Lets talk about it
The Single Parent Support Group, to be set up next month, will help divorced parents and their children talk and get over the trauma of legal separation
Next month, a group of marriage counsellors attached to the family court in Bandra will set up a first-of-itskind support group for single parents in the city. The Single Parent Support Group (SPSG) in Mumbai was inspired by a successful experiment last year in Pune when marriage counsellors from the citys family court formed a similar group to help divorced parents and their children get over the trauma of legal separation.
In Mumbai, the group is expected to hold its inaugural meeting in the first week of February. Madhav Jadhav, a marriage counsellor at the Bandra court and president of the Association of Marriage Counsellors Working in Family Courts in the state of Maharashtra said the support group will provide a platform to divorced parents to create a support network for themselves. Once they come together, they can gradually form small support groups all over the city, said Jadhav.
In Mumbai, the family court hears at least 5,000 divorce and custody cases every year. Sujata Kulkarni, principal marriage counsellor at the Bandra court, said that single parents who heard about the Pune group thought that Mumbai with its larger number of divorced families may be an ideal place to set up such an association.
Parents coping with the emotional and practical problems of raising a child singlehandedly often have few places where they can look for help. They mostly rely on friends, elders and well-wishers for support. As experts, we can play a more important role in helping them, said Kulkarni.
Counsellors said that while parents struggle to confront social prejudices that are reserved for the divorced, it is their children who suffer the most. Rajendra Tatar, a marriage counsellor at Punes family court and one of the founders of the Pune group, said that he was moved by the trauma that children of recently divorced couples face when they visited the courts.
After a divorce, the custody of children is given to one parent, mostly the mother. The other parent is allowed to meet the child in court. Children and parents are frightened by the experience as they do not know what to say or how to conduct themselves in such a situation. There is always a lot of stress involved. The parents and children need something to ventilate their feelings, said Tatar.
Because of the stigma associated with divorce and the reluctance to talk openly about it, single parents become isolated. Many of them blame themselves for their fate. Our group will largely try to address the psychological problem, said Tatar.
Murtaza Badri, a Fort-based counsellor who helps divorced people come to grips with their new life, welcomed the idea of support groups for single parents. In more open societies like the United States, people talk about separation and divorce freely. In India, the stigma attached to divorce means that people find it difficult to talk about it. Even when they are asked to consult a counsellor, they do not understand why they should spend so much money. Such support groups will definitely help, said Badri.
In Pune, the group already has around 75 members who meet every alternate Sunday to talk or listen to lectures. For their children, there are games and an opportunity to meet other children similarly adjusting to a new life with a single parent. In the West, such groups have existed for a long time. There, single mothers and fathers can look for both financial and emotional help. Older children can get access to group counselling while younger children can benefit from art and music therapies.
The Mumbai group said that counsellors will only act as catalysts to help members find solutions to their problems. By encouraging single parents to talk about their problems and listen to people who have overcome their issues, we hope to nurture selfhelp groups, said Kulkarni.
Manoj R Nair
writes on the multiple communities in Mumbai
writes on the multiple communities in Mumbai
A still from Kramer vs Kramer. Experts can play a vital role in helping parents who raise their children single-handedly