We quoted some potent statistics in the article we chose to herald in the New Year.
The statistics came from a variety of reputable sources, but when compiled in one place they present the stark reality of parental alienation in the UK alone:
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1 million children alienated from the non-resident parent (at least)
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97% of NRPs are fathers
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The NRP accounts for 98% of contact orders
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50% of orders granted are broken
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Only 1.2% of enforcement requests are granted
All affected parents know that one of the biggest issues they face is not hostility, but indifference.
We’ve all just suffered through another festive season without our Children and will have had a stark reminder of this indifference. The fact is, people don’t want to be reminded of someone else’s suffering or discomfort while they’re trying to “make jolly”. It’s as if it could be “catching”. And those affected desperately want to be back to “normal”. So they either make themselves scarce or are ignored. People, while sympathetic, become indifferent to the plight of the alienated parent.
That’s understandable. Problem is, parent alienation is a virus that is spreading fast. And like the plague of old, the cold hand of fate could knock on anyone’s door at any time. Ignoring it is foolish.
Consider those 1 million infected children.
They will be linked to 1 million infected parents. Those parents will be linked to another 1.5 million grandparents who will be linked to another 2 million aunties and uncles, several million cousins, then step children and friends. Get the picture?
So it is a very conservative estimate to suggest that Parent Alienation does not just affect a marginalised 1 million absent parents who we may, in order to soften the blow for ourselves, dismiss as “losers” or “deadbeats” or “unlucky” or “flawed” and ignore or dismiss. Every alienated child is linked to at least 6 or more other people, equally alienated from them. That amounts to a pandemic of at least 7 million people in the UK alone.
A population greater than Wales and Scotland within the UK is alienated from a child they love.
With 1 in 3 marriages ending in divorce, many divorces happening after Christmas and the PA formula for resident parents stripping assets and loving parents daily, how long before PA comes a knocking for your neighbours, friends and family?
Think you could stop it?
Think again!
Because in among those 7 million people affected are some of the best brains and most loving hearts the UK has to offer. Yet they are currently on their knees begging to spend time parenting their own children.
However, as is often the case, the symptoms of the disease suggest the cure. In the case of PA, because of the way it spreads, it is creating the means of its destruction because it has infected too many people now.
The perpetrators of this social disease and their enablers are not just bullying and marginalising their victims as they first asset strip and then emotionally strip their targets. For every one parent they abuse by abusing their own children, they are alienating 6 or 7 other adults. They are creating an army of enemies whose compassion and loyalty cannot lie with the abuser, no matter how much they lie and how convincingly they may cry.
Because these people can see for themselves the relentless, cynical and spiteful behaviour which has also deprived grandparents of their dreams, aunts and uncles of their stable families and step brothers and sisters of the love and stability they crave. For PA is no longer about bullying 1 parent out of the lives of their own children, it is an attack on entire families, legacy, lineage, identity.
Yes, their daughters, sons, cousins, nieces and nephews may have held the line and endured the relentless barrages of selfishness, often at very considerable cost. But it is this compassionate army that will eventually come looking for answers, restoration of peace and accountability. They will be armed with insights and a string of evidence-based safeguarding concerns about the behaviour of the people at the centre of the misery-inducing selfishness masquerading as parenting.
And judging by the signals emitted towards the end of 2017, the sometimes unwitting and sometimes very calculating enablers of parent alienation will have to take notice in 2018 as with so much of our politics on a knife edge,
