Mothers’ understandings of ‘home’ after relationship separation and divorce

ABSTRACT

This paper explores 35 mothers’ understandings of home after relationship separation, along with barriers and facilitators to creating home post-separation. No previous research has done so. We found that for mothers, like their children, home was complex and multidimensional, and rarely defined just in terms of physical space. Rather, it was a relational concept, with physical space providing the context for relationships with family, neighbourhood and community, to feel safe, and the opportunity to be oneself. More than half the mothers in the study reported experiencing domestic and family violence by their former partners and, for some, this had continued after separation. While the ongoing impacts of domestic and family violence significantly challenged some mothers’ ability to create home, separation and a level of liberation from violence could also mean that they were able to create home for the first time for themselves and their children.

KEYWORDS:

• Home
• mothers
• post-separation parenting
• domestic and family violence
• divorce
• separation

Acknowledgments

We are deeply grateful to the families who participated in this study and shared so much with us. We thank Michelle Irving for her significant contribution to the project’s fieldwork, the Australian Research Council for funding the research (DP180102799), our Advisory Group members for their support throughout the project, and Mavis Maclean for her encouragement from the genesis of the project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest is reported by the authors.