A family judge, Sir Paul Coleridge, has spoken out in the press about the damage done by what he describes as the endless game of “musical relationships” or “pass the partner”. Children are the casualties of their parents’ break-ups — that is a no-brainer. But the judge’s point is that we have allowed ourselves to believe we can relationship-hop — have kids, break up, move on, have more kids — and that everyone will just adapt accordingly. He’s not speaking out against divorce, but against a generation who think that partner-swapping is just part of modern life. And that the children, the small things who rely on you for everything, including their emotional security, will understand in the end.

A pass-the-partner culture is the inevitable result of the we-must-be-happy agenda that has sneaked into parenting. Happy is good, but happy has come to mean a lot of different things to this generation. It’s being fulfilled (at work and in the bedroom), and well-off enough to have a nice house and a few expensive holidays. It means independence and quality time away from the children, both together and apart. And if, after all that, you still have the sense that your life is one big compromise, then, according to the we-must-be-happy rule, you are entitled to leave and start all over again. A relationship no longer has to be terrible to justify jumping ship. Pass the partner is just what happens when boredom sets in and one of you starts itching for a change of scene.

I am married to a divorcé, so I have directly benefited from the pass-the-partner culture (how else do you meet a man in later life if everyone sticks to their original plan?). I’m also a step-parent, so I know about managing to persuade yourself that you deserve a pedicure and lunch with a girlfriend when you should have been organising a picnic in the park. I would say I am at least 70% more selfish as a parent than my parents were, and, still, I think my personal freedoms are shockingly curtailed. But here’s where I differ from the pass-the-partner crowd the judge is talking about. I would never kid myself that our family situation is even a quarter as satisfactory as a regular, intact family’s. We adults get to start new lives together. Children have to slowly rebuild theirs — with whomever they are given.

For all I know, both my parents were beating off adulterous suitors, sobbing themselves to sleep at night thinking of all the opportunities they were missing. But if that’s what it took to keep me from waking up one day to discover my life had fallen apart, and I was now going to be living with a yoga teacher and her children, then I think it was definitely worth it.

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