Before comparing children’s and parents’ perceptions of the quality of the inter-parental relationship, the reports of resident and non-resident parents on this issue are outlined (Table 2.2). Separated parents were asked to indicate how well they got along with their child’s other parent by selecting one of the following response options: very well, well, neither well nor poorly, poorly, very poorly/ badly, or that they had no contact with the other parent. In the following discussion, reports of getting along very well or well are treated as descriptions of a favourable relationship, while reports of getting along poorly or very poorly/badly are classified as descriptions of an unfavourable relationship. The selection of “neither well nor poorly” is taken to reflect a neutral stance.
Regardless of their gender and residence status, parents were more likely to report a favourable than unfavourable relationship. Table 2.2 (on page 23) presents the assessments of all (separated) resident mothers in the sample focused on; and of the resident mothers and non-resident fathers in the “former couples” sample (where both parents of the same children were interviewed).12 Of all resident mothers, 40% provided favourable assessments, 26% indicated a neutral stance, and 20% provided unfavourable assessments. The remainder said that they had no contact with their child’s father. A similar overall pattern of assessments emerged for the resident mothers and non- resident fathers in the former couples sample: around one-half (49–54%) viewed their relationship favourably, less than one-quarter (22–23%) provided unfavourable assessments, and 20–26% saw the relationship in a neutral light. It is worth re-iterating here that parents living elsewhere who had had no contact with their child in the previous 12 months were not interviewed. Given that the former couple sample necessarily focuses exclusively on cases where both parents of the study children were interviewed, it is not surprising that few parents in this sample had no contact with each other (2–3%).
11 As noted earlier, the term “parents” is used in this chapter to refer exclusively to “biological parents”. Where children
are described as “living with both parents”, they and their biological parents were living in the one household.
12 Trends for all resident fathers who were interviewed (n = 64) and of “former couples”, comprising resident fathers
and non-resident mothers who were both interviewed (n = 41), were not derived owing to the small number of parents represented.
Table 2.2: Reports by resident and non-resident parents of how well they get along, K cohort, Wave 5
How well resident and
non-resident parents get along a
Separated resident mothers (%)
“Former couples” sample b
Resident mothers c
(%) Non-resident fathers (%)
Very well 12.3 15.6 14.7
Well 27.3 33.0 39.2
Neither well nor poorly 25.7 26.1 20.3
Poorly 9.2 11.2 12.0
Very poorly/badly 11.4 10.7 11.4
No contact with other parent 14.2 3.4 2.4
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0
No. of parents 621 351 351
Notes: a Resident and non-resident parents include those with shared care time. Parents who were classified as the primary carer
of the study child in Wave 5 are here treated as resident parents, and parents who were classified as living elsewhere in Wave 5 are here treated as non-resident parents. No statistical test was used to compare responses of mothers and fathers of the “former couples” given that these responses were not independent. b Former couples are those where both parents
of same child were interviewed. c These mothers form a subset of the “separated resident mothers” in the left-hand column. Table 2.3 shows children’s perceptions compared with their parents’ perceptions of the quality of the inter-parental relationship. The upper panel of this table focuses on the reports of children and resident mothers (hereafter called “child–resident mother sample”) and the lower panel outlines the reports of children and their non-resident fathers (hereafter called “child–non-resident father sample”).13 The precise question and response options provided to children and their parents differed considerably, and these differences may well reduce the level of correspondence of patterns of answers between the two generations.
Table 2.3: Parents’ reports of how well they get along, by children’s perceptions of the quality of the inter-parental relationship, K cohort, Wave 5
Parents’ reports
Children’s reports Friendly/
cooperative (%) Distant (%) Lots of conflict (%) Total (%)
Reports of resident mothers a
Very well/well 36.2 5.6 1.1 43.0
Neither 14.1 7.4 3.2 24.7
Very poorly/poorly 5.1 5.4 10.1 20.6
No contact with other parent 3.0 4.7 4.0 11.7
Total 58.5 23.1 18.4 100.0
No. of observations 300 123 95 518
Reports of non-resident fathers a
Very well/well 45.4 6.4 1.6 53.4
Neither 9.6 6.9 1.8 18.3
Very poorly/poorly 7.6 6.4 11.8 25.8
No contact with other parent 0.7 0.4 1.4 2.5
Total 63.2 20.2 16.6 100.0
No. of observations 194 67 50 311
Note: a Resident and non-resident parents include those in shared time; that is, parents who were interviewed as the primary
carer of the study child in Wave 5 are here treated as resident parents, and parents who were interviewed as parents living elsewhere in Wave 5 are here treated as non-resident parents.
