This post is not legal advice — I’m writing this as someone who has done a semester of Family Law as part of my law degree, and as an alienated grandparent who has gone through this process(ish). This essay is for informational purposes only and discusses my personal circumstances (and the law) in broad terms. It is a companion piece to my last essay (Mothering: All The Things I Did) and I have written it to give alienated grandparents in Australia an idea of what they can do about it, if anything. I would urge you to seek legal advice so you know what the options are regarding your situation. If you can’t afford a lawyer, each state has pro bono legal advice you can access, and most universities that teach law offer free legal advice clinics. I have started a Facebook group for Alientated Grandparents in Australia. If this is you, please join.

First Things First: The Law

In Australia, the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) is the legislation that administers family law. It is quite a cumbersome piece of legislation because it’s been added to over the years by successive governments’ policy interventions and lobby group interests, so it’s a bit like a statute lasagne. There has been a recent (big) update that has the intention of streamlining certain provisions — including how parenting arrangements are decided — by reducing the list of factors that the court considers. It used to be quite extensive.

From an alienated grandparents’ perspective, even with the update, nothing has really changed. Grandparents don’t have “rights” per se, but they can make an application for parenting orders. In determining a parenting order application, the court considers the best interests of the child as paramount:

60CA Child’s best interests paramount consideration in making a parenting order

In deciding whether to make a particular parenting order in relation to a child, a court must regard the best interests of the child as the paramount consideration.

What does this mean for alienated grandparents? Well, the court makes a determination based on a number of factors that contribute to the best interests of the child, and this is the relevant provision regarding grandparents:

60CC How a court determines what is in a child’s best interests

(2) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(a), the court must consider the following matters:

(e) the benefit to the child of being able to have a relationship with the child’s parents, and other people who are significant to the child, where it is safe to do so;

And that’s pretty much it. The superseded Act mentioned grandparents specifically throughout this section, but grandparents are no more in this version. RIP grandparents. Vale.

Having said that, the process for access hasn’t changed.

Next Thing: Family Dispute Resolution

Before a court will even look at an application for a parenting order (which is how alienated grandparents can get court ordered access to their grandchildren), mediation (or an attempt at mediation) via family dispute resolution must have occurred. This is a matter of finding a Registered Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner and booking in — you can go to Relationships Australia (which may have a long waiting list), a lawyer experienced or specialising in family dispute resolution, or another provider like Centacare, which is where I went (and do not recommend).

Once you’ve found a provider, you will have a confidential consultation with a practitioner (mine was over the phone) where you outline the situation. This practitioner stays with you during the entire mediation process. A letter or email (I opted for a letter) is then sent to the other party requesting them to attend mediation, and they also have a confidential, pre-mediation consultation, where they outline their side of things.

To note, if the letter (or email) is ignored and the party doesn’t attend mediation, or attends but then stops, or doesn’t make a genuine attempt at resolution, a section 60I certificate is issued, which allows the matter to now be heard in the Family Court. Most matters regarding children tend to be sorted out in mediation, and although its an informal process, parenting agreements can be registered, which helps with enforcement by the court if necessary.

Finally: My Story

The Lead-up

My daughter has been with her (now) husband since she was 16 years old. She married him in March 2021, and I came home from Vietnam in 2020 because I knew she wanted to have children pretty much right away and (of course) I wanted to be a part of their lives. Three months before she married (December 2020), I arrived home after a particularly trying time actually getting home. She wasn’t particularly nice to me then, and even though I hadn’t seen her since September 2017, it became clear she wanted distance from me. She blamed the wedding, but that was a convenient ruse. I didn’t see her much in the lead-up to the wedding (she kept cancelling on me), and while I did go to her bridal shower, I didn’t go to her hen’s night because, well, I didn’t want to. I was sick of all the cancellations. All the excuses. I reasoned: Why should I put myself out for her, when she doesn’t bother with me? I did give her away at her wedding, though, and went to a rehearsal for the ceremony a week or so before, but I’m convinced this was about managing the optics on her part. You can read about what happened after the wedding in this essay. No need for me to flog that dead horse for readers again.

