A conversation about parenting and belonging

This Suicide Prevention Week, we want to acknowledge and thank the many people, charities, practitioners, campaigners and organisations across Scotland working hard to shine a light on suicide, challenge stigma and, help people feel there is a reason to stay.

Through our casework we see a part of this conversation that is underacknowledged and perhaps inconvenient – missing pieces within the jigsaw of suicide prevention.

Social isolation, depression, financial crisis and homelessness have been long acknowledged as risk factors. When a relationship ends, they can all arrive overnight. For some mothers and fathers that deluge can feel overwhelming, particularly where contact with their children becomes uncertain, restricted or disappears altogether.

We see at first hand the impact of uncertainty around seeing children and the loss of identity that was built on their role as a parent. We have lost clients who might otherwise still be here if they had felt listened to and supported earlier. 

All Shared Parenting Scotland staff know the helpline calls that end with, “what’s the point, then” before the line goes dead.

In particular, we need more space for men to talk about loss of fatherhood – free from institutional suspicion and judgement from family, friends and colleagues who feel pressured to “take sides”. And without suggesting that asking for help makes them any less of a father.

Too many bureaucratic systems from schools to GPs help move one parent into that dark area where they feel invisible and unheard, where they feel assessed as risk rather than resource to their children. 

Scotland’s suicide prevention strategy recognises the importance of tackling the inequalities and social conditions that contribute to suicide. This should include thinking seriously about the feelings of grief and loss and, yes, anger, that impact everyone in a household – including children as well as both parents – during and after separation. 

The First Minister has given a lead by stressing his commitment to a “whole family” perspective underpinning all government policy development. We believe that means recognising parenting in all its forms and listening to parents who are struggling rather than reducing them to stereotypes.

The consequences of separation deserve to be understood, researched and acknowledged, not left as an inconvenient or forgotten part of the policy and political puzzle.

If you’re struggling, please talk to someone. You don’t have to carry it alone.