13 Child–parent comparisons were not made where the children had a resident father and non-resident mother, given
As suggested in the above-mentioned related analyses, children and their resident mothers and non-resident fathers most commonly reported favourably on the parental relationship, though children’s views were generally more positive than those of their resident parents. This can be seen by comparing the “Total” results in Table 2.3, which summarise the views of the children (the rows labelled “Total”) and those of their resident mothers and fathers (the “Total” column).
In relation to the child–resident mother sample, 59% of children believed that their parents had a friendly or cooperative relationship, while 43% of the mothers reported that they got along well or very well with their child’s father. Similar proportions of children and their mothers provided negative descriptions: 21% of mothers reported getting along poorly or very poorly/badly with the father and 18% of children considered the inter-parental relationship to entail lots of conflict. The proportion of mothers who said that they neither got along well nor badly was similar to the proportion of children who described the inter-parental relationship as distant (25% vs 23%). Of course, a distant relationship may be interpreted quite differently from one that reflects neither getting along well nor badly. Some mothers (12%) said that they had no contact with their child’s father.
Regarding the child–non-resident father sample, a higher proportion of children than fathers considered the relationship to be favourable (63% vs 53%) and a lower proportion of children than fathers considered it to be unfavourable (children 17%; fathers 26%), with the remaining one in five children and a similar proportion of fathers describing the relationship as distant. A small proportion of fathers said they had no contact with their child’s mother. Again, it should be kept in mind that fathers who had not seen the child in the past year were not interviewed.
The other percentages in Table 2.3 provide insight into the proportions of parent–child pairs who provided similar or dissimilar views. For example, the top panel shows that 36% of the child–resident mother sample provided favourable assessments (i.e., the mothers reported that they got on very well or well, while their child said that relations were friendly or cooperative). In 10% of cases, both mother and child described the relationship as unfavourable, and in 7%, the mothers indicated that they neither got along well nor poorly with the father, while the children characterised the relationship as distant. In other words, 54% of children and their mothers provided similar assessments of the relationship between the separated parents and 35% of children and their mothers provided dissimilar assessments.14 Of the remaining 12%, mothers indicated no contact with the father while their children’s reports were split between the three categories (friendly/ cooperative, distant, lots of conflict) (with these assessments each provided by 3–5%).
The generally consistent descriptions of the quality of inter-parental relationship were also apparent when comparing the reports of children and their non-resident fathers. Specifically, 45% of those in the child–non-resident father sample provided a favourable description of the inter-parental relationship, 12% provided an unfavourable description and 7% indicated that the relationship was neither positive nor negative (the response option for fathers) or distant (the response option for children). Taken together, 64% of children and fathers provided similar assessments and 34% provided dissimilar views while the remainder represented cases where the father had no contact with the child’s mother (applying to almost 3%).
Thus, both for the child–resident mother and child–non-resident father samples, the children’s reports were largely consistent with those of their parents. Secondly, both children and parents most commonly considered the inter-parental relationship to be favourable.
Where children’s perceptions were dissimilar to parents’ own reports, children tended to provide the more positive picture. For example, in 19% of the child–resident mother sample, children described the relationship as friendly or cooperative, while their mother either indicated that the relationship was poor or that they got along neither well nor poorly. For 10% of the child–resident mother sample, the children provided a less favourable assessment of the relationship compared with their mother (i.e., where the child described the relationship as distant while their mother indicated that she and the father got along well or very well; or where the child reported much conflict and their mother provided a favourable assessment or indicated that they neither got along well nor poorly with the father).
14 That said, we acknowledge that the “in-between” descriptions provided to parents and children (getting along
neither well nor poorly vs having a distant relationship) can be interpreted quite differently. For example, a poor relationship may lead a person to develop a “cool/calm/distant stance” in order to avoid heated arguments.