I spent a year after her wedding wondering what the hell happened. It was clear I had been discarded. I was of no use to her because I couldn’t be controlled or manipulated for money. She had tried and failed. I was now being punished for daring to be uncontrollable. And she had a new family now, legally hers, so she had no need for me. I discovered she was pregnant via my niece’s Instagram feed — the same weekend my beloved Bella died. I’d reached out to my daughter (texts and calls) to tell her Bella had died, but I didn’t get a response. When I found out she was pregnant (two days later), I texted her mother-in-law to explain that I’d only just found out about the pregnancy and that it wasn’t my choice not to be in my daughter’s life, just in case she was wondering (she wasn’t, because with me out of the picture, she didn’t have any competition for my grand-daughter). Within five minutes, my daughter messaged me to tell me to stay the fuck away from “her and the family”. I found out my sister knew my daughter was pregnant, had known for quite some time and chose not to tell me. That was the deepest cut of all.

Mediation

It took forever to get my daughter into mediation. I had the telephone consultation in November 2022 (just after my grand-daughter was born), but I didn’t want the letter sent until March 2023 so that she and the baby could settle into a routine with feeding and sleeping (I’m not a monster). I told no one that I was taking this action, because I didn’t want her to be prepared. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when she opened the letter, requesting that she attend mediation. She’s not one for surprises because then she’s not in control. Centacare sent a follow-up letter a month later, and I even messaged my daughter to get her to respond, telling her of the (legal) consequences if she didn’t. She usually ignored my texts, but she responded to that one, and made it clear that she was extremely pissed off about being forced into mediation. I was officially the worst mother ever: What kind of mother takes her daughter to court? One with nothing to lose.

I wanted to meet with her face-to-face, but that meeting was cancelled by her. Then she wanted a phone consultation. I agreed. She wanted a support person. I agreed. She cancelled mediation a number of times until I finally got to her to a phone meeting in June 2023. I can’t disclose the contents of that meeting because it’s confidential, but suffice it to say the mediator was appallingly inept, and allowed my daughter to regurgitate my litany of sins as a mother, rather than advocating for an outcome that would see me involved in my grand-daughter’s life. I tried to get the meeting back on track — to no avail — and after an hour, the mediator said she would issue a section 60I certificate. And that was that. During the meeting my daughter was belligerent and nasty and her contempt for me was palpable. She sneered about my getting a law degree, as if it were something that should be scorned. She was like a toddler having a temper tantrum armed with a machete, taking swings at me hoping to do the most amount of damage.

The Aftermath

I was hoping she would see this as an opportunity to break the stalemate, for us to have a reset and sort this out as adults. Nope. She wasn’t having a bar of it. And so I came to this conclusion: I could take her to court, and I would probably win, but at what cost to me emotionally? It was clear in mediation that my daughter loathes me. Did I want to marinate myself in her hate while we slogged it out in court? Or go another round with a different mediator? No thanks. I’ve got better things to do with my life. So I didn’t get the outcome I wanted (a relationship with my grand-daughter), but I got the answer that I needed (to move on and cut my losses). I had some very good counselling through the organisation I volunteer for, because I wanted to reach a state of “radical acceptance” and that was so helpful in getting me to the good place I’m in now.

Of course, this situation is not easy but it’s getting easier. What would have been worse was if my grand-daughter was already in my life and my daughter snatched her away. And it would be punishment or revenge for any number of transgressions, but mostly monetary, I would imagine. You don’t miss what you don’t know, although I think about my grand-daughter often and wonder what kind of relationship we’d have had. I wanted to be called Dee Dee, which my daughter would have hated because that’s not what grandmothers are called. I did send letters and little presents to my grand-daughter signed Your other grandmother, Dee Dee but now don’t see the point. My daughter has probably thrown everything away.

I hope my grand-daughter is more like me than my daughter, because things tend to skip generation in my family. I’m certain she will be curious about me, because my daughter goes to events where my cousin, sister and niece attend. Apparently, so I heard from another cousin, there is an awkward silence when my name comes up. Where there is deafening silence, there are people in search of stories to explain that silence. My sister has met my grand-daughter. So has my niece. And aforementioned cousins. I have not. There is no fairness in this world. Or loyalty. If it were me, I’d be loudly and proudly boycotting every event I was invited to where the other party would be atttending, just to make a point. As far as I’m aware, no one has gone in to bat for me because that’s not how my family solves conflict. Just sweep it all under the carpet, and try not to notice the fetid, tumourous mess in the middle.

Is This Elder Abuse?

I’m now of the firm belief that I am a victim of elder abuse perpetrated against me by my daughter because she wants my money and I can’t be manipulated into handing it over. She’s managed to isolate me from my family immediate family. She’s withholding my granddaughter from me, because she knows (or assumes) it causes me pain. All features of elder abuse. I wrote an Issues Paper about this for an Adelaide University Research Scholarship I won in 2023 and I wanted to point out observations from my research:

Given that most elder abuse occurs in family or friend situations, and the majority of the abuse is psychological abuse, it would appear that the mandatory reporting requirements that occurs in Commonwealth funded aged care services is inadequate to deal with the majority of elder abuse occurring in Australia. Given that a younger age group than those typically perceived as ‘vulnerable’ is affected, the current South Australian adult safeguarding legislation is inadequate to protect older people generally, or assist them in seeking remedies, particularly as seeking legal advice or a restraining order is not the preferred course of action.

