Introduction

Few subjects in relation to childhood poverty excite the public and political imagination quite as much as the issue of family ‘breakdown’. It is an area with strong connections to poverty, disadvantage, gendered inequalities, and the supposed breaching of normative values and expectations. This chapter takes a critically informed look at the importance of, and relationship between, family formation, family ‘breakdown’ and lone parenthood in the context of childhood poverty. It engages with myths and assumptions about ‘broken families’ and reveals the corrosive effect of demonising lone-parent family life on children's lives and wellbeing. It explores the experiences of lone parents and looks at how children and young people often take on additional responsibilities in lone-parent families.

Family separation and divorce is often the point at which many children experience poverty. Poverty can come hard on the heels of breakdown and separation, and children's economic and emotional wellbeing can be particularly fragile as a result. However, poverty and emotional mal-being are not inevitable consequences of separation and divorce. The role of separated fathers in lone-parent families, particularly their financial contribution and involvement in their children's lives, are explored. This chapter looks closely at how the state involves itself deep in the heart of family life in relation to support for children following separation or divorce. Although children are often the centrepiece in relation to policy rhetoric and development, their needs and concerns are often subsumed beneath the interests of the state and the perceived interests of parents.