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Why don't Mummy and Daddy love each other? When parents separate, children often get caught in the crossfire. But an online support network, set up by single mothers Kate Ford and Emily Abbott (pictured), aims to soften the blow.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Report GWYNETH REES

According to recent research, more than half of couples divorcing have at least one child aged under 16. In the complicated, emotionally sensitive world of marital break-up, they often become the victims - fought over, neglected and sometimes used as bargaining tools. And they frequently have questions and uncertainties about what has happened that no one in their own family can help them with.

Kate Ford, a former fund manager, and Emily Abbott, who still works as a market researcher, discovered this for themselves as divorced mothers bringing up young children alone. So, six years ago, they set up a support service for separated parents and their children, providing practical advice through an e-mail problem page, seminars and workshops. Their focus is on the creation of a functioning family unit in which children have access to both parents, with no acrimony. 'Time and time again,' says Kate, 'single mothers tell us that their child doesn't want to see their father. But when we talk to the children themselves they - usually without exception - desperately want to see their father.' And unless those fathers are a danger to their children, she says, they should be able to. 'We know how tough it is to be a single parent, and how tricky situations involving a former partner can become,' adds Emily. 'But we are trying to get parents to put those issues aside and do what is best for the children.' Here, Kate and Emily give their impartial answers to e-mails from some of their young correspondents.

@Subject: I worry about leaving my mum on her own

Dear Kate and Emily,

I'm 15 now and my dad left home two years ago. I haven't seen him since, and I have sort of become the man of the house. I go with my mum to restaurants and sometimes she takes me - like her date - to parties as she hates going on her...

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