Elder abuse does not occur just with those older people who, because of the scope of the Ageing and Adult Safeguarding Act’s definition, are considered vulnerable. For example, grandparents who have had grandchildren withheld from them and are undertaking family dispute resolution with the express intention of having access to their grandchildren would not be considered vulnerable. Withholding grandchildren is, however, psychological and emotional abuse and is often undertaken in conjunction with financial abuse. This action may have isolated grandparents from their immediate and extended family — an indicator of emotional abuse. Those grandparents who have engaged with the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) have agency and may not consider themselves ‘vulnerable’ even though they are experiencing elder abuse. Further, some grandparents may have acquiesced to financial abuse because they wish to have a continuing relationship with their grandchildren. These older people may not be perceived as vulnerable, but this falls within the definition of elder abuse nonetheless. It is unclear how the law, as it currently stands, protects these older people, who would not be considered vulnerable, from elder abuse.

The paper isn’t long and you can read it here.

What’s Next For Me?

Nothing much, apart from just getting on with my life. I don’t see my sister — despite her reaching out — not because she withheld that my daughter was pregnant from me (I could have gotten past that), but because she repeated some of a conversation I had with her to her daughter (my niece), who repeated some of that conversation to my daughter. That conversation should never have been repeated (and my sister admitted as much) because it was taken taken out of context by my daughter who twisted my words to suit her agenda and confirm her view of me. I found this out in mediation. I’m unable to forgive my sister because she knew what was happening between my daughter and I (even before the wedding), and she recklessly interfered where she had no business interfering, and her repeating that conversation to my niece, who repeated it to my daughter probably, if not definitely, made things worse.

(The conversation was a text I sent to my sister in December 2021, who informed me that my daughter was at my niece’s place on Christmas Day. I was invited but couldn’t get there because I don’t have a car. No one offered to come and get me. When my sister messaged me to tell me my daughter was there, I told her: Unless someone said something about how fucking awful she’s been to me, I don’t want to know. That was conveniently interpreted by my daughter as I didn’t want to know about her at all, rather than the meaning I intended, which was a cry for help: Why are you people relaying information about her to me, yet you won’t intervene on my behalf? What is wrong with you all that you think this situation is ok? How can you play happy families when you know I am in pain? This was one of the reasons my sister didn’t tell my about my daughter’s pregnancy.)

I’ll finish my law degree in a year or two and I’ll look around for what’s next for me then. I’m interested in Family Dispute Resolution and may go into that area when I graduate, with a focus on alienated grandparents. Sadly, it’s a growing market and a club no one wants to belong to. I’m also interested in elder abuse, and will be taking a semester of Elder Law this year. I have all my affairs in order, and because there’s only me, I have made sure my wishes regarding my estate are documented in my will. I’ve found a peaceful existence sans my daughter because the emotional abuse she continually felt entitled to dish out to me is no longer. Of course, life is by no means perfect, but it’s drama free. And I intend on keeping it that way.

Also: Further Reading & Resources

• 13 Tactics Families Use to Alienate Grandparents – Psychology Today (4 April 2023)
• Why Grandparent Alienation is a Loss Like No Other – Psychology Today (31 March 2023)
• Grandparent Alienation Tip Sheet – Compass (16 February 2024)
• Modern Culture Blames Parents for Forces Beyond Their Control – Aeon (17 December 2020)
• What Happens When Family Mediation Fails – Emerson Family Law (undated)
• Protection of Older Australians from Elder Abuse – Diane Lee (January 2024).
• Alienated Grandparents in Australia – Facebook Group.

About the #12Essays2024 Challenge

I haven’t given my blog much love or attention over the last couple of years. I wasn’t in the headspace to write, at least not the personal essays I’m known for. But in the words of George Costanza: I’m back, baby. I’ve made a commitment to write one essay a month in 2024 — a slimmed down version of the #26Essays2017 challenge I set for myself in the first year I was in Vietnam. I will be experimenting with structure and form, so you might see some weird stuff. Please stick with me. Some essays will be short, and others will be split into parts because they are long. Maybe I’ll end up publishing them into a collection. Who knows?

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