, children can become the silent carriers of burdens they did not create.
The pain of Mum and Dad should never become the burden of the children. The pressure of society should never become the silent suffering of tamariki.
Children deserve to remain children. They deserve to love & be loved, to belong, to feel safe, to grow, and to hope. Most of all, they deserve to live without carrying pain that was never theirs to